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Joey Grasty 9889814e37 Add Voice Bench: SFT package browser + model launch script 
Self-contained browser tool for exploring the Vox Day / Nuttall SFT
packages and generating scenes against the joint CPT+SFT model, plus a
portable launch script (start-model.sh) and setup README for running
the model server on a fresh machine (DGX Spark or CUDA/L40 box).
2026-08-30 10:01:49 -05:00

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<div class="app">
<header class="console-bar">
<div class="title-block">
<h1>Voice Bench</h1>
<span class="subtitle">Qwen3-30B-A3B &middot; joint Vox Day + Nuttall CPT+SFT &middot; SPEC v0.5.6</span>
</div>
<div class="console-right">
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<span class="mono" style="font-size:10.5px; color:var(--ink-muted);">SERVER</span>
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<span id="statusLabel">CHECKING…</span>
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<div class="workbench">
<aside class="rail">
<div class="author-toggle" role="group" aria-label="Author">
<button type="button" class="author-btn" data-author="vox_day" aria-pressed="true" onclick="selectAuthor('vox_day')">
<span><span class="dot"></span>&nbsp; <span id="voxdayLabel">Vox Day</span></span>
<span class="mono" style="font-size:11px;" id="voxdayBook"></span>
</button>
<button type="button" class="author-btn" data-author="nuttall" aria-pressed="false" onclick="selectAuthor('nuttall')">
<span><span class="dot"></span>&nbsp; <span id="nuttallLabel">Nuttall</span></span>
<span class="mono" style="font-size:11px;" id="nuttallBook"></span>
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<div class="field">
<label for="chapterSelect">Chapter</label>
<select id="chapterSelect" onchange="onChapterChange()"></select>
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<div class="field">
<label for="packetSelect">Packet</label>
<select id="packetSelect" onchange="renderPackage()"></select>
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<hr class="rail-divider">
<div class="field">
<label for="styleOverride">Style override</label>
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<option value="match">Match packet author</option>
<option value="vox_day">Vox Day</option>
<option value="nuttall">Nuttall</option>
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<div class="style-notice" id="styleNotice"></div>
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<hr class="rail-divider">
<div class="field">
<label for="seedInput">Seed</label>
<input type="number" id="seedInput" value="11">
<label class="multiseed-toggle">
<input type="checkbox" id="multiSeedToggle">
Run all three seeds (11 &middot; 22 &middot; 33)
</label>
</div>
<button type="button" class="generate-btn" id="generateBtn" onclick="runGenerate()">Generate scene</button>
</aside>
<main class="manuscript" id="manuscript"></main>
<aside class="tray">
<h2 class="eyebrow">Output</h2>
<div id="trayContent">
<div class="empty-state">Select a packet and run a generation to see model output here.</div>
</div>
</aside>
</div>
</div>
<script type="application/x-ndjson" id="data-vox-day">{"packet_id": "ch01_prologue-P1", "chapter": "ch01_prologue", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSavondir — the kingdom; keep the spelling.\nMorel — village name; no article.\nForêt Sinistre — forest name; accent and capitals as written.\nmagerie — lowercase; the talent and its practice under crown control.\nl’Académie des Sage Arts — full academy name; accents and capitals as written.\nmagicien / magiciens — mage(s); French form, not “magician.”\nimmortels — capitalized as academy rank when so styled; keep plural -s.\nLutèce — capital; accent as written.\nviscomte — rank; do not anglicize to viscount in narrative.\nelfille — father’s teasing word for Isabel; keep the spelling.\nSeigneur de Bordeleau — father’s title-form; keep Seigneur.\nle Chasseur — epithet for Simon the hunter; capitals as written.\nCorénaz — monastery place-name; accent as written.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nIsabel de Bordeleau\nDaughter of the Seigneur de Bordeleau, a viscomte of the eastern march. Alive, sixteenish, tall and pretty, brown eyes and sun-browned skin, long straight brown hair. Two years ago a royal magicien’s crystal marked her for magerie; by decree she is to go to l’Académie as breeding stock, not as a student. She has only just understood the ruin of that verdict. She is furious at king, parents, and the unfairness of it, and means to plead with her father to keep her home. She prefers a short white girlhood dress to a womanly one when she goes to ask.\n\nSeigneur de Bordeleau\nIsabel’s father; lesser lord of the eastern march, knight and royal vassal. Alive, on the estate. Has explained the academy breeding decree to her. Kind in her memory; she expects him to refuse the crown’s claim. Near the stables at the start of her search, talking with Simon and two armored riders.\n\nPerrin\nIsabel’s younger brother, four years her junior; head barely to her shoulders. Alive, sweet and obedient. Their older brother Robinet is away at Corénaz. Running from the stables with a frightened message when Isabel meets him.\n\nSimon\nVillage hunter, called le Chasseur. Alive; handsome enough that Isabel notices him. Leaves on horseback with two leather-armored men just before she reaches her father.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nEarly summer; clear blue sky over the Bordeleau estate near Morel on the outskirts of the Forêt Sinistre.\nThe great house has stables to the left past servant cottages and orchards.\nBoys with talent may become magiciens; girls marked for magerie are barred from the arts and bound to bear two children to a magicien before they may leave l’Académie.\nMagerie is the sole province of the crown under l’Académie des Sage Arts.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Isabel.\n\nIsabel is miserable in her bedroom window, angry at parents and king, still raw from learning that the crystal that glowed for her two years ago in Morel marked her as the king’s brood mare rather than a free woman. She remembers the old magicien, her father’s pride, her mother’s distress, and the breeding decree her father explained: boys become mages, girls breed. She still hopes a border viscomte can lose one girl to forgetfulness and keep her home.\n\nShe changes into a short white dress to look more child than woman, runs downstairs past gossiping maids, and goes looking for her father at the stables. Perrin meets her in a fright — Father yelled, told him to run to the house and bring anyone he saw. She sends the boy on alone and jogs toward the stables in time to see Simon and two armored riders leave. Her father runs at her red-faced, grabs her arm, and orders the doors barred: le Chasseur says an orc raiding party may be coming. When she tries to speak of the king he curses the king, shoves her, and tells her to run. She runs, tears blurring, half from goblin tales and half from the stranger wearing her father’s face.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2000 words. Close on her fear and youth without softening the father’s violence; land as she runs for the house.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Isabel de Bordeleau was a very unhappy young woman. She was upset with her parents, she was angry with His Royal Majesty the King, and she was downright furious at the lack of justice to be found in what had suddenly, and unexpectedly, turned out to be a deeply unfair world. How could it be, she asked herself, that a young woman had no right to decide for herself how she would live her life? Was she not a viscomte’s daughter? Did her blood not run as blue as any other noblewoman’s in Savondir? Was she not pretty? Was she not well-behaved? Did she not attend the Mass every Lord’s Day and dutifully listen to the priest drone on until midday in the unintelligible language of God?\n\nHer questions went unanswered. She frowned and looked down from the glass window of her bedroom at the grounds of her father’s estate below. It was early summer and the grass was green. The trees extended their branches invitingly as if begging to be climbed, and the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. It was the sort of day that only last week would have filled her heart with joie de vivre.\n\nBut last week she was still unaware of how her life had been ruined two years ago. It had been a pleasant summer’s day not unlike today when she walked with her parents to the nearby village of Morel. There, in the village square, she had seen an old, bearded man, wearing royal blue robes, surrounded by all the children of the village. In his hand he held a small crystal ball, and, one by one, each child would warily approach him and place a hand upon the crystal as the old man held it out to them.\n\nIsabel didn’t understand what the object of the game was supposed to be, as nothing seemed to happen to either the children or the crystal when they touched it. A few of the children appeared to be relieved, most were indifferent, and one boy even looked disappointed. But the little ball just sat in the old man’s hand, as harmless as an ordinary pebble. If only she had known then how dangerous it was! If only someone had told her not to touch it!\n\nHer parents urged her forward. The boys and girls of the village, recognizing her, parted before her approach. The old man glanced at her without any sign of interest in his heavy-lidded eyes; he didn’t seem at all impressed that her father was the local lord. But the moment she touched the crystal in his hand, his eyes suddenly came to life and focused on her with an intensity that alarmed her.\n\nUnnerved, she withdrew her hand, and she was astonished to see that the crystal was now glowing, radiating a bright white light that shone from the old man’s hand like a miniature sun!\n\nShe heard children around her gasp. Adults too. The old man was smiling at her as if he approved of what she’d done, but there was something possessive in his expression that frightened her. She retreated from him. Alarmed, she looked back at her parents and saw her mother appeared to be upset. Her father, on the other hand, was smiling at her and she relaxed as he clapped his hands proudly together, approving of whatever it was she’d done. She smiled back at him and returned triumphantly to his side, feeling very much like a swan that had been swimming amidst ducks.\n\nIn truth, she was more akin to a rabbit caught unwittingly in a snare.\n\nTwo years ago, she had known nothing of the old man or what brought him to the little village on the outskirts of the Forêt Sinistre. Now she knew the man was one of the King’s Own, a magicien who scoured the kingdom on His Royal Majesty’s behalf, traveling from town to town throughout the year. Such men visited every little village and hamlet across the realm in the hopes of discovering young men and women with a talent for magerie. She understood now that she was one of the gifted, which meant that she was also one of the cursed. The very gift which made her special also rendered her, by royal decree, the property of the King. She was to be slave, no, worse, she was to be a brood mare.\n\nHer father explained it to her. Magerie was the sole province of the crown. Not only its practice, but even its potential was kept firmly under royal control by l’Académie des Sage Arts. Boys with the talent became magiciens, and scholars, and battlemages, some, in time, would even become the mighty immortels of l’Académie, feared and respected throughout the lands of men. But girls like her would be taught nothing of the arts, indeed, she was barred from exercising her birthright in any way. Instead, she would be expected to breed with the young men at l’Académie as if she were nothing more than an animal of desirable stock. Not until she bore two children to a magicien would she be free to leave l’Académie and begin to live her own life, to the extent that was still possible.\n\nUnless, of course, she was able to convince her parents otherwise. She knew better than to appeal to her mother. Mother was from a well-respected merchant family and Isabel knew she would never dare anything controversial enough to cause local tongues to wag. But Father was a lord of the eastern march, a lesser one, perhaps, but out here on the borderlands, a mere viscomte wielded more power and influence than a duc in Lutèce. And surely neither the king nor the magiciens of l’Académie would care if one young woman from an insignificant border village was lost to their breeding program. The old man had never come back to Morel. Was it not possible that she had been forgotten by now?\n\nShe looked in the silvered glass and saw a tall, pretty girl on the verge of womanhood, with brown eyes, sun-browned skin, and long, straight, brown hair, staring back at her. But the dress the young woman was wearing was too fine, too embroidered, and too womanly to be suitable for a young girl pleading her father’s favor. She slipped the dress off over her head and replaced it with a simple, virginal white dress that once reached her calves, but barely fell past her knees now. It made her look like a dryad, or an elfille, her father once said. The important thing was that it made her look more like a girl and less like a woman.\n\nNow, to find Father. She left her room and ran lightly down the wooden stairs to the ground level. She heard voices in the great reception chamber to the right of the stairs, but saw it was only a pair of young maids gossiping about one of the blacksmith’s assistants as they polished the silver. They fell silent upon Isabel’s entrance, but smiled and resumed their conversation when they saw it was only her. One of them thought she had seen the Seigneur de Bordeleau near the stables, so Isabel decided to look for him there first.\n\nThe stables was to the left of the great house, past the rows of little cottages in which the married servants lived and the orchards that kept the household supplied with apples, pears, quinces, and other fruits. She ran easily over the long green grass, barefoot, and the familiar sensation of the stalks beneath her toes made her feel certain that her kindly father would never send his beloved daughter away from her family and her home, no matter how many kings and magiciens might demand it of him.\n\nShe saw her younger brother, Perrin, running towards her. He was four years younger than her; their older brother, Robinet, had been sent to the monastery at Corénaz to study numbers with the monks there, as befitted their father’s heir. Perrin was a sweet, happy little boy whose head barely came to her shoulders, but as he drew nearer, she thought he almost looked as if he was upset, or frightened.\n\n“What’s the matter?”\n\n“Father yelled at me! He says I have to go to the house! He told me to run!”\n\n“Why?”\n\n“I don’t know. He was talking to Simon and two other men. I think something is wrong.”\n\nIsabel nodded. “Better do as he told you. Run along home and I’ll go see what it is.”\n\nTo her surprise, he shook his head. “He said if I saw anyone, I should tell them to come with me.”\n\n“Oh, you’ll be fine. You know the way. Besides, you can hardly get lost from here.” She dismissed his protests. “Go, if father wants me to run home too, I’ll catch up with you.”\n\nHe nodded obediently and ran off. She laughed, surprised, and more than a little curious, as to what their father might be about with Simon. She didn’t mind seeing him; the hunter was one of the more handsome young men in the village and sometimes she caught his eyes following her as she walked past. She broke into an easy jog, and before long, spotted the young man on horseback, riding away from her father in the company of two riders wearing leather armor and shields strapped to their backs. She frowned, disappointed that the young man had left before she had had the chance to greet him.\n\n“Isabel, is that you? You shouldn’t be here!”\n\nHer father was running towards her now and he was shouting at her. His face was red and angry, and the shock of his displeasure brought her to a halt.\n\n“Go back to the house right now! What are you doing out here?”\n\nHe loomed over her and grabbed her arm roughly, jerking her around and half-dragging her back in the direction of the house. He wasn’t a big man, but he was taller and stronger than her, and he was squeezing her arm hard enough for it to hurt.\n\n“You must have seen Perrin. Didn’t he tell you to go back to the house?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Run back to the house and tell your mother to bar the doors. Le Chasseur says there is a raiding party of orcs about and they may be coming this way!”\n\n“But the king,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you–”\n\n“Damn the king!” he roared, shocking her, and he shoved her, so hard that she stumbled and nearly fell. “Run, Isabel, run to the devil-damned house!”\n\nShe ran.\n\nHer eyes were blurry with tears as she ran back in the direction she had come, much faster this time. She didn’t know of whom she was more afraid, the dreadful goblins of whom she’d heard terrible tales since she was half Perrin’s age but never seen, or this red-faced, shouting stranger who looked like her father but certainly didn’t act like him. Her bare feet fairly flew over the grass, though whether she was running towards home or away from her father, she couldn’t possibly have said.\n", "completion": "Isabel de Bordeleau was a very unhappy young woman. She was upset with her parents, she was angry with His Royal Majesty the King, and she was downright furious at the lack of justice to be found in what had suddenly, and unexpectedly, turned out to be a deeply unfair world. How could it be, she asked herself, that a young woman had no right to decide for herself how she would live her life? Was she not a viscomte’s daughter? Did her blood not run as blue as any other noblewoman’s in Savondir? Was she not pretty? Was she not well-behaved? Did she not attend the Mass every Lord’s Day and dutifully listen to the priest drone on until midday in the unintelligible language of God?\n\nHer questions went unanswered. She frowned and looked down from the glass window of her bedroom at the grounds of her father’s estate below. It was early summer and the grass was green. The trees extended their branches invitingly as if begging to be climbed, and the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. It was the sort of day that only last week would have filled her heart with joie de vivre.\n\nBut last week she was still unaware of how her life had been ruined two years ago. It had been a pleasant summer’s day not unlike today when she walked with her parents to the nearby village of Morel. There, in the village square, she had seen an old, bearded man, wearing royal blue robes, surrounded by all the children of the village. In his hand he held a small crystal ball, and, one by one, each child would warily approach him and place a hand upon the crystal as the old man held it out to them.\n\nIsabel didn’t understand what the object of the game was supposed to be, as nothing seemed to happen to either the children or the crystal when they touched it. A few of the children appeared to be relieved, most were indifferent, and one boy even looked disappointed. But the little ball just sat in the old man’s hand, as harmless as an ordinary pebble. If only she had known then how dangerous it was! If only someone had told her not to touch it!\n\nHer parents urged her forward. The boys and girls of the village, recognizing her, parted before her approach. The old man glanced at her without any sign of interest in his heavy-lidded eyes; he didn’t seem at all impressed that her father was the local lord. But the moment she touched the crystal in his hand, his eyes suddenly came to life and focused on her with an intensity that alarmed her.\n\nUnnerved, she withdrew her hand, and she was astonished to see that the crystal was now glowing, radiating a bright white light that shone from the old man’s hand like a miniature sun!\n\nShe heard children around her gasp. Adults too. The old man was smiling at her as if he approved of what she’d done, but there was something possessive in his expression that frightened her. She retreated from him. Alarmed, she looked back at her parents and saw her mother appeared to be upset. Her father, on the other hand, was smiling at her and she relaxed as he clapped his hands proudly together, approving of whatever it was she’d done. She smiled back at him and returned triumphantly to his side, feeling very much like a swan that had been swimming amidst ducks.\n\nIn truth, she was more akin to a rabbit caught unwittingly in a snare.\n\nTwo years ago, she had known nothing of the old man or what brought him to the little village on the outskirts of the Forêt Sinistre. Now she knew the man was one of the King’s Own, a magicien who scoured the kingdom on His Royal Majesty’s behalf, traveling from town to town throughout the year. Such men visited every little village and hamlet across the realm in the hopes of discovering young men and women with a talent for magerie. She understood now that she was one of the gifted, which meant that she was also one of the cursed. The very gift which made her special also rendered her, by royal decree, the property of the King. She was to be slave, no, worse, she was to be a brood mare.\n\nHer father explained it to her. Magerie was the sole province of the crown. Not only its practice, but even its potential was kept firmly under royal control by l’Académie des Sage Arts. Boys with the talent became magiciens, and scholars, and battlemages, some, in time, would even become the mighty immortels of l’Académie, feared and respected throughout the lands of men. But girls like her would be taught nothing of the arts, indeed, she was barred from exercising her birthright in any way. Instead, she would be expected to breed with the young men at l’Académie as if she were nothing more than an animal of desirable stock. Not until she bore two children to a magicien would she be free to leave l’Académie and begin to live her own life, to the extent that was still possible.\n\nUnless, of course, she was able to convince her parents otherwise. She knew better than to appeal to her mother. Mother was from a well-respected merchant family and Isabel knew she would never dare anything controversial enough to cause local tongues to wag. But Father was a lord of the eastern march, a lesser one, perhaps, but out here on the borderlands, a mere viscomte wielded more power and influence than a duc in Lutèce. And surely neither the king nor the magiciens of l’Académie would care if one young woman from an insignificant border village was lost to their breeding program. The old man had never come back to Morel. Was it not possible that she had been forgotten by now?\n\nShe looked in the silvered glass and saw a tall, pretty girl on the verge of womanhood, with brown eyes, sun-browned skin, and long, straight, brown hair, staring back at her. But the dress the young woman was wearing was too fine, too embroidered, and too womanly to be suitable for a young girl pleading her father’s favor. She slipped the dress off over her head and replaced it with a simple, virginal white dress that once reached her calves, but barely fell past her knees now. It made her look like a dryad, or an elfille, her father once said. The important thing was that it made her look more like a girl and less like a woman.\n\nNow, to find Father. She left her room and ran lightly down the wooden stairs to the ground level. She heard voices in the great reception chamber to the right of the stairs, but saw it was only a pair of young maids gossiping about one of the blacksmith’s assistants as they polished the silver. They fell silent upon Isabel’s entrance, but smiled and resumed their conversation when they saw it was only her. One of them thought she had seen the Seigneur de Bordeleau near the stables, so Isabel decided to look for him there first.\n\nThe stables was to the left of the great house, past the rows of little cottages in which the married servants lived and the orchards that kept the household supplied with apples, pears, quinces, and other fruits. She ran easily over the long green grass, barefoot, and the familiar sensation of the stalks beneath her toes made her feel certain that her kindly father would never send his beloved daughter away from her family and her home, no matter how many kings and magiciens might demand it of him.\n\nShe saw her younger brother, Perrin, running towards her. He was four years younger than her; their older brother, Robinet, had been sent to the monastery at Corénaz to study numbers with the monks there, as befitted their father’s heir. Perrin was a sweet, happy little boy whose head barely came to her shoulders, but as he drew nearer, she thought he almost looked as if he was upset, or frightened.\n\n“What’s the matter?”\n\n“Father yelled at me! He says I have to go to the house! He told me to run!”\n\n“Why?”\n\n“I don’t know. He was talking to Simon and two other men. I think something is wrong.”\n\nIsabel nodded. “Better do as he told you. Run along home and I’ll go see what it is.”\n\nTo her surprise, he shook his head. “He said if I saw anyone, I should tell them to come with me.”\n\n“Oh, you’ll be fine. You know the way. Besides, you can hardly get lost from here.” She dismissed his protests. “Go, if father wants me to run home too, I’ll catch up with you.”\n\nHe nodded obediently and ran off. She laughed, surprised, and more than a little curious, as to what their father might be about with Simon. She didn’t mind seeing him; the hunter was one of the more handsome young men in the village and sometimes she caught his eyes following her as she walked past. She broke into an easy jog, and before long, spotted the young man on horseback, riding away from her father in the company of two riders wearing leather armor and shields strapped to their backs. She frowned, disappointed that the young man had left before she had had the chance to greet him.\n\n“Isabel, is that you? You shouldn’t be here!”\n\nHer father was running towards her now and he was shouting at her. His face was red and angry, and the shock of his displeasure brought her to a halt.\n\n“Go back to the house right now! What are you doing out here?”\n\nHe loomed over her and grabbed her arm roughly, jerking her around and half-dragging her back in the direction of the house. He wasn’t a big man, but he was taller and stronger than her, and he was squeezing her arm hard enough for it to hurt.\n\n“You must have seen Perrin. Didn’t he tell you to go back to the house?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Run back to the house and tell your mother to bar the doors. Le Chasseur says there is a raiding party of orcs about and they may be coming this way!”\n\n“But the king,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you–”\n\n“Damn the king!” he roared, shocking her, and he shoved her, so hard that she stumbled and nearly fell. “Run, Isabel, run to the devil-damned house!”\n\nShe ran.\n\nHer eyes were blurry with tears as she ran back in the direction she had come, much faster this time. She didn’t know of whom she was more afraid, the dreadful goblins of whom she’d heard terrible tales since she was half Perrin’s age but never seen, or this red-faced, shouting stranger who looked like her father but certainly didn’t act like him. Her bare feet fairly flew over the grass, though whether she was running towards home or away from her father, she couldn’t possibly have said.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1916, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch01_prologue-P2", "chapter": "ch01_prologue", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nle bon Dieu — mother’s oath; keep the French form.\nSelenoth — the world-name; keep the spelling.\nSavondese — adjective for Savondir’s people/knights.\nJe suis prêt! — Bordeleau battle cry; accents and punctuation as written.\nDoublet — elderly valet’s name; not a garment here.\n\n### STORY\nIsabel leaves her room to plead against the breeding decree; she meets frightened Perrin, misses Simon riding off, and is seized and shoved home when her father learns orcs may be coming; she runs for the house in tears.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nIsabel de Bordeleau\nAlive, barefoot, running hard for the house after her father’s shove. Still thinking of kings and breeding more than orcs until she sees them. Trusts that a Savondese knight with twenty men-at-arms can break any orc on Selenoth.\n\nMadame de Bordeleau\nIsabel’s mother; merchant-family blood, cautious of scandal. Alive, at the house, furious at cooks who fled toward town instead of arming. Interposes herself between Isabel and the orcs; takes a kitchen hatchet once the doors are barred.\n\nSeigneur de Bordeleau\nAlive outside with mounted men. Lances the lead orc under the chin; battle cry Je suis prêt! as he drives the rest from the house.\n\nPerrin\nAlive, frightened; brought inside by a chambermaid. Hides in a cupboard when Isabel pushes him in as the kitchen is breached.\n\nDaniel\nGardener; older, short-legged, fat-bellied. Alive at first sight, then killed by two orcs as Isabel and her mother watch.\n\nDoublet\nElderly valet. Alive, shaking; sent over the kitchen barrier with a poker to check a thud at the rear of the house.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Oh, you’ll be fine. You know the way. Besides, you can hardly get lost from here.” She dismissed his protests. “Go, if father wants me to run home too, I’ll catch up with you.”\n\nHe nodded obediently and ran off. She laughed, surprised, and more than a little curious, as to what their father might be about with Simon. She didn’t mind seeing him; the hunter was one of the more handsome young men in the village and sometimes she caught his eyes following her as she walked past. She broke into an easy jog, and before long, spotted the young man on horseback, riding away from her father in the company of two riders wearing leather armor and shields strapped to their backs. She frowned, disappointed that the young man had left before she had had the chance to greet him.\n\n“Isabel, is that you? You shouldn’t be here!”\n\nHer father was running towards her now and he was shouting at her. His face was red and angry, and the shock of his displeasure brought her to a halt.\n\n“Go back to the house right now! What are you doing out here?”\n\nHe loomed over her and grabbed her arm roughly, jerking her around and half-dragging her back in the direction of the house. He wasn’t a big man, but he was taller and stronger than her, and he was squeezing her arm hard enough for it to hurt.\n\n“You must have seen Perrin. Didn’t he tell you to go back to the house?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Run back to the house and tell your mother to bar the doors. Le Chasseur says there is a raiding party of orcs about and they may be coming this way!”\n\n“But the king,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you–”\n\n“Damn the king!” he roared, shocking her, and he shoved her, so hard that she stumbled and nearly fell. “Run, Isabel, run to the devil-damned house!”\n\nShe ran.\n\nHer eyes were blurry with tears as she ran back in the direction she had come, much faster this time. She didn’t know of whom she was more afraid, the dreadful goblins of whom she’d heard terrible tales since she was half Perrin’s age but never seen, or this red-faced, shouting stranger who looked like her father but certainly didn’t act like him. Her bare feet fairly flew over the grass, though whether she was running towards home or away from her father, she couldn’t possibly have said.\n\n### NOTES\nThe house kitchen has a makeshift barrier of heavy table and chairs; household staff arm with knives, poker, butcher knife, hatchet.\nOrcs here are green-skinned, tusked, heavily muscled, yellow-eyed; their blood is dark green.\nAfternoon of the same early-summer day; raid reaches the estate grounds.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Isabel.\n\nShe comes in sight of the house to find her mother cursing cooks who fled toward town with word of orcs. Mother pulls her close, sure Father and his men can handle a raid, until Daniel the gardener sprints around the building and two green monsters run him down and smash his skull. More orcs appear; Mother puts herself between them and Isabel; then Father’s lance and three mounted men cut the half-naked brutes down and shout Je suis prêt! while mother and daughter barricade the house.\n\nInside, shutters latched, Perrin found, the kitchen becomes a redoubt of servants with knives and a poker. Isabel holds her brother and tells him Father will kill them all, not quite believing it. A thud at the rear sends Doublet over the barrier; glass breaks; orcs pour in. Isabel hides Perrin in a cupboard. The cook’s blade and Mother’s hatchet fail; Mother is dragged out screaming; Isabel takes up the butcher knife, is smashed in the face with a chair, and darkness takes her.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1650 words. Keep the violence concrete and unsentimental; break off on the blackout, not the aftermath.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "As she ran past the cottages and came within sight of the house, she could hear her mother shouting at someone. Alarmed, but doubting that her mother would be likely to administer a tongue-lashing to orcs, she put on a last burst of speed and turned the corner to see her mother gesticulating angrily at the backs of two of the male cooks who were running away as fast as they could on the path towards the village road.\n\n“Isabel!” she cried when Isabel called out to her. “Oh, thank le bon Dieu! I didn’t know where you were! Those wretched cowards came to tell me they heard there were orcs lurking about the woods nearby, but they ran away to town instead of arming themselves! Can you imagine? Come inside, dear, everything will be fine. Did you see your father?”\n\nShe nodded as Isabel told her that Father was out near the stables, and that he seemed to be aware there was a raiding party nearby. She wasn’t frightened anymore, not now that she understood why her father shouted at her. Perhaps the lily-livered cooks might run away, but her father was a knight with twenty men-at-arms sworn to him and she knew there wasn’t an orc on Selenoth that could hope to stand against a true Savondese knight, much less one who was both a viscomte and royal vassal.\n\nThey were walking towards the house, her mother’s arm around her, when they heard a fearful shout and Daniel the gardener came sprinting around the side of the building away from the stables. He was an older man, with short, stumpy legs and a fat belly, and he was easily run down by the pair of great green monsters that were at his heels. Their appearance struck her as unreal; they seemed to have appeared straight out of a nightmare worse than any she’d ever dreamed. Their shape was a puppeteer’s exaggeration of a man’s, with powerful, bulging shoulders and long, vein-corded arms. The monsters had no sooner caught up to Daniel than the first one leaped upon him from behind, bringing him down to the ground before the second one smashed in the poor man’s head with repeated blows from the large spiked club it was carrying.\n\nHer mother screamed. Isabel stood frozen, too astonished to be afraid, her eyes locked upon the terrible red ruin of the back of the gardener’s head. She looked up and stared at the brutish orcs, taking in the tusks that jutted up from their thick lower jaws, the dark green skin which was covered by a few rags of some dirty material so faded and worn she couldn’t tell if it was cloth or leather. Their faces were wide, and looked to her like a demonic cross between a pig, a bat, and a dog, and while there were sparks of intelligence in their cruel yellow eyes, she saw no sign of either mercy or humanity in them.\n\nAnd if they weren’t much taller than her, they were about three times wider, with muscles that bulged like living armor beneath the paint and smeared tattoos that adorned their skin. Five more appeared as the first two, having dispatched poor Daniel, began to advance towards Isabel, with broad smiles on their grotesque faces.\n\n“Get behind me,” her mother whispered, interposing herself between Isabel and the monsters, and finally Isabel found herself able to move again. “It’s going to be all right. Don’t run.”\n\nThey’re not dogs, Mother, Isabel wanted to say, but she was far too terrified to speak. The lead orc waggled his club suggestively and the gardener’s blood sprinkled the grass as he took a step towards them. Then he stopped and an expression that might have been fear filled his bestial face. That step was his last, as the pounding of horse hooves erupted without warning behind her. She saw something big and brown flash past the corner of her eye just before her father’s lance spitted the orc right under his chin. The monster’s blood was dark green, not red, Isabel observed, as it sprayed from his throat. Three of Father’s men were right behind him, all of them mounted, and the four warriors cut down the half-naked orcs as easily as the monsters themselves had murdered the helpless gardener.\n\n“To the house, now!” her mother shouted and pulled at her arm.\n\nIsabel turned and ran with her. Behind her, she heard her father shouting his battle cry and it was echoed by his men. “Je suis prêt!” she heard them shout as they drove the orcs back, away from the house. Just hearing his deep voice restored her courage. “Je suis prêt!”\n\nAs soon as they were inside, her mother slammed the door behind them. “Where is Perrin?” No sooner had a chambermaid produced her frightened little brother than her mother was ordering all the doors to be barred and the shutters on the ground floor windows closed and latched.\n\nIsabel was quickly ushered into the kitchen, where a makeshift barrier had been assembled from a heavy table and some chairs. Seven of the household staff were gathered there, all of them armed with a weapon, however humble. The five women were mostly armed with kitchen knives, an elderly valet held an iron poker from the fireplace, and the one remaining cook was wielding a large, razor-sharp butcher knife. After the windows were secured, her mother and the two maids helping her returned to the kitchen, clambered over the barrier, and then secured weapons for themselves.\n\nIsabel saw her mother select a little hatchet normally used in preparing the meat; she wanted to ask for a knife or even a rolling pin, but something in her mother’s face dissuaded her. Instead, she went and put her arms around a wide-eyed Perrin, who was doing his best not to weep.\n\n“Father is outside!” he whispered to her in a voice full of fear.\n\n“Shhhh,” she comforted him. “Be brave like him. Father is with his men. He’s a knight in vassal to the king himself. He will kill them all!”\n\nPerrin relaxed a little, trusting in her words. She wished she could believe them too. She listened for the familiar sound of Father’s voice, but with all the others talking around her in the kitchen, she couldn’t hear anything outside. Her mother was nervously fingering a rosary in one hand while holding the hatchet in the other. Her lips were moving, but Isabel couldn’t tell if she was praying, reciting the rosary, or talking to herself.\n\nThen there was a loud thudding sound that seemed to come from somewhere near the rear of the house. Everyone froze and fell silent. She felt Perrin go rigid in her arms.\n\n“Doublet, go and see what that is,” her mother ordered the valet. The old man was visibly afraid, so much so that his hands were shaking, but he obeyed nevertheless, climbing awkwardly over the barrier with the help of the cook. They all waited, motionless, listening for a sign that the dreadful creatures were gone, hoping to hear the sound of her father calling to tell them that he’d driven the creatures away.\n\nThen there came another thud, followed by the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. Isabel screamed, and she wasn’t the only one to do so. They heard Doublet’s voice shouting curses, interrupted by a crashing sound, after which the pounding of heavy feet running through the house was all they could hear. Then a horrible green face appeared at the top of the barrier; it vanished right away, but from the blood-curdling cries that followed Isabel knew it was alerting its fellows to their presence. She glanced around and saw a cupboard just big enough to hold Perrin.\n\n“In there.” She held the door open and pushed him into it. “Hide! Don’t you make a sound or come out, no matter what you hear!”\n\nNo sooner was he safely hidden than the heavy table was torn away as if it weighed nothing. The first orc burst into the kitchen and the cook bravely leaped at him, swinging the big butcher’s blade. It caught the monster in the shoulder, but the beast swung its bloody club and sent the cook back reeling, stunned, with a blow to the side of his head. Her mother lashed out with her axe, but the orc caught her arm and simply pulled her back, hurling her into the room behind him. She had barely disappeared from sight when she began to scream hysterically, terrible wordless screams like an animal. All the while, more orcs were pouring into the kitchen, and their powerful clawed hands reached out for the shrieking, terrified women defending themselves with their makeshift weapons.\n\n“Mother!” Isabel shrieked and she picked up the butcher knife that the cook had dropped a moment earlier. She chopped down hard, using both hands, but an orc blocked the metal blade with a chair it was holding, shoved her backward, then smashed the chair into her face. The force of the blow sent her flying backward and she struck the back of her head upon the wall.\n\nDarkness descended and she knew no more.\n", "completion": "As she ran past the cottages and came within sight of the house, she could hear her mother shouting at someone. Alarmed, but doubting that her mother would be likely to administer a tongue-lashing to orcs, she put on a last burst of speed and turned the corner to see her mother gesticulating angrily at the backs of two of the male cooks who were running away as fast as they could on the path towards the village road.\n\n“Isabel!” she cried when Isabel called out to her. “Oh, thank le bon Dieu! I didn’t know where you were! Those wretched cowards came to tell me they heard there were orcs lurking about the woods nearby, but they ran away to town instead of arming themselves! Can you imagine? Come inside, dear, everything will be fine. Did you see your father?”\n\nShe nodded as Isabel told her that Father was out near the stables, and that he seemed to be aware there was a raiding party nearby. She wasn’t frightened anymore, not now that she understood why her father shouted at her. Perhaps the lily-livered cooks might run away, but her father was a knight with twenty men-at-arms sworn to him and she knew there wasn’t an orc on Selenoth that could hope to stand against a true Savondese knight, much less one who was both a viscomte and royal vassal.\n\nThey were walking towards the house, her mother’s arm around her, when they heard a fearful shout and Daniel the gardener came sprinting around the side of the building away from the stables. He was an older man, with short, stumpy legs and a fat belly, and he was easily run down by the pair of great green monsters that were at his heels. Their appearance struck her as unreal; they seemed to have appeared straight out of a nightmare worse than any she’d ever dreamed. Their shape was a puppeteer’s exaggeration of a man’s, with powerful, bulging shoulders and long, vein-corded arms. The monsters had no sooner caught up to Daniel than the first one leaped upon him from behind, bringing him down to the ground before the second one smashed in the poor man’s head with repeated blows from the large spiked club it was carrying.\n\nHer mother screamed. Isabel stood frozen, too astonished to be afraid, her eyes locked upon the terrible red ruin of the back of the gardener’s head. She looked up and stared at the brutish orcs, taking in the tusks that jutted up from their thick lower jaws, the dark green skin which was covered by a few rags of some dirty material so faded and worn she couldn’t tell if it was cloth or leather. Their faces were wide, and looked to her like a demonic cross between a pig, a bat, and a dog, and while there were sparks of intelligence in their cruel yellow eyes, she saw no sign of either mercy or humanity in them.\n\nAnd if they weren’t much taller than her, they were about three times wider, with muscles that bulged like living armor beneath the paint and smeared tattoos that adorned their skin. Five more appeared as the first two, having dispatched poor Daniel, began to advance towards Isabel, with broad smiles on their grotesque faces.\n\n“Get behind me,” her mother whispered, interposing herself between Isabel and the monsters, and finally Isabel found herself able to move again. “It’s going to be all right. Don’t run.”\n\nThey’re not dogs, Mother, Isabel wanted to say, but she was far too terrified to speak. The lead orc waggled his club suggestively and the gardener’s blood sprinkled the grass as he took a step towards them. Then he stopped and an expression that might have been fear filled his bestial face. That step was his last, as the pounding of horse hooves erupted without warning behind her. She saw something big and brown flash past the corner of her eye just before her father’s lance spitted the orc right under his chin. The monster’s blood was dark green, not red, Isabel observed, as it sprayed from his throat. Three of Father’s men were right behind him, all of them mounted, and the four warriors cut down the half-naked orcs as easily as the monsters themselves had murdered the helpless gardener.\n\n“To the house, now!” her mother shouted and pulled at her arm.\n\nIsabel turned and ran with her. Behind her, she heard her father shouting his battle cry and it was echoed by his men. “Je suis prêt!” she heard them shout as they drove the orcs back, away from the house. Just hearing his deep voice restored her courage. “Je suis prêt!”\n\nAs soon as they were inside, her mother slammed the door behind them. “Where is Perrin?” No sooner had a chambermaid produced her frightened little brother than her mother was ordering all the doors to be barred and the shutters on the ground floor windows closed and latched.\n\nIsabel was quickly ushered into the kitchen, where a makeshift barrier had been assembled from a heavy table and some chairs. Seven of the household staff were gathered there, all of them armed with a weapon, however humble. The five women were mostly armed with kitchen knives, an elderly valet held an iron poker from the fireplace, and the one remaining cook was wielding a large, razor-sharp butcher knife. After the windows were secured, her mother and the two maids helping her returned to the kitchen, clambered over the barrier, and then secured weapons for themselves.\n\nIsabel saw her mother select a little hatchet normally used in preparing the meat; she wanted to ask for a knife or even a rolling pin, but something in her mother’s face dissuaded her. Instead, she went and put her arms around a wide-eyed Perrin, who was doing his best not to weep.\n\n“Father is outside!” he whispered to her in a voice full of fear.\n\n“Shhhh,” she comforted him. “Be brave like him. Father is with his men. He’s a knight in vassal to the king himself. He will kill them all!”\n\nPerrin relaxed a little, trusting in her words. She wished she could believe them too. She listened for the familiar sound of Father’s voice, but with all the others talking around her in the kitchen, she couldn’t hear anything outside. Her mother was nervously fingering a rosary in one hand while holding the hatchet in the other. Her lips were moving, but Isabel couldn’t tell if she was praying, reciting the rosary, or talking to herself.\n\nThen there was a loud thudding sound that seemed to come from somewhere near the rear of the house. Everyone froze and fell silent. She felt Perrin go rigid in her arms.\n\n“Doublet, go and see what that is,” her mother ordered the valet. The old man was visibly afraid, so much so that his hands were shaking, but he obeyed nevertheless, climbing awkwardly over the barrier with the help of the cook. They all waited, motionless, listening for a sign that the dreadful creatures were gone, hoping to hear the sound of her father calling to tell them that he’d driven the creatures away.\n\nThen there came another thud, followed by the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. Isabel screamed, and she wasn’t the only one to do so. They heard Doublet’s voice shouting curses, interrupted by a crashing sound, after which the pounding of heavy feet running through the house was all they could hear. Then a horrible green face appeared at the top of the barrier; it vanished right away, but from the blood-curdling cries that followed Isabel knew it was alerting its fellows to their presence. She glanced around and saw a cupboard just big enough to hold Perrin.\n\n“In there.” She held the door open and pushed him into it. “Hide! Don’t you make a sound or come out, no matter what you hear!”\n\nNo sooner was he safely hidden than the heavy table was torn away as if it weighed nothing. The first orc burst into the kitchen and the cook bravely leaped at him, swinging the big butcher’s blade. It caught the monster in the shoulder, but the beast swung its bloody club and sent the cook back reeling, stunned, with a blow to the side of his head. Her mother lashed out with her axe, but the orc caught her arm and simply pulled her back, hurling her into the room behind him. She had barely disappeared from sight when she began to scream hysterically, terrible wordless screams like an animal. All the while, more orcs were pouring into the kitchen, and their powerful clawed hands reached out for the shrieking, terrified women defending themselves with their makeshift weapons.\n\n“Mother!” Isabel shrieked and she picked up the butcher knife that the cook had dropped a moment earlier. She chopped down hard, using both hands, but an orc blocked the metal blade with a chair it was holding, shoved her backward, then smashed the chair into her face. The force of the blow sent her flying backward and she struck the back of her head upon the wall.\n\nDarkness descended and she knew no more.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1576, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch01_prologue-P3", "chapter": "ch01_prologue", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\n(none)\n\n### STORY\nIsabel, marked for the king’s breeding program, goes to plead with her father and is instead driven back to the house when an orc raid is reported; she runs in tears.\n\nAt the house she and her mother see orcs kill the gardener; her father’s lance clears the yard long enough to barricade; the kitchen is breached, Perrin is hidden, her mother is dragged away screaming, and a chair to the face drops Isabel into darkness.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nIsabel de Bordeleau\nAlive when she wakes, naked on the kitchen floor, being raped by an orc among the dead servants. Smoke in the air. She does not yet know Perrin’s fate. The breeding-plea girl is gone the moment she sees what is left of her brother; what rises is rage and untrained fire.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Doublet, go and see what that is,” her mother ordered the valet. The old man was visibly afraid, so much so that his hands were shaking, but he obeyed nevertheless, climbing awkwardly over the barrier with the help of the cook. They all waited, motionless, listening for a sign that the dreadful creatures were gone, hoping to hear the sound of her father calling to tell them that he’d driven the creatures away.\n\nThen there came another thud, followed by the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. Isabel screamed, and she wasn’t the only one to do so. They heard Doublet’s voice shouting curses, interrupted by a crashing sound, after which the pounding of heavy feet running through the house was all they could hear. Then a horrible green face appeared at the top of the barrier; it vanished right away, but from the blood-curdling cries that followed Isabel knew it was alerting its fellows to their presence. She glanced around and saw a cupboard just big enough to hold Perrin.\n\n“In there.” She held the door open and pushed him into it. “Hide! Don’t you make a sound or come out, no matter what you hear!”\n\nNo sooner was he safely hidden than the heavy table was torn away as if it weighed nothing. The first orc burst into the kitchen and the cook bravely leaped at him, swinging the big butcher’s blade. It caught the monster in the shoulder, but the beast swung its bloody club and sent the cook back reeling, stunned, with a blow to the side of his head. Her mother lashed out with her axe, but the orc caught her arm and simply pulled her back, hurling her into the room behind him. She had barely disappeared from sight when she began to scream hysterically, terrible wordless screams like an animal. All the while, more orcs were pouring into the kitchen, and their powerful clawed hands reached out for the shrieking, terrified women defending themselves with their makeshift weapons.\n\n“Mother!” Isabel shrieked and she picked up the butcher knife that the cook had dropped a moment earlier. She chopped down hard, using both hands, but an orc blocked the metal blade with a chair it was holding, shoved her backward, then smashed the chair into her face. The force of the blow sent her flying backward and she struck the back of her head upon the wall.\n\nDarkness descended and she knew no more.\n\n### NOTES\nKitchen and smashed front of the Bordeleau house; estate grounds beyond.\nIsabel’s fire is green-and-blue; it does not burn her.\nOrcs outside still at trophy-work on the family dead when she walks out.\nCrossbows and a leather-armored orc with a sword end the fight.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Isabel.\n\nShe wakes under an orc, pain and smoke and the end of virginity, and the scream she looses startles him off her. Other orcs laugh at his bloody member until she sees Perrin’s headless body by the broken cupboard. Something in her breaks. She rises naked and burning and the kitchen wall goes out with the five orcs inside it.\n\nShe walks through the wreck of the door with fire on her wrists and burns every orc she finds: the one on her mother’s body, the ones kicking her brother’s head, the ones trying to crucify her father’s corpse. A rush of them dies in a sheet of flame. Then a bolt takes her thigh, more bolts follow, and as the fire leaves her she dies smiling at their screams, as if the howls were a choir.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1350 words. Absolute brutality, no softening and no sermon; land on her death and the orcs’ screams.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "When Isabel came to her senses, her first thought was that she must be damned and in Hell. A sharp pain seemed to be splitting her lower body in half while a dreadful pressure on her back was smashing repeatedly against her, forcing the breath from her and all but crushing her under its heavy weight. It took her one long moment to realize that she was not dead, another moment for the full force of the pain to hit her, and a third to realize she was no longer a virgin.\n\nThe dreadful stench of the monster raping her filled her nostrils, along with the scent of something that she dimly recognized as smoke. For a moment, the shock of realizing what was happening left her paralyzed, and she lay there helplessly on her belly, pinned to the ground, her body rocked again and again by the beast ruthlessly violating it. Then her horror transformed into rage, pure incendiary anger, fury fueled by a boundless hate of a sort she had never even imagined could exist. As the orc thrust itself savagely into her again, she opened her mouth and screamed, as if she was already one of the damned and this was one of the ten thousand torments of Hell.\n\nHer throat-searing cry was met by an answering shriek that was deafening in her ear, and she felt whatever had been tearing her apart abruptly vanish from between her legs, leaving nothing but hollow agony behind. She rolled over and tried to scramble backward, away from her assailant, but her hands slipped in the blood of the dead women lying on either side of her, and she fell sprawling on her back. Only then did she realize she had been stripped naked.\n\nShe was not alone. In addition to the huge beast that had been attacking her only a moment ago, there were four more orcs standing in the kitchen. They had been watching the other one violate her; perhaps they were even waiting their turn. Now they were howling and making other strange and terrible sounds, but their attention was not focused on her. They were pointing at her attacker, the naked one whose exposed, half-flaccid green member was slick and red with her blood. They were laughing at her attacker, she realized to her astonishment. They were laughing!\n\nShe looked away, more horrified and humiliated than scared. It was at that moment she saw the little body lying in a large pool of blood in front of the broken cupboard door. It was Perrin; she recognized the tunic her brother had been wearing. Or rather, it was his body. His head was missing.\n\nSomething broke inside her. Perhaps a dragon slumbering deep within her woke, or maybe a dark angel from some fiery nether region erupted from the void that only moments ago had been her soul. Whatever it was, she didn’t care. She no longer knew shame or fear or pain. She no longer knew who, or what, she was. Isabel was no more. She was rage incarnate, and there was no space inside her for either grief or sorrow, not with the burning hunger for vengeance that now consumed her. She rose from the floor, wearing nothing more than the blood that striped her legs, and she thrust out her hands at the monsters that were staring at her in curious bemusement.\n\nThey did not stare long. Sorcerous fire exploded in the room, instantly engulfing all five of the orcs in green-and-blue flames as it blew out the wood-and-stone wall behind them. The monsters howled as the magical flames transformed them into running, screaming torches. The soulless creatures burned alive in the fire that consumed them as indifferently as they had murdered their innocent victims. She walked past the dead bodies of the servants and ignored the dying orcs as they thrashed about, devoured by the ravenous flames. The fire did not touch her, but seemed to bow down before her as she passed. Hell knew her for its own.\n\nBlue and green flames danced on Isabel’s palms and encircled her wrists as she walked through the smashed beams of what had once been her family home’s front door. Outside, she saw more orcs and the flames leaped from her hands, again and again, and each time they set more of the monsters alight. She burned the orc that was violating her mother’s lifeless body lying on the grass. She incinerated the two orcs that were kicking her brother’s head back and forth between them. More flames leaped out from her hands and fell ravenously upon the four orcs that were attempting to hang her father’s mutilated body on a makeshift cross on the path that led to the village road. Victors no more, the monsters were instantly turned into screaming candles, as the cleansing fire remade what was meant to be defilement and degradation into a glorious pyre worthy of a brave and fallen warrior.\n\nShe was an angel of death. She was a fiery avenger. She was pure, white-hot anger, and to look upon her was to die. The pain, the humiliation, even the terrible aching grief was gone, all of it burned away by the purgatorial flames of her boundless fury. She did not think and she did not feel. She burned with rage and the world burned with her.\n\nA group of orcs rushed towards her, their mouths gaping open, but she could not hear their howls. She heard nothing but the beating of her heart and the sound of blood rushing in her ears. She threw open her arms, now fully wreathed in flames, as if to embrace her attackers, and a great sheet of fire leaped out to envelop and engulf them. She did not exult in their shrieking deaths, she did not rejoice in their writhing agonies, she did nothing more than methodically scour the earth with the purifying fire that cleansed everything it touched.\n\nThen something flew past her. A moment later, a crossbow bolt slammed into her left thigh. She fell to the ground, crying out more in surprise than pain. She looked up and saw a big orc wearing leather armor pointing a sword at her. Behind him, more orcs carrying crossbows were taking aim at her. But the flames had not abandoned her, still they curled and danced about her arms. Even as the orcs loosed their missiles at her, Isabel stretched out her arm towards the orc with the sword, and the fire lashed out at him like a green-and-blue serpent striking.\n\nThree iron-tipped bolts hammered into her slender body in rapid succession, crushing flesh and bones as they passed nearly all the way through her, lifting her up before hurling her back down upon the ground. The flames vanished as she lay there, and so did the pain, but as the light spiraled away from her eyes, Isabel could suddenly hear the anguished howls of the burning orcs again. The sound brought a faint smile to her bloody lips. As Isabel died, she felt inhuman screams of monstrous agony lifting her up towards the clouds, as if the shrieking voices belonged to a choir of angels ushering her into Paradise.\n", "completion": "When Isabel came to her senses, her first thought was that she must be damned and in Hell. A sharp pain seemed to be splitting her lower body in half while a dreadful pressure on her back was smashing repeatedly against her, forcing the breath from her and all but crushing her under its heavy weight. It took her one long moment to realize that she was not dead, another moment for the full force of the pain to hit her, and a third to realize she was no longer a virgin.\n\nThe dreadful stench of the monster raping her filled her nostrils, along with the scent of something that she dimly recognized as smoke. For a moment, the shock of realizing what was happening left her paralyzed, and she lay there helplessly on her belly, pinned to the ground, her body rocked again and again by the beast ruthlessly violating it. Then her horror transformed into rage, pure incendiary anger, fury fueled by a boundless hate of a sort she had never even imagined could exist. As the orc thrust itself savagely into her again, she opened her mouth and screamed, as if she was already one of the damned and this was one of the ten thousand torments of Hell.\n\nHer throat-searing cry was met by an answering shriek that was deafening in her ear, and she felt whatever had been tearing her apart abruptly vanish from between her legs, leaving nothing but hollow agony behind. She rolled over and tried to scramble backward, away from her assailant, but her hands slipped in the blood of the dead women lying on either side of her, and she fell sprawling on her back. Only then did she realize she had been stripped naked.\n\nShe was not alone. In addition to the huge beast that had been attacking her only a moment ago, there were four more orcs standing in the kitchen. They had been watching the other one violate her; perhaps they were even waiting their turn. Now they were howling and making other strange and terrible sounds, but their attention was not focused on her. They were pointing at her attacker, the naked one whose exposed, half-flaccid green member was slick and red with her blood. They were laughing at her attacker, she realized to her astonishment. They were laughing!\n\nShe looked away, more horrified and humiliated than scared. It was at that moment she saw the little body lying in a large pool of blood in front of the broken cupboard door. It was Perrin; she recognized the tunic her brother had been wearing. Or rather, it was his body. His head was missing.\n\nSomething broke inside her. Perhaps a dragon slumbering deep within her woke, or maybe a dark angel from some fiery nether region erupted from the void that only moments ago had been her soul. Whatever it was, she didn’t care. She no longer knew shame or fear or pain. She no longer knew who, or what, she was. Isabel was no more. She was rage incarnate, and there was no space inside her for either grief or sorrow, not with the burning hunger for vengeance that now consumed her. She rose from the floor, wearing nothing more than the blood that striped her legs, and she thrust out her hands at the monsters that were staring at her in curious bemusement.\n\nThey did not stare long. Sorcerous fire exploded in the room, instantly engulfing all five of the orcs in green-and-blue flames as it blew out the wood-and-stone wall behind them. The monsters howled as the magical flames transformed them into running, screaming torches. The soulless creatures burned alive in the fire that consumed them as indifferently as they had murdered their innocent victims. She walked past the dead bodies of the servants and ignored the dying orcs as they thrashed about, devoured by the ravenous flames. The fire did not touch her, but seemed to bow down before her as she passed. Hell knew her for its own.\n\nBlue and green flames danced on Isabel’s palms and encircled her wrists as she walked through the smashed beams of what had once been her family home’s front door. Outside, she saw more orcs and the flames leaped from her hands, again and again, and each time they set more of the monsters alight. She burned the orc that was violating her mother’s lifeless body lying on the grass. She incinerated the two orcs that were kicking her brother’s head back and forth between them. More flames leaped out from her hands and fell ravenously upon the four orcs that were attempting to hang her father’s mutilated body on a makeshift cross on the path that led to the village road. Victors no more, the monsters were instantly turned into screaming candles, as the cleansing fire remade what was meant to be defilement and degradation into a glorious pyre worthy of a brave and fallen warrior.\n\nShe was an angel of death. She was a fiery avenger. She was pure, white-hot anger, and to look upon her was to die. The pain, the humiliation, even the terrible aching grief was gone, all of it burned away by the purgatorial flames of her boundless fury. She did not think and she did not feel. She burned with rage and the world burned with her.\n\nA group of orcs rushed towards her, their mouths gaping open, but she could not hear their howls. She heard nothing but the beating of her heart and the sound of blood rushing in her ears. She threw open her arms, now fully wreathed in flames, as if to embrace her attackers, and a great sheet of fire leaped out to envelop and engulf them. She did not exult in their shrieking deaths, she did not rejoice in their writhing agonies, she did nothing more than methodically scour the earth with the purifying fire that cleansed everything it touched.\n\nThen something flew past her. A moment later, a crossbow bolt slammed into her left thigh. She fell to the ground, crying out more in surprise than pain. She looked up and saw a big orc wearing leather armor pointing a sword at her. Behind him, more orcs carrying crossbows were taking aim at her. But the flames had not abandoned her, still they curled and danced about her arms. Even as the orcs loosed their missiles at her, Isabel stretched out her arm towards the orc with the sword, and the fire lashed out at him like a green-and-blue serpent striking.\n\nThree iron-tipped bolts hammered into her slender body in rapid succession, crushing flesh and bones as they passed nearly all the way through her, lifting her up before hurling her back down upon the ground. The flames vanished as she lay there, and so did the pain, but as the light spiraled away from her eyes, Isabel could suddenly hear the anguished howls of the burning orcs again. The sound brought a faint smile to her bloody lips. As Isabel died, she felt inhuman screams of monstrous agony lifting her up towards the clouds, as if the shrieking voices belonged to a choir of angels ushering her into Paradise.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1225, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch02_theuderic-P1", "chapter": "ch02_theuderic", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nl’Académie — academy short form; keep the apostrophe and accent.\nImmortels — academy rank; capital I when so styled.\nNarcisse de Segraise — proper name; keep the spelling.\nmonseigneur magus — form of address the girl uses; keep both words.\nde Merovech — Theuderic’s surname; not Meroving.\nFrançois du Moulin — chancelier’s name; accents as written.\nDuc de Chênevin — title; accent on ê.\nDe bon valoir servir le roi. — Theuderic’s motto-line; keep the French exact.\nDeceptae dabunt odorem. — du Moulin’s Latin to the girl; keep exact.\nelfess — du Moulin’s word for the absent elf woman; keep the form.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nRoyal battlemage and noble of Savondir; kingsmage under Louis-Charles XIV. Alive, at l’Académie, just finished his stud duty with an unnamed shopkeeper’s daughter. Tall, combat veteran; wry about being put out to stud after last year’s mage losses. Previously attached to an elfess; does not give du Moulin anything useful about that. Knows the chancelier is dangerous despite soft hands.\n\nFrançois du Moulin\nKing’s chancelier and master of spies; elderly, acerbic, soft long-fingered hands. Alive; arrives in nondescript brown cloak and wide-brimmed hat, unwilling to be openly named on academy grounds. One of two men besides the king who dare address a royal battlemage with contempt. Has come to claim Theuderic for other labors.\n\nThe girl\nUnnamed shopkeeper’s daughter; younger, plumper, ambitious. Alive, naked when du Moulin enters; wants a mage-bastard and a better marriage. Calls Theuderic monseigneur magus.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nSetting: a bedchamber at l’Académie des Sage Arts; day.\nRoyal breeding policy puts battlemages to stud; girls who bear two mage-children may marry up.\nLast year Narcisse de Segraise’s failed dragon-ensorceling cost six experienced mages, four Immortels.\nLouis-Charles is fourteenth of his name; heir is the Duc de Chênevin (voice too high-pitched to be the one at the door).\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nDuty done, he lies back with a healthy, ambitious shopkeeper’s girl and reflects that stud service is absurd and necessary after the academy’s losses. He likes survivors; he is about to reach for her again when three sharp knocks cut it short. The voice is François du Moulin’s. Theuderic throws her a blanket, opens in a blue robe, and bows without naming the chancelier’s title. Du Moulin eyes the still-naked girl, needles him about consolation in the elfess’s absence, and claims him for less delightful labors. Theuderic gathers sandals, blows the girl a kiss, answers that he returns as the king wills, and steps out knowing the fates will likely give her someone else’s brat before he sees her again.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Dry courtier irony, not romance; land as he leaves her for du Moulin.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "His duty to King and country accomplished, Theuderic lay back on the feather-stuffed pillow and exhaled deeply. He eyed the girl with whom he’d been sporting, mildly surprised at the enthusiasm she’d shown. She wasn’t unattractive, merely younger, plumper, and more innocent than he tended to prefer when left to his own devices. He had no idea how old she was, but her breasts weren’t even proper woman’s breasts, they were still the soft girlish cones that defied gravity with the easy impunity of youth. He observed her birth was neither noble nor peasant; she had the round, ruddy cheeks and ready smile of a shopkeeper’s daughter.\n\nA healthy girl with healthy appetites. He had suffered worse injuries to his dignity in the service of Louis-Charles, the fourteenth of his name. But there was something intrinsically absurd about a nobleman and a battlemage being put out to stud like a prized warhorse.\n\nHe shrugged philosophically. Despite the ridiculous position in which the royal policy put him and the other mages, he couldn’t reasonably complain. It was a sensible policy, and indeed, in light of last year’s losses suffered by l’Académie, an increasingly necessary one too. After losing no less than six experienced mages, four of them Immortels, in Narcisse de Segraise’s failed attempt to ensorcel a dragon, the king would have put every maid in the kingdom to his mages’ swords if he believed the Church and the petty aristocracy would stand for it.\n\n“I trust you took no great harm,” he told the girl.\n\n“None in the slightest, monseigneur magus,” she said, looking rather like a well-fed cat in cream. She rubbed her belly complacently.\n\nThe slight emphasis she placed on his title informed him that the sparkle in her brown eyes had rather less to do with his masculine charms than her own ambitions. A clever shopkeeper’s daughter then. She wasn’t one of those misfortunates who would moan and bewail her fate for years, but rather, the sort of girl who produced the requisite pair of king’s bastards before her eighteenth birthday, then triumphantly settled into a marriage well above her natural station.\n\nHe grinned. He liked survivors. She might be no more than a brood mare, but she was a worthy one. And moreover, he reflected with amusement, an eager young mare with a not entirely unsatisfactory ride. Feeling the vague stirrings of desire, he was just about to reach for her again when there was a series of three sharp knocks on the door.\n\nNever mind that. He threw her a rumpled blanket to cover herself and rolled off the bed.\n\n“Who is it?” he called as he slipped a blue robe over his head.\n\n“Leave off the trollop and open the damned door, de Merovech,” he heard an acerbic voice call. He recognized it immediately. Besides the king, there were only two men in the entire Kingdom of Savondir who would dare to address a royal battlemage in such a dismissive manner, and the voice was too high-pitched to belong to the king’s heir, the Duc de Chênevin.\n\n“Dress yourself,” he hissed at the girl. What was her name? He didn’t recall.\n\n“Mon seigneur!” she squeaked obediently, frightened at his tone, and began fumbling about the bed looking for the cotton shift she’d been wearing.\n\nTheuderic didn’t wait for the girl to cover herself. François du Moulin was not a man who brooked delay for any such petty niceties. He opened the door and bowed respectfully to the king’s chancelier, who was dressed inconspicuously in a nondescript brown cloak and a wide-brimmed hat that concealed his face in shadow.\n\n“Monseigneur.” He assumed du Moulin did not wish to be openly identified and omitted the other’s title. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure.”\n\nDu Moulin’s dark, piercing eyes flicked over the still-naked girl and a faint smile crossed his thin lips. “I see you’ve managed to find consolation in the absence of the elfess.”\n\nTheuderic forced himself to smile. It was hardly a surprise that the king’s master of spies knew about his previous attachment. He bowed again.\n\n“I am but the humble stud-horse of His Majesty. De bon valoir servir le roi.”\n\n“Your keen sense of duty commends you.” Du Moulin glanced again at the girl, who was unsuccessfully attempting to don her shift, smooth it out, run her hands through her hair, and curtsy, all at the same time. “Deceptae dabunt odorem. I apologize for the interruption, mademoiselle, and pray that our dutiful servant of the king has gifted you with a child of stupendous talent. I fear I must claim him for labors rather less delightful, though no less arduous.”\n\n“Monseigneur!” she breathed, eyes wide with awe of the man who could so readily command a king’s mage. Her ankles weren’t bad, Theuderic reflected thoughtfully, despite the legs being lamentably short.\n\n“Come, de Merovech. We have much to discuss and too many ears abound in this place. I shall await you outside.” Du Moulin turned and stalked silently from the room, leaving the door open behind him.\n\nTheuderic sighed and bent down to collect his sandals. He slipped them on and blew a kiss to the girl.\n\n“Will you return, mon seigneur?”\n\n“As the king wills it, mademoiselle.”\n\nIf the fates were generous, he would be back in her embrace tonight. Of course, if they ran according to the form he’d come to expect over the years, she’d bear his brat, and, most likely, another man’s, before he saw her again.\n", "completion": "His duty to King and country accomplished, Theuderic lay back on the feather-stuffed pillow and exhaled deeply. He eyed the girl with whom he’d been sporting, mildly surprised at the enthusiasm she’d shown. She wasn’t unattractive, merely younger, plumper, and more innocent than he tended to prefer when left to his own devices. He had no idea how old she was, but her breasts weren’t even proper woman’s breasts, they were still the soft girlish cones that defied gravity with the easy impunity of youth. He observed her birth was neither noble nor peasant; she had the round, ruddy cheeks and ready smile of a shopkeeper’s daughter.\n\nA healthy girl with healthy appetites. He had suffered worse injuries to his dignity in the service of Louis-Charles, the fourteenth of his name. But there was something intrinsically absurd about a nobleman and a battlemage being put out to stud like a prized warhorse.\n\nHe shrugged philosophically. Despite the ridiculous position in which the royal policy put him and the other mages, he couldn’t reasonably complain. It was a sensible policy, and indeed, in light of last year’s losses suffered by l’Académie, an increasingly necessary one too. After losing no less than six experienced mages, four of them Immortels, in Narcisse de Segraise’s failed attempt to ensorcel a dragon, the king would have put every maid in the kingdom to his mages’ swords if he believed the Church and the petty aristocracy would stand for it.\n\n“I trust you took no great harm,” he told the girl.\n\n“None in the slightest, monseigneur magus,” she said, looking rather like a well-fed cat in cream. She rubbed her belly complacently.\n\nThe slight emphasis she placed on his title informed him that the sparkle in her brown eyes had rather less to do with his masculine charms than her own ambitions. A clever shopkeeper’s daughter then. She wasn’t one of those misfortunates who would moan and bewail her fate for years, but rather, the sort of girl who produced the requisite pair of king’s bastards before her eighteenth birthday, then triumphantly settled into a marriage well above her natural station.\n\nHe grinned. He liked survivors. She might be no more than a brood mare, but she was a worthy one. And moreover, he reflected with amusement, an eager young mare with a not entirely unsatisfactory ride. Feeling the vague stirrings of desire, he was just about to reach for her again when there was a series of three sharp knocks on the door.\n\nNever mind that. He threw her a rumpled blanket to cover herself and rolled off the bed.\n\n“Who is it?” he called as he slipped a blue robe over his head.\n\n“Leave off the trollop and open the damned door, de Merovech,” he heard an acerbic voice call. He recognized it immediately. Besides the king, there were only two men in the entire Kingdom of Savondir who would dare to address a royal battlemage in such a dismissive manner, and the voice was too high-pitched to belong to the king’s heir, the Duc de Chênevin.\n\n“Dress yourself,” he hissed at the girl. What was her name? He didn’t recall.\n\n“Mon seigneur!” she squeaked obediently, frightened at his tone, and began fumbling about the bed looking for the cotton shift she’d been wearing.\n\nTheuderic didn’t wait for the girl to cover herself. François du Moulin was not a man who brooked delay for any such petty niceties. He opened the door and bowed respectfully to the king’s chancelier, who was dressed inconspicuously in a nondescript brown cloak and a wide-brimmed hat that concealed his face in shadow.\n\n“Monseigneur.” He assumed du Moulin did not wish to be openly identified and omitted the other’s title. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure.”\n\nDu Moulin’s dark, piercing eyes flicked over the still-naked girl and a faint smile crossed his thin lips. “I see you’ve managed to find consolation in the absence of the elfess.”\n\nTheuderic forced himself to smile. It was hardly a surprise that the king’s master of spies knew about his previous attachment. He bowed again.\n\n“I am but the humble stud-horse of His Majesty. De bon valoir servir le roi.”\n\n“Your keen sense of duty commends you.” Du Moulin glanced again at the girl, who was unsuccessfully attempting to don her shift, smooth it out, run her hands through her hair, and curtsy, all at the same time. “Deceptae dabunt odorem. I apologize for the interruption, mademoiselle, and pray that our dutiful servant of the king has gifted you with a child of stupendous talent. I fear I must claim him for labors rather less delightful, though no less arduous.”\n\n“Monseigneur!” she breathed, eyes wide with awe of the man who could so readily command a king’s mage. Her ankles weren’t bad, Theuderic reflected thoughtfully, despite the legs being lamentably short.\n\n“Come, de Merovech. We have much to discuss and too many ears abound in this place. I shall await you outside.” Du Moulin turned and stalked silently from the room, leaving the door open behind him.\n\nTheuderic sighed and bent down to collect his sandals. He slipped them on and blew a kiss to the girl.\n\n“Will you return, mon seigneur?”\n\n“As the king wills it, mademoiselle.”\n\nIf the fates were generous, he would be back in her embrace tonight. Of course, if they ran according to the form he’d come to expect over the years, she’d bear his brat, and, most likely, another man’s, before he saw her again.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 954, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch02_theuderic-P2", "chapter": "ch02_theuderic", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHaut Conseil — high council; keep both words capitalized.\nJacque-Rene D’Arseille — Grandmagicien; keep the spelling.\nGrandmagicien — academy head title; one word, capital G.\nbibliothèque — library on the quad; accent as written.\nÉcarlatean — adjective for the Grand Duchy faction; accent as written.\nComtesse de Domdidier / Roheis Desmargoteau / Lady Roheis — same woman; keep each form as used.\nSaint-Agliè — comte’s name; accent as written.\nÉtienne-Henri — Duc de Chênevin’s personal name; accents as written.\nCharles-Phillippe — the dead Red Prince; hyphenated as written.\nlèse-majesté — keep the accents and hyphen.\nGuilhem Donzeau — the Duc’s wizard; not Guillaume.\nde Beaumille — elderly royal general; keep the spelling.\nGrand Duc — title for the Écarlatean magnate; two words.\n\n### STORY\nTheuderic finishes stud duty at l’Académie; François du Moulin interrupts, needles him about the absent elfess, and takes him outside for private talk.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nAlive, in blue robe and sandals on the academy grounds with du Moulin. Écarlatean nobility; acquainted with Roheis, not her lover. Still grieving Charles-Phillippe; cannot easily speak the Red Prince’s name. Loyal to the king in the motto he recites; privately refuses to hand du Moulin a weapon. Suspects the chancelier of a deadly game around crown and duchy.\n\nFrançois du Moulin\nAlive, proprietary on the quad. Probing Theuderic’s loyalties, Roheis, Saint-Agliè, and whether crown or duchy comes first. Has cleared Étienne-Henri of the Red Prince’s death. Wants Theuderic inside Chênevin’s circle as counterweight to Guilhem Donzeau; reveals the king will give the heir command against the orc incursion.\n\nRoheis Desmargoteau\nComtesse de Domdidier; rich widow, late prince’s paramour, Écarlatean, near the heart of Grand Duchy unrest. Not present. Inseparable of late with Saint-Agliè. Theuderic will not claim to have been her lover.\n\nÉtienne-Henri\nDuc de Chênevin; now a step from the throne. Not present. Cleared of his brother’s death. Surrounded by unreliables except Donzeau; hated Charles-Phillippe.\n\nCharles-Phillippe\nThe Red Prince; deceased. Present only in memory and grief. Died by misfortunes of war on the Wolf Isles / that campaign, not by his brother’s hand.\n\nGuilhem Donzeau\nSaid to be the Duc’s wizard; no academy archive record. Not present. The exception among Chênevin’s thugs and fools.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Dress yourself,” he hissed at the girl. What was her name? He didn’t recall.\n\n“Mon seigneur!” she squeaked obediently, frightened at his tone, and began fumbling about the bed looking for the cotton shift she’d been wearing.\n\nTheuderic didn’t wait for the girl to cover herself. François du Moulin was not a man who brooked delay for any such petty niceties. He opened the door and bowed respectfully to the king’s chancelier, who was dressed inconspicuously in a nondescript brown cloak and a wide-brimmed hat that concealed his face in shadow.\n\n“Monseigneur.” He assumed du Moulin did not wish to be openly identified and omitted the other’s title. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure.”\n\nDu Moulin’s dark, piercing eyes flicked over the still-naked girl and a faint smile crossed his thin lips. “I see you’ve managed to find consolation in the absence of the elfess.”\n\nTheuderic forced himself to smile. It was hardly a surprise that the king’s master of spies knew about his previous attachment. He bowed again.\n\n“I am but the humble stud-horse of His Majesty. De bon valoir servir le roi.”\n\n“Your keen sense of duty commends you.” Du Moulin glanced again at the girl, who was unsuccessfully attempting to don her shift, smooth it out, run her hands through her hair, and curtsy, all at the same time. “Deceptae dabunt odorem. I apologize for the interruption, mademoiselle, and pray that our dutiful servant of the king has gifted you with a child of stupendous talent. I fear I must claim him for labors rather less delightful, though no less arduous.”\n\n“Monseigneur!” she breathed, eyes wide with awe of the man who could so readily command a king’s mage. Her ankles weren’t bad, Theuderic reflected thoughtfully, despite the legs being lamentably short.\n\n“Come, de Merovech. We have much to discuss and too many ears abound in this place. I shall await you outside.” Du Moulin turned and stalked silently from the room, leaving the door open behind him.\n\nTheuderic sighed and bent down to collect his sandals. He slipped them on and blew a kiss to the girl.\n\n“Will you return, mon seigneur?”\n\n“As the king wills it, mademoiselle.”\n\nIf the fates were generous, he would be back in her embrace tonight. Of course, if they ran according to the form he’d come to expect over the years, she’d bear his brat, and, most likely, another man’s, before he saw her again.\n\n### NOTES\nOutside on l’Académie grounds by the bibliothèque quad; young mages hurl spark-balls; maids watch.\nDu Moulin has read Theuderic’s brief to the Comte de Ilyois and noted the omitted Amorran general’s similar elf-attachment.\nOrc incursion threatens the southeast; de Beaumille is too old and the Grand Duc too busy for the command.\nDay, continuing from the bedchamber interruption.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nOn the quad du Moulin declines any trade of Haut Conseil seats, needles him about the bony elf girl, and notes the silence in his brief about the Amorran general’s similar attachment. Loyalty talk turns to Écarlatean blood, Roheis, and Saint-Agliè; Theuderic will not call himself her lover and answers crown-or-duchy with his motto about serving the king. He sees the game: du Moulin is not asking about Étienne-Henri’s guilt for Charles-Phillippe — the chancelier clears the Duc — but about something deadlier. Rage at the Red Prince’s idiotic death boils up; du Moulin reminds him Blancas and de Foix could not have saved the war-mad prince either, and that du Moulin himself kept Theuderic across the White Sea that day.\n\nThen the ask: not to spy on the heir in so many words, but to become the trusted counterweight to Guilhem Donzeau while the king gives Chênevin the orc war to win his spurs. Theuderic blinks at the absurdity — a matron chasing mage-lads off the maids looks more fit to command — and the scene holds on that astonishment.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1700 words. Court register, menace under courtesy; land on his astonishment at the war command, before he asks if the king is mad.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Du Moulin was outside, looking over the academy grounds in what could only be considered a proprietary manner. Six young mages-in-training were chasing each other back and forth on the grassy quad in front of the bibliothèque, hurling harmless balls of sparks at each other. A pair of maids watched them, giggling and pointing.\n\n“Do you contemplate exchanging seats on the Haut Conseil, Chancelier?”\n\n“I imagine D’Arseille would find the notion amenable,” du Moulin said. Jacque-Rene D’Arseille, Grandmagicien of l’Académie des Sage Arts, was a man whose ambitions were not limited to the magical arts. “Nevertheless, as important as His Majesty’s breeding program may be to the realm, I suspect my abilities are more wisely focused elsewhere.”\n\n“Alas for the talent-blessed mademoiselles. How fortunate that mine are so well-suited to them.”\n\n“You don’t miss your elf girl? She was a rare beauty.”\n\n“She was bony.” Theuderic shrugged dismissively, if deceitfully. He knew du Moulin far too well to give him anything the man might one day use as a weapon against him. “And, more to the point, she is not here.”\n\n“I read the report of your brief. I couldn’t help but notice that you said nothing about the young Amorran general’s similar attachment when you gave it to the Comte de Ilyois. Was it because you thought it might draw unwanted attention to your own?”\n\nTheuderic didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking. He was a head taller than the other man, nearly three decades younger, a battlemage and a combat veteran. He had slain more men than he could count with earth, wind, fire, and steel, whereas du Moulin had probably never once stained his soft, long-fingered hands with anything more than ink. And yet, there was something quietly powerful and frightening about the king’s elderly conseiller that had nothing to do with his ready access to the throne.\n\n“Do you doubt my loyalties, monseigneur Chancelier?”\n\n“I harbor no doubts about them at all.” Du Moulin tore his eyes away from the young mages and glanced up at Theuderic. “I am fully aware of how your loyalties are divided. You are of the Écarlatean nobility, are you not? And you are close to the widow of the Duc d’Aubonne, the Comtesse de Domdidier, as well.”\n\n“I am acquainted with the lady.” Dear God, what idiocy has Roheis been dabbling in now? “One might even go so far as to say well-acquainted.”\n\n“Might one? Might one also say you were lovers? Speak truthfully now. This is no time for reticence, de Merovech, even on so delicate a matter.”\n\n“I am afraid not. The Lady Roheis is among the most charming in the realm, to be sure, but regrettably, I have never had the pleasure.”\n\nDu Moulin sniffed. “You disappoint me. That would have been most useful. I suppose… no, at this point, an unexpected romantic pursuit would appear to be suspicious.”\n\n“You would have me seduce Roheis Desmargoteau?” Theuderic said disbelievingly. “As well ask me to teach a bird to sing, or a fox to hunt!”\n\n“She is the rich widow of a powerful man, she was a paramour of the late prince, and she is known to have a considerable number of questionable acquaintances. Moreover, she is a dyed-in-the-wool Écarlatean. There are growing noises of instability in the Grand Duchy, and she is, at the very least, near the heart of it. What do you know of Saint-Agliè?”\n\n“The comte? Little enough. I have met him, of course. A diffident man. Not without charm, but one to keep his own counsel. He seems to have made a strong impression on the Lady Roheis.”\n\n“Indeed,” du Moulin said, looking thoughtful. “They have been all but inseparable of late. De Merovech, if I were to ask you to choose between crown and duchy, what would you say?”\n\nDid the man take him for a fool? Even if he had been a traitor to the crown, he was hardly fool enough to declare himself one to the most dangerous member of the Haut Conseil. “I should say what I said earlier, Seigneur Chancelier. One might even go so far as to call it my motto. De bon valoir servir le roi!”\n\n“I thought as much,” du Moulin sighed wearily. “I ask you about the crown, you answer with the king. So it is with many whose natural loyalties are less divided than your own these days.”\n\nRealization struck him. He thought he understood why the Chancelier had come here, had come to him. If he was correct, then it was a very deadly and dangerous game du Moulin was playing. To conceal his emotions, Theuderic looked back at the young mages still playing their game on the grass, although one had now separated himself from the others. He was standing over the two maids and juggling three balls of red-golden flames in an attempt to entertain them. Or, to put it more precisely, impress them.\n\nIn such small and seemingly simple acts are the destinies of kingdoms made and unmade, he thought.\n\n“Has Étienne-Henri been implicated in his brother’s death?” He still could not bring himself to speak Charles-Phillippe’s name, so great was his grief. “Some have suspicions of him.”\n\n“No.” Du Moulin’s voice was decisive. “Much to my own surprise, that is one act that cannot be laid at the Duc de Chênevin’s door. The Red Prince’s death has been investigated thoroughly. It was the misfortunes of war, nothing more.”\n\n“It was the sheerest and most deplorable idiocy!” For a moment, Theuderic forgot to whom he spoke and his rage, suppressed for months, momentarily boiled over.\n\nDu Moulin shook his head sympathetically. “You could not have saved him even had you been there. Do not torture yourself, de Merovech. The prince had Blancas and de Foix with him and neither are incompetents. You were there that day, at the meeting of the Haut Conseil. His Majesty could have no more kept Charles-Phillippe away from the Wolf Isles than he did from Montrove. Once the prince caught the scent of battle, he was drawn to it like a hound after a rabbit.”\n\nTheuderic couldn’t argue. He had fought too many times at Charles-Phillippe’s side to deny that the Red Prince had been cursed with a love for war that bordered on the fey. Nor was it entirely a surprise that he had been cut down by that curse before succeeding his father. But to have been leagues away, to have been on the wrong side of the White Sea when his friend fell, was almost more than he could bear to contemplate or endure. And, more than any other man, du Moulin had been responsible for that absence.\n\nThe two men stared at each other. Theuderic was the first to look away. He cursed under his breath and glared again at the chancelier.\n\n“Why do you wish me to spy on Étienne-Henri if he was not culpable? He is now but a step from the throne. Surely you do not think him so impatient as to plot against his father when his brother’s corpse is barely cold! Or so foolish!”\n\n“You mistake me. I do not wish you to spy upon to the heir to the throne. That would be unthinkable, you understand, and would surely be accounted a deplorable crime of lèse-majesté. I merely wish for you to become a trusted advisor to him, a valued tool upon which he will learn to rely. The men with whom he has surrounded himself are mostly unreliable non-entities, thugs and clowns and fools, with one notable exception. I wish you to provide the counterbalance to that exception.”\n\n“Does this notable exception have a name?” He must be formidable, Theuderic thought, to render the thugs and fools of no concern.\n\n“Guilhem Donzeau. By all accounts a dangerous man. It is said he is the Duc’s wizard, although I found no record of him in the archives here.”\n\n“A hedge wizard.” Theuderic dismissed the man as a potential threat. “You couldn’t have sent a clerk to tell me this?”\n\n“I couldn’t have trusted a clerk. Nor would you have obeyed my summons with the alacrity I require had I sent one.”\n\nTheuderic shrugged. Du Moulin wasn’t incorrect. Being ordered to attach himself to the cowardly de Chênevin’s entourage was hardly the sort of thing to inspire a man to precipitate action.\n\n“What am I to do? Why do you expect the duc to welcome a known friend of his brother’s into his pack of unreliables? He hated Charles!”\n\n“Welcome you? I expect him to embrace you in much the same way a drowning man clings to a rope!” Du Moulin chuckled unexpectedly. “He will welcome you, my dear mage, because the king is going to give him the chance to win his spurs. De Beaumille is too old and the Grand Duc is too busy deciding when is the right moment to rebel against the crown for either of them to be given the honor of commanding the royal forces against the orc incursion.”\n\nAs Theuderic blinked in astonishment, rapid movement to his right caught his eye. One of the matrons charged with overseeing the young maids had descended upon them and was now gesturing angrily at the juggler. The two girls were giggling as they gathered up their skirts and obediently returned to their dormitory. He shook his head. The king might as reasonably give command of the royal forces to that matron as to his newly acquired heir. In fact, based on how effectively she was chasing off the lads, the woman would probably prove more effective.\n", "completion": "Du Moulin was outside, looking over the academy grounds in what could only be considered a proprietary manner. Six young mages-in-training were chasing each other back and forth on the grassy quad in front of the bibliothèque, hurling harmless balls of sparks at each other. A pair of maids watched them, giggling and pointing.\n\n“Do you contemplate exchanging seats on the Haut Conseil, Chancelier?”\n\n“I imagine D’Arseille would find the notion amenable,” du Moulin said. Jacque-Rene D’Arseille, Grandmagicien of l’Académie des Sage Arts, was a man whose ambitions were not limited to the magical arts. “Nevertheless, as important as His Majesty’s breeding program may be to the realm, I suspect my abilities are more wisely focused elsewhere.”\n\n“Alas for the talent-blessed mademoiselles. How fortunate that mine are so well-suited to them.”\n\n“You don’t miss your elf girl? She was a rare beauty.”\n\n“She was bony.” Theuderic shrugged dismissively, if deceitfully. He knew du Moulin far too well to give him anything the man might one day use as a weapon against him. “And, more to the point, she is not here.”\n\n“I read the report of your brief. I couldn’t help but notice that you said nothing about the young Amorran general’s similar attachment when you gave it to the Comte de Ilyois. Was it because you thought it might draw unwanted attention to your own?”\n\nTheuderic didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking. He was a head taller than the other man, nearly three decades younger, a battlemage and a combat veteran. He had slain more men than he could count with earth, wind, fire, and steel, whereas du Moulin had probably never once stained his soft, long-fingered hands with anything more than ink. And yet, there was something quietly powerful and frightening about the king’s elderly conseiller that had nothing to do with his ready access to the throne.\n\n“Do you doubt my loyalties, monseigneur Chancelier?”\n\n“I harbor no doubts about them at all.” Du Moulin tore his eyes away from the young mages and glanced up at Theuderic. “I am fully aware of how your loyalties are divided. You are of the Écarlatean nobility, are you not? And you are close to the widow of the Duc d’Aubonne, the Comtesse de Domdidier, as well.”\n\n“I am acquainted with the lady.” Dear God, what idiocy has Roheis been dabbling in now? “One might even go so far as to say well-acquainted.”\n\n“Might one? Might one also say you were lovers? Speak truthfully now. This is no time for reticence, de Merovech, even on so delicate a matter.”\n\n“I am afraid not. The Lady Roheis is among the most charming in the realm, to be sure, but regrettably, I have never had the pleasure.”\n\nDu Moulin sniffed. “You disappoint me. That would have been most useful. I suppose… no, at this point, an unexpected romantic pursuit would appear to be suspicious.”\n\n“You would have me seduce Roheis Desmargoteau?” Theuderic said disbelievingly. “As well ask me to teach a bird to sing, or a fox to hunt!”\n\n“She is the rich widow of a powerful man, she was a paramour of the late prince, and she is known to have a considerable number of questionable acquaintances. Moreover, she is a dyed-in-the-wool Écarlatean. There are growing noises of instability in the Grand Duchy, and she is, at the very least, near the heart of it. What do you know of Saint-Agliè?”\n\n“The comte? Little enough. I have met him, of course. A diffident man. Not without charm, but one to keep his own counsel. He seems to have made a strong impression on the Lady Roheis.”\n\n“Indeed,” du Moulin said, looking thoughtful. “They have been all but inseparable of late. De Merovech, if I were to ask you to choose between crown and duchy, what would you say?”\n\nDid the man take him for a fool? Even if he had been a traitor to the crown, he was hardly fool enough to declare himself one to the most dangerous member of the Haut Conseil. “I should say what I said earlier, Seigneur Chancelier. One might even go so far as to call it my motto. De bon valoir servir le roi!”\n\n“I thought as much,” du Moulin sighed wearily. “I ask you about the crown, you answer with the king. So it is with many whose natural loyalties are less divided than your own these days.”\n\nRealization struck him. He thought he understood why the Chancelier had come here, had come to him. If he was correct, then it was a very deadly and dangerous game du Moulin was playing. To conceal his emotions, Theuderic looked back at the young mages still playing their game on the grass, although one had now separated himself from the others. He was standing over the two maids and juggling three balls of red-golden flames in an attempt to entertain them. Or, to put it more precisely, impress them.\n\nIn such small and seemingly simple acts are the destinies of kingdoms made and unmade, he thought.\n\n“Has Étienne-Henri been implicated in his brother’s death?” He still could not bring himself to speak Charles-Phillippe’s name, so great was his grief. “Some have suspicions of him.”\n\n“No.” Du Moulin’s voice was decisive. “Much to my own surprise, that is one act that cannot be laid at the Duc de Chênevin’s door. The Red Prince’s death has been investigated thoroughly. It was the misfortunes of war, nothing more.”\n\n“It was the sheerest and most deplorable idiocy!” For a moment, Theuderic forgot to whom he spoke and his rage, suppressed for months, momentarily boiled over.\n\nDu Moulin shook his head sympathetically. “You could not have saved him even had you been there. Do not torture yourself, de Merovech. The prince had Blancas and de Foix with him and neither are incompetents. You were there that day, at the meeting of the Haut Conseil. His Majesty could have no more kept Charles-Phillippe away from the Wolf Isles than he did from Montrove. Once the prince caught the scent of battle, he was drawn to it like a hound after a rabbit.”\n\nTheuderic couldn’t argue. He had fought too many times at Charles-Phillippe’s side to deny that the Red Prince had been cursed with a love for war that bordered on the fey. Nor was it entirely a surprise that he had been cut down by that curse before succeeding his father. But to have been leagues away, to have been on the wrong side of the White Sea when his friend fell, was almost more than he could bear to contemplate or endure. And, more than any other man, du Moulin had been responsible for that absence.\n\nThe two men stared at each other. Theuderic was the first to look away. He cursed under his breath and glared again at the chancelier.\n\n“Why do you wish me to spy on Étienne-Henri if he was not culpable? He is now but a step from the throne. Surely you do not think him so impatient as to plot against his father when his brother’s corpse is barely cold! Or so foolish!”\n\n“You mistake me. I do not wish you to spy upon to the heir to the throne. That would be unthinkable, you understand, and would surely be accounted a deplorable crime of lèse-majesté. I merely wish for you to become a trusted advisor to him, a valued tool upon which he will learn to rely. The men with whom he has surrounded himself are mostly unreliable non-entities, thugs and clowns and fools, with one notable exception. I wish you to provide the counterbalance to that exception.”\n\n“Does this notable exception have a name?” He must be formidable, Theuderic thought, to render the thugs and fools of no concern.\n\n“Guilhem Donzeau. By all accounts a dangerous man. It is said he is the Duc’s wizard, although I found no record of him in the archives here.”\n\n“A hedge wizard.” Theuderic dismissed the man as a potential threat. “You couldn’t have sent a clerk to tell me this?”\n\n“I couldn’t have trusted a clerk. Nor would you have obeyed my summons with the alacrity I require had I sent one.”\n\nTheuderic shrugged. Du Moulin wasn’t incorrect. Being ordered to attach himself to the cowardly de Chênevin’s entourage was hardly the sort of thing to inspire a man to precipitate action.\n\n“What am I to do? Why do you expect the duc to welcome a known friend of his brother’s into his pack of unreliables? He hated Charles!”\n\n“Welcome you? I expect him to embrace you in much the same way a drowning man clings to a rope!” Du Moulin chuckled unexpectedly. “He will welcome you, my dear mage, because the king is going to give him the chance to win his spurs. De Beaumille is too old and the Grand Duc is too busy deciding when is the right moment to rebel against the crown for either of them to be given the honor of commanding the royal forces against the orc incursion.”\n\nAs Theuderic blinked in astonishment, rapid movement to his right caught his eye. One of the matrons charged with overseeing the young maids had descended upon them and was now gesturing angrily at the juggler. The two girls were giggling as they gathered up their skirts and obediently returned to their dormitory. He shook his head. The king might as reasonably give command of the royal forces to that matron as to his newly acquired heir. In fact, based on how effectively she was chasing off the lads, the woman would probably prove more effective.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1649, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch02_theuderic-P3", "chapter": "ch02_theuderic", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nLutèce — capital; accent as written.\nMerithaim — elven realm he might flee to; keep the spelling.\nLithriel — the elf lady of his past rescue; keep the spelling.\nMalkan — place tied to her rescue; keep the spelling.\nraised to the blue — new battlemage status; keep the idiom.\nconseil — the prince’s council; lowercase as used.\n\n### STORY\nTheuderic finishes stud duty at l’Académie; François du Moulin interrupts, needles him about the absent elfess, and takes him outside for private talk.\n\nOn the quad the chancelier probes Écarlatean loyalties and Roheis, clears Étienne-Henri of the Red Prince’s death, and orders Theuderic into Chênevin’s circle as counterweight to Donzeau because the king will give the heir the orc war; Theuderic is left astonished.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nAlive, still with du Moulin on the empty quad. Has understood he may be the royal knife if Chênevin fails; fears the chancelier more than orcs or princes. Will serve; wants assurance the blade is not discarded after use. Departs on the morrow with credentials and a planted “secret” scroll.\n\nFrançois du Moulin\nAlive; speaking as the hand of the king. Hopes Chênevin rises; will not admit aloud to contingency murder. Offers flattery about Theuderic’s bloodline, credentials for four young blue-robes, and false secret orders meant to be found so the suspicious Duc thinks he knows Theuderic’s purpose.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“You mistake me. I do not wish you to spy upon to the heir to the throne. That would be unthinkable, you understand, and would surely be accounted a deplorable crime of lèse-majesté. I merely wish for you to become a trusted advisor to him, a valued tool upon which he will learn to rely. The men with whom he has surrounded himself are mostly unreliable non-entities, thugs and clowns and fools, with one notable exception. I wish you to provide the counterbalance to that exception.”\n\n“Does this notable exception have a name?” He must be formidable, Theuderic thought, to render the thugs and fools of no concern.\n\n“Guilhem Donzeau. By all accounts a dangerous man. It is said he is the Duc’s wizard, although I found no record of him in the archives here.”\n\n“A hedge wizard.” Theuderic dismissed the man as a potential threat. “You couldn’t have sent a clerk to tell me this?”\n\n“I couldn’t have trusted a clerk. Nor would you have obeyed my summons with the alacrity I require had I sent one.”\n\nTheuderic shrugged. Du Moulin wasn’t incorrect. Being ordered to attach himself to the cowardly de Chênevin’s entourage was hardly the sort of thing to inspire a man to precipitate action.\n\n“What am I to do? Why do you expect the duc to welcome a known friend of his brother’s into his pack of unreliables? He hated Charles!”\n\n“Welcome you? I expect him to embrace you in much the same way a drowning man clings to a rope!” Du Moulin chuckled unexpectedly. “He will welcome you, my dear mage, because the king is going to give him the chance to win his spurs. De Beaumille is too old and the Grand Duc is too busy deciding when is the right moment to rebel against the crown for either of them to be given the honor of commanding the royal forces against the orc incursion.”\n\nAs Theuderic blinked in astonishment, rapid movement to his right caught his eye. One of the matrons charged with overseeing the young maids had descended upon them and was now gesturing angrily at the juggler. The two girls were giggling as they gathered up their skirts and obediently returned to their dormitory. He shook his head. The king might as reasonably give command of the royal forces to that matron as to his newly acquired heir. In fact, based on how effectively she was chasing off the lads, the woman would probably prove more effective.\n\n### NOTES\nSame academy quad; the mages and maids are gone.\nCredentials sealed in academy blue wax under the Grandmagicien’s seal.\nDeparture on the morrow; du Moulin returns to Lutèce to inform Étienne-Henri.\nFour young battlemages will answer to Theuderic in the prince’s train.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nHe asks if His Majesty is mad; du Moulin says not — Chênevin’s shortcomings will be rectified before any formal crowning as heir. Theuderic reads the rest: he is to advise, and if need be be the knife. He asks what assurance the blade has against being discarded; du Moulin wraps himself in kingsmage oaths and empty deniability, warns him of Donzeau and of dying under ten thousand orcs if the prince’s generalship is folly. Theuderic pretends reassurance and fears the spider.\n\nHe accepts service even unto bitter ends. Du Moulin tells him to leave tomorrow after finishing the breeding work, hands him a thick credentials scroll for himself and four new blues, and a thinner scroll of fake secret orders to hide where Chênevin will find it and relax. Treat the Duc as a man who only wants admirable men’s approval, doled out as Charles-Phillippe’s proxy. Theuderic asks bitterly if that will do any good; du Moulin tells him to see that it does.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1550 words. Keep the fear inward and the dialogue courtly; land on du Moulin’s final command.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Is His Majesty mad with grief?”\n\n“Not in the slightest. His Majesty is well aware of the martial shortcomings of his present heir-apparent as well as his son’s distaste for taking counsel. Those shortcomings must be rectified, in fact, I can say that they will be rectified, before His Majesty will permit the Duc de Chênevin to be formally crowned and recognized as his heir.”\n\nAh, so his first instinct had been correct after all! Except du Moulin was not intriguing against the king, he was, rather, the hand of the king. And Theuderic realized that he himself was to be, if necessary, the royal knife in the back that would keep an unworthy successor from the throne. His eyes must have betrayed something of his understanding, because du Moulin was quick to clarify the matter as much as he dared aloud.\n\n“Don’t assume too much, de Merovech. It is sincerely hoped that Chênevin will rise to the occasion. And it is expected that the mage who stood so steadfastly at the side of the Red Prince will do no less for his brother. I have no doubt you will be able to advise Étienne-Henri well. We may even hope that he will see fit to lend an ear to a man with your considerable experience in battle.”\n\nTheuderic wasn’t fooled. Of course he would advise the prince to the best of his ability. It was his sworn duty, and in any event, only a lunatic would seek to find an advantage in permitting a savage army of orcs to ravage the southeastern portion of the kingdom. Even the most rabid supporter of the Grand Duc and his incipient bid for Écarlatean independence would not dream of drawing swords against the Miridines until the orcs were driven back to their mountainous wastelands. But he knew du Moulin, he had killed more than a handful of men at the chancelier’s command, and he was certain du Moulin would not hesitate to order him to arrange the prince’s death if it was deemed to be in the interest of the realm.\n\n“I’m not concerned whether he will listen to me or not, monseigneur chancelier. My fear is not for the corpse, but for the blade. What assurances will you give it that once used, it will not be discarded?”\n\nDu Moulin was silent for a moment, and he looked out over the now-empty quad. “I was under the impression that as both kingsmage and vassal, you swore to serve His Majesty even unto death. I should imagine that no matter what sacrifice was deemed vital to the crown, you would not hesitate to make it!”\n\n“You have a powerful imagination, mon seigneur.” They locked eyes again and this time Theuderic didn’t look away. “If you trust me to hold my tongue now, why would you doubt my ability to do so at any point in the future?”\n\n“Hold your tongue now? Concerning what? I have told you nothing you could not repeat before the entire court.” Du Moulin affected mild surprise. “Your inferences and interpretations are your own, monsieur magus. Nevertheless, you need not worry about the proverbial knife in the back, at least, not mine. You may recall I am not in the habit of throwing away useful men. Guilhem Donzeau, on the other hand, should be watched closely if ever he comes to see you as his rival in the prince’s confidence. But if you would fear something, fear the prince’s generalship, for I intend you to be at his side. If you cannot talk sense into him, you may one day soon find yourself surrounded by ten thousand orcs bent upon your destruction. In such an event, there would be nothing I could do to save you.”\n\nTheuderic nodded, pretending to be reassured. But I do not fear orcs or charlatans, or even the foolishness of princes, monseigneur le Chancelier. I fear you, spider. I may be a dagger in your hand, but I know full well there are others. And I know how readily you will cast a bloody blade aside, lest it stain your lily-white hands.\n\n“I am, as you have so graciously reminded me, at the king’s service in all things, even unto the most bitter of ends. When would you have me depart and where shall I go? Is Étienne-Henri even aware of the duty that has befallen him yet?”\n\n“He is not, but he will be upon my return to Lutèce. I would have you depart upon the morrow; that should give you the opportunity to be sure that your seed is well and truly sown.”\n\n“You are too kind.”\n\nDu Moulin acknowledged his sarcasm with a ghost of a smile and a brief inclination of his head. “Do not the priests tell us not to bind the mouths of the kine? And in truth, the loss of your bloodline would be a loss to the kingdom.”\n\nThe words cost the chancelier nothing, Theuderic knew. And yet, even so small a gesture, so casual a compliment, reassured him in a way du Moulin’s earlier assurances had not. Not that du Moulin wouldn’t kill him if his death was determined to be necessary; if the ruthless chancelier was willing to murder the king’s heir apparent, he would not shirk at a mere comte and kingsmage. But the chancelier had made it clear that he would only do so if it was absolutely necessary, and Theuderic was determined to ensure that would never be the case.\n\nIn any event, forewarned was forearmed. If worst came to worst, and it began to look as if he’d been chosen to play the scapegoat, he could always flee to Merithaim. Although, he reflected, du Moulin would almost certainly give him a quicker and more painless death than the lady Lithriel, should she ever learn the whole truth about her rescue from Malkan.\n\nDu Moulin produced a pair of sealed scrolls that had been secreted in his tunic. The wax was the blue one that Theuderic recognized as belonging to l’Académie and the seal was the Grandmagicien’s own. He handed them to Theuderic; one was thicker than the other.\n\n“The larger one is your credentials, as well as those belonging to the four mages who will accompany you. Give it to the prince when you are brought before him. They will all be young men, recently raised to the blue, and answerable to you as their superior. I told D’Arseille I wanted the best he had, so I expect you’ll find them useful on the battlefield. They should suffice to give you a status that Donzeau cannot contest and ensure you a place in the prince’s conseil.”\n\nTheuderic nodded. Du Moulin’s plan was, unsurprisingly, well-conceived. Five battlemages was a military asset at which no general facing a larger army could afford to turn up his nose, no matter how suspicious he might be.\n\n“And the other?” He raised the smaller scroll.\n\n“Your secret orders from me to spy upon the prince and report upon his loyalty to his father. Open it once you have been accepted into his entourage and be sure to hide it where it will be found. But hide it well, don’t make it too obvious! Like all connivers, Chênevin is a suspicious man, and his mind won’t be at ease about you unless he is convinced he knows your purpose. This will suffice to convince him you are harmless. He is loyal enough. As far as he is concerned, he has only to wait and the throne will be his.”\n\n“His brother was less convinced of Étienne-Henri’s patience.”\n\n“His brother, and his brother’s heirs, stood in his way.” Du Moulin sniffed contemptuously. “And I should not be surprised if this small taste of responsibility will be sufficient to inspire him to pray God grant his father a long and active life. It is one thing to desire a crown from afar, but the nearer one comes to it, the heavier it is seen to weigh. In any event, try not to despise him, Theuderic, no matter how much he merits it. All Chênevin truly seeks is approval from men he finds admirable. He’ll never get it from Charles-Phillippe now, so see that you dole it out to him slowly, even reluctantly, as his brother’s proxy, and soon you’ll acquire all the influence with him you require.”\n\n“Will that do any good?” Theuderic said bitterly. He found it hard to imagine.\n\n“See that it does,” du Moulin replied.\n", "completion": "“Is His Majesty mad with grief?”\n\n“Not in the slightest. His Majesty is well aware of the martial shortcomings of his present heir-apparent as well as his son’s distaste for taking counsel. Those shortcomings must be rectified, in fact, I can say that they will be rectified, before His Majesty will permit the Duc de Chênevin to be formally crowned and recognized as his heir.”\n\nAh, so his first instinct had been correct after all! Except du Moulin was not intriguing against the king, he was, rather, the hand of the king. And Theuderic realized that he himself was to be, if necessary, the royal knife in the back that would keep an unworthy successor from the throne. His eyes must have betrayed something of his understanding, because du Moulin was quick to clarify the matter as much as he dared aloud.\n\n“Don’t assume too much, de Merovech. It is sincerely hoped that Chênevin will rise to the occasion. And it is expected that the mage who stood so steadfastly at the side of the Red Prince will do no less for his brother. I have no doubt you will be able to advise Étienne-Henri well. We may even hope that he will see fit to lend an ear to a man with your considerable experience in battle.”\n\nTheuderic wasn’t fooled. Of course he would advise the prince to the best of his ability. It was his sworn duty, and in any event, only a lunatic would seek to find an advantage in permitting a savage army of orcs to ravage the southeastern portion of the kingdom. Even the most rabid supporter of the Grand Duc and his incipient bid for Écarlatean independence would not dream of drawing swords against the Miridines until the orcs were driven back to their mountainous wastelands. But he knew du Moulin, he had killed more than a handful of men at the chancelier’s command, and he was certain du Moulin would not hesitate to order him to arrange the prince’s death if it was deemed to be in the interest of the realm.\n\n“I’m not concerned whether he will listen to me or not, monseigneur chancelier. My fear is not for the corpse, but for the blade. What assurances will you give it that once used, it will not be discarded?”\n\nDu Moulin was silent for a moment, and he looked out over the now-empty quad. “I was under the impression that as both kingsmage and vassal, you swore to serve His Majesty even unto death. I should imagine that no matter what sacrifice was deemed vital to the crown, you would not hesitate to make it!”\n\n“You have a powerful imagination, mon seigneur.” They locked eyes again and this time Theuderic didn’t look away. “If you trust me to hold my tongue now, why would you doubt my ability to do so at any point in the future?”\n\n“Hold your tongue now? Concerning what? I have told you nothing you could not repeat before the entire court.” Du Moulin affected mild surprise. “Your inferences and interpretations are your own, monsieur magus. Nevertheless, you need not worry about the proverbial knife in the back, at least, not mine. You may recall I am not in the habit of throwing away useful men. Guilhem Donzeau, on the other hand, should be watched closely if ever he comes to see you as his rival in the prince’s confidence. But if you would fear something, fear the prince’s generalship, for I intend you to be at his side. If you cannot talk sense into him, you may one day soon find yourself surrounded by ten thousand orcs bent upon your destruction. In such an event, there would be nothing I could do to save you.”\n\nTheuderic nodded, pretending to be reassured. But I do not fear orcs or charlatans, or even the foolishness of princes, monseigneur le Chancelier. I fear you, spider. I may be a dagger in your hand, but I know full well there are others. And I know how readily you will cast a bloody blade aside, lest it stain your lily-white hands.\n\n“I am, as you have so graciously reminded me, at the king’s service in all things, even unto the most bitter of ends. When would you have me depart and where shall I go? Is Étienne-Henri even aware of the duty that has befallen him yet?”\n\n“He is not, but he will be upon my return to Lutèce. I would have you depart upon the morrow; that should give you the opportunity to be sure that your seed is well and truly sown.”\n\n“You are too kind.”\n\nDu Moulin acknowledged his sarcasm with a ghost of a smile and a brief inclination of his head. “Do not the priests tell us not to bind the mouths of the kine? And in truth, the loss of your bloodline would be a loss to the kingdom.”\n\nThe words cost the chancelier nothing, Theuderic knew. And yet, even so small a gesture, so casual a compliment, reassured him in a way du Moulin’s earlier assurances had not. Not that du Moulin wouldn’t kill him if his death was determined to be necessary; if the ruthless chancelier was willing to murder the king’s heir apparent, he would not shirk at a mere comte and kingsmage. But the chancelier had made it clear that he would only do so if it was absolutely necessary, and Theuderic was determined to ensure that would never be the case.\n\nIn any event, forewarned was forearmed. If worst came to worst, and it began to look as if he’d been chosen to play the scapegoat, he could always flee to Merithaim. Although, he reflected, du Moulin would almost certainly give him a quicker and more painless death than the lady Lithriel, should she ever learn the whole truth about her rescue from Malkan.\n\nDu Moulin produced a pair of sealed scrolls that had been secreted in his tunic. The wax was the blue one that Theuderic recognized as belonging to l’Académie and the seal was the Grandmagicien’s own. He handed them to Theuderic; one was thicker than the other.\n\n“The larger one is your credentials, as well as those belonging to the four mages who will accompany you. Give it to the prince when you are brought before him. They will all be young men, recently raised to the blue, and answerable to you as their superior. I told D’Arseille I wanted the best he had, so I expect you’ll find them useful on the battlefield. They should suffice to give you a status that Donzeau cannot contest and ensure you a place in the prince’s conseil.”\n\nTheuderic nodded. Du Moulin’s plan was, unsurprisingly, well-conceived. Five battlemages was a military asset at which no general facing a larger army could afford to turn up his nose, no matter how suspicious he might be.\n\n“And the other?” He raised the smaller scroll.\n\n“Your secret orders from me to spy upon the prince and report upon his loyalty to his father. Open it once you have been accepted into his entourage and be sure to hide it where it will be found. But hide it well, don’t make it too obvious! Like all connivers, Chênevin is a suspicious man, and his mind won’t be at ease about you unless he is convinced he knows your purpose. This will suffice to convince him you are harmless. He is loyal enough. As far as he is concerned, he has only to wait and the throne will be his.”\n\n“His brother was less convinced of Étienne-Henri’s patience.”\n\n“His brother, and his brother’s heirs, stood in his way.” Du Moulin sniffed contemptuously. “And I should not be surprised if this small taste of responsibility will be sufficient to inspire him to pray God grant his father a long and active life. It is one thing to desire a crown from afar, but the nearer one comes to it, the heavier it is seen to weigh. In any event, try not to despise him, Theuderic, no matter how much he merits it. All Chênevin truly seeks is approval from men he finds admirable. He’ll never get it from Charles-Phillippe now, so see that you dole it out to him slowly, even reluctantly, as his brother’s proxy, and soon you’ll acquire all the influence with him you require.”\n\n“Will that do any good?” Theuderic said bitterly. He found it hard to imagine.\n\n“See that it does,” du Moulin replied.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1456, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch03_marcus-P1", "chapter": "ch03_marcus", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSavondir / Savonderic / Savondese / Savonner / Savonnais / Savonnaise — kingdom and adjectival/language forms; keep each spelling as used.\nLegio XVII — the legion; Roman numerals.\nVia Pumilia — legionary nickname for the dwarven tunnels; keep both words.\nconcilium altum — king’s high council; keep the Latin form.\nchancelier — Savonderic office; keep the French spelling.\nMaréchal de Savonne — royal general’s title; accents as written.\nSainte Jorat sur le Lac / Sainte Jorac sur le Lac — town of the royal meeting; keep whichever form appears.\nGrimmwalde — mountain/forest boundary name; keep the spelling.\nde Forbonnais — Comte de Ilyois; royal liaison.\nUtruccan — Amorran tongue as spoken here; keep the spelling.\nTheuderic de Merovech — departed Savonderic battlemage; named as precedent, not present.\nGaius Trebonius — fellow tribune left in command; not yet on page in person.\ncastra — legionary camp; Latin plural form used as the camp.\nPorta Praetoria — camp gate; keep both words.\nClericus — old nickname for Marcus; capital C when shouted.\nCavator — new agnomen, “Digger”; capital C.\nTalpa / Subter — rejected nickname candidates; keep as spoken.\nballistarius — artillery legionary; keep the Latin form.\nscorpios — bolt-throwers over the gate; lowercase plural.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nYoung Amorran legate in all but name; military tribune commanding Legio XVII in southern Savondir. Alive, twenty-two, riding back from Sainte Jorat with royal assurances of gold, horses, food, and information. Patrician of House Valerius; scholar-trained for the Church before the war. Heart and fury pull him south toward Amorr and his uncle Magnus; head, word, and duty pull him northeast against the orc-goblin invasion. Carries signed scrolls he treats as weapons, not chains. Still gives thanks daily for sky after the underground march. Grim news from the royal meeting sits on him; he has not yet told his officers.\n\nGirart de Forbonnais\nComte de Ilyois; Utruccan-speaking royal liaison named by the chancelier. Alive, riding with Marcus; long flowing brown hair, cocksure, likable, almost certainly a sorcerer in Theuderic’s mode and the chancelier’s eyes in the legion. Honor guard of unscarred, brightly painted knights. Scoffs at sentries; amused rather than horrified by Amorran discipline.\n\nGnaeus Vitalis\nDecurion; calm, reliable, fluent Savonnais for reasons he does not explain. Alive; Marcus’s chosen companion on the embassy over more senior men. Grey eyes; possible Savonderic ancestry he does not claim. Will explain Cavator without embarrassment.\n\nGaius Trebonius\nFellow tribune left running the castra. Not yet face-to-face; a hill sentry goes to alert him. Marcus trusts he has not let the men go slack.\n\nCorvus\nMarcus’s father; the General. Alive in Marcus’s thoughts as a man who loved the legionaries; Marcus does not yet speak the news he carries about him.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nLate spring afternoon; green rolling hills of southern Savondir.\nLegio XVII emerged from the dwarven tunnels about three weeks ago; castra has weeks of earthworks, trenches, and a logged palisade.\nA merchants’-and-whores’ township clings to the eastern wall; a crucis with a man on it stands about a spear’s throw east of that growth.\nAbout five thousand armed men in the legion; cavalry remounts still promised rather than fully in hand.\nHouse Severus assassins killed most of the original command staff; Marcus and Trebonius are young tribunes holding the legion.\nRoyal charter/scrolls from the meeting ride in Marcus’s bags.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nRiding back through southern Savondir he sits on fury and unfinished decisions: south toward Amorr and vengeance, or northeast against the orc tide as he has as good as promised the concilium. He inventories factions around the king, the thinness of a legate’s real control, and the promises of horses and gold from Sainte Jorat. De Forbonnais rides at his side with pretty unblooded knights and needles the hill sentries; Marcus marks him for a spy and likely mage. Vitalis is the steady one who speaks Savonnais.\n\nThe castra comes into view hard enough to startle the Savonders — earth and timber already a fort. Marcus will not hide behind it. Vitalis points past the whores’ town to a crucis and a dying man; de Forbonnais drawls that Trebonius is a disciplinarian. Marcus is embarrassed for age and for executions that will feed every courtier who opposed his charter. Outside the Porta Praetoria the men roar him home — Valerius, Clericus, and a new name, Cavator. Vitalis grins that Talpa and Subter lost out; Marcus allows Digger if they salute it.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 3000 words. Measured military mind under fury; land on accepting Cavator, before the gate column enters.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The afternoon ride through the green rolling hills of southern Savondir was quite possibly the most relaxing thing he’d done in months, Marcus realized, and yet the warmth of the late spring afternoon did nothing to calm the helpless fury that boiled within him. It was with no little difficulty that he choked down his rage and maintained a tranquil facade for the benefit of his companions, both Amorran and Savonderic. There was a time for anger, just as there was a time for all things, but that time was not now. Now there were too many decisions to be made, too many decisions for which he did not have sufficient information. And too many decisions that were bound to cost lives, many lives, no matter what he decided.\n\nHe was well aware of the fact that he was not up to the responsibility placed upon him. He lacked information, he lacked experience, and worst of all, he lacked reliable advisors. The situation was utterly ludicrous. Here he was contemplating the fate of kingdoms and empires while riding a borrowed horse and accompanied by an imposed bodyguard through a foreign land that had, for most of the previous century, been formally at war with the Senate and People.\n\nOn the positive side, Marcus reminded himself, he was alive and he was on the right side of the grass. There was much to be said for the ground beneath one’s feet, he found, especially after spending more than a month with it above his head. It was only three weeks ago that Legio XVII emerged from the tunnels that the legionary wags labeled the Via Pumilia, and there still was not a morning in which Marcus did not find himself lifting his eyes to the sky and giving thanks to God for the light of the sun upon his face. However grey the day might be, there was no cloud thick enough to obscure the light completely.\n\nDecisions. In such circumstances, even to delay a decision was to make one. He wished he had a better grasp on Savonderic politics, as the one thing that had become very clear to him in his recent meeting with the two members of the king’s concilium altum was that the distribution of power throughout the northern realm was not as clearly defined as it appeared from afar. It hadn’t taken him long after Marcus Saturnius’s death to learn how little direct control the legate held over the legion, and it was readily apparent that the king of Savondir faced even greater difficulties. Even in a legion of six thousand men, there were far too many details and decisions required for any one man to make them, and Marcus couldn’t imagine how much worse the problem must be in a kingdom of more than ten million.\n\nAt least in the legion, he knew his officers were more or less loyal. That didn’t seem to be the case with many of the king’s nobles.\n\nAs nearly as he could tell, there were two rival factions that currently had the king’s ear. One, led by the chancelier and supported by the royal general, saw Legio XVII as a divine blessing given to them in a time of need, and was eager to provide its legate all the resources he required. The other faction, which was more amorphous and lacked any leader known to him, seemed to view the Amorrans as a threat potentially more dangerous than the vast horde of orcs and goblins now threatening the eastern borderlands. Fortunately, it was the chancelier who held the purse strings, and though his main ally on the concilium was elderly and set in his ways, the Maréchal de Savonne clearly understood the difference between a minor incursion and a major invasion, as well as what was required to deal with the latter.\n\nGold, horses, food, and information. That was what Marcus had obtained in the little walled town of Sainte Jorat sur le Lac where he met the royal representatives. Or, rather, he had obtained assurances of them. Once it became clear that he was willing to lead his legion against the orc tribes on behalf of the realm, the royal councillors were willing enough to make promises. Whether those handsome promises would be fulfilled was still an open question, but he was confident that the general, at least, had understood that without four hundred horses to replace the beasts they had slaughtered and eaten under the mountain, the legion’s cavalry would be nonexistent.\n\nBoth he and the decurion who accompanied him, Vitalis, rode rather better mounts now than the poorly fed nags Proculus bought from a farmer prior to their journey to Sainte Jorac sur le Lac. The animals were bigger than the horses to which the Amorrans were accustomed; they had to be in order to bear the weight of the heavily armored Savonderic knights. Marcus wished the legionary cavalry of the XVth had been riding big brutes like these last autumn in the Battle of the Three Legions. If they had, they would have ridden down Magnus’s outnumbered cavalry before his uncle’s damned knights managed to spring the trap that was the turning point of the battle.\n\nHe sighed, refusing to indulge himself by picking again at that oft-revisited wound. South or northeast, that was the first question he had to answer, and the one from which all the others would follow. His heart, and the fury bubbling within him, urged him south. His head, his word, and his sense of duty called him northeast. So, too, did the scrolls which bore stylized signatures and elaborate wax stamps and were stowed away in his saddlebags, but he wasn’t overly concerned about the agreements he’d signed. Only the king, and perhaps the king’s troublesome Grand Duc, possessed larger armies than he presently commanded, which meant that no matter what the agreements might say, he was at liberty to change his mind at any time.\n\nNo doubt that was why the royal councillors and their various priests and scribes had been so determined to try binding him through the web of words that were spun throughout the beautifully inscribed scrolls he now carried. But what they didn’t realize is that Marcus had been speaking solely for the legion, not himself, and though a patrician’s word was famously his bond, a legate’s word was nothing more than one of the thousands of weapons at his disposal in defense of the Senate and People.\n\nStill, he would like to keep it, if possible. If nothing else, it would be one less sin to confess to Father Gennadius.\n\nIt was with a mild pang of regret that he spotted a pair of legionaries seated in the shade of a small copse of trees that topped the highest hill in the area. They had surely been gambling, but they were alert enough. No sooner had the sound of creaking wagon axles reached them than they were on their feet, one hand on their sword hilts and the other over their eyes as they peered into the western sun. He sighed, knowing his responsibilities were about to fall upon him again, and the time for decisions was rapidly approaching. He felt the weight of them all the heavier in light of the grim news he had learned in Sainte Jorac sur le Lac.\n\n“Surely your men don’t fear an attack,” scoffed de Forbonnais, the Utruccan-speaking comte whom the king's Chancelier had named the royal liaison to the legion. That was his official assignation, but Marcus assumed that in addition to spying on the Amorrans, the cocksure young noble was almost surely a sorcerer in the mode of the departed, and deeply unlamented, Theuderic de Merovech. De Forbonnais was likable enough, although his long, flowing brown hair made him look rather like a woman amongst all the shaved and close-cropped heads favored by the Amorran legionaries. It didn’t help that the man’s Savonderic accent also made his Utruccan sound a little less than entirely masculine.\n\n“It is our custom to remain on our guard regardless of where we happen to find ourselves, monseigneur comte.”\n\n“I’m told you have nearly five thousand armed men.” The comte laughed. “Who is going to attack you, mon cher général, our little friends, the birds?”\n\nA few of the men riding behind the comte joined in the laughter. They were supposed to be de Forbonnais’s honor guard, knights of one elaborately named order or another, but Marcus had seldom seen a less martial group of soldiers. They rode their giant horses well, that much he had to give them, but their shining armor and brightly painted shields were unmarred by scratches and it seemed unlikely that any of them had ever seen a battlefield, much less fought upon one. Their good humor irritated him, and it was all he could do to prevent himself from turning and biting their heads off.\n\nMarcus shook his head and reminded himself that youthful exuberance and inexperience didn’t mean their minds weren’t keen, or their eyes were less than observant. He, of all men, should be aware of that. De Forbonnais might affect to be careless, but if the royal spymaster had chosen him to be his eyes and ears in the legion, he was probably a capable young man, perhaps even a dangerous one.\n\nOne of the guards on the hilltop vanished, presumably to alert Gaius Trebonius of their approach. The other one must have recognized Marcus, as he stood at rigid attention while he watched them pass below. Marcus nodded and casually tapped his fist to his chest; the legionary returned the salute forcefully enough for them to hear it, then relaxed his posture.\n\n“Seems Trebonius hasn’t let them go slack in your absence, sir.”\n\nMarcus glanced at Vitalis. The decurion was calm and reliable, which was one reason why Marcus had chosen him over some of the more senior officers for the embassy from which they were now returning. The other was that for some reason the man had never seen fit to explain to Marcus or anyone else, he spoke fluent Savonnais. His light grey eyes tended to suggest that one of his parents might have hailed from the kingdom, but if he did harbor any exotic ancestry, it was natural that, as an equestrian, he would be inclined to hold his tongue about it.\n\n“I never imagined he would.”\n\nLegio XVII might not be a veteran legion in terms of its battle experience, but the long underground march through the eternal night of the Dwarven mines under the mountains had tested them in ways that a dozen battles could not have. The northern sun had already restored the color to Marcus’s face, and the simple, but plentiful Savonderic fare had put flesh back on his bones, but like every other man in the legion, he would not soon forget those arduous weeks of darkness, fear, and hunger under the ground. The legion had bonded through its trial by the tunnels; no legion capable of accomplishing such a hitherto unknown feat could feel a need to prove itself any longer, not even a legion with a history measured only in months.\n\nAfter passing the hill and the trees that covered its backside like a thick green pelt, they turned toward the south and the castra soon came within sight. Marcus smiled grimly, pleased to hear the expostulations and surprised exclamations of the Savondese riders.\n\n“Sale bleu, do you intend to found a city here, Amorran?”\n\n“Did I not tell you it is our custom to remain on our guard?” He grinned at the discomfited de Forbonnais.\n\nFor all that it lacked the stone walls of the Savondese towns, the legionary castra made for an impressive sight, even to Marcus’s experienced eyes. The castra covered a larger area than the town from which they’d ridden, to say nothing of the various villages they’d passed on the way. With weeks to deepen the trenches, build up the earthworks, and replace the palisade with logged trees, the legionary camp had been transformed into a veritable fort. Give the architecti another two months and access to a decent supply of stones, and it would become a permanent fortress, as defensible as any city in Savondir.\n\nBut they didn’t have two months. Nor could he and his legion remain safely behind walls, be they made of earth, wood, or stone. As much as he desperately wanted to march Legio XVII back south in defense of an Amorr that was under assault from its own provinces and allies, he knew it wasn’t possible. There was more at stake than who would rule over the Senate and People with what appeared to be every orc east of the Grimmwalde marching on the lands of Men and Elves.\n\n“What is that?” Vitalis exclaimed, pointing to the east.\n\nFor a moment, Marcus thought the decurion was surprised by the various wagons and shoddy wooden dwellings that had attached themselves to the eastern wall of the castra, looking for all the world like some sort of cancerous growth swelling from the lower half of the walls. But they were nothing more than the usual collection of merchants, swindlers, and whores who trailed after every legion and founded a temporary township outside the perimeter every time one made camp for more than a few days in succession. It was perhaps a little surprising that the Savonners had managed to find them so far from everything that passed for civilization in the north, but then, last year, had their provincial counterparts in Gorignia not shown themselves entirely willing to follow Legio XVII into goblin territory?\n\nThen he realized Vitalis was not looking at the whores’ town, but at a crude structure erected about a spear’s throw east of it. It took him a moment to grasp what he was looking at, and then he swore under his breath. It was a crucis and despite its distance from them, Marcus could see there was quite clearly a man hanging from it, his head slumped down onto his chest.\n\nMarcus resisted the urge to steal a glance at de Forbonnais and the rest of the Savondese party, hoping that perhaps the unfamiliar magnitude of the castra would prevent them from noticing the dying man, but a wry voice from behind him quickly dashed his hopes.\n\n“It would appear your man Trebonius is a bit of a disciplinarian.”\n\n“Amorr’s legions are well-known for their discipline, monseigneur.”\n\n“So I am told.” Fortunately, the comte sounded considerably more amused than horrified. Even so, Marcus was embarrassed, both for himself and for Trebonius. “And so I see.”\n\nThere was nothing Marcus could do about his age, or the fact that he and Gaius Trebonius were both mere military tribunes elected in the last election but one. It was hardly his fault that he had only been born twenty-two years ago, or that House Severus’s assassins murdered the rest of the legion’s command staff. Marcus had managed to overcome whatever doubts the Savonderic king and his great lords harbored about his youth and callowness, otherwise, he and Vitalis would be returning alone to the legion instead in the company of a squadron of noble northern fops. But those doubts were bound to return sooner or later, and hearing that Marcus’s second-in-command had been forced to resort to executions so quickly was only going to strengthen the insidious voices that had opposed the granting of the royal charter he was carrying.\n\n“General Valerius, sir!”\n\nA cheerful call from a legionary carrying one end of a deer hanging suspended from a pole drew his attention, and the man’s cry was soon echoed by welcoming shouts and salutes from legionaries outside the camp as they approached the Porta Praetoria and the great scarlet banner that proclaimed the authority of the Senate and People of Amorr as well as the divided grey-and-scarlet banner of House Valerius.\n\n“The general’s back!”\n\n“The Valerian is back!”\n\n“Ave, Valerius!”\n\n“Ave, Clericus!”\n\n“Ave, Cavator!”\n\nThe last name was new to him. After he heard it shouted in his direction several more times, including from a ballistarius standing behind one of the scorpios positioned over the open gate, he turned towards Vitalis. His saddle creaked.\n\n“Cavator?”\n\nThe decurion grinned. “They mean it as a compliment, general. The men don’t think as they should be calling you a priest no more. And you did set us to an amount of marching down underground. Some was for calling you Talpa, others was saying Subter, but the centurions sorted them out soon enough.”\n\nMarcus nodded thoughtfully. Being compared to a mole would be a little too undignified for a legionary commander, even if the name was not inappropriate given the circumstances. “Digger” wasn’t the most glorious of agnomina, perhaps, but he had to admit that it did serve to commemorate two of the brighter accomplishments of his thus-far undistinguished military career. He might have no victories to his credit, but twice he had been able to preserve a trapped and outnumbered legion. That was more than some legates thrice his age could say.\n\n“As long as they salute when they address me with it, decurion, you can tell your fellow officers that I have no objections.”\n\n“They’ll be glad to hear it, general.”\n", "completion": "The afternoon ride through the green rolling hills of southern Savondir was quite possibly the most relaxing thing he’d done in months, Marcus realized, and yet the warmth of the late spring afternoon did nothing to calm the helpless fury that boiled within him. It was with no little difficulty that he choked down his rage and maintained a tranquil facade for the benefit of his companions, both Amorran and Savonderic. There was a time for anger, just as there was a time for all things, but that time was not now. Now there were too many decisions to be made, too many decisions for which he did not have sufficient information. And too many decisions that were bound to cost lives, many lives, no matter what he decided.\n\nHe was well aware of the fact that he was not up to the responsibility placed upon him. He lacked information, he lacked experience, and worst of all, he lacked reliable advisors. The situation was utterly ludicrous. Here he was contemplating the fate of kingdoms and empires while riding a borrowed horse and accompanied by an imposed bodyguard through a foreign land that had, for most of the previous century, been formally at war with the Senate and People.\n\nOn the positive side, Marcus reminded himself, he was alive and he was on the right side of the grass. There was much to be said for the ground beneath one’s feet, he found, especially after spending more than a month with it above his head. It was only three weeks ago that Legio XVII emerged from the tunnels that the legionary wags labeled the Via Pumilia, and there still was not a morning in which Marcus did not find himself lifting his eyes to the sky and giving thanks to God for the light of the sun upon his face. However grey the day might be, there was no cloud thick enough to obscure the light completely.\n\nDecisions. In such circumstances, even to delay a decision was to make one. He wished he had a better grasp on Savonderic politics, as the one thing that had become very clear to him in his recent meeting with the two members of the king’s concilium altum was that the distribution of power throughout the northern realm was not as clearly defined as it appeared from afar. It hadn’t taken him long after Marcus Saturnius’s death to learn how little direct control the legate held over the legion, and it was readily apparent that the king of Savondir faced even greater difficulties. Even in a legion of six thousand men, there were far too many details and decisions required for any one man to make them, and Marcus couldn’t imagine how much worse the problem must be in a kingdom of more than ten million.\n\nAt least in the legion, he knew his officers were more or less loyal. That didn’t seem to be the case with many of the king’s nobles.\n\nAs nearly as he could tell, there were two rival factions that currently had the king’s ear. One, led by the chancelier and supported by the royal general, saw Legio XVII as a divine blessing given to them in a time of need, and was eager to provide its legate all the resources he required. The other faction, which was more amorphous and lacked any leader known to him, seemed to view the Amorrans as a threat potentially more dangerous than the vast horde of orcs and goblins now threatening the eastern borderlands. Fortunately, it was the chancelier who held the purse strings, and though his main ally on the concilium was elderly and set in his ways, the Maréchal de Savonne clearly understood the difference between a minor incursion and a major invasion, as well as what was required to deal with the latter.\n\nGold, horses, food, and information. That was what Marcus had obtained in the little walled town of Sainte Jorat sur le Lac where he met the royal representatives. Or, rather, he had obtained assurances of them. Once it became clear that he was willing to lead his legion against the orc tribes on behalf of the realm, the royal councillors were willing enough to make promises. Whether those handsome promises would be fulfilled was still an open question, but he was confident that the general, at least, had understood that without four hundred horses to replace the beasts they had slaughtered and eaten under the mountain, the legion’s cavalry would be nonexistent.\n\nBoth he and the decurion who accompanied him, Vitalis, rode rather better mounts now than the poorly fed nags Proculus bought from a farmer prior to their journey to Sainte Jorac sur le Lac. The animals were bigger than the horses to which the Amorrans were accustomed; they had to be in order to bear the weight of the heavily armored Savonderic knights. Marcus wished the legionary cavalry of the XVth had been riding big brutes like these last autumn in the Battle of the Three Legions. If they had, they would have ridden down Magnus’s outnumbered cavalry before his uncle’s damned knights managed to spring the trap that was the turning point of the battle.\n\nHe sighed, refusing to indulge himself by picking again at that oft-revisited wound. South or northeast, that was the first question he had to answer, and the one from which all the others would follow. His heart, and the fury bubbling within him, urged him south. His head, his word, and his sense of duty called him northeast. So, too, did the scrolls which bore stylized signatures and elaborate wax stamps and were stowed away in his saddlebags, but he wasn’t overly concerned about the agreements he’d signed. Only the king, and perhaps the king’s troublesome Grand Duc, possessed larger armies than he presently commanded, which meant that no matter what the agreements might say, he was at liberty to change his mind at any time.\n\nNo doubt that was why the royal councillors and their various priests and scribes had been so determined to try binding him through the web of words that were spun throughout the beautifully inscribed scrolls he now carried. But what they didn’t realize is that Marcus had been speaking solely for the legion, not himself, and though a patrician’s word was famously his bond, a legate’s word was nothing more than one of the thousands of weapons at his disposal in defense of the Senate and People.\n\nStill, he would like to keep it, if possible. If nothing else, it would be one less sin to confess to Father Gennadius.\n\nIt was with a mild pang of regret that he spotted a pair of legionaries seated in the shade of a small copse of trees that topped the highest hill in the area. They had surely been gambling, but they were alert enough. No sooner had the sound of creaking wagon axles reached them than they were on their feet, one hand on their sword hilts and the other over their eyes as they peered into the western sun. He sighed, knowing his responsibilities were about to fall upon him again, and the time for decisions was rapidly approaching. He felt the weight of them all the heavier in light of the grim news he had learned in Sainte Jorac sur le Lac.\n\n“Surely your men don’t fear an attack,” scoffed de Forbonnais, the Utruccan-speaking comte whom the king's Chancelier had named the royal liaison to the legion. That was his official assignation, but Marcus assumed that in addition to spying on the Amorrans, the cocksure young noble was almost surely a sorcerer in the mode of the departed, and deeply unlamented, Theuderic de Merovech. De Forbonnais was likable enough, although his long, flowing brown hair made him look rather like a woman amongst all the shaved and close-cropped heads favored by the Amorran legionaries. It didn’t help that the man’s Savonderic accent also made his Utruccan sound a little less than entirely masculine.\n\n“It is our custom to remain on our guard regardless of where we happen to find ourselves, monseigneur comte.”\n\n“I’m told you have nearly five thousand armed men.” The comte laughed. “Who is going to attack you, mon cher général, our little friends, the birds?”\n\nA few of the men riding behind the comte joined in the laughter. They were supposed to be de Forbonnais’s honor guard, knights of one elaborately named order or another, but Marcus had seldom seen a less martial group of soldiers. They rode their giant horses well, that much he had to give them, but their shining armor and brightly painted shields were unmarred by scratches and it seemed unlikely that any of them had ever seen a battlefield, much less fought upon one. Their good humor irritated him, and it was all he could do to prevent himself from turning and biting their heads off.\n\nMarcus shook his head and reminded himself that youthful exuberance and inexperience didn’t mean their minds weren’t keen, or their eyes were less than observant. He, of all men, should be aware of that. De Forbonnais might affect to be careless, but if the royal spymaster had chosen him to be his eyes and ears in the legion, he was probably a capable young man, perhaps even a dangerous one.\n\nOne of the guards on the hilltop vanished, presumably to alert Gaius Trebonius of their approach. The other one must have recognized Marcus, as he stood at rigid attention while he watched them pass below. Marcus nodded and casually tapped his fist to his chest; the legionary returned the salute forcefully enough for them to hear it, then relaxed his posture.\n\n“Seems Trebonius hasn’t let them go slack in your absence, sir.”\n\nMarcus glanced at Vitalis. The decurion was calm and reliable, which was one reason why Marcus had chosen him over some of the more senior officers for the embassy from which they were now returning. The other was that for some reason the man had never seen fit to explain to Marcus or anyone else, he spoke fluent Savonnais. His light grey eyes tended to suggest that one of his parents might have hailed from the kingdom, but if he did harbor any exotic ancestry, it was natural that, as an equestrian, he would be inclined to hold his tongue about it.\n\n“I never imagined he would.”\n\nLegio XVII might not be a veteran legion in terms of its battle experience, but the long underground march through the eternal night of the Dwarven mines under the mountains had tested them in ways that a dozen battles could not have. The northern sun had already restored the color to Marcus’s face, and the simple, but plentiful Savonderic fare had put flesh back on his bones, but like every other man in the legion, he would not soon forget those arduous weeks of darkness, fear, and hunger under the ground. The legion had bonded through its trial by the tunnels; no legion capable of accomplishing such a hitherto unknown feat could feel a need to prove itself any longer, not even a legion with a history measured only in months.\n\nAfter passing the hill and the trees that covered its backside like a thick green pelt, they turned toward the south and the castra soon came within sight. Marcus smiled grimly, pleased to hear the expostulations and surprised exclamations of the Savondese riders.\n\n“Sale bleu, do you intend to found a city here, Amorran?”\n\n“Did I not tell you it is our custom to remain on our guard?” He grinned at the discomfited de Forbonnais.\n\nFor all that it lacked the stone walls of the Savondese towns, the legionary castra made for an impressive sight, even to Marcus’s experienced eyes. The castra covered a larger area than the town from which they’d ridden, to say nothing of the various villages they’d passed on the way. With weeks to deepen the trenches, build up the earthworks, and replace the palisade with logged trees, the legionary camp had been transformed into a veritable fort. Give the architecti another two months and access to a decent supply of stones, and it would become a permanent fortress, as defensible as any city in Savondir.\n\nBut they didn’t have two months. Nor could he and his legion remain safely behind walls, be they made of earth, wood, or stone. As much as he desperately wanted to march Legio XVII back south in defense of an Amorr that was under assault from its own provinces and allies, he knew it wasn’t possible. There was more at stake than who would rule over the Senate and People with what appeared to be every orc east of the Grimmwalde marching on the lands of Men and Elves.\n\n“What is that?” Vitalis exclaimed, pointing to the east.\n\nFor a moment, Marcus thought the decurion was surprised by the various wagons and shoddy wooden dwellings that had attached themselves to the eastern wall of the castra, looking for all the world like some sort of cancerous growth swelling from the lower half of the walls. But they were nothing more than the usual collection of merchants, swindlers, and whores who trailed after every legion and founded a temporary township outside the perimeter every time one made camp for more than a few days in succession. It was perhaps a little surprising that the Savonners had managed to find them so far from everything that passed for civilization in the north, but then, last year, had their provincial counterparts in Gorignia not shown themselves entirely willing to follow Legio XVII into goblin territory?\n\nThen he realized Vitalis was not looking at the whores’ town, but at a crude structure erected about a spear’s throw east of it. It took him a moment to grasp what he was looking at, and then he swore under his breath. It was a crucis and despite its distance from them, Marcus could see there was quite clearly a man hanging from it, his head slumped down onto his chest.\n\nMarcus resisted the urge to steal a glance at de Forbonnais and the rest of the Savondese party, hoping that perhaps the unfamiliar magnitude of the castra would prevent them from noticing the dying man, but a wry voice from behind him quickly dashed his hopes.\n\n“It would appear your man Trebonius is a bit of a disciplinarian.”\n\n“Amorr’s legions are well-known for their discipline, monseigneur.”\n\n“So I am told.” Fortunately, the comte sounded considerably more amused than horrified. Even so, Marcus was embarrassed, both for himself and for Trebonius. “And so I see.”\n\nThere was nothing Marcus could do about his age, or the fact that he and Gaius Trebonius were both mere military tribunes elected in the last election but one. It was hardly his fault that he had only been born twenty-two years ago, or that House Severus’s assassins murdered the rest of the legion’s command staff. Marcus had managed to overcome whatever doubts the Savonderic king and his great lords harbored about his youth and callowness, otherwise, he and Vitalis would be returning alone to the legion instead in the company of a squadron of noble northern fops. But those doubts were bound to return sooner or later, and hearing that Marcus’s second-in-command had been forced to resort to executions so quickly was only going to strengthen the insidious voices that had opposed the granting of the royal charter he was carrying.\n\n“General Valerius, sir!”\n\nA cheerful call from a legionary carrying one end of a deer hanging suspended from a pole drew his attention, and the man’s cry was soon echoed by welcoming shouts and salutes from legionaries outside the camp as they approached the Porta Praetoria and the great scarlet banner that proclaimed the authority of the Senate and People of Amorr as well as the divided grey-and-scarlet banner of House Valerius.\n\n“The general’s back!”\n\n“The Valerian is back!”\n\n“Ave, Valerius!”\n\n“Ave, Clericus!”\n\n“Ave, Cavator!”\n\nThe last name was new to him. After he heard it shouted in his direction several more times, including from a ballistarius standing behind one of the scorpios positioned over the open gate, he turned towards Vitalis. His saddle creaked.\n\n“Cavator?”\n\nThe decurion grinned. “They mean it as a compliment, general. The men don’t think as they should be calling you a priest no more. And you did set us to an amount of marching down underground. Some was for calling you Talpa, others was saying Subter, but the centurions sorted them out soon enough.”\n\nMarcus nodded thoughtfully. Being compared to a mole would be a little too undignified for a legionary commander, even if the name was not inappropriate given the circumstances. “Digger” wasn’t the most glorious of agnomina, perhaps, but he had to admit that it did serve to commemorate two of the brighter accomplishments of his thus-far undistinguished military career. He might have no victories to his credit, but twice he had been able to preserve a trapped and outnumbered legion. That was more than some legates thrice his age could say.\n\n“As long as they salute when they address me with it, decurion, you can tell your fellow officers that I have no objections.”\n\n“They’ll be glad to hear it, general.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2945, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch03_marcus-P2", "chapter": "ch03_marcus", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ncrucis — the cross/execution frame; keep the Latin form.\nVia Principalis — main camp street; keep both words.\npraefectus castrorum — camp prefect title; keep the Latin.\nprimus pilus — senior centurion title; keep the Latin.\nforum — camp forum; lowercase as ordinary camp feature.\ndecani / contubernii — squad leaders and tent-sections; keep the Latin plurals.\nSenarius Arvandus — senior decurion of horse; both names.\nSale bleu — Savonderic oath; keep as spoken.\n\n### STORY\nMarcus rides back from the royal meeting with de Forbonnais and Vitalis, weighs south against northeast, sees the fortified castra and a man dying on a crucis, and accepts the men’s new agnomen Cavator at the Porta Praetoria.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAlive, entering the castra. Color back in the men’s faces pleases him; the Savonnais screams from the crucis hit him like a second belly-blow. Angry at Trebonius for executing a peasant; anger softens when he sees the officers glad of his return. Will stow the Savonders before hearing staff news; carries bad news he has not yet spoken.\n\nGirart de Forbonnais\nAlive; walks silent after hearing the crucified man shout in Savonnais. Presses for immediate talk with command staff; yields with a haughty bow when Marcus defers him to dinner.\n\nGaius Trebonius\nAlive; horsehair-plumed helmet among the centurions. Beaming at Marcus’s return; shows no fear of rebuke.\n\nGnaeus Vitalis\nAlive; dismounts, takes horse-holders, later leads the Savonders toward the stables on Marcus’s order.\n\nTitus Cassabus\nPraefectus castrorum; former ballistarius. Alive; nods at Marcus’s return.\n\nCaius Proculus\nPrimus pilus. Alive; lifts an unshaven chin in greeting.\n\nSentas Tertius / Sintas Tertius\nSenior centurion. Alive; skeptical eyebrow at the Savonders.\n\nSenarius Arvandus\nSenior decurion. Not yet speaking; Marcus notes him as the man to ask about training the Savonderic horse as auxiliaries.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThere was nothing Marcus could do about his age, or the fact that he and Gaius Trebonius were both mere military tribunes elected in the last election but one. It was hardly his fault that he had only been born twenty-two years ago, or that House Severus’s assassins murdered the rest of the legion’s command staff. Marcus had managed to overcome whatever doubts the Savonderic king and his great lords harbored about his youth and callowness, otherwise, he and Vitalis would be returning alone to the legion instead in the company of a squadron of noble northern fops. But those doubts were bound to return sooner or later, and hearing that Marcus’s second-in-command had been forced to resort to executions so quickly was only going to strengthen the insidious voices that had opposed the granting of the royal charter he was carrying.\n\n“General Valerius, sir!”\n\nA cheerful call from a legionary carrying one end of a deer hanging suspended from a pole drew his attention, and the man’s cry was soon echoed by welcoming shouts and salutes from legionaries outside the camp as they approached the Porta Praetoria and the great scarlet banner that proclaimed the authority of the Senate and People of Amorr as well as the divided grey-and-scarlet banner of House Valerius.\n\n“The general’s back!”\n\n“The Valerian is back!”\n\n“Ave, Valerius!”\n\n“Ave, Clericus!”\n\n“Ave, Cavator!”\n\nThe last name was new to him. After he heard it shouted in his direction several more times, including from a ballistarius standing behind one of the scorpios positioned over the open gate, he turned towards Vitalis. His saddle creaked.\n\n“Cavator?”\n\nThe decurion grinned. “They mean it as a compliment, general. The men don’t think as they should be calling you a priest no more. And you did set us to an amount of marching down underground. Some was for calling you Talpa, others was saying Subter, but the centurions sorted them out soon enough.”\n\nMarcus nodded thoughtfully. Being compared to a mole would be a little too undignified for a legionary commander, even if the name was not inappropriate given the circumstances. “Digger” wasn’t the most glorious of agnomina, perhaps, but he had to admit that it did serve to commemorate two of the brighter accomplishments of his thus-far undistinguished military career. He might have no victories to his credit, but twice he had been able to preserve a trapped and outnumbered legion. That was more than some legates thrice his age could say.\n\n“As long as they salute when they address me with it, decurion, you can tell your fellow officers that I have no objections.”\n\n“They’ll be glad to hear it, general.”\n\n### NOTES\nInside and just outside the Porta Praetoria; afternoon continuing.\nThe dying man on the crucis shouts Savonnais: La fin est proche…\nScarlet SPQR banner and House Valerius grey-and-scarlet over the gate.\nMarcus has been gone about three weeks to the royal negotiators.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nThrough the gate the legion looks healthy again under the northern sun; he hopes de Forbonnais marks the welcome as closely as the crucis. Then the dying man screams in Savonnais that the end is near, and Marcus cannot look at the comte. He damns Trebonius for crucifying a peasant outside legionary law just as Trebonius and the senior officers come on at a walk — Cassabus, Proculus, Tertius — glad enough that Marcus’s anger ebbs.\n\nIntroductions: Girart de Forbonnais, Comte de Ilyois, royal liaison. The comte’s elegant legs and speech about the Deep March amuse no one aloud; Marcus files the honor guard as possible auxiliary horse and tries to peel the Savonders off to Vitalis and the stables. De Forbonnais insists on speaking to the staff without delay. Marcus puts him off until evening; the comte bows, sniffs, and goes. Marcus sends a quiet word for the command tent: he has bad news.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1450 words. Camp bustle and political friction; break off on the bad-news line, before the tent revelation.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Legionaries saluted crisply at the sight of him, their fists slamming against their chest with either a thud or a clang depending on whether they were wearing their breastplates or not. Their faces were red and brown and bronze with color now; the ghostly pallor they had all shared when Marcus departed to meet with the king’s negotiators three weeks ago was gone. The northern sun of Savondir might not be quite as warm as the one that shone down on the imperial city, but clearly it had helped his men return to good health all the same. His father would have been pleased to know that, Marcus was sure. Corvus had always loved them as much as they loved him.\n\nMarcus hoped de Forbonnais was marking the way in which Legio XVII greeted its commander’s return as closely as he had noted whatever disciplinary lapse led to the wretch on the crucis outside. But Marcus was just passing through the gate when he heard an agonized cry from behind them. He couldn’t quite understand what was being said, and when he looked back, he saw that the noise was coming from the dying man. Then he realized what language the man was speaking and he closed his eyes, feeling as if he’d taken another hammer blow to the belly, the second that week.\n\n“La fin est proche, est proche,” the man was shouting. “La fin est proche se trouve à proximité!”\n\nHe did not look back at de Forbonnais, though he could hardly dare to hope the king’s man failed to grasp the significance of what they had all heard. This time, the Savonder did not say anything, he continued to walk silently just to Marcus’s rear, on his right hand side. It was just as well de Forbonnais did not demand answers. Marcus knew he could not possibly supply them.\n\nDamn that Trebonius! What could possibly be the point of executing a peasant? They weren’t under legionary discipline! It seemed he would soon have the opportunity to find out, as ahead of him, he saw a group of centurions walking briskly towards them from the direction of the forum. In their midst of their bemedaled splendor, he saw a horsehair-plumed tribune’s helmet.\n\nMarcus reined in his horse and swung himself down from the saddle. Vitalis was quick to follow suit, and to bark orders at some of the legionaries watching nearby to come and hold the reins for the them and the rest of the mounted party. De Forbonnais and his Savondese companions dismounted, but after a burst of rapid Savonnaise amongst themselves, did not hand their horses over to the Amorrans. Instead, half the honor guard stayed with the horses while the comte, accompanied by the other ten men, came forward to stand with Marcus and await the approach of Trebonius and the other officers.\n\nIf Trebonius was expecting Marcus to be unhappy with him, he showed no signs of it. His fellow tribune was practically beaming with delight, and against his will, Marcus could feel his anger beginning to abate. It pleased him even more to see that the senior officers, too, appeared to be glad at his return even if the hard-bitten centurions were less inclined to display their pleasure so openly. Titus Cassabus, the former ballistarius who was now praefectus castrorum, nodded at him, Caius Proculus, the primus pilus, lifted his unshaven chin, while Sentas Tertius merely lifted a skeptical eyebrow in the direction of the Savondese men. Marcus was beginning to understand his father’s lifelong love for his legionaries; there was something uniquely powerful about the connection between an army and their general. Theirs was a bond sealed in bloodshed, hardship, and battle.\n\n“Good to see you, sir!” Trebonius saluted, and the air resounded with the crash of fists on steel as the centurions and legionaries followed his lead.\n\n“Likewise.” Marcus touched his curled fingers to his chest and nodded to the senior officers. “Gentlemen, I have the honor to be accompanied by Seigneur Girart de Forbonnais, Comte de Ilyois, and our royal liaison by the order of our most gracious host, His Majesty, the king.”\n\nDe Forbonnais made an elegant leg that Marcus knew would be completely lost on his officers; he was pleased to see their discipline hold as not one of them so much as coughed, although Tertius raised both eyebrows this time, even more skeptically than before. And not even the man’s Savonnaise-flavored Utruccan made any of them crack a smile.\n\n“My lords of Amorr, I deem it an unmitigated honor to make the acquaintance of the doughty men who led the now-legendary Deep March, of which the bards now sing! I pray you will not view my men and me as an intrusion amongst you, but rather, welcome us as your friends and allies against a fearsome foe that poses the greatest of dangers to both our peoples.”\n\nHe made another leg, and without any signal that Marcus could see, his dismounted men did the same, in unison. They looked absurd, of course, but they performed the silly movement with sufficient snap and precision that he wondered, if, with the proper training, they might actually be of some use as an auxiliary horse. He’d have to speak to Senarius Arvandus, the senior decurion, to see if that could be arranged. But now that the introductions had been accomplished, he was eager to see the Savonders safely stowed away somewhere in the camp so Trebonius could bring him up to speed on how soon the legion would be ready to march east.\n\n“Monseigneur Comte, I’m sure you and your men will want to see to your horses. If you will follow Gnaeus Vitalis, he can show you where the stables are located; we will see that suitable accommodation near them is provided. I hope you will do me the honor of dining with me tonight.”\n\n“You are too kind, Monseigneur General.” The proud young man’s face hardened. “But while my men are establishing themselves, I must insist on speaking with you and your command staff. We have, I believe, certain matters of considerable import to discuss without delay.”\n\nMarcus sighed. De Forbonnais had been a charming companion on the ride south, but Marcus had no illusions that the Savonder was going to be anything but a thorn in his side from now on. And if monseigneur comte was not, like the last Savonderic comte who had been inflicted upon him, a royal battlemage, Marcus would eat the legionary standard. It wasn’t as if they had not any opportunity to speak throughout the ride; clearly de Forbonnais was eager to take the mettle of his staff.\n\n“Those matters will keep until this evening, monseigneur comte. My men will see to your accommodations, and if you require anything out of the ordinary, you have only to ask and the decurion will see to it.”\n\nDe Forbonnais drew himself up haughtily, and for a moment Marcus thought the man was going to be foolish enough to stand his ground, but he merely sniffed reproachfully and bowed deeply while drawing one arm to his torso in what might have been a parody of an Amorran salute.\n\n“As you say, monseigneur general. We shall speak again anon.”\n\nMarcus nodded and watched as the Savonders remounted and followed Vitalis along the Via Principalis. A centurion whistled, waved his staff, and soon three decani were leading their contubernii in pursuit of the cloud of dust the Savonderic horses were kicking up behind them. Marcus doubted it was necessary to guard the Savonders inside the castra, but he didn’t countermand the order. With more than a thousand leagues now separating them from the northernmost borders of the empire, Legio XVII couldn’t be too careful.\n\n“The command tent,” Marcus said, his voice lowered so that only the senior officers nearby could hear him. “I’ve got bad news.”\n", "completion": "Legionaries saluted crisply at the sight of him, their fists slamming against their chest with either a thud or a clang depending on whether they were wearing their breastplates or not. Their faces were red and brown and bronze with color now; the ghostly pallor they had all shared when Marcus departed to meet with the king’s negotiators three weeks ago was gone. The northern sun of Savondir might not be quite as warm as the one that shone down on the imperial city, but clearly it had helped his men return to good health all the same. His father would have been pleased to know that, Marcus was sure. Corvus had always loved them as much as they loved him.\n\nMarcus hoped de Forbonnais was marking the way in which Legio XVII greeted its commander’s return as closely as he had noted whatever disciplinary lapse led to the wretch on the crucis outside. But Marcus was just passing through the gate when he heard an agonized cry from behind them. He couldn’t quite understand what was being said, and when he looked back, he saw that the noise was coming from the dying man. Then he realized what language the man was speaking and he closed his eyes, feeling as if he’d taken another hammer blow to the belly, the second that week.\n\n“La fin est proche, est proche,” the man was shouting. “La fin est proche se trouve à proximité!”\n\nHe did not look back at de Forbonnais, though he could hardly dare to hope the king’s man failed to grasp the significance of what they had all heard. This time, the Savonder did not say anything, he continued to walk silently just to Marcus’s rear, on his right hand side. It was just as well de Forbonnais did not demand answers. Marcus knew he could not possibly supply them.\n\nDamn that Trebonius! What could possibly be the point of executing a peasant? They weren’t under legionary discipline! It seemed he would soon have the opportunity to find out, as ahead of him, he saw a group of centurions walking briskly towards them from the direction of the forum. In their midst of their bemedaled splendor, he saw a horsehair-plumed tribune’s helmet.\n\nMarcus reined in his horse and swung himself down from the saddle. Vitalis was quick to follow suit, and to bark orders at some of the legionaries watching nearby to come and hold the reins for the them and the rest of the mounted party. De Forbonnais and his Savondese companions dismounted, but after a burst of rapid Savonnaise amongst themselves, did not hand their horses over to the Amorrans. Instead, half the honor guard stayed with the horses while the comte, accompanied by the other ten men, came forward to stand with Marcus and await the approach of Trebonius and the other officers.\n\nIf Trebonius was expecting Marcus to be unhappy with him, he showed no signs of it. His fellow tribune was practically beaming with delight, and against his will, Marcus could feel his anger beginning to abate. It pleased him even more to see that the senior officers, too, appeared to be glad at his return even if the hard-bitten centurions were less inclined to display their pleasure so openly. Titus Cassabus, the former ballistarius who was now praefectus castrorum, nodded at him, Caius Proculus, the primus pilus, lifted his unshaven chin, while Sentas Tertius merely lifted a skeptical eyebrow in the direction of the Savondese men. Marcus was beginning to understand his father’s lifelong love for his legionaries; there was something uniquely powerful about the connection between an army and their general. Theirs was a bond sealed in bloodshed, hardship, and battle.\n\n“Good to see you, sir!” Trebonius saluted, and the air resounded with the crash of fists on steel as the centurions and legionaries followed his lead.\n\n“Likewise.” Marcus touched his curled fingers to his chest and nodded to the senior officers. “Gentlemen, I have the honor to be accompanied by Seigneur Girart de Forbonnais, Comte de Ilyois, and our royal liaison by the order of our most gracious host, His Majesty, the king.”\n\nDe Forbonnais made an elegant leg that Marcus knew would be completely lost on his officers; he was pleased to see their discipline hold as not one of them so much as coughed, although Tertius raised both eyebrows this time, even more skeptically than before. And not even the man’s Savonnaise-flavored Utruccan made any of them crack a smile.\n\n“My lords of Amorr, I deem it an unmitigated honor to make the acquaintance of the doughty men who led the now-legendary Deep March, of which the bards now sing! I pray you will not view my men and me as an intrusion amongst you, but rather, welcome us as your friends and allies against a fearsome foe that poses the greatest of dangers to both our peoples.”\n\nHe made another leg, and without any signal that Marcus could see, his dismounted men did the same, in unison. They looked absurd, of course, but they performed the silly movement with sufficient snap and precision that he wondered, if, with the proper training, they might actually be of some use as an auxiliary horse. He’d have to speak to Senarius Arvandus, the senior decurion, to see if that could be arranged. But now that the introductions had been accomplished, he was eager to see the Savonders safely stowed away somewhere in the camp so Trebonius could bring him up to speed on how soon the legion would be ready to march east.\n\n“Monseigneur Comte, I’m sure you and your men will want to see to your horses. If you will follow Gnaeus Vitalis, he can show you where the stables are located; we will see that suitable accommodation near them is provided. I hope you will do me the honor of dining with me tonight.”\n\n“You are too kind, Monseigneur General.” The proud young man’s face hardened. “But while my men are establishing themselves, I must insist on speaking with you and your command staff. We have, I believe, certain matters of considerable import to discuss without delay.”\n\nMarcus sighed. De Forbonnais had been a charming companion on the ride south, but Marcus had no illusions that the Savonder was going to be anything but a thorn in his side from now on. And if monseigneur comte was not, like the last Savonderic comte who had been inflicted upon him, a royal battlemage, Marcus would eat the legionary standard. It wasn’t as if they had not any opportunity to speak throughout the ride; clearly de Forbonnais was eager to take the mettle of his staff.\n\n“Those matters will keep until this evening, monseigneur comte. My men will see to your accommodations, and if you require anything out of the ordinary, you have only to ask and the decurion will see to it.”\n\nDe Forbonnais drew himself up haughtily, and for a moment Marcus thought the man was going to be foolish enough to stand his ground, but he merely sniffed reproachfully and bowed deeply while drawing one arm to his torso in what might have been a parody of an Amorran salute.\n\n“As you say, monseigneur general. We shall speak again anon.”\n\nMarcus nodded and watched as the Savonders remounted and followed Vitalis along the Via Principalis. A centurion whistled, waved his staff, and soon three decani were leading their contubernii in pursuit of the cloud of dust the Savonderic horses were kicking up behind them. Marcus doubted it was necessary to guard the Savonders inside the castra, but he didn’t countermand the order. With more than a thousand leagues now separating them from the northernmost borders of the empire, Legio XVII couldn’t be too careful.\n\n“The command tent,” Marcus said, his voice lowered so that only the senior officers nearby could hear him. “I’ve got bad news.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1340, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch03_marcus-P3", "chapter": "ch03_marcus", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSanctiff / Sanctified Father / Holy Father — Amorr’s high priest; keep each form as used.\nHouse Severus / Severus Patronus — rival house and its dead head; keep the forms.\nMagnus — Marcus’s uncle; keep the single name as used.\nviscomte / marquisat — Savonderic ranks in the royal grant; keep the French forms.\nCavator — Marcus’s accepted agnomen; capital C.\nClericus — discarded priest-nickname when Cassabus slips into it.\n\n### STORY\nMarcus rides back from the royal meeting through southern Savondir, accepts the agnomen Cavator at the Porta Praetoria, and enters the castra with de Forbonnais and Vitalis.\n\nInside the gate a crucified peasant screams in Savonnais; Marcus greets Trebonius and the senior officers, stows the royal liaison until dinner despite the comte’s protest, and calls the staff to the command tent with word of bad news.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAlive, in the command tent with his five senior men. Must tell them Corvus and the Sanctiff are dead by fire in the palace throne room. Eyes dry and burning. Will not march south; the Amorr news is old and the orc numbers are not. Orders silence to the ranks, wives and children shifted toward the city, and discloses the Savonderic titles — Trebonius a viscomte, himself offered a refused marquisat — plus pay for facing twenty-five to forty thousand.\n\nGaius Trebonius\nAlive; squeezes Marcus’s shoulder; later reads the sealed grant and balks at being made a viscomte and liege-man.\n\nTitus Cassabus\nPraefectus; alive; shakes his head in denial; can read; first to stop swearing and ask how two understrength legions stop tens of thousands.\n\nCaius Proculus\nPrimus pilus; alive; asks if the city has fallen; collapses into a chair; later backs silence to prevent desertion.\n\nSentas Tertius / Vitius Sintas / Sintas Tertius\nAlive; weeps; shouts for Magnus’s head and a southward march; protests the orc plan as madness.\n\nSenarius Arvandus\nSenior decurion; alive; incredulous at finding camp wives in the woods; suspicious of “requested” larger force size.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHe made another leg, and without any signal that Marcus could see, his dismounted men did the same, in unison. They looked absurd, of course, but they performed the silly movement with sufficient snap and precision that he wondered, if, with the proper training, they might actually be of some use as an auxiliary horse. He’d have to speak to Senarius Arvandus, the senior decurion, to see if that could be arranged. But now that the introductions had been accomplished, he was eager to see the Savonders safely stowed away somewhere in the camp so Trebonius could bring him up to speed on how soon the legion would be ready to march east.\n\n“Monseigneur Comte, I’m sure you and your men will want to see to your horses. If you will follow Gnaeus Vitalis, he can show you where the stables are located; we will see that suitable accommodation near them is provided. I hope you will do me the honor of dining with me tonight.”\n\n“You are too kind, Monseigneur General.” The proud young man’s face hardened. “But while my men are establishing themselves, I must insist on speaking with you and your command staff. We have, I believe, certain matters of considerable import to discuss without delay.”\n\nMarcus sighed. De Forbonnais had been a charming companion on the ride south, but Marcus had no illusions that the Savonder was going to be anything but a thorn in his side from now on. And if monseigneur comte was not, like the last Savonderic comte who had been inflicted upon him, a royal battlemage, Marcus would eat the legionary standard. It wasn’t as if they had not any opportunity to speak throughout the ride; clearly de Forbonnais was eager to take the mettle of his staff.\n\n“Those matters will keep until this evening, monseigneur comte. My men will see to your accommodations, and if you require anything out of the ordinary, you have only to ask and the decurion will see to it.”\n\nDe Forbonnais drew himself up haughtily, and for a moment Marcus thought the man was going to be foolish enough to stand his ground, but he merely sniffed reproachfully and bowed deeply while drawing one arm to his torso in what might have been a parody of an Amorran salute.\n\n“As you say, monseigneur general. We shall speak again anon.”\n\nMarcus nodded and watched as the Savonders remounted and followed Vitalis along the Via Principalis. A centurion whistled, waved his staff, and soon three decani were leading their contubernii in pursuit of the cloud of dust the Savonderic horses were kicking up behind them. Marcus doubted it was necessary to guard the Savonders inside the castra, but he didn’t countermand the order. With more than a thousand leagues now separating them from the northernmost borders of the empire, Legio XVII couldn’t be too careful.\n\n“The command tent,” Marcus said, his voice lowered so that only the senior officers nearby could hear him. “I’ve got bad news.”\n\n### NOTES\nCommand tent, large canvas; earthen floor; afternoon into the staff conference.\nCorvus and the Sanctiff found burned together in the palace throne room; an archbishop dead also; elven ambassador missing — Marcus does not believe the elves did it if Shadowsong, Everbright, and the mage told him truth.\nGoblin parties mounted about a century strong; orc parties on foot; main host estimated twenty-five to forty thousand.\nRoyal seals and a thick grant scroll in a legionary-carried satchel.\nWine flagon at the far side of the tent; wax board called for at the end.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nIn the tent he faces Cassabus, Proculus, Tertius, Arvandus, and Trebonius — plebs and veterans closer to Corvus than he ever was — and tells them the General and the Sanctified Father are dead. Silence, then grief; he holds his own dry eyes long enough to say fire in the throne room, rumors of elves and Severans, his own lean toward Magnus. Tertius wants uncle’s head and a march south. Marcus refuses: the news is old, Amorr’s fight is elsewhere, and honor means holding here. Nothing to the men yet; shift the women and brats toward the city before the truth runs. Bitter jokes about camp wives while Trebonius finds wine.\n\nMarcus stops the toast for two matters: century-sized goblin and orc parties to hunt, and the real host behind them — twenty-five to forty thousand. Swearing. He has accepted the fight; he hands Trebonius a sealed grant making the tribune a viscomte and reveals his own refused marquisat, House Valerius above foreign crowns, and the gold that comes with the orc war. Cavator, not Clericus. Proculus groans; Tertius offers to die like men in the open; Marcus calls for wine and a wax board. This could take some time.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2900 words. Grief contained in Marcus, open in the officers; land on the wine and wax-board order, planning not finished.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Marcus looked from face to face inside the large canvas tent. With one exception, the praefectus Cassabus, the five men facing him were shorter than him; they were all older. To a man, they were plebs, and with the sole exception of Trebonius, they were all longtime veterans who had served under his father in one of the other two Valerian legions before helping Corvus and Marcus Saturnius build XVII. He had next to nothing in common with them; except for Senarius Arvandus, the equestrian, they were poor, uneducated, and vulgar. He was a consul’s son, censor’s grandson, and consul’s nephew educated as a scholar destined for the Church hierarchy.\n\nAnd yet, he had come to trust them more than he had ever trusted anyone. He knew them better than his own brother, he knew they were closer to his father than he had ever been, and he could not bring himself to lie to them. Not about something so important. Not about someone so close to their hearts. Not even though it would grieve them as deeply as it grieved him.\n\nHe took a deep breath and looked away from their grim, suspicious expressions.\n\n“How bad is it?” Caius Proculus finally broke the silence. “Has the city fallen?”\n\nMarcus blinked, surprised. His news was bad. It wasn’t the literal end of the world.\n\n“No. It’s my father. The General. Corvus. He is dead. The Sanctified Father as well.”\n\nNo one said anything. All five men were too shocked to speak, too astonished to even protest. But the silence that followed his revelation was qualitatively different than the silence of the moment before. To Marcus, it felt as if a great chasm had opened up before his feet, as if the speaking of those terrible words had unleashed an evil spell that altered the very fabric of the world.\n\nMy father is dead. The Holy Father is dead.\n\nHis eyes remained dry, but they burned in their sockets.\n\nTrebonius reached out to him and silently squeezed his shoulder. Cassabus was shaking his head back and forth in denial, while Proculus staggered back, fumbled blindly for a chair, and collapsed heavily onto it. Sintas Tertius buried his head in his hands, and a moment later, his shoulders began to convulse as he wept silently.\n\nThe sight of his grief-stricken officers was almost more than Marcus could bear. He gritted his teeth, looked down at the earthen floor to give himself a moment to regain control, then cleared his throat.\n\n“Before you ask, no one knows exactly what happened. It seems there was a fire in the palace, in the throne room. Corvus was there, meeting with the Sanctiff. They were found dead there together, burned. An archbishop died as well.”\n\n“Who did it? Were they attacked?” Proculus was the first to get himself under control.\n\n“There are all sorts of wild rumors flying around. The elven ambassador disappeared at the same time, so considerable speculation centers on that. But unless Lady Shadowsong, Lady Everbright and that cursed mage were all lying to me, it can’t have been the elves. There are all sorts of incredible rumors, and it’s clear that no one actually knows who was responsible.”\n\n“Do you think it was the Severans?”\n\n“It’s possible, of course.” Marcus thoughtfully worried at the cuticle on his right index finger with his left hand. “But I’d be more inclined to suspect my uncle. House Severus is still in disarray by all accounts and Corvus had nothing to do with Severus Patronus’s death. As far as my thoughts go, this is the sort of bold, unexpected stroke that only Magnus would dare. I can’t think of another Senator with the stones to do it.”\n\n“That makes sense,” Trebonius said. The others looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged. “I don’t know any more about patrician politics than the rest of you, but if the fire that killed the General happened before Lady Shadowsong met us, then he was dead months ago, before we met Magnus near Montmila. We know Magnus must have been planning rebellion before then, and God knows he’s a wily old bastard, so it doesn’t seem unlikely that your uncle would have arranged for something to keep the city occupied in his absence.”\n\n“Killing a consul and a sanctiff would certainly tie down the Senate and keep it well and truly distracted.” Marcus punched his open palm. “To say nothing of frightening the plebs and eliminating the one general he knew was good enough to beat him. Dammit, if I hadn’t put the horse on the left wing under Nobilianus, we’d have had him and that murderous traitor’s fat arse would have already been roasted over a slow fire!”\n\n“So what the hell are we doing here?” Tertius shouted. His face was streaked with tears and Marcus recalled that last year it had taken the man weeks to get over Saturnius’s death. “We shouldn’t be in Savonderum, we should be back there, back in Amorr! Damn the northmen, let them defend their own bloody borders from the orc. Let’s march south and put your traitor uncle’s head where it belongs, on the sharp end of a spear!”\n\n“No one wants my uncle’s head more than I do, Vitius Sintas. There isn’t a man here who wants to avenge my father’s blood more than me.”\n\nMarcus shook his head. And it was at that moment, the pain of seeing his men’s grief pulling him out of his own, that everything suddenly became clear to him. Let the dead bury the dead.\n\n“We all want to avenge Corvus. But we’re not marching south,” he told them. “This news is old. The fighting at home may already be over, one way or the other. These orcs, they aren’t something the Savonners can stop on their own. There are too many. If we can help the king stop the orcs here, we’re doing our duty to the Senate and People by keeping them out of the empire and well away from Amorr. Every orc we kill, every orc we even force them to field against us here in the north, is one more that isn’t marching south towards our lands through the Waste.”\n\nTrebonius nodded. Cassabus exhaled loudly and shook his head, but more in frustration than disagreement. Proculus looked skeptical, but he did not protest.\n\nTertius stared angrily at Marcus. Marcus didn’t say anything more, he simply met the man’s angry, pain-filled eyes, until the centurion finally looked away. But he didn’t manage to do so before Marcus noticed another tear run down his cheek.\n\n“What are we going to tell the men?” Trebonius finally asked.\n\n“Nothing. They don’t need to know.”\n\n“Nothing? How can you not tell them the Sanctiff is dead? How can you think they wouldn’t want to honor the General!”\n\n“They’ll think to honor him by avenging him,” Proculus answered Tertius. “And that ain’t the worst problem. The men who left their women and children behind is already half beside themselves not knowing what is happening to them. If they hear that things down there is that out of control, some of them is going to crack. We might even start seeing men trying to head south on their own.”\n\n“There won’t be any desertions!” Trebonius said heatedly. “There hasn’t been a single one since the day after the battle!”\n\n“Do you think anyone was about to desert when the general’s elf girl was patrolling the skies, or run off in the darkness under the mountains?” Cassabus said.\n\nShe’s not my elf, Marcus wanted to say, but he let it slide. “No one is deserting and no one outside of this staff is to hear about either my father or the Holy Father.” He looked from officer to officer, making certain they all understood it was an order. “The families are a legitimate issue. Arvandus, arrange for a squadron to ride south to Gorignia tomorrow, taking letters. Those who can write will have to help those who can’t. And send a chest of silver with them, twenty terces for each woman and another ten for each child. They can spend three weeks looking for news of the camp followers. If they can’t find them by then, they should return. They’ll most likely find the women in one of the Vallyrian castras.”\n\n“Are you serious?” The senior decurion looked incredulous. “General, you couldn’t be certain of finding them if you sent ten squadrons!”\n\nMarcus shrugged. “They may not find anyone. But if we can keep the ranks from getting overly restless for the price of a little silver and eight knights, that’s not a bad bargain. The men know as well as we do there is nothing we can do for their families, they just want to see we aren’t ignoring their concerns.”\n\n“This is why they’re not allowed to marry in the first place,” Proculus grumbled.\n\n“Camp wife is cheaper than whores,” said Tertius.\n\n“Depends on the whore,” Cassabus said wryly, drawing a bitter snort from the centurion.\n\nWhile they were talking, Trebonius had gone to the far side of the tent and withdrawn a flagon, presumably of wine, from the shadows. He handed it to the pilus prior, then gathered five of the stemless wooden goblets from which the Savondese peasantry drank. But before Tertius could pour it, Marcus intervened.\n\n“No, not yet.” He held up his hand to stop the centurion. “There are two things that require addressing now. First, we march northeast the day after tomorrow. We will assemble the centurions this evening in the forum and instruct them to inform their centuries accordingly. The duke told me that large raiding parties of orcs are known to have attacked seventeen towns and villages north of the Grimmwalde Gap. The local nobles have assembled a force of two hundred horse and hunted down eight of the warbands, but at least four remain active.”\n\n“How big are these parties?” Trebonius asked. None of the men looked surprised that they would be abandoning the castra so quickly.\n\n“About a century. The goblins are mounted. The orcs aren’t.”\n\n“They can’t possibly think we’re going to chase down warbands that size on foot,” protested Arvandus. “And between my knights and Appius Julianus’s, we’ve barely got more than three hundred horse ourselves! Or we would if we had horses, which we don’t.”\n\nMarcus grinned wryly at the senior decurion. “No worries, Senarius, the Savonners have no intention of wasting a perfectly good Amorran legion chasing shadows in the forest. They’ve taken captives, and the interrogations have led them to believe that a much larger force is marching through the Gap. We have been requested to march there at all speed, and stop them before they manage to exit the hills and threaten the city of Naeon”\n\n“Requested?” Arvandus looked suspicious. “How much larger a force?”\n\n“There are conflicting reports, but the most credible estimate is between twenty-five and forty thousand.”\n\nThat produced instantaneous responses from the five officers, every single one of which would merit at least a mild penance from Father Gennadius.\n\nMarcus wasn’t surprised that the praefectus, Cassabus, was the first to stop swearing and think the matter through. “What sort of forces is the king providing? We beat twenty thousand goblins last year, but twice that many orcs is an entirely different proposition, General. And you know we’ve four hundred fewer men now.”\n\n“I am well aware of that. What’s more, instead of two veteran generals commanding the legion, you’ve got a tribune with no victories and a defeat to his credit, and that defeat with the numbers on his side. Moreover, they’ve got shamans, blood magiciens, and the Immaculate knows what other devilries on hand, whereas we don’t have so much as a single Michaeline novice. Even you wouldn’t take those odds, Proculus.”\n\n“I hope you’re going to tell us that you didn’t,” the primus pilus said, unsmiling.\n\n“I wish I could,” Marcus said, as he walked over and reached into a leather satchel that one of the legionaries had brought into the tent earlier. He withdrew a scroll that was sealed in purple wax marked with a very large stamp and handed it to Trebonius. “Unfortunately, the request essentially amounts to an order, seeing as how it comes from Gaius Trebonius’s new liege lord.”\n\n“What’s this?” the young tribune said, waving the scroll back and forth. “My liege lord?”\n\n“Impressive, isn’t it?” Marcus pointed to the seal and smiled at his friend’s discomfiture. That would teach him not to execute the local peasants in his absence. “It is the seal of His Royal Majesty, Louis-Charles de Mirid, by the grace of God King of Savondir, the Wolf Isles, and the Seven Seats. Break it, Gaius Trebonius.”\n\nTrebonius broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. Cassabus whistled at the sight of it; the praefectus could read nearly as well as Marcus and the elaborate script was a veritable work of art that looked more like the product of a monastic scriptorium than a royal bureaucracy.\n\nTrebonius, being a merchant’s son, could read as well, although the over-flourished hand of the scribe seemed to make it hard for him to distinguish one word from another. But at least Marcus had been able to convince the cleric to write the scroll in Church Faleran rather than in the Savonnaise the Chancelier originally ordered. It established that Gaius Trebonius, a mere plebian, was now the viscomte de Lechaire, wherever that might be.\n\n“What is a viscomte?” he asked Marcus, looking confused.\n\n“It’s something like a miniature province. The king has made you something similar to a proconsular governor, only it’s a permanent office. Hereditary, even. So, congratulations, Monseigneur viscomte. You’re now a patrician of sorts.”\n\n“I don’t understand.” Trebonius stared at the scroll as if it had turned into a serpent. The other officers were nonplussed as well. Proculus, in particular, was looking askance at Marcus, as if he thought Marcus had gone completely mad.\n\n“It’s entirely sensible on the king’s part, gentlemen. We have what is, by Savonner standards, an unusually large army, and the king is a little nervous that we’re going to march on Lutèce and attempt to dethrone him. If it weren’t for the orcs, he’d probably be raising his levies against us. But as things stand, he knows he needs us. He’s trying to buy our loyalty.”\n\n“Why didn’t he give it to you?” Trebonius asked.\n\n“He did. He offered me something called a marquisat, which I understand is a larger province and a higher rank. I refused, of course.”\n\n“Why?” Tertius and Proculus asked at the same time.\n\n“I am of House Valerius,” Marcus answered simply. “I would not have accepted the crown, had he offered it.”\n\nThe men, somewhat to his surprise, burst out laughing. Marcus ignored them and continued. “What’s more important is that in addition to the lands and income he’s given Gaius Trebonius, the king has agreed to keep us supplied through next winter and meet our payroll for the duration of the summer campaign.”\n\n“Can’t collect if you’re dead,” Tertius said, rubbing skeptically at his unshaven chin. “Maybe that’s why he’s throwing us in the gap. Figures he can kill two birds with the one stone, getting rid of us and a whole passel of orcs at one throw.”\n\nMarcus shrugged. “Men, you want to honor the General. This is how we’re going to do it. We’re going to honor him by slaughtering these orcs and striking fear into the hearts of every man, orc, and goblin in the north.”\n\n“This is madness!” Tertius protested.\n\n“Clericus, you’ve never even fought the orc before!” Cassabus reminded him.\n\n“Cavator,” Marcus corrected the primus pilus. “I hear the men are calling me Cavator now. And I’ve decided they may as well, because I’ve come up with a plan, and as it happens, it is one that may involve a considerable quantity of digging.”\n\nThe senior officers looked at each other in silence. Then Proculus groaned and pretended to rub at his back.\n\n“Damn their numbers, General! Can’t we just face them in the open and die like men?”\n\nThe officers laughed again, but there was a faint edge of something that, in lesser men, might have been described as hysteria. Marcus only smiled, located a chair, and pointed to the flagon, relieved to see that they were still with him.\n\n“You’d better pour us that wine, Arvandus. Trebonius, see if you can locate a wax board and a stylus. This could take some time.”\n", "completion": "Marcus looked from face to face inside the large canvas tent. With one exception, the praefectus Cassabus, the five men facing him were shorter than him; they were all older. To a man, they were plebs, and with the sole exception of Trebonius, they were all longtime veterans who had served under his father in one of the other two Valerian legions before helping Corvus and Marcus Saturnius build XVII. He had next to nothing in common with them; except for Senarius Arvandus, the equestrian, they were poor, uneducated, and vulgar. He was a consul’s son, censor’s grandson, and consul’s nephew educated as a scholar destined for the Church hierarchy.\n\nAnd yet, he had come to trust them more than he had ever trusted anyone. He knew them better than his own brother, he knew they were closer to his father than he had ever been, and he could not bring himself to lie to them. Not about something so important. Not about someone so close to their hearts. Not even though it would grieve them as deeply as it grieved him.\n\nHe took a deep breath and looked away from their grim, suspicious expressions.\n\n“How bad is it?” Caius Proculus finally broke the silence. “Has the city fallen?”\n\nMarcus blinked, surprised. His news was bad. It wasn’t the literal end of the world.\n\n“No. It’s my father. The General. Corvus. He is dead. The Sanctified Father as well.”\n\nNo one said anything. All five men were too shocked to speak, too astonished to even protest. But the silence that followed his revelation was qualitatively different than the silence of the moment before. To Marcus, it felt as if a great chasm had opened up before his feet, as if the speaking of those terrible words had unleashed an evil spell that altered the very fabric of the world.\n\nMy father is dead. The Holy Father is dead.\n\nHis eyes remained dry, but they burned in their sockets.\n\nTrebonius reached out to him and silently squeezed his shoulder. Cassabus was shaking his head back and forth in denial, while Proculus staggered back, fumbled blindly for a chair, and collapsed heavily onto it. Sintas Tertius buried his head in his hands, and a moment later, his shoulders began to convulse as he wept silently.\n\nThe sight of his grief-stricken officers was almost more than Marcus could bear. He gritted his teeth, looked down at the earthen floor to give himself a moment to regain control, then cleared his throat.\n\n“Before you ask, no one knows exactly what happened. It seems there was a fire in the palace, in the throne room. Corvus was there, meeting with the Sanctiff. They were found dead there together, burned. An archbishop died as well.”\n\n“Who did it? Were they attacked?” Proculus was the first to get himself under control.\n\n“There are all sorts of wild rumors flying around. The elven ambassador disappeared at the same time, so considerable speculation centers on that. But unless Lady Shadowsong, Lady Everbright and that cursed mage were all lying to me, it can’t have been the elves. There are all sorts of incredible rumors, and it’s clear that no one actually knows who was responsible.”\n\n“Do you think it was the Severans?”\n\n“It’s possible, of course.” Marcus thoughtfully worried at the cuticle on his right index finger with his left hand. “But I’d be more inclined to suspect my uncle. House Severus is still in disarray by all accounts and Corvus had nothing to do with Severus Patronus’s death. As far as my thoughts go, this is the sort of bold, unexpected stroke that only Magnus would dare. I can’t think of another Senator with the stones to do it.”\n\n“That makes sense,” Trebonius said. The others looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged. “I don’t know any more about patrician politics than the rest of you, but if the fire that killed the General happened before Lady Shadowsong met us, then he was dead months ago, before we met Magnus near Montmila. We know Magnus must have been planning rebellion before then, and God knows he’s a wily old bastard, so it doesn’t seem unlikely that your uncle would have arranged for something to keep the city occupied in his absence.”\n\n“Killing a consul and a sanctiff would certainly tie down the Senate and keep it well and truly distracted.” Marcus punched his open palm. “To say nothing of frightening the plebs and eliminating the one general he knew was good enough to beat him. Dammit, if I hadn’t put the horse on the left wing under Nobilianus, we’d have had him and that murderous traitor’s fat arse would have already been roasted over a slow fire!”\n\n“So what the hell are we doing here?” Tertius shouted. His face was streaked with tears and Marcus recalled that last year it had taken the man weeks to get over Saturnius’s death. “We shouldn’t be in Savonderum, we should be back there, back in Amorr! Damn the northmen, let them defend their own bloody borders from the orc. Let’s march south and put your traitor uncle’s head where it belongs, on the sharp end of a spear!”\n\n“No one wants my uncle’s head more than I do, Vitius Sintas. There isn’t a man here who wants to avenge my father’s blood more than me.”\n\nMarcus shook his head. And it was at that moment, the pain of seeing his men’s grief pulling him out of his own, that everything suddenly became clear to him. Let the dead bury the dead.\n\n“We all want to avenge Corvus. But we’re not marching south,” he told them. “This news is old. The fighting at home may already be over, one way or the other. These orcs, they aren’t something the Savonners can stop on their own. There are too many. If we can help the king stop the orcs here, we’re doing our duty to the Senate and People by keeping them out of the empire and well away from Amorr. Every orc we kill, every orc we even force them to field against us here in the north, is one more that isn’t marching south towards our lands through the Waste.”\n\nTrebonius nodded. Cassabus exhaled loudly and shook his head, but more in frustration than disagreement. Proculus looked skeptical, but he did not protest.\n\nTertius stared angrily at Marcus. Marcus didn’t say anything more, he simply met the man’s angry, pain-filled eyes, until the centurion finally looked away. But he didn’t manage to do so before Marcus noticed another tear run down his cheek.\n\n“What are we going to tell the men?” Trebonius finally asked.\n\n“Nothing. They don’t need to know.”\n\n“Nothing? How can you not tell them the Sanctiff is dead? How can you think they wouldn’t want to honor the General!”\n\n“They’ll think to honor him by avenging him,” Proculus answered Tertius. “And that ain’t the worst problem. The men who left their women and children behind is already half beside themselves not knowing what is happening to them. If they hear that things down there is that out of control, some of them is going to crack. We might even start seeing men trying to head south on their own.”\n\n“There won’t be any desertions!” Trebonius said heatedly. “There hasn’t been a single one since the day after the battle!”\n\n“Do you think anyone was about to desert when the general’s elf girl was patrolling the skies, or run off in the darkness under the mountains?” Cassabus said.\n\nShe’s not my elf, Marcus wanted to say, but he let it slide. “No one is deserting and no one outside of this staff is to hear about either my father or the Holy Father.” He looked from officer to officer, making certain they all understood it was an order. “The families are a legitimate issue. Arvandus, arrange for a squadron to ride south to Gorignia tomorrow, taking letters. Those who can write will have to help those who can’t. And send a chest of silver with them, twenty terces for each woman and another ten for each child. They can spend three weeks looking for news of the camp followers. If they can’t find them by then, they should return. They’ll most likely find the women in one of the Vallyrian castras.”\n\n“Are you serious?” The senior decurion looked incredulous. “General, you couldn’t be certain of finding them if you sent ten squadrons!”\n\nMarcus shrugged. “They may not find anyone. But if we can keep the ranks from getting overly restless for the price of a little silver and eight knights, that’s not a bad bargain. The men know as well as we do there is nothing we can do for their families, they just want to see we aren’t ignoring their concerns.”\n\n“This is why they’re not allowed to marry in the first place,” Proculus grumbled.\n\n“Camp wife is cheaper than whores,” said Tertius.\n\n“Depends on the whore,” Cassabus said wryly, drawing a bitter snort from the centurion.\n\nWhile they were talking, Trebonius had gone to the far side of the tent and withdrawn a flagon, presumably of wine, from the shadows. He handed it to the pilus prior, then gathered five of the stemless wooden goblets from which the Savondese peasantry drank. But before Tertius could pour it, Marcus intervened.\n\n“No, not yet.” He held up his hand to stop the centurion. “There are two things that require addressing now. First, we march northeast the day after tomorrow. We will assemble the centurions this evening in the forum and instruct them to inform their centuries accordingly. The duke told me that large raiding parties of orcs are known to have attacked seventeen towns and villages north of the Grimmwalde Gap. The local nobles have assembled a force of two hundred horse and hunted down eight of the warbands, but at least four remain active.”\n\n“How big are these parties?” Trebonius asked. None of the men looked surprised that they would be abandoning the castra so quickly.\n\n“About a century. The goblins are mounted. The orcs aren’t.”\n\n“They can’t possibly think we’re going to chase down warbands that size on foot,” protested Arvandus. “And between my knights and Appius Julianus’s, we’ve barely got more than three hundred horse ourselves! Or we would if we had horses, which we don’t.”\n\nMarcus grinned wryly at the senior decurion. “No worries, Senarius, the Savonners have no intention of wasting a perfectly good Amorran legion chasing shadows in the forest. They’ve taken captives, and the interrogations have led them to believe that a much larger force is marching through the Gap. We have been requested to march there at all speed, and stop them before they manage to exit the hills and threaten the city of Naeon”\n\n“Requested?” Arvandus looked suspicious. “How much larger a force?”\n\n“There are conflicting reports, but the most credible estimate is between twenty-five and forty thousand.”\n\nThat produced instantaneous responses from the five officers, every single one of which would merit at least a mild penance from Father Gennadius.\n\nMarcus wasn’t surprised that the praefectus, Cassabus, was the first to stop swearing and think the matter through. “What sort of forces is the king providing? We beat twenty thousand goblins last year, but twice that many orcs is an entirely different proposition, General. And you know we’ve four hundred fewer men now.”\n\n“I am well aware of that. What’s more, instead of two veteran generals commanding the legion, you’ve got a tribune with no victories and a defeat to his credit, and that defeat with the numbers on his side. Moreover, they’ve got shamans, blood magiciens, and the Immaculate knows what other devilries on hand, whereas we don’t have so much as a single Michaeline novice. Even you wouldn’t take those odds, Proculus.”\n\n“I hope you’re going to tell us that you didn’t,” the primus pilus said, unsmiling.\n\n“I wish I could,” Marcus said, as he walked over and reached into a leather satchel that one of the legionaries had brought into the tent earlier. He withdrew a scroll that was sealed in purple wax marked with a very large stamp and handed it to Trebonius. “Unfortunately, the request essentially amounts to an order, seeing as how it comes from Gaius Trebonius’s new liege lord.”\n\n“What’s this?” the young tribune said, waving the scroll back and forth. “My liege lord?”\n\n“Impressive, isn’t it?” Marcus pointed to the seal and smiled at his friend’s discomfiture. That would teach him not to execute the local peasants in his absence. “It is the seal of His Royal Majesty, Louis-Charles de Mirid, by the grace of God King of Savondir, the Wolf Isles, and the Seven Seats. Break it, Gaius Trebonius.”\n\nTrebonius broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. Cassabus whistled at the sight of it; the praefectus could read nearly as well as Marcus and the elaborate script was a veritable work of art that looked more like the product of a monastic scriptorium than a royal bureaucracy.\n\nTrebonius, being a merchant’s son, could read as well, although the over-flourished hand of the scribe seemed to make it hard for him to distinguish one word from another. But at least Marcus had been able to convince the cleric to write the scroll in Church Faleran rather than in the Savonnaise the Chancelier originally ordered. It established that Gaius Trebonius, a mere plebian, was now the viscomte de Lechaire, wherever that might be.\n\n“What is a viscomte?” he asked Marcus, looking confused.\n\n“It’s something like a miniature province. The king has made you something similar to a proconsular governor, only it’s a permanent office. Hereditary, even. So, congratulations, Monseigneur viscomte. You’re now a patrician of sorts.”\n\n“I don’t understand.” Trebonius stared at the scroll as if it had turned into a serpent. The other officers were nonplussed as well. Proculus, in particular, was looking askance at Marcus, as if he thought Marcus had gone completely mad.\n\n“It’s entirely sensible on the king’s part, gentlemen. We have what is, by Savonner standards, an unusually large army, and the king is a little nervous that we’re going to march on Lutèce and attempt to dethrone him. If it weren’t for the orcs, he’d probably be raising his levies against us. But as things stand, he knows he needs us. He’s trying to buy our loyalty.”\n\n“Why didn’t he give it to you?” Trebonius asked.\n\n“He did. He offered me something called a marquisat, which I understand is a larger province and a higher rank. I refused, of course.”\n\n“Why?” Tertius and Proculus asked at the same time.\n\n“I am of House Valerius,” Marcus answered simply. “I would not have accepted the crown, had he offered it.”\n\nThe men, somewhat to his surprise, burst out laughing. Marcus ignored them and continued. “What’s more important is that in addition to the lands and income he’s given Gaius Trebonius, the king has agreed to keep us supplied through next winter and meet our payroll for the duration of the summer campaign.”\n\n“Can’t collect if you’re dead,” Tertius said, rubbing skeptically at his unshaven chin. “Maybe that’s why he’s throwing us in the gap. Figures he can kill two birds with the one stone, getting rid of us and a whole passel of orcs at one throw.”\n\nMarcus shrugged. “Men, you want to honor the General. This is how we’re going to do it. We’re going to honor him by slaughtering these orcs and striking fear into the hearts of every man, orc, and goblin in the north.”\n\n“This is madness!” Tertius protested.\n\n“Clericus, you’ve never even fought the orc before!” Cassabus reminded him.\n\n“Cavator,” Marcus corrected the primus pilus. “I hear the men are calling me Cavator now. And I’ve decided they may as well, because I’ve come up with a plan, and as it happens, it is one that may involve a considerable quantity of digging.”\n\nThe senior officers looked at each other in silence. Then Proculus groaned and pretended to rub at his back.\n\n“Damn their numbers, General! Can’t we just face them in the open and die like men?”\n\nThe officers laughed again, but there was a faint edge of something that, in lesser men, might have been described as hysteria. Marcus only smiled, located a chair, and pointed to the flagon, relieved to see that they were still with him.\n\n“You’d better pour us that wine, Arvandus. Trebonius, see if you can locate a wax board and a stylus. This could take some time.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2858, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch04_severa-P1", "chapter": "ch04_severa", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAmorr — city name; no article in formal reference; Amorran for the adjective.\nHouse Valerius / House Severus / House Martial — capitalized House; Martial capitalized in the formal class name.\nLegio VII / Legio XVII / Legios XXXV and XXXVI — legion numbers as Roman numerals after Legio.\nDidius Scato — keep both names; Scato is the cognomen.\nValerius Magnus — Magnus as the common short form; do not write Magnus Valerius.\nT. Severus Servius — initial form as written; quaestor.\nSextus Valerius — Severa’s husband; Sextus in dialogue and thought.\nValerius Perfidus — street insult; both words capitalized.\nManlius Torquatus — Consul Civitas (former); Torquatus acceptable short form.\nM. Andronicus Declama — Consul Civitas; Declama short form.\nAppuleius Pansa — Consul Provincae.\nSanctified Father / His Sanctified Holiness — Church titles; capitalize as written.\nCharity IV / Pelagianus — sanctiff names; keep numerals and spelling.\nImmaculate / White Throne — capitalized religious terms.\nVia Epra — road name; both words capitalized.\nQuinqueterra — provincial place-name; one word.\nWar of the Three Leagues / Allied War — both epithets capitalized as given.\nauctores — lowercase faction label; italic not required.\nlaticlavii / tribune laticlavius — keep Latin forms; do not anglicize in mouths that use them.\nForum — capitalized when the civic square is meant.\nStarsday — weekday name; one word, capital S.\nOrontine — ethnic/provincial adjective; capitalize.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSevera\nYoung patrician wife of Sextus Valerius, born Severan; living in Magnus’s Amorran domus under the shadow of both Houses’ treason. Proud of Sextus despite the street whispers; angry when the city tars him with Magnus’s name. Helps care for her distraught mother-in-law Julia; prefers the kitchen and the house to public looks. Has almost forgotten a vow to Saint Malachus and the servant Quinta Jul. Knows the Senate’s fear, the slave legions, and that Sextus oversees expulsions of the insufficiently loyal. Not yet pregnant that she knows of.\n\nSextus Valerius\nSevera’s husband; young tribune assigned expulsions rather than a gate. Proud Valerian; will not complain of the whispers even alone. Living in Magnus’s own domus as defiance. Warm nature worn thin by cruel duties; guilt-stricken after an eviction ended in a household murder-suicide. Away from the house most days until nightfall; not present at the start of this scene.\n\nCarvilia\nSister-in-law; wife of Potitus (imprisoned). Tall, pretty, supercilious; has borne Magnus two grandsons and claims status over Caerilla and Pompilia. Does not weep publicly; wants company for a walk to the Forum. Dislikes Marcipor.\n\nJulipora\nOlder kitchen slave devoted to Julia; weeping over apocalyptic kitchen theology about burned Celestials and Black Apostles.\n\nJulia\nSextus’s mother; distraught near madness after Magnus’s treachery and her sons’ arrests. Gaunt, white-streaked hair; often in bed. Severa reads to her. Not on stage at the walk’s start.\n\nGalerus\nOrontine majordomus of the Valerian domus; fiercely loyal to Magnus; assigns Magnus Tertius and Durus as escorts.\n\nMagnus Tertius / Durus\nHouse slaves serving as escorts—mute and beef-faced respectively; leather armor and iron-capped staves.\n\n### RECALL\n(Book 1 — summary)\nSevera was married into House Valerius after her father Severus Patronus’s failed bid to make himself King of Amorr; Patronus and her brother Aulan’s involvement with Magnus left House Severus under suspicion. Valerius Corvus and the Sanctified Father died in mysterious palace fire; six Church princes were murdered in conclave. Earlier, Severa made a vow involving Saint Malachus and took the servant Quinta Jul into her father’s house—Quinta Jul later left Lady Severus’s service.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nAmorr is under military rule though no enemy army rings the walls; spring approaches.\nTwelve thousand slaves (two legions’ worth) are being trained as legionaries; six Houses Martial fund them; Valerian and Severan houses were excluded.\nThree of Sextus’s older brothers and eight cousins are in Senatorial custody over Legio VII ties.\nThe Valerian domus is Magnus’s own house, near the Forum.\nWeather: spring wind, sun through white clouds; Martius chill easing.\nPortus Antica is being fortified; the new port outside the walls is indefensible.\nGates of the domus are unguarded at this hour of day.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Severa.\n\nAmorr feels besieged without an army at the walls: military rule, slave legions, Valerians and Severans locked out of the new funding, brothers and cousins in custody. Severa lives on the jump at every tramp of sandals past Magnus’s domus, watching Sextus carry the Senate’s expulsions while his pride will not let him name the whispers. She knows how close their own House came to the same fate, and she has sat through his hollow-eyed account of the Quinqueterra husband who murdered his household rather than leave.\n\nThe kitchen is no refuge from the city’s religion of fear. Julipora weeps that burned sanctiffs mean Black Apostles; Severa’s arithmetic spoils the twelve, Carvilia’s correction starts the wailing again, and Severa has flour on her hands while Carvilia resets her comb and decides they are walking to the Forum whether Severa meant to read to Mama Julia or not.\n\nShe changes; Carvilia puts Julia’s dark wolf cape on her—Valerian silver V and all—and refuses Marcipor in favor of mute Magnus Tertius and slab-faced Durus. Galerus arms the escorts with a speech about shutting disrespectful mouths. Severa’s mind runs the double shame of Patronus and Magnus against this stubborn little Orontine’s loyalty, and she hardens herself to cheer Sextus through whatever ugliness restores the city’s confidence.\n\nThey pass the unguarded gates into sun and brick and wagon traffic toward Portus Antica. The scene leaves her on that road, not yet knowing her husband is walking the other way.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2700 words. Patrician domestic register under political pressure; Severa’s pride and dread stay close, rumors and kitchen talk in other mouths. Land as they clear the gates toward the Forum; do not meet Sextus yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Amorr was a city under siege. Although no enemy armies ringed her walls, or assailed her gates, the city had been formally placed under military rule and every day, her citizens awoke with the knowledge that they were one day closer to spring. Men volunteered for the four new legions that had been voted funds by the Senate, while women prepared foodstuffs, sewed everything from banners to thick canvas sacks, and made do without half their household slaves.\n\nThe slaves had been commandeered by the Senate vote and it was an indication of the city’s desperation that twelve thousand of them, two legions worth, were being trained as legionaries. Six of the Houses Martial were sharing the cost of the two slave legions, with the understanding that they would be disbanded at the end of the war, but neither House Valerian nor House Severus had been permitted to participate. With two of the three Valerian legions in league with the rebellious provincials and the whereabouts of the third one unknown, the Valerians were under extreme suspicion by the Senate and People alike.\n\nThree of her husband’s older brothers and no less than eight of his cousins had been taken into Senatorial custody. All of them had served at one time or another with Legio VII, the legion commanded by Didius Scato that Valerius Magnus had so easily coopted. Sextus had been questioned closely by her cousin T. Severus Servius, a quaestor who had been elected at the same assembly, but in light of his youth, his tribunate, and his lack of personal ties to any of the three Valerian legions, he had thus far been spared the indignity of an arrest.\n\nBut it was something she worried about every time she heard a group of men marching up the street to the Valerian domus in which they were now living. Her heart skipped a beat every time she heard the clatter of more than two or three pairs of iron-shod sandals, and she had to endure small agonies daily as Sextus had frequent visitors from both the soldiers under his command and small delegations of those pleading for him to show mercy to them or one of their clients. Her husband, having been deemed untrustworthy of defending a gate or serving in one of the Senatorial legions, had been assigned the ugly task of overseeing the ongoing expulsions of residents deemed insufficiently loyal by the Senate due to their connections in the Allied cities.\n\nIt was wearing on Sextus. Severa could see that. The suspicion that his father’s treachery cast on him was bad enough, but his staunch Valerian pride did not permit him to show how the constant whispers bothered him. Not even when they were alone would he complain about them, or indeed, see fit to mention them. She was convinced that he had chosen to live in Magnus’s own domus as more a gesture of arrogant defiance than anything else, his appeal to his mother’s need to be in her own home and its proximity to the Forum notwithstanding.\n\nIf Sextus’s haughty Valerian pride was up to that particular challenge, his warm and sympathetic nature was almost daily overwhelmed by the cruelty that his Senate-imposed responsibilities demanded of him. She never saw her husband entering the homes of the men identified for expulsion or escorting the families to the city gates, but more than once she overheard the desperate appeals from men who came to plead with him, and saw the confused faces of the children and wives who accompanied them. Where would they go? How would they live? Why had they been ordered to leave the only homes they had ever known when other men, who in some cases weren’t even citizens, had been permitted to stay?\n\nSextus had no answers for them. Both he and Severa knew very well that were it not for House Valerius’s loyal allies in the Senate and her own ties to House Severus, they might well have faced expulsion, or worse, themselves. The Senators were frightened. Sextus tried to explain the situation to her one night after he had come home, guilt-stricken and hollow-eyed, fresh from discovering that the man he’d been ordered to evict that day had murdered his entire household, right down to the youngest slave, prior to killing himself. The man’s crime, such as it was, was to have married a woman from Quinqueterra some twenty years before. And frightened men, especially rich and powerful men not accustomed to being frightened, were prone to acting recklessly, unnecessarily, and without thinking through all the probable consequences.\n\nThe mass expulsion of the provincials at the start of the war was dreadful, but tempered by the fact that everyone, including the provincials themselves, understood that the expulsion was a necessary and merciful act. With the provinces in rebellion and word of Amorran citizens being butchered everywhere from Cynothicum to Bithnya inflaming the populace, most of the provincials had counted themselves fortunate to be permitted to try their chances in winter on the Via Epra. There were no few senators, especially among the auctores embittered by the treachery of those whose cause they had championed, who had favored widespread reprisals. Fortunately for the provincials and Amorr’s honor, saner heads, led by Manlius Torquatus, the Consul Civitas, supported by Sextus’s uncle Corvus, eventually prevailed, thus preventing an untimely bloodbath. If, as it was said, hundreds had died on the wintry roads, tens of thousands had been spared.\n\nBut in the new year, Torquatus had been replaced as Consul Civitas by M. Andronicus Declama and Valerius Corvus was dead, burned by the same mysterious flames that had devoured the Sanctified Father. While both Declama and his surviving colleague, the Consul Provincae, Appuleius Pansa, had served in the legions as tribunes in their youth, neither had ever commanded so much as a single cohort in battle. With one of Amorr’s best generals dead and the other a traitor, the Senate found itself lacking both military and spiritual guidance at the very time when it needed it most.\n\nMad rumors swept through the city, reaching even to the domus where Severa lived despite her relative seclusion. She spent most of her day helping her sisters-in-law care for Sextus’s mother, who had been rendered distraught to the point of near madness following the revelation of her husband’s treachery and the arrest of her sons. She felt no real sense of duty to her mother-in-law, whose gaunt cheeks and white-streaked hair gave her the appearance of a woman ten years older than she was, but found that she preferred reading to the grief-stricken woman rather than endure the looks and whispers that followed her about on the days she went out in public.\n\nIt wasn’t that she was ashamed to be the wife of Sextus Valerius. She was, somewhat to her astonishment, proud to bear his name, for all that their Houses had been rivals for centuries. It wasn’t as if House Severus was in any better odor, thanks to its own missing legions and her father’s ill-conceived attempt to make himself King of Amorr. But the first time she walked through the Starsday market and heard a plebian woman hiss “Valerius Perfidus” behind her, it was all she could do to stop herself from seizing one of the knives being offered for sale in a nearby stall and plunging it into the woman’s stomach.\n\nShe was confident that if the city managed to survive what some were calling “The War of the Three Leagues” and others “The Allied War”, Sextus Valerius would win an honorable agnomen for himself. But in the meantime, she’d be damned before she’d listen to anyone try to tar her husband with his father’s treacherous deeds.\n\nSome of the rumors were more nonsensical than others. By far the most pernicious were religious in nature. If the loss of His Sanctified Holiness Charity IV had hit the city hard, the fiery death of his successor, His Sanctified Holiness Pelagianus, along with the still-unexplained murders of six princes of the Church while gathered in Holy Conclave, had the more devout among the populace in a state of near-terror.\n\n“It’s a sign, it’s a sign,” a weeping kitchen slave told her one day as Severa helped her make bread one morning. “The Unholy Father is coming. Blaesia said the six Celestials and two sanctiffs stand for the Twelve Black Apostles! They have the black skin of a burned man and eyes like those of a cat! And they will have tongues like snakes and the souls of everyone who hears them speak will be tarred forever and rejected by the Immaculate on the day they stand before the White Throne!”\n\nShe let out a wail of heartfelt dismay. Severa frowned and kneaded her dough.\n\n“Six and two is eight,” she observed. “Not twelve.”\n\nThe woman abruptly ceased her wailing, puzzled. “No, it’s not.” She was an older woman, of an indeterminate middle age, and was named Julipora after Julia, Sextus’s mother, to whom she was entirely devoted.\n\n“Six multiplied by two is twelve,” said Carvilia, one of Severa’s sisters-in-law, who had entered the kitchen unannounced. She was tall, pretty, and supercilious. Unlike the other two women whose husbands were imprisoned, she was never seen to shed a tear or publicly lament her fate. She had borne Magnus two grandsons, which she seemed to feel granted her a certain status in the family that Caerilla and Pompilia, both of whom had born only daughters, lacked.\n\nSevera shot Carvilia an annoyed look as the realization was enough to set Julipora off weeping again and babbling about how the hellfire in the palace had been the devil’s retribution for the Lord Corvus’s kinslaying. She sighed and shook her head, which proceeded to cause half her loosely bound black curls to escape the comb she’d employed to keep them out of her way while she was occupied in the kitchen.\n\n“Will you do something about that?” Severa demanded, inclining her head towards Carvilia. “My hands are covered with flour.”\n\nThe older woman’s long fingers withdrew the ivory comb and expertly twisted her hair about, pulling her head slightly this way and that, before sinking the comb back into place.\n\n“There,” she said. “When you’re done with the bread, I was thinking of walking to the Forum. The sun is out and it’s not very cold today.”\n\n“I was going to read to Mama Julia.” Severa wasn’t keen on the notion of leaving the domus, but she did enjoy talking with Carvilia without Caerilla and Pompilia around. Caerilla was quiet and mousy by nature and Pompilia couldn’t open her mouth without fretting about her husband.\n\n“I’ll tell Pompilia to do it instead. I want company.”\n\nSevera nodded, seeing that the decision had been made for her, and returned her attention to the dough, working it savagely with her hands. The task at hand sufficiently distracted Julipora to allow the slave to get herself under control, and she surveyed the dough before nodding her approval at Severa. With some relief, Severa decided to interpret the woman’s gesture as a dismissal, and after dipping her hands in a large clay jar of water, she dried them and went to her room to change her clothes for the market.\n\nShe had barely changed into a wool dress when Carvilia appeared, wearing one fur cape made of wolf pelts and bearing another over her arm.\n\n“You’re a Valerian now,” her sister-in-law announced. “Wear this. Julia won’t mind. She’s barely left her bed today.”\n\nSevera slipped it over her shoulders. The fur was thick and grey, so dark that it was nearly black. It was heavy, nearly twice as heavy as the fox-fur cape her father had given her the previous winter, and she expected that it would be somewhat warmer as well. The clasp was silver, and worked in the form of an ornate letter V.\n\n“How does it look?” she asked, twirling in a circle.\n\nCarvilia nodded approvingly. “It will serve.”\n\n“Will Marcipor come with us?”\n\n“No,” Carvilia said with a distinct expression of distaste on her long, narrow face. She could not abide Severa’s husband’s handsome bodyslave. “He’s with Sextus. Galerus has said we can have Magnus Tertius and Durus for escorts.”\n\nSevera nodded. There was no fear of either of those two embarrassing them by behaving in a manner that did not become their station. Magnus Tertius was mute and Durus had a red face like a slab of beef. But they were big strong men, and she and Carvilia would be safe in their company.\n\nThe two slaves were waiting for them just outside the front door, receiving instructions from Galerus, the slave who ran the household. The majordomus was a small, spare man, who still refused to hear a word of criticism directed at his master. Not even Sextus, who publicly disavowed Magnus every chance he got, dared to mention his father in front of the stubbornly loyal slave. It was indeed remarkable, Severa thought, that the little Orontine should prove so firmly devoted to such a faithless man.\n\nBoth Magnus and her own father, Patronus, had betrayed the Senate and People. Both men were senators of impeccable patrician birth, and yet the two ex-consuls were shamed by the honor shown by this petty slave. The knowledge stung her, especially in light of how her own brother had followed Magnus into treason. It made her all the prouder of her husband, and all the more determined that Sextus would erase the shadow that her father and her brother had cast upon her and upon House Severus. And yet, there was nothing that she could do about the latter, and there was very little she could do about the former except throw herself into wholeheartedly encouraging Sextus to restore the city’s confidence in him and her new House.\n\nAnd if that meant he had to personally evict every last non-citizen from the city, then she would help him find the strength to do it.\n\n“If anyone is disrespectful to the ladies, you’ll shut their mouths, do you understand?” Galerus finished his instructions to the two slaves, both of whom were wearing leather armor and carrying long wooden staves with iron caps on either end.\n\nCarvilia raised a skeptical eyebrow at the glowering majordomus, nearly provoking an untimely giggle from Severa. If it was left up to Galerus, bad-mouthing a Valerian would be a crime that merited being thrown to starving orcs in the arena. The little man seemed to forget, or simply ignore, that Carvilia and the other women were only Valerians by marriage, and didn’t possess the stiff necks and self-conscious dignity for which House Valerius was known.\n\nThey passed through the gates, which at this time of day were unguarded, turned left, and began to walk towards the Forum. The spring wind was brisk, but the sun shone brilliantly through gaps in the thick mass of innocuous white clouds. There was little traffic on the bricked road, but as they rounded a curve one could see mule-wagons carting heavy loads of bricks to the Portus Antica, the city’s older port. The new port stood outside the city walls and was indefensible, so the Senate had decided to fortify its predecessor in the event one of the Utruccan leagues managed to build a navy capable of threatening Amorr by sea.\n", "completion": "Amorr was a city under siege. Although no enemy armies ringed her walls, or assailed her gates, the city had been formally placed under military rule and every day, her citizens awoke with the knowledge that they were one day closer to spring. Men volunteered for the four new legions that had been voted funds by the Senate, while women prepared foodstuffs, sewed everything from banners to thick canvas sacks, and made do without half their household slaves.\n\nThe slaves had been commandeered by the Senate vote and it was an indication of the city’s desperation that twelve thousand of them, two legions worth, were being trained as legionaries. Six of the Houses Martial were sharing the cost of the two slave legions, with the understanding that they would be disbanded at the end of the war, but neither House Valerian nor House Severus had been permitted to participate. With two of the three Valerian legions in league with the rebellious provincials and the whereabouts of the third one unknown, the Valerians were under extreme suspicion by the Senate and People alike.\n\nThree of her husband’s older brothers and no less than eight of his cousins had been taken into Senatorial custody. All of them had served at one time or another with Legio VII, the legion commanded by Didius Scato that Valerius Magnus had so easily coopted. Sextus had been questioned closely by her cousin T. Severus Servius, a quaestor who had been elected at the same assembly, but in light of his youth, his tribunate, and his lack of personal ties to any of the three Valerian legions, he had thus far been spared the indignity of an arrest.\n\nBut it was something she worried about every time she heard a group of men marching up the street to the Valerian domus in which they were now living. Her heart skipped a beat every time she heard the clatter of more than two or three pairs of iron-shod sandals, and she had to endure small agonies daily as Sextus had frequent visitors from both the soldiers under his command and small delegations of those pleading for him to show mercy to them or one of their clients. Her husband, having been deemed untrustworthy of defending a gate or serving in one of the Senatorial legions, had been assigned the ugly task of overseeing the ongoing expulsions of residents deemed insufficiently loyal by the Senate due to their connections in the Allied cities.\n\nIt was wearing on Sextus. Severa could see that. The suspicion that his father’s treachery cast on him was bad enough, but his staunch Valerian pride did not permit him to show how the constant whispers bothered him. Not even when they were alone would he complain about them, or indeed, see fit to mention them. She was convinced that he had chosen to live in Magnus’s own domus as more a gesture of arrogant defiance than anything else, his appeal to his mother’s need to be in her own home and its proximity to the Forum notwithstanding.\n\nIf Sextus’s haughty Valerian pride was up to that particular challenge, his warm and sympathetic nature was almost daily overwhelmed by the cruelty that his Senate-imposed responsibilities demanded of him. She never saw her husband entering the homes of the men identified for expulsion or escorting the families to the city gates, but more than once she overheard the desperate appeals from men who came to plead with him, and saw the confused faces of the children and wives who accompanied them. Where would they go? How would they live? Why had they been ordered to leave the only homes they had ever known when other men, who in some cases weren’t even citizens, had been permitted to stay?\n\nSextus had no answers for them. Both he and Severa knew very well that were it not for House Valerius’s loyal allies in the Senate and her own ties to House Severus, they might well have faced expulsion, or worse, themselves. The Senators were frightened. Sextus tried to explain the situation to her one night after he had come home, guilt-stricken and hollow-eyed, fresh from discovering that the man he’d been ordered to evict that day had murdered his entire household, right down to the youngest slave, prior to killing himself. The man’s crime, such as it was, was to have married a woman from Quinqueterra some twenty years before. And frightened men, especially rich and powerful men not accustomed to being frightened, were prone to acting recklessly, unnecessarily, and without thinking through all the probable consequences.\n\nThe mass expulsion of the provincials at the start of the war was dreadful, but tempered by the fact that everyone, including the provincials themselves, understood that the expulsion was a necessary and merciful act. With the provinces in rebellion and word of Amorran citizens being butchered everywhere from Cynothicum to Bithnya inflaming the populace, most of the provincials had counted themselves fortunate to be permitted to try their chances in winter on the Via Epra. There were no few senators, especially among the auctores embittered by the treachery of those whose cause they had championed, who had favored widespread reprisals. Fortunately for the provincials and Amorr’s honor, saner heads, led by Manlius Torquatus, the Consul Civitas, supported by Sextus’s uncle Corvus, eventually prevailed, thus preventing an untimely bloodbath. If, as it was said, hundreds had died on the wintry roads, tens of thousands had been spared.\n\nBut in the new year, Torquatus had been replaced as Consul Civitas by M. Andronicus Declama and Valerius Corvus was dead, burned by the same mysterious flames that had devoured the Sanctified Father. While both Declama and his surviving colleague, the Consul Provincae, Appuleius Pansa, had served in the legions as tribunes in their youth, neither had ever commanded so much as a single cohort in battle. With one of Amorr’s best generals dead and the other a traitor, the Senate found itself lacking both military and spiritual guidance at the very time when it needed it most.\n\nMad rumors swept through the city, reaching even to the domus where Severa lived despite her relative seclusion. She spent most of her day helping her sisters-in-law care for Sextus’s mother, who had been rendered distraught to the point of near madness following the revelation of her husband’s treachery and the arrest of her sons. She felt no real sense of duty to her mother-in-law, whose gaunt cheeks and white-streaked hair gave her the appearance of a woman ten years older than she was, but found that she preferred reading to the grief-stricken woman rather than endure the looks and whispers that followed her about on the days she went out in public.\n\nIt wasn’t that she was ashamed to be the wife of Sextus Valerius. She was, somewhat to her astonishment, proud to bear his name, for all that their Houses had been rivals for centuries. It wasn’t as if House Severus was in any better odor, thanks to its own missing legions and her father’s ill-conceived attempt to make himself King of Amorr. But the first time she walked through the Starsday market and heard a plebian woman hiss “Valerius Perfidus” behind her, it was all she could do to stop herself from seizing one of the knives being offered for sale in a nearby stall and plunging it into the woman’s stomach.\n\nShe was confident that if the city managed to survive what some were calling “The War of the Three Leagues” and others “The Allied War”, Sextus Valerius would win an honorable agnomen for himself. But in the meantime, she’d be damned before she’d listen to anyone try to tar her husband with his father’s treacherous deeds.\n\nSome of the rumors were more nonsensical than others. By far the most pernicious were religious in nature. If the loss of His Sanctified Holiness Charity IV had hit the city hard, the fiery death of his successor, His Sanctified Holiness Pelagianus, along with the still-unexplained murders of six princes of the Church while gathered in Holy Conclave, had the more devout among the populace in a state of near-terror.\n\n“It’s a sign, it’s a sign,” a weeping kitchen slave told her one day as Severa helped her make bread one morning. “The Unholy Father is coming. Blaesia said the six Celestials and two sanctiffs stand for the Twelve Black Apostles! They have the black skin of a burned man and eyes like those of a cat! And they will have tongues like snakes and the souls of everyone who hears them speak will be tarred forever and rejected by the Immaculate on the day they stand before the White Throne!”\n\nShe let out a wail of heartfelt dismay. Severa frowned and kneaded her dough.\n\n“Six and two is eight,” she observed. “Not twelve.”\n\nThe woman abruptly ceased her wailing, puzzled. “No, it’s not.” She was an older woman, of an indeterminate middle age, and was named Julipora after Julia, Sextus’s mother, to whom she was entirely devoted.\n\n“Six multiplied by two is twelve,” said Carvilia, one of Severa’s sisters-in-law, who had entered the kitchen unannounced. She was tall, pretty, and supercilious. Unlike the other two women whose husbands were imprisoned, she was never seen to shed a tear or publicly lament her fate. She had borne Magnus two grandsons, which she seemed to feel granted her a certain status in the family that Caerilla and Pompilia, both of whom had born only daughters, lacked.\n\nSevera shot Carvilia an annoyed look as the realization was enough to set Julipora off weeping again and babbling about how the hellfire in the palace had been the devil’s retribution for the Lord Corvus’s kinslaying. She sighed and shook her head, which proceeded to cause half her loosely bound black curls to escape the comb she’d employed to keep them out of her way while she was occupied in the kitchen.\n\n“Will you do something about that?” Severa demanded, inclining her head towards Carvilia. “My hands are covered with flour.”\n\nThe older woman’s long fingers withdrew the ivory comb and expertly twisted her hair about, pulling her head slightly this way and that, before sinking the comb back into place.\n\n“There,” she said. “When you’re done with the bread, I was thinking of walking to the Forum. The sun is out and it’s not very cold today.”\n\n“I was going to read to Mama Julia.” Severa wasn’t keen on the notion of leaving the domus, but she did enjoy talking with Carvilia without Caerilla and Pompilia around. Caerilla was quiet and mousy by nature and Pompilia couldn’t open her mouth without fretting about her husband.\n\n“I’ll tell Pompilia to do it instead. I want company.”\n\nSevera nodded, seeing that the decision had been made for her, and returned her attention to the dough, working it savagely with her hands. The task at hand sufficiently distracted Julipora to allow the slave to get herself under control, and she surveyed the dough before nodding her approval at Severa. With some relief, Severa decided to interpret the woman’s gesture as a dismissal, and after dipping her hands in a large clay jar of water, she dried them and went to her room to change her clothes for the market.\n\nShe had barely changed into a wool dress when Carvilia appeared, wearing one fur cape made of wolf pelts and bearing another over her arm.\n\n“You’re a Valerian now,” her sister-in-law announced. “Wear this. Julia won’t mind. She’s barely left her bed today.”\n\nSevera slipped it over her shoulders. The fur was thick and grey, so dark that it was nearly black. It was heavy, nearly twice as heavy as the fox-fur cape her father had given her the previous winter, and she expected that it would be somewhat warmer as well. The clasp was silver, and worked in the form of an ornate letter V.\n\n“How does it look?” she asked, twirling in a circle.\n\nCarvilia nodded approvingly. “It will serve.”\n\n“Will Marcipor come with us?”\n\n“No,” Carvilia said with a distinct expression of distaste on her long, narrow face. She could not abide Severa’s husband’s handsome bodyslave. “He’s with Sextus. Galerus has said we can have Magnus Tertius and Durus for escorts.”\n\nSevera nodded. There was no fear of either of those two embarrassing them by behaving in a manner that did not become their station. Magnus Tertius was mute and Durus had a red face like a slab of beef. But they were big strong men, and she and Carvilia would be safe in their company.\n\nThe two slaves were waiting for them just outside the front door, receiving instructions from Galerus, the slave who ran the household. The majordomus was a small, spare man, who still refused to hear a word of criticism directed at his master. Not even Sextus, who publicly disavowed Magnus every chance he got, dared to mention his father in front of the stubbornly loyal slave. It was indeed remarkable, Severa thought, that the little Orontine should prove so firmly devoted to such a faithless man.\n\nBoth Magnus and her own father, Patronus, had betrayed the Senate and People. Both men were senators of impeccable patrician birth, and yet the two ex-consuls were shamed by the honor shown by this petty slave. The knowledge stung her, especially in light of how her own brother had followed Magnus into treason. It made her all the prouder of her husband, and all the more determined that Sextus would erase the shadow that her father and her brother had cast upon her and upon House Severus. And yet, there was nothing that she could do about the latter, and there was very little she could do about the former except throw herself into wholeheartedly encouraging Sextus to restore the city’s confidence in him and her new House.\n\nAnd if that meant he had to personally evict every last non-citizen from the city, then she would help him find the strength to do it.\n\n“If anyone is disrespectful to the ladies, you’ll shut their mouths, do you understand?” Galerus finished his instructions to the two slaves, both of whom were wearing leather armor and carrying long wooden staves with iron caps on either end.\n\nCarvilia raised a skeptical eyebrow at the glowering majordomus, nearly provoking an untimely giggle from Severa. If it was left up to Galerus, bad-mouthing a Valerian would be a crime that merited being thrown to starving orcs in the arena. The little man seemed to forget, or simply ignore, that Carvilia and the other women were only Valerians by marriage, and didn’t possess the stiff necks and self-conscious dignity for which House Valerius was known.\n\nThey passed through the gates, which at this time of day were unguarded, turned left, and began to walk towards the Forum. The spring wind was brisk, but the sun shone brilliantly through gaps in the thick mass of innocuous white clouds. There was little traffic on the bricked road, but as they rounded a curve one could see mule-wagons carting heavy loads of bricks to the Portus Antica, the city’s older port. The new port stood outside the city walls and was indefensible, so the Senate had decided to fortify its predecessor in the event one of the Utruccan leagues managed to build a navy capable of threatening Amorr by sea.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2641, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch04_severa-P2", "chapter": "ch04_severa", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ntribune laticlavius / laticlavii — senior legionary tribune; keep the Latin.\nLegio XXXV / Legio XXXVI — slave/gladiator training legions as numbered.\nManlius Torquatus — ex-consul; Torquatus in dialogue once identified.\nPotitus / Volesus / Tertius — Sextus’s brothers; Potitus is Carvilia’s husband.\nFortex — Julia’s murdered son; name only, capital F.\nMarcus Saturnius — late legate of Legio XVII; both names.\nRock of Kings — execution site; capitalize as a place.\nVallyria — Valerian home province; spelling with double l.\nSextilian ague — summer fever named for the month; keep Sextilian.\nImmaculate — capitalized when the divine title is meant.\n\n### STORY\nAmorr sits under military rule without an enemy at the walls; Severa endures Valerian suspicion, kitchen apocalypse-talk from Julipora, and Carvilia’s decision to walk to the Forum in Julia’s wolf cape with Magnus Tertius and Durus as escorts; they leave the unguarded gates into spring sun and brick traffic.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSevera\nOn the road toward the Forum with Carvilia and two armed escorts. Wearing Julia’s dark wolf cape. Proud of Sextus, raw about the city’s whispers, not eager for public streets. Does not yet know why Sextus is coming home early.\n\nSextus Valerius\nApproaching on the brick road in tribune’s armor with a blue horsehair plume and a small troop. Fresh from speaking with Titus Manlius Torquatus; carrying news that his imprisoned brothers may be released to train Legios XXXV and XXXVI, and that he himself is to be tribune laticlavius of XXXV. Bright-eyed; misses sarcasm.\n\nCarvilia\nWalking with Severa; anxious for word of Potitus. Customary reserve will crack when release seems near; afterward she turns comforter about war and fools of husbands.\n\nMagnus Tertius / Durus\nEscorts; present but background during the meeting.\n\nJulia / Potitus / Caerilla / Pompilia\nReferenced: mother still grieving Fortex; sisters-in-law waiting at the domus for news.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe two slaves were waiting for them just outside the front door, receiving instructions from Galerus, the slave who ran the household. The majordomus was a small, spare man, who still refused to hear a word of criticism directed at his master. Not even Sextus, who publicly disavowed Magnus every chance he got, dared to mention his father in front of the stubbornly loyal slave. It was indeed remarkable, Severa thought, that the little Orontine should prove so firmly devoted to such a faithless man.\n\nBoth Magnus and her own father, Patronus, had betrayed the Senate and People. Both men were senators of impeccable patrician birth, and yet the two ex-consuls were shamed by the honor shown by this petty slave. The knowledge stung her, especially in light of how her own brother had followed Magnus into treason. It made her all the prouder of her husband, and all the more determined that Sextus would erase the shadow that her father and her brother had cast upon her and upon House Severus. And yet, there was nothing that she could do about the latter, and there was very little she could do about the former except throw herself into wholeheartedly encouraging Sextus to restore the city’s confidence in him and her new House.\n\nAnd if that meant he had to personally evict every last non-citizen from the city, then she would help him find the strength to do it.\n\n“If anyone is disrespectful to the ladies, you’ll shut their mouths, do you understand?” Galerus finished his instructions to the two slaves, both of whom were wearing leather armor and carrying long wooden staves with iron caps on either end.\n\nCarvilia raised a skeptical eyebrow at the glowering majordomus, nearly provoking an untimely giggle from Severa. If it was left up to Galerus, bad-mouthing a Valerian would be a crime that merited being thrown to starving orcs in the arena. The little man seemed to forget, or simply ignore, that Carvilia and the other women were only Valerians by marriage, and didn’t possess the stiff necks and self-conscious dignity for which House Valerius was known.\n\nThey passed through the gates, which at this time of day were unguarded, turned left, and began to walk towards the Forum. The spring wind was brisk, but the sun shone brilliantly through gaps in the thick mass of innocuous white clouds. There was little traffic on the bricked road, but as they rounded a curve one could see mule-wagons carting heavy loads of bricks to the Portus Antica, the city’s older port. The new port stood outside the city walls and was indefensible, so the Senate had decided to fortify its predecessor in the event one of the Utruccan leagues managed to build a navy capable of threatening Amorr by sea.\n\n### NOTES\nBrick road between the Valerian domus and the Forum; mule-wagons haul bricks toward Portus Antica.\nSextus usually returns after nightfall; meeting him by day is unusual.\nTorquatus met the consuls this morning; brothers’ possible release is not yet a Senate vote Severa has seen.\nWeather still cool spring sun.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Severa.\n\nHer eye finds Sextus before her mind does—helmet, plume, troop—and for a breath she fears disaster until she sees his eyes are bright. Carvilia asks after Potitus; Severa makes the formal salute his men require instead of an embrace. He brings Torquatus’s notion: idle Valerian officers to whip the slave and gladiator legions into shape, and—once she digs past his blank face—his own posting as tribune laticlavius of Legio XXXV.\n\nShe smiles for the street while dread closes on her heart; these Valerians swim in war, and a legion of untrained scum is meat for the front. Her barb about facing Magnus in battle sails over his head. She sends Carvilia’s thoughts home to the other wives, trades mock-formal farewell with her husband through a rush of unwanted wanting, and watches the iron sandals clatter past toward the domus.\n\nCarvilia turns her back toward the Forum with sisterly counsel: laticlavius sits with the legate, not out with the knights. Severa bursts that he is a fool who will get himself killed; Carvilia answers with a forgotten toddler in a stable and honest laughter at her own terror now that Potitus may walk free. Severa squeezes her arm, admits the months before any rebel army can even think of Amorr, and says she is happy for the wives and perhaps for Mama Julia. The scene ends on that hard-won kindness, before the market claims them.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1500 words. Street-formal where the troop can hear, intimate as soon as they are alone; dread under the smiles. Land on Severa’s blessing for the other wives—not yet the stalls.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "As she surveyed the people moving below, her heart recognized a tall, armored shape before her mind did. Or perhaps it was simply the familiar way the man was walking. She felt her heart skip a beat, and leap at the sight of a helmeted officer striding purposefully in their direction. He was followed by a small troop of armored soldiers.\n\n“Isn’t that–” Carvilia asked her.\n\n“It is!” Severa said as she waved excitedly at her handsome young husband. “I wonder why he’s coming back already.”\n\nMost days, Sextus didn’t return to the domus until after nightfall. For a moment, she worried that something had gone terribly wrong. But as he drew closer, she could see that behind the iron cheekpads that covered the sides of his face, his eyes were bright.\n\nShe went to embrace him, but a faint shake of his head and the way his eyes flicked back in the direction of his men warned her off. Instead, she made him a formal little bow.\n\n“Tribune Valerius,” she greeted him. “Salve!”\n\n“Salvete, Ladies Valerius,” he replied, graciously including Carvilia. His blue horsehair plume added nearly a head to his height, giving the impression that he was towering over both of them. His teeth flashed whitely in a broad smile. “I am delighted to encounter you here, seeing as I am the bearer of good news!”\n\n“Have you word of my husband?” Carvilia couldn’t stop herself from clutching at Sextus’s hands. “Oh, has the Senate released him?”\n\n“Not yet,” he told her. “But I am confident they will do so very soon. I come directly from speaking with Titus Manlius. He met with the consuls this morning, and among the subjects they discussed were my brothers.”\n\n“Manlius Torquatus, the ex-consul?” Severa asked him. She sometimes found it hard to keep straight all of the various officials with whom her husband was dealing. She wondered how her mother had done it for so many years.\n\n“The same,” Sextus confirmed. “The Senate has been having some trouble finding anyone to command Legios XXXV and XXXVI. Last week, I went to Torquatus and pointed out that there are three excellent veteran officers from Amorr’s greatest military family who are spending their days idle at the Senate’s expense. Even if the senators are reluctant to trust them to lead the legions against the rebels in battle, I failed to see why they shouldn’t prove rather useful in whipping the slaves and gladiators into shape.”\n\n“Did Torquatus agree?” Carvilia asked anxiously.\n\n“Did he agree?” Sextus chuckled heartily. “He cursed himself for not having thought of it himself! Your husband and Volesus both served under Magnus as laticlavii. They have more battle experience than half the generals in the Senate. And Tertius was one of Saturnius’s tribunes, and Torquatus knew very well how much Marcus Saturnius demanded of his tribunes!”\n\nThe women were silent. Torquatus wasn’t the only one to know it. Both of them had sat with Julia through the dark hours of the night, holding her as she wept for Fortex, her murdered son. Severa had never met her late brother-in-law, but his ghost was a palpable presence in the Valerian domus. Corvus had publicly claimed responsibility for his nephew’s execution before his own death, but Julia remained convinced that Marcus Saturnius, the late legate of Legio XVII, was truly to blame.\n\n“When can I see Potitus?” Carvilia’s customary reserve seemed to have been shattered by the news that her husband might be released. “Is he well?”\n\nSevera eyed her husband warily. Even after only three months of marriage, she knew him too well to believe that his apparent high spirits were solely the result of his brothers’ pending release. “And what of you?” she asked him.\n\n“Me?” His expression suddenly went suspiciously blank. “Well, nothing has been settled yet, of course.”\n\n“Sextus!”\n\nHe laughed and grinned at her like a mischievous boy caught stealing sweets. “Torquatus says I will be tribune laticlavius for Legio XXXV!”\n\nSevera nodded and forced herself to smile back at him, even though the news caused a cold hand of dread to squeeze her heart. These damned Valerians! All they ever seemed to think about was war! It was as if they were fish and battle was the sea in which they existed only to swim. Her idiot husband would have been delighted with the duty he found so onerous if only the strangers he was sent to expel had been armed and permitted to attack him on sight.\n\n“That’s wonderful news, Sextus!” Yes, wonderful indeed, she thought bitterly. Her husband was going to be the second-in-command of a legion made up of untrained slaves and criminal scum, men who were bound to be put in the front of the fighting and expected to provide the lion’s share of the corpses. She didn’t need to know anything about war to know that for a certainty. As the daughter of Severus Patronus, she knew very well how the pitiless minds of the men who ruled the Senate worked. “Perhaps you and your brothers will even have the chance to face your father in battle.”\n\n“We can hope,” Sextus said, completely missing her sarcasm. She wanted to strangle him.\n\nInstead, she smiled sweetly and pulled at Carvilia’s hand. “You must go to the domus at once, my dear. Caerilla and Pompilia will be ever so excited to hear the good news.”\n\nHe nodded and took her hands in his. Even though she was still furious with him, or Torquatus, or someone, anyhow, she felt a warmth flood the length of her body. His lips twitched as he bowed in mock formality. “I shall look forward to our next encounter, Lady Valerius.”\n\n“As shall I, Lord Tribune Valerius.” Despite her irritation, butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought of seeing him, alone and unarmored, and she cursed her treacherous body. “I wish you a pleasant afternoon, my lord.”\n\nHe released her and she stepped aside to permit his men to continue their march towards her new home. At least her sisters-in-law would be pleased to know their husbands were to be spared the strangler’s hands or the fatal fall from the Rock of Kings. She watched as they walked past her, their iron-studded sandals clattering against the bricks. How long would it be before Sextus would be facing ten or even twenty thousand of such men, trained for years, experienced in battle, and led by accomplished generals like his father?\n\n“Don’t be so worried, little sister.” Carvilia took her arm and turned her back towards the Forum. “You’ve known he would go to battle since he declared for the tribunate. You should be pleased that he’ll be serving as laticlavius. That way, he’ll be safe with the legate in the command post rather than riding into danger with the knights.”\n\n“He’s a fool and an idiot!” she burst out. “What if he gets himself killed?”\n\n“They all are, darling. That’s why God made us, to make sure someone remembered to feed the children. Do you know, once Potitus took little Titus out to the stables to show him the horses. I saw him in the domus later and I asked him where Titus was. He turned white! He’d completely forgotten him!”\n\n“But Titus wasn’t hurt.”\n\n“Not in the slightest. Two of the stable slaves were playing with him and letting him ride on their shoulders. He was having a wonderful time.”\n\n“How is that supposed to reassure me?”\n\n“I suppose it isn’t,” Carvilia admitted. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m sorry, little sister, but you have no idea how terrified I have been that Potitus would be killed or exiled by the Senate. And then to hear that he’s going to be released?”\n\nSevera nodded and gave her sister-in-law’s arm a little squeeze. As much as the thought of Sextus going into battle frightened her, it would be weeks, if not months, before the rebels would dare to even think about moving on Amorr. If there was confusion in the city about who was in rebellion and who was not, how much more must there be in the provinces and the other cities? And Carvilia was right, there was no safer place in battle than the one right next to the legate, with six thousand armed men to stand between Sextus and the enemy.\n\n“I’m happy for you. And for Pompilia and Caerilla too. Maybe it will be good for Mama Julia too.”\n", "completion": "As she surveyed the people moving below, her heart recognized a tall, armored shape before her mind did. Or perhaps it was simply the familiar way the man was walking. She felt her heart skip a beat, and leap at the sight of a helmeted officer striding purposefully in their direction. He was followed by a small troop of armored soldiers.\n\n“Isn’t that–” Carvilia asked her.\n\n“It is!” Severa said as she waved excitedly at her handsome young husband. “I wonder why he’s coming back already.”\n\nMost days, Sextus didn’t return to the domus until after nightfall. For a moment, she worried that something had gone terribly wrong. But as he drew closer, she could see that behind the iron cheekpads that covered the sides of his face, his eyes were bright.\n\nShe went to embrace him, but a faint shake of his head and the way his eyes flicked back in the direction of his men warned her off. Instead, she made him a formal little bow.\n\n“Tribune Valerius,” she greeted him. “Salve!”\n\n“Salvete, Ladies Valerius,” he replied, graciously including Carvilia. His blue horsehair plume added nearly a head to his height, giving the impression that he was towering over both of them. His teeth flashed whitely in a broad smile. “I am delighted to encounter you here, seeing as I am the bearer of good news!”\n\n“Have you word of my husband?” Carvilia couldn’t stop herself from clutching at Sextus’s hands. “Oh, has the Senate released him?”\n\n“Not yet,” he told her. “But I am confident they will do so very soon. I come directly from speaking with Titus Manlius. He met with the consuls this morning, and among the subjects they discussed were my brothers.”\n\n“Manlius Torquatus, the ex-consul?” Severa asked him. She sometimes found it hard to keep straight all of the various officials with whom her husband was dealing. She wondered how her mother had done it for so many years.\n\n“The same,” Sextus confirmed. “The Senate has been having some trouble finding anyone to command Legios XXXV and XXXVI. Last week, I went to Torquatus and pointed out that there are three excellent veteran officers from Amorr’s greatest military family who are spending their days idle at the Senate’s expense. Even if the senators are reluctant to trust them to lead the legions against the rebels in battle, I failed to see why they shouldn’t prove rather useful in whipping the slaves and gladiators into shape.”\n\n“Did Torquatus agree?” Carvilia asked anxiously.\n\n“Did he agree?” Sextus chuckled heartily. “He cursed himself for not having thought of it himself! Your husband and Volesus both served under Magnus as laticlavii. They have more battle experience than half the generals in the Senate. And Tertius was one of Saturnius’s tribunes, and Torquatus knew very well how much Marcus Saturnius demanded of his tribunes!”\n\nThe women were silent. Torquatus wasn’t the only one to know it. Both of them had sat with Julia through the dark hours of the night, holding her as she wept for Fortex, her murdered son. Severa had never met her late brother-in-law, but his ghost was a palpable presence in the Valerian domus. Corvus had publicly claimed responsibility for his nephew’s execution before his own death, but Julia remained convinced that Marcus Saturnius, the late legate of Legio XVII, was truly to blame.\n\n“When can I see Potitus?” Carvilia’s customary reserve seemed to have been shattered by the news that her husband might be released. “Is he well?”\n\nSevera eyed her husband warily. Even after only three months of marriage, she knew him too well to believe that his apparent high spirits were solely the result of his brothers’ pending release. “And what of you?” she asked him.\n\n“Me?” His expression suddenly went suspiciously blank. “Well, nothing has been settled yet, of course.”\n\n“Sextus!”\n\nHe laughed and grinned at her like a mischievous boy caught stealing sweets. “Torquatus says I will be tribune laticlavius for Legio XXXV!”\n\nSevera nodded and forced herself to smile back at him, even though the news caused a cold hand of dread to squeeze her heart. These damned Valerians! All they ever seemed to think about was war! It was as if they were fish and battle was the sea in which they existed only to swim. Her idiot husband would have been delighted with the duty he found so onerous if only the strangers he was sent to expel had been armed and permitted to attack him on sight.\n\n“That’s wonderful news, Sextus!” Yes, wonderful indeed, she thought bitterly. Her husband was going to be the second-in-command of a legion made up of untrained slaves and criminal scum, men who were bound to be put in the front of the fighting and expected to provide the lion’s share of the corpses. She didn’t need to know anything about war to know that for a certainty. As the daughter of Severus Patronus, she knew very well how the pitiless minds of the men who ruled the Senate worked. “Perhaps you and your brothers will even have the chance to face your father in battle.”\n\n“We can hope,” Sextus said, completely missing her sarcasm. She wanted to strangle him.\n\nInstead, she smiled sweetly and pulled at Carvilia’s hand. “You must go to the domus at once, my dear. Caerilla and Pompilia will be ever so excited to hear the good news.”\n\nHe nodded and took her hands in his. Even though she was still furious with him, or Torquatus, or someone, anyhow, she felt a warmth flood the length of her body. His lips twitched as he bowed in mock formality. “I shall look forward to our next encounter, Lady Valerius.”\n\n“As shall I, Lord Tribune Valerius.” Despite her irritation, butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought of seeing him, alone and unarmored, and she cursed her treacherous body. “I wish you a pleasant afternoon, my lord.”\n\nHe released her and she stepped aside to permit his men to continue their march towards her new home. At least her sisters-in-law would be pleased to know their husbands were to be spared the strangler’s hands or the fatal fall from the Rock of Kings. She watched as they walked past her, their iron-studded sandals clattering against the bricks. How long would it be before Sextus would be facing ten or even twenty thousand of such men, trained for years, experienced in battle, and led by accomplished generals like his father?\n\n“Don’t be so worried, little sister.” Carvilia took her arm and turned her back towards the Forum. “You’ve known he would go to battle since he declared for the tribunate. You should be pleased that he’ll be serving as laticlavius. That way, he’ll be safe with the legate in the command post rather than riding into danger with the knights.”\n\n“He’s a fool and an idiot!” she burst out. “What if he gets himself killed?”\n\n“They all are, darling. That’s why God made us, to make sure someone remembered to feed the children. Do you know, once Potitus took little Titus out to the stables to show him the horses. I saw him in the domus later and I asked him where Titus was. He turned white! He’d completely forgotten him!”\n\n“But Titus wasn’t hurt.”\n\n“Not in the slightest. Two of the stable slaves were playing with him and letting him ride on their shoulders. He was having a wonderful time.”\n\n“How is that supposed to reassure me?”\n\n“I suppose it isn’t,” Carvilia admitted. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m sorry, little sister, but you have no idea how terrified I have been that Potitus would be killed or exiled by the Senate. And then to hear that he’s going to be released?”\n\nSevera nodded and gave her sister-in-law’s arm a little squeeze. As much as the thought of Sextus going into battle frightened her, it would be weeks, if not months, before the rebels would dare to even think about moving on Amorr. If there was confusion in the city about who was in rebellion and who was not, how much more must there be in the provinces and the other cities? And Carvilia was right, there was no safer place in battle than the one right next to the legate, with six thousand armed men to stand between Sextus and the enemy.\n\n“I’m happy for you. And for Pompilia and Caerilla too. Maybe it will be good for Mama Julia too.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1457, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch04_severa-P3", "chapter": "ch04_severa", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSaint Malachus — pagan goddess under an Immaculite saint’s guise; keep both words capitalized.\nQuinta Jul — servant-name as two words; spelling Jul not July.\nMaiden / Mother / Crone — capitalized when the three-fold goddess is meant.\nVallyria — province name; double l.\nHouse Varietas — insulting street rename of House Valerius; both words capitalized.\nFulgetra — Severan legion/place reference; keep spelling.\nRegulus / Pullus — Severan kinsmen; names as written.\nSeverilla — Severa’s sister; diminutive form.\nQuinctiline — hill of the Severan estate; keep spelling.\nMartius — month name as given.\nSextilian — month-adjective for the summer ague.\njongleur — lowercase common noun.\n\n### STORY\nAmorr sits under military rule without an enemy at the walls; Severa endures Valerian suspicion, kitchen apocalypse-talk, and Carvilia’s insistence on a Forum walk in Julia’s wolf cape; they leave the unguarded gates into spring traffic.\n\nOn the brick road Severa meets Sextus returning early; Torquatus means to free his brothers to train the slave legions and has named Sextus tribune laticlavius of Legio XXXV; she smiles through dread, Carvilia comforts her with legate-post safety and laughter at released fear, and Severa says she is happy for the other wives.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSevera\nStill with Carvilia on the way to the market stalls, wolf cape on, escorts trailing. Fresh from Sextus’s war-posting news; forcing cheer for Carvilia. Has almost forgotten Saint Malachus until an old woman’s earrings will drag the vow back; does not believe she is pregnant.\n\nCarvilia\nRelieved about Potitus; ready for jongleurs, furs, and chestnuts; skeptical that Severans would shelter Valerian women. Wears ordinary gold earrings—one per ear—not the three white studs.\n\nMagnus Tertius / Durus\nEscorts; Durus will bargain over a belt-clasp; Tertius stares at a pretty vendor. Neither notices the old woman.\n\nOld woman (Saint Malachus follower)\nUnnamed crone in a stained brown cloak that was once red; three white studs in the left ear. Recognizes Severa and signals the Mother. Not known to Carvilia.\n\n### RECALL\n(Book 1 — summary)\nSevera vowed service connected to Saint Malachus, a goddess hidden under a saint’s name, and took Quinta Jul into her father’s house as ordered. Quinta Jul left Lady Severus’s service after the palace fire that killed Corvus and the Sanctified Father; Severa has since heard nothing from the goddess’s servants.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHe released her and she stepped aside to permit his men to continue their march towards her new home. At least her sisters-in-law would be pleased to know their husbands were to be spared the strangler’s hands or the fatal fall from the Rock of Kings. She watched as they walked past her, their iron-studded sandals clattering against the bricks. How long would it be before Sextus would be facing ten or even twenty thousand of such men, trained for years, experienced in battle, and led by accomplished generals like his father?\n\n“Don’t be so worried, little sister.” Carvilia took her arm and turned her back towards the Forum. “You’ve known he would go to battle since he declared for the tribunate. You should be pleased that he’ll be serving as laticlavius. That way, he’ll be safe with the legate in the command post rather than riding into danger with the knights.”\n\n“He’s a fool and an idiot!” she burst out. “What if he gets himself killed?”\n\n“They all are, darling. That’s why God made us, to make sure someone remembered to feed the children. Do you know, once Potitus took little Titus out to the stables to show him the horses. I saw him in the domus later and I asked him where Titus was. He turned white! He’d completely forgotten him!”\n\n“But Titus wasn’t hurt.”\n\n“Not in the slightest. Two of the stable slaves were playing with him and letting him ride on their shoulders. He was having a wonderful time.”\n\n“How is that supposed to reassure me?”\n\n“I suppose it isn’t,” Carvilia admitted. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m sorry, little sister, but you have no idea how terrified I have been that Potitus would be killed or exiled by the Senate. And then to hear that he’s going to be released?”\n\nSevera nodded and gave her sister-in-law’s arm a little squeeze. As much as the thought of Sextus going into battle frightened her, it would be weeks, if not months, before the rebels would dare to even think about moving on Amorr. If there was confusion in the city about who was in rebellion and who was not, how much more must there be in the provinces and the other cities? And Carvilia was right, there was no safer place in battle than the one right next to the legate, with six thousand armed men to stand between Sextus and the enemy.\n\n“I’m happy for you. And for Pompilia and Caerilla too. Maybe it will be good for Mama Julia too.”\n\n### NOTES\nChilly Martius afternoon; market crowd and stalls are sparse.\nGoods in view: wool, cotton, one silk stall, seamstresses; no fur merchants.\nChestnut vendor present; roasting smell carries.\nSeveran estate lies toward the Quinctiline hill, visible at distance; house itself not.\nSingle earring in Severa’s lobe (her ordinary wear); the crone’s three white studs mark Maiden, Mother, Crone.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Severa.\n\nCarvilia spots a jongleur among thin Martius stalls; fire-brands, a silver coin, talk of burned mouths and Sextus’s harmless juggling. They look for furs that never came south, then for roasted chestnuts. The market is saving itself for siege: oil, firewood, keeping-stores. Carvilia doubts any rebel army will show and worries more about summer air and the Sextilian ague if they cannot reach Vallyria.\n\nSevera offers her mother’s lonely hill and Severilla for the children; Carvilia doubts Regulus or Pullus would shelter Valerian women while the street says House Varietas, and hopes the war blows over first. Severa will not reheat three months of useless what-ifs. Chestnuts warm her palms—and an old woman in a once-red cloak stares until the wind shows three white studs.\n\nRecognition hits: Saint Malachus, Quinta Jul, the nearly forgotten vow. The woman taps the Mother’s stud and vanishes behind stalls. Severa’s hands go to her flat belly; she wants answers; Carvilia and the escorts saw nothing. She cuts the outing short for home and Sextus, not convinced she is lying when she says nothing is wrong, and walks with Carvilia’s arm while her free hand keeps testing her stomach. The scene ends on that private, frightened checking.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1800 words. Market lightness first, then the omen without gothic excess; Severa’s body-fear stays concrete. Land on the walk home and the hand at her belly.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Maybe,” Carvilia said dubiously. Her face brightened and she pointed at the merchant stalls they were approaching. “Oh, look, they have a jongleur!”\n\nBoth the crowd and the stalls were on the sparse side, even for a chilly Martius afternoon, but there were musicians, food merchants with fresh meat roasting, and the aforementioned jongleur, who was effortlessly keeping three burning brands in the air. He winked at them as they approached, then caused them both to gasp in amazement as he extinguished one in his mouth while juggling the other two in his left hand. He bowed deeply as Carvilia tossed a silver coin in the wooden bucket at his feet, then threw one brand high in the air and reignited the second brand with the third one before returning to his earlier pattern.\n\n“My goodness, could you believe that!” Severa said, glancing back at the slender young man.\n\n“I don’t think I’d much like to kiss a man with a burned mouth.”\n\n“Sextus can juggle.” Carvilia looked at her, surprised. “Well, not things on fire, of course, but he can keep five balls up. He does three knives sometimes, but I don’t like him to do that.”\n\n“So you meant it literally, then, about him being a fool?”\n\n“He’s not a fool!” Severa protested, only to draw an amused smirk from the older woman.\n\n“I’m only teasing you, my dear. Do you see any fur merchants?”\n\n“No, why?” Severa looked around the stalls. She saw men selling wool, she saw men selling cotton, and there was even one colorful, well-appointed stall where silk appeared to be on offer. She saw seamstresses and embroiderers, but she did not see anyone selling furs.\n\n“I don’t either. I suppose most of the fur merchants were afraid to travel south after the provincials were sent home.” Carvilia made a face. “I thought someone would have gone north to find some, but apparently not.”\n\n“If they did, it would probably cost more than you’d want to pay,” Severa pointed out.\n\n“There is that. Come, let’s see if we can find some roasted chestnuts. I thought I smelled them. Over there.”\n\nThey made their way past the thinly trafficked stalls. Severa wondered aloud why there weren’t more people about. She saw one old woman bickering with a young man over the price of a bag of onions, but that was the only transaction taking place nearby.\n\n“I imagine most of the plebs will be saving whatever coin they can to buy supplies. If there is a siege, everyone will want to be well-stocked. Galerus has been preparing for weeks. I was helping him count the jars of oil just yesterday. Look, the only stalls doing much business are those selling fresh food and firewood or stores that will keep.”\n\n“I never thought about that.”\n\n“It’s not your concern, little sister. And besides, I very much doubt we will ever see a rebel army in sight of our walls. The provincials want to be free to go their own way, they don’t want to conquer us. We’re hardly helpless. Even if half our legions have gone over to one league or another, we still have more men at arms than any other city or province and that doesn’t count the six new ones the Senate has formed. They could probably raise another ten or twenty if they wanted.”\n\n“I suppose we won’t be going to Vallyria this summer.”\n\n“No, and that worries me more than a siege,” Carvilia said soberly as she looked for the source of the aroma. “Ah, there it is. The air here is unhealthy in the summer and I don’t want to risk Titus or Publius catching the Sextilian ague. But if this isn’t all settled by then, we may not have a choice.”\n\nSevera pointed in the general direction of the Severan estate, which until the New Year had belonged to her father. At such a distance, the house itself was not visible, but the Quinctiline, the great hill atop which the villa sat, was in view. “I can speak to my mother. She is very lonely, I think, since… since my marriage. And I think she would not mind having a young one or two around the place. She often laments how quickly my sister is growing and it would give Severilla some little friends with whom she could play.”\n\nCarvilia looked skeptical. “Your father may have married you off to House Valerius, but I can’t believe your brother, or your uncle, would give refuge to Valerian women and children. Especially since thanks to our beloved father-in-law, people have been calling us House Varietas.”\n\n“So? Aulan is with Magnus, after all. House Valerius isn’t the only House Martial under suspicion. There is still no word of Fulgetra. I don’t see that either Regulus or uncle Pullus are inclined to object, or even notice, if a few more women and children happen to be around. They won’t abide our husbands, but then, I suppose Sextus and Potitus will be with the legions.” She paused for a moment. “So will Regulus and Pullus, for that matter.”\n\n“Aulan is only a tribune and for all we know, Magnus is holding him as a hostage.” Carvilia shrugged. “It’s a thoughtful offer, little sister, and one that I would certainly be happy to accept if you can talk your brother into it. But I’m going to hope this will blow over before Sextilius and we can spend it in Vallyria.”\n\nSevera didn’t see how that was possible, but she wasn’t disposed to argue about it. They’d spent hours, probably days, over the last three months in anxious discussions about what the Senate, or Magnus, or the Marruvian League, or the Utruccan League might do, and none of it had accomplished anything except to frighten her more. She put out her hand as Carvilia reached out to take a second bag of chestnuts from the vendor.\n\n“I only want one or two. You don’t need to buy two bags.”\n\n“Pompilia will want some.”\n\n“They’ll be cold by the time we get home.”\n\nCarvilia bought the second bag anyhow. It wasn’t as if they would go to waste; even if Pompilia didn’t want them, one of the slave boys would. She took one from the proffered bag and cupped it in her palms, enjoying the warmth that radiated from the roasted nut. But as she peeled the hard, cracked covering off to expose the meat of the nut underneath, she noticed an old woman staring fixedly at her.\n\nThere was something about the woman that bothered her, something malicious, even though her expression was benign. There was nothing remarkable about her other than her age. Her hair was long, grey and unkempt, her face was lined and sun-weathered, and she wore a stained brown cloak that was faded and showed signs of having once been red. Then the wind blew her hair back for a moment and Severa saw the three white studs that pierced her left ear. Three earrings. Three bones. One for the Maiden, one for the Mother, and one for the Crone.\n\nInadvertently, she found her hand rising to her own ear, where just a single ring ran through the lobe. So much had happened in the last four months that she had almost completely forgotten the promise she’d made to Saint Malachus, the woman in man’s garb, the pagan goddess who hid beneath the guise of an Immaculite saint. Severa had done her duty and she had fulfilled her promise, but Quinta Jul, the servant she’d been ordered to take into her father’s house, was gone. It seemed the woman had left her mother’s service not long after the fire that killed Valerius Corvus and the Sanctified Father, and since then, Severa had neither heard anything from the servants of the Goddess nor thought about them. She’d been too caught up in the circumstances of her father’s death and her subsequent marriage to Sextus to spare any thought for the fate of a servant in a house in which she no longer lived.\n\nHaving seen the flash of recognition in Severa’s eyes, the old woman smiled. Then she raised her left hand to her ear and deliberately tapped the bottom stud, followed by the middle one. After which, she nodded significantly and turned away, disappearing behind a row of stalls.\n\nSevera gasped. The woman had touched the second earring. The Mother! She placed both hands on her belly. It was flat, there was no sign of any life growing within it. Was the woman telling her that she was going to be a mother? Was the woman telling her she was already pregnant? Or was it something more ominous, something darker. What did she mean by the gesture? She started to move forward, thinking to pursue the woman and demand answers from her, but Carvilia caught her arm.\n\n“Severa! Where do you think you’re going?”\n\nSevera pointed in the direction of the stalls. “Did you see her? Did you see that old woman?”\n\nCarvilia shook her head. She had, Severa noticed, only a single earring in either ear, and more importantly, both were gold. “What old woman? I can see a dozen of them.”\n\n“The one in the brown cloak!” Severa looked to their two guards, but Durus was still engaged in negotiations with a young woman over an iron belt-clasp and Magnus Tertius was entirely absorbed with staring at the young woman, whose wind-burned face was rather pretty. She didn’t need to ask to know that they hadn’t seen the old woman either.\n\n“Let’s go home,” she said abruptly, drawing a look of surprise from her sister-in-law. “There’s next to nothing here, and I have to talk to Sextus.”\n\n“Is something wrong?” Carvilia asked, more bewildered than worried.\n\n“No, nothing’s wrong,” Severa told her. But she wasn’t entirely convinced that she wasn’t lying. She didn’t know what the follower of Saint Malachus intended by her reference to the Mother, but she didn’t like the woman’s indication that their goddess held some kind of claim to her. She ran her hand over her belly again. Was there perhaps a faint swelling there? Surely she would know if she was pregnant!\n\nFrowning, she took Carvilia’s arm as they began the journey home. But even as they walked, she couldn’t help surreptitiously squeezing and poking at her stomach with her free hand.\n", "completion": "“Maybe,” Carvilia said dubiously. Her face brightened and she pointed at the merchant stalls they were approaching. “Oh, look, they have a jongleur!”\n\nBoth the crowd and the stalls were on the sparse side, even for a chilly Martius afternoon, but there were musicians, food merchants with fresh meat roasting, and the aforementioned jongleur, who was effortlessly keeping three burning brands in the air. He winked at them as they approached, then caused them both to gasp in amazement as he extinguished one in his mouth while juggling the other two in his left hand. He bowed deeply as Carvilia tossed a silver coin in the wooden bucket at his feet, then threw one brand high in the air and reignited the second brand with the third one before returning to his earlier pattern.\n\n“My goodness, could you believe that!” Severa said, glancing back at the slender young man.\n\n“I don’t think I’d much like to kiss a man with a burned mouth.”\n\n“Sextus can juggle.” Carvilia looked at her, surprised. “Well, not things on fire, of course, but he can keep five balls up. He does three knives sometimes, but I don’t like him to do that.”\n\n“So you meant it literally, then, about him being a fool?”\n\n“He’s not a fool!” Severa protested, only to draw an amused smirk from the older woman.\n\n“I’m only teasing you, my dear. Do you see any fur merchants?”\n\n“No, why?” Severa looked around the stalls. She saw men selling wool, she saw men selling cotton, and there was even one colorful, well-appointed stall where silk appeared to be on offer. She saw seamstresses and embroiderers, but she did not see anyone selling furs.\n\n“I don’t either. I suppose most of the fur merchants were afraid to travel south after the provincials were sent home.” Carvilia made a face. “I thought someone would have gone north to find some, but apparently not.”\n\n“If they did, it would probably cost more than you’d want to pay,” Severa pointed out.\n\n“There is that. Come, let’s see if we can find some roasted chestnuts. I thought I smelled them. Over there.”\n\nThey made their way past the thinly trafficked stalls. Severa wondered aloud why there weren’t more people about. She saw one old woman bickering with a young man over the price of a bag of onions, but that was the only transaction taking place nearby.\n\n“I imagine most of the plebs will be saving whatever coin they can to buy supplies. If there is a siege, everyone will want to be well-stocked. Galerus has been preparing for weeks. I was helping him count the jars of oil just yesterday. Look, the only stalls doing much business are those selling fresh food and firewood or stores that will keep.”\n\n“I never thought about that.”\n\n“It’s not your concern, little sister. And besides, I very much doubt we will ever see a rebel army in sight of our walls. The provincials want to be free to go their own way, they don’t want to conquer us. We’re hardly helpless. Even if half our legions have gone over to one league or another, we still have more men at arms than any other city or province and that doesn’t count the six new ones the Senate has formed. They could probably raise another ten or twenty if they wanted.”\n\n“I suppose we won’t be going to Vallyria this summer.”\n\n“No, and that worries me more than a siege,” Carvilia said soberly as she looked for the source of the aroma. “Ah, there it is. The air here is unhealthy in the summer and I don’t want to risk Titus or Publius catching the Sextilian ague. But if this isn’t all settled by then, we may not have a choice.”\n\nSevera pointed in the general direction of the Severan estate, which until the New Year had belonged to her father. At such a distance, the house itself was not visible, but the Quinctiline, the great hill atop which the villa sat, was in view. “I can speak to my mother. She is very lonely, I think, since… since my marriage. And I think she would not mind having a young one or two around the place. She often laments how quickly my sister is growing and it would give Severilla some little friends with whom she could play.”\n\nCarvilia looked skeptical. “Your father may have married you off to House Valerius, but I can’t believe your brother, or your uncle, would give refuge to Valerian women and children. Especially since thanks to our beloved father-in-law, people have been calling us House Varietas.”\n\n“So? Aulan is with Magnus, after all. House Valerius isn’t the only House Martial under suspicion. There is still no word of Fulgetra. I don’t see that either Regulus or uncle Pullus are inclined to object, or even notice, if a few more women and children happen to be around. They won’t abide our husbands, but then, I suppose Sextus and Potitus will be with the legions.” She paused for a moment. “So will Regulus and Pullus, for that matter.”\n\n“Aulan is only a tribune and for all we know, Magnus is holding him as a hostage.” Carvilia shrugged. “It’s a thoughtful offer, little sister, and one that I would certainly be happy to accept if you can talk your brother into it. But I’m going to hope this will blow over before Sextilius and we can spend it in Vallyria.”\n\nSevera didn’t see how that was possible, but she wasn’t disposed to argue about it. They’d spent hours, probably days, over the last three months in anxious discussions about what the Senate, or Magnus, or the Marruvian League, or the Utruccan League might do, and none of it had accomplished anything except to frighten her more. She put out her hand as Carvilia reached out to take a second bag of chestnuts from the vendor.\n\n“I only want one or two. You don’t need to buy two bags.”\n\n“Pompilia will want some.”\n\n“They’ll be cold by the time we get home.”\n\nCarvilia bought the second bag anyhow. It wasn’t as if they would go to waste; even if Pompilia didn’t want them, one of the slave boys would. She took one from the proffered bag and cupped it in her palms, enjoying the warmth that radiated from the roasted nut. But as she peeled the hard, cracked covering off to expose the meat of the nut underneath, she noticed an old woman staring fixedly at her.\n\nThere was something about the woman that bothered her, something malicious, even though her expression was benign. There was nothing remarkable about her other than her age. Her hair was long, grey and unkempt, her face was lined and sun-weathered, and she wore a stained brown cloak that was faded and showed signs of having once been red. Then the wind blew her hair back for a moment and Severa saw the three white studs that pierced her left ear. Three earrings. Three bones. One for the Maiden, one for the Mother, and one for the Crone.\n\nInadvertently, she found her hand rising to her own ear, where just a single ring ran through the lobe. So much had happened in the last four months that she had almost completely forgotten the promise she’d made to Saint Malachus, the woman in man’s garb, the pagan goddess who hid beneath the guise of an Immaculite saint. Severa had done her duty and she had fulfilled her promise, but Quinta Jul, the servant she’d been ordered to take into her father’s house, was gone. It seemed the woman had left her mother’s service not long after the fire that killed Valerius Corvus and the Sanctified Father, and since then, Severa had neither heard anything from the servants of the Goddess nor thought about them. She’d been too caught up in the circumstances of her father’s death and her subsequent marriage to Sextus to spare any thought for the fate of a servant in a house in which she no longer lived.\n\nHaving seen the flash of recognition in Severa’s eyes, the old woman smiled. Then she raised her left hand to her ear and deliberately tapped the bottom stud, followed by the middle one. After which, she nodded significantly and turned away, disappearing behind a row of stalls.\n\nSevera gasped. The woman had touched the second earring. The Mother! She placed both hands on her belly. It was flat, there was no sign of any life growing within it. Was the woman telling her that she was going to be a mother? Was the woman telling her she was already pregnant? Or was it something more ominous, something darker. What did she mean by the gesture? She started to move forward, thinking to pursue the woman and demand answers from her, but Carvilia caught her arm.\n\n“Severa! Where do you think you’re going?”\n\nSevera pointed in the direction of the stalls. “Did you see her? Did you see that old woman?”\n\nCarvilia shook her head. She had, Severa noticed, only a single earring in either ear, and more importantly, both were gold. “What old woman? I can see a dozen of them.”\n\n“The one in the brown cloak!” Severa looked to their two guards, but Durus was still engaged in negotiations with a young woman over an iron belt-clasp and Magnus Tertius was entirely absorbed with staring at the young woman, whose wind-burned face was rather pretty. She didn’t need to ask to know that they hadn’t seen the old woman either.\n\n“Let’s go home,” she said abruptly, drawing a look of surprise from her sister-in-law. “There’s next to nothing here, and I have to talk to Sextus.”\n\n“Is something wrong?” Carvilia asked, more bewildered than worried.\n\n“No, nothing’s wrong,” Severa told her. But she wasn’t entirely convinced that she wasn’t lying. She didn’t know what the follower of Saint Malachus intended by her reference to the Mother, but she didn’t like the woman’s indication that their goddess held some kind of claim to her. She ran her hand over her belly again. Was there perhaps a faint swelling there? Surely she would know if she was pregnant!\n\nFrowning, she took Carvilia’s arm as they began the journey home. But even as they walked, she couldn’t help surreptitiously squeezing and poking at her stomach with her free hand.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1796, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch05_aulan-P1", "chapter": "ch05_aulan", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAulan / Aulus Severus Aulan — Severan tribune; Aulan in narrative thought, full name when he announces himself.\nMarcus Valerius Magnus / Valerius Magnus / Magnus — Magister Militum in the field; Veheminus is his harsh agnomen.\nLegio XV / Legio VII / Legio XXXI — legion numbers as Roman numerals after Legio.\nFulgetra — origin of Aulan’s eight trusted knights; keep spelling.\nturmae / turma — cavalry troops; Latin plural/singular as written.\ndecurion / decuria / squadron — ranks and subunits; decurion lowercase unless starting a sentence.\nCernobus — Vallyrian village; keep spelling.\nTrivicum — nearby town still thought loyal to Amorr.\nVallyria — province; double l.\nLucarus — Aulan’s trusted Severan decurion; spelling Lucarus not Lucarius.\nTitus Marinus / Marcus Possidius — Valerian senior decurions commanding the turmae.\nRufus — knight holding Aulan’s reins.\nSextus Lucretius — loyalist decurion of Legio XXXI; both names.\nSPA — seal mark of the Senate and People; three letters as on the wax.\nConsul Provincae — office title; both words capitalized.\npraetor urbanus — urban praetor; lowercase unless starting a sentence.\nBattle of the Three Legions / Montmila — prior battle references; keep forms when they appear.\nequestrian — social/military class; lowercase unless starting a sentence.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nAulan\nAulus Severus Aulan, senior tribune for Legio XV under Valerius Magnus, commanding the legion’s remaining horse—two thin turmae plus eight killers from Fulgetra. Alive outside Cernobus on overwatch while Magnus meets the elders. Sure of his Severans; less sure of the Valerian horse that still falls silent when he walks up. Tasked to rebuild cavalry in a rebellious Vallyria and has found horses but no true equestrians. Prefers quality and speed to drafting farmboys. Expects the village meeting may be a trap; intends to capture any Amorran riders, not make a mess of heads.\n\nLucarus\nTrusted decurion from Fulgetra. Short, burly, deep-set eyes; unmounted on the hill spotting riders. Obeys without politics.\n\nTitus Marinus\nSenior Valerian decurion. Resigned face, no open insubordination; brightens when there is real work. Will hold Lucretius’s men outside the village.\n\nMarcus Possidius\nOther turma’s senior decurion; assigned to block retreat from behind the hill.\n\nSextus Lucretius\nDecurion of Legio XXXI with twelve riders and a sealed SPA summons for Magnus. Sensible enough to halt a panic and keep his sword sheathed; already knew Magnus was in Cernobus. Not yet met Aulan at scene open.\n\nMarcus Valerius Magnus\nEx-consul and Magister Militum; in the village with a tribune and six knights wooing Cernobus. Suspicious of the invitation. Not on the hill with Aulan.\n\n### RECALL\n(Book 1 — summary)\nIn the Battle of the Three Legions Magnus used a feigned retreat that wrecked Legio XV’s cavalry on Legio VII’s pikes. Aulan, a Severan, has Valerian blood on his hands from earlier Amorran street and field work and now serves Magnus in Vallyria while House Severus remains tainted by his father’s and brother’s rebellions.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nLate afternoon, cool; spring grass wet and green on a hill overlooking the path into Cernobus.\nCernobus: prosperous Vallyrian village of about eight thousand; no full legion in Trivicum; any reaction force likely a decuria or two of horse.\nRoad muddy—little dust from the approaching riders.\nAulan’s force: about sixty knights in two turmae, plus his Fulgetra eight.\nMagnus is in the village square; Aulan’s post can see that square and the Trivicum road.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Aulan.\n\nHe trusts the eight from Fulgetra and not the Valerian horse that goes quiet when he approaches, but Magnus named him senior tribune of Legio XV’s scrapings of cavalry, so discipline will have to do. Rebuilding the horse in Vallyria is mostly commandeered mounts and no riders worth the name; he will not slow Magnus’s village circuit with farmboys.\n\nLucarus waves from the hill: ten or twelve coming on the muddy road. Aulan wants them taken alive for questions, not painted across Cernobus’s denials. He sets Marinus’s turma in the road by the bend and Possidius behind the hill for the bag, swords sheathed, one living at least if they bolt north.\n\nThe squadron arrives; a blue-plumed decurion quiets his own flinchers and rides out—iron unscarred, sword away, SPA scroll for Magnus and a story about the Consul Provincae’s invitation to consult. Aulan laughs at the torturer between the lines, orders the message delivered under escort, and sees in the man’s eyes that Lucretius already knew Magnus was here. He tells Marinus they will help the good decurion deliver his mail. The scene ends on that turn toward the village, before they enter Cernobus.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2200 words. Cool professional cavalry register; contempt stays dry. Land on the decision to escort Lucretius in—do not enter the square yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Aulan had perfect faith in the eight knights who had come with him from Fulgetra. They were hard-bitten killers who had proven themselves on the battlefield and in the streets of Amorr too. There wasn’t an order he could give them that they would hesitate to obey. He was considerably less confident in the two Valerian turmae he was presently commanding, especially in light of the way in which the senior decurions had the irritating habit of falling silent every time he approached them.\n\nHe shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do about it. The men weren’t about to abandon a lifetime of regarding House Severus as the enemy overnight, and as the only Severan of his generation with genuine Valerian blood on his hands, he was probably not the man best suited to try winning them over. He would have to trust in the famed Valerian discipline to keep them from running him through with a lance in the back. Fortunately, they all seemed to look on Magnus as some sort of martial demigod, so the fact that the Magister Militum had named him the senior tribune for Legio XV and assigned him the tattered remnants of its horse gave him at least a modicum of credibility.\n\nThe sixty knights in the two turmae now accompanying him represented most of the legion’s remaining horse. Legio XV’s cavalry had taken heavy casualties in the Battle of the Three Legions, thanks to Magnus’s unexpected use of a feigned retreat that led them directly onto Legio VII’s pikes. One of Aulan’s appointed tasks was to rebuild it, but that was difficult in a province wracked by the upheaval of rebellion, where every city and village was uncertain as to whose side to take. He had managed to commandeer twenty-four horses to date, but was yet to find a single equestrian capable of sitting one properly. The natural difficulty of the circumstances was compounded by the fact that they were in House Valerius’s home province of Vallyria, and the Vallyrians were generally famed for the toughness of their infantry, not seats of their horsemen.\n\nHe could, of course, simply draft a few likely-looking farmboys, but it would take weeks before he could trust them not to fall off their mounts, and months before they would be even remotely useful in combat. Considering how Magnus had them escorting him from one village to another on an almost daily basis, he favored quality over quantity at present. Speed was of the essence and new riders would only slow them down. Moreover, he had the conventional patrician’s distaste for elevating men beyond their natural station. And, he knew, his men shared it. Equestrians were even more fiercely proud of their status than patricians and the other knights would never truly accept new knights created by circumstance rather than birth.\n\n“Lucarus!” he called out to the one decurion he could trust. “Any sign of them?”\n\nThe decurion shook his head. He was unmounted and standing atop a hill that overlooked the path into Cernobus, a prosperous Vallyrian village of about eight thousand, whose elders Magnus was attempting to win over to his cause. Magnus was in the village now, accompanied by one of the tribunes and six knights, two of whom were from a nearby village and acquainted with the influential families here, if not necessarily the elders themselves.\n\nThere was apparently some question about whether the loyalties of the villagers were with Amorr or House Valerius, specifically, House Valerius in the form of Valerius Magnus. One of the village elders was said to be a particularly slippery man, and since the invitation had come from him, Magnus was more than a little suspicious that the meeting was a trap. So, Aulan and his two turmae were waiting within sight of the village square where the elders were receiving Magnus. They were also in a position to intercept any troops being sent from Trivicum, which was believed to be still holding firm for Amorr.\n\nThere were no full legions stationed in Trivicum, so any troops arriving would almost surely be mounted, and there would likely be no more than a decuria or two at most. They were running no serious risks in Aulan’s opinion; as far as he was concerned the only question would be the way in which Magnus would react to any treachery. Would he order the elders slaughtered and the town burned to the ground? Or would he be magnanimous? It was the sort of situation to which his father had always encouraged him to pay close attention, as these were circumstances that granted one rare insight into a man’s character.\n\nMagnus would want to set an example, Aulan guessed. But burning the town would be going too far for the man who intended to make himself King of Vallyria, even a rebel who had once been called Veheminus. Killing the elders and taking a few hostages from their families would provide a sufficient warning to other villages that thought to play him false as well as dissuade the villagers from further disloyalties.\n\n“Tribune!” one of the knights pointed to Lucarus, who was looking back at him and beckoning. “The decurion wants you.”\n\nAulan nodded, slid from his horse, and handed its reins to Rufus, the knight to his left. His legs protested as he trudged up the hill; they were tight and could have used some stretching out before being forced to attempt the moderately steep slope. He was breathing hard by the time he approached the summit, but fortunately it was cool and the late afternoon sun was behind him rather than shining in his eyes.\n\nLucarus was a short, burly man who looked more suited to tavern brawls than battlefields. His eyes were small and deep-set, but there was nothing wrong with them as he squinted towards the east and the faint signs of motion in the distance.\n\n“Looks like the Valerian weren’t being so skittish after all,” he said.\n\n“How many do you think?”\n\n“Not so many. Ten, mebbe twelve. It’s hard to say. The road is muddy, so they ain’t kicking up no dust.”\n\n“Anything less than a turma isn’t a problem.” Aulan spat, feeling irritated. “Dammit! I was hoping we’d get out of here without any nonsense!”\n\n“How do you want to play it? Hit them when they ride past or go out and meet them?”\n\n“I don’t want to risk any horses. Who knows, maybe we can even convince them to change sides.” Aulan glanced back to Cernobus and considered the terrain. He pointed to a tree near a bend in the road in the direction of the town. “I’ll take Marinus and his turma to await them there. You wait with Marcus Possidius and his men, then ride out from behind the hill as soon as they pass. I aim to capture them, not kill them. We need information, and if we go riding into town with their heads the Cernobians will deny knowing anything about them.”\n\nLucarus nodded. “Right. You’ll give us a sign if you want us to attack?”\n\n“I doubt that will be necessary.” Aulan grinned contemptuously. “If they try to break north, you and Possidius ride them down. Try to keep at least one alive, though.”\n\nThe shorter man nodded and the two of them began to make their way down the hill. The grass was wet and green with spring, and both of them nearly slipped, but they made it to the bottom without serious incident and went their separate ways. Aulan mounted his horse, took the reins from Rufus, and summoned Titus Marinus. The senior decurion obediently urged his big bay over with a resigned expression on his face, but at least there was no insubordination in his voice as he awaited orders.\n\n“Tribune?”\n\n“It appears the Magister’s doubts about the good faith of the villagers was well-founded. A squadron of horse is on its way towards the village. You and your men will come with me and we will await them in the road. Marcus Possidius will ride out behind them and block their retreat. Everyone is to keep his sword sheathed. The Magister will want to question them.”\n\n“Sir!” Marinus’s expression became more lively and he thumped his breastplate in a salute that was almost enthusiastic. He wheeled around to give orders to the three decurions who commanded the individual squadrons and Aulan found himself musing on the observation that discipline was a damned sight more useful than affection. In a matter of moments, the turma was neatly arrayed facing east and waiting for him to take the lead.\n\nThey rode slowly out along the base of the hill and onto the road, continuing about one hundred paces until they reached the spot he had indicated to Lucarus. Marinus barked out a command and the turma smoothly executed a revolution that left Aulan and the decurions facing west. The knights were bored and eager for anything that would break the tedium. Aulan could feel it, and he hoped the decurion in command of the enemy squadron wouldn’t do anything foolish. In such a state, it would be harder to rein the men in than to stop an unleashed dog that scared up a rabbit, discipline be damned.\n\nIt didn’t take long before they heard the muted clip-clopping of horses trotting toward them. Fortunately, the wind was in their faces, so it was their horses that caught the scent of the newcomers and began to whicker and toss their heads. Aulan could tell the moment the first rider spotted them blocking the road, as the man immediately pulled up and the squadron behind him came to an immediate halt.\n\n“Shall we go after them?” Marinus asked as several of the riders began to turn their horses around.\n\n“No,” Aulan answered, seeing that the unknown decurion had merely glanced behind him before gesticulating angrily at the men who had looked to retreat. A sensible man, it appeared, or else a naïve one. He counted twelve riders in all, and waited as the decurion rode towards him, the blue transverse plume on his helm bobbing up and down. The decurion’s horse was a grey of modest quality, his breastplate had the gleam of iron unmarred by combat, and most importantly, his sword remained sheathed. He didn’t even have a lance or bow attached to his saddle, although there was a large round shield atop the bag behind his saddle.\n\n“What legion are you with, Tribune?” he called as he approached.\n\n“Legio XV,” Aulan answered. The decurion did not look surprised.\n\n“You’re with Valerius Magnus, then.”\n\n“Your name and legion, decurion?” Aulan saw no need to belabor the obvious. “And your business here?”\n\nThe decurion glanced from one side of the formation to the other. He didn’t need to count the exact number to know he was overmatched even without Possidius’s turma coming slowly down the road behind him.\n\n“I am Sextus Lucretius, with Legio XXXI. I was ordered here to escort Valerius Magnus back to Amorr, as the Consul Provincae wishes to inquire of his recent activities in Vallyria and consult with him concerning the recent uprisings.” Lucretius turned back and searched in the pack behind his saddle, and eventually produced a sealed scroll, which he brandished. “This is the summons I was ordered to deliver to the senator.”\n\nThe seal was marked with the SPA of the Senate and People. Aulan laughed under his breath. He had no doubt that the Consul Provincae, whoever he was, would very much like to consult with Magnus. Preferably in the company of a torturer, a priest, and a strangler.\n\n“Then deliver it you shall,” Aulan declared, enjoying the look of surprise on Lucretius’s face. “In fact, we shall escort you to Magnus. Fortunately for you, the journey is not far. As we speak, he is here in Cernobus, meeting with the elders of the town.”\n\nHe smiled as the decurion’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, betraying his previous knowledge of Magnus’s whereabouts. But to his credit, Lucretius didn’t insult his intelligence by pretending otherwise.\n\n“So I was informed,” he admitted.\n\n“By whom?”\n\n“My legate, Roscius Coelus. My understanding is that Coelus was told Magnus would be in Cernobus this afternoon by the praetor urbanus.”\n\nAulan nodded. It wasn’t as if the responsible elder, or elders, would have written to an insignificant decurion. If the urban praetor had given Lucretius’s legate his orders, then a senator was involved, most likely one with ties to Vallyria.\n\n“Very well. Come along then, and tell your men to behave themselves. There’s no need for any unpleasantries.” He leaned towards Marinus and made a circular gesture with his left hand. “Let’s help the good decurion deliver his message, shall we?”\n", "completion": "Aulan had perfect faith in the eight knights who had come with him from Fulgetra. They were hard-bitten killers who had proven themselves on the battlefield and in the streets of Amorr too. There wasn’t an order he could give them that they would hesitate to obey. He was considerably less confident in the two Valerian turmae he was presently commanding, especially in light of the way in which the senior decurions had the irritating habit of falling silent every time he approached them.\n\nHe shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do about it. The men weren’t about to abandon a lifetime of regarding House Severus as the enemy overnight, and as the only Severan of his generation with genuine Valerian blood on his hands, he was probably not the man best suited to try winning them over. He would have to trust in the famed Valerian discipline to keep them from running him through with a lance in the back. Fortunately, they all seemed to look on Magnus as some sort of martial demigod, so the fact that the Magister Militum had named him the senior tribune for Legio XV and assigned him the tattered remnants of its horse gave him at least a modicum of credibility.\n\nThe sixty knights in the two turmae now accompanying him represented most of the legion’s remaining horse. Legio XV’s cavalry had taken heavy casualties in the Battle of the Three Legions, thanks to Magnus’s unexpected use of a feigned retreat that led them directly onto Legio VII’s pikes. One of Aulan’s appointed tasks was to rebuild it, but that was difficult in a province wracked by the upheaval of rebellion, where every city and village was uncertain as to whose side to take. He had managed to commandeer twenty-four horses to date, but was yet to find a single equestrian capable of sitting one properly. The natural difficulty of the circumstances was compounded by the fact that they were in House Valerius’s home province of Vallyria, and the Vallyrians were generally famed for the toughness of their infantry, not seats of their horsemen.\n\nHe could, of course, simply draft a few likely-looking farmboys, but it would take weeks before he could trust them not to fall off their mounts, and months before they would be even remotely useful in combat. Considering how Magnus had them escorting him from one village to another on an almost daily basis, he favored quality over quantity at present. Speed was of the essence and new riders would only slow them down. Moreover, he had the conventional patrician’s distaste for elevating men beyond their natural station. And, he knew, his men shared it. Equestrians were even more fiercely proud of their status than patricians and the other knights would never truly accept new knights created by circumstance rather than birth.\n\n“Lucarus!” he called out to the one decurion he could trust. “Any sign of them?”\n\nThe decurion shook his head. He was unmounted and standing atop a hill that overlooked the path into Cernobus, a prosperous Vallyrian village of about eight thousand, whose elders Magnus was attempting to win over to his cause. Magnus was in the village now, accompanied by one of the tribunes and six knights, two of whom were from a nearby village and acquainted with the influential families here, if not necessarily the elders themselves.\n\nThere was apparently some question about whether the loyalties of the villagers were with Amorr or House Valerius, specifically, House Valerius in the form of Valerius Magnus. One of the village elders was said to be a particularly slippery man, and since the invitation had come from him, Magnus was more than a little suspicious that the meeting was a trap. So, Aulan and his two turmae were waiting within sight of the village square where the elders were receiving Magnus. They were also in a position to intercept any troops being sent from Trivicum, which was believed to be still holding firm for Amorr.\n\nThere were no full legions stationed in Trivicum, so any troops arriving would almost surely be mounted, and there would likely be no more than a decuria or two at most. They were running no serious risks in Aulan’s opinion; as far as he was concerned the only question would be the way in which Magnus would react to any treachery. Would he order the elders slaughtered and the town burned to the ground? Or would he be magnanimous? It was the sort of situation to which his father had always encouraged him to pay close attention, as these were circumstances that granted one rare insight into a man’s character.\n\nMagnus would want to set an example, Aulan guessed. But burning the town would be going too far for the man who intended to make himself King of Vallyria, even a rebel who had once been called Veheminus. Killing the elders and taking a few hostages from their families would provide a sufficient warning to other villages that thought to play him false as well as dissuade the villagers from further disloyalties.\n\n“Tribune!” one of the knights pointed to Lucarus, who was looking back at him and beckoning. “The decurion wants you.”\n\nAulan nodded, slid from his horse, and handed its reins to Rufus, the knight to his left. His legs protested as he trudged up the hill; they were tight and could have used some stretching out before being forced to attempt the moderately steep slope. He was breathing hard by the time he approached the summit, but fortunately it was cool and the late afternoon sun was behind him rather than shining in his eyes.\n\nLucarus was a short, burly man who looked more suited to tavern brawls than battlefields. His eyes were small and deep-set, but there was nothing wrong with them as he squinted towards the east and the faint signs of motion in the distance.\n\n“Looks like the Valerian weren’t being so skittish after all,” he said.\n\n“How many do you think?”\n\n“Not so many. Ten, mebbe twelve. It’s hard to say. The road is muddy, so they ain’t kicking up no dust.”\n\n“Anything less than a turma isn’t a problem.” Aulan spat, feeling irritated. “Dammit! I was hoping we’d get out of here without any nonsense!”\n\n“How do you want to play it? Hit them when they ride past or go out and meet them?”\n\n“I don’t want to risk any horses. Who knows, maybe we can even convince them to change sides.” Aulan glanced back to Cernobus and considered the terrain. He pointed to a tree near a bend in the road in the direction of the town. “I’ll take Marinus and his turma to await them there. You wait with Marcus Possidius and his men, then ride out from behind the hill as soon as they pass. I aim to capture them, not kill them. We need information, and if we go riding into town with their heads the Cernobians will deny knowing anything about them.”\n\nLucarus nodded. “Right. You’ll give us a sign if you want us to attack?”\n\n“I doubt that will be necessary.” Aulan grinned contemptuously. “If they try to break north, you and Possidius ride them down. Try to keep at least one alive, though.”\n\nThe shorter man nodded and the two of them began to make their way down the hill. The grass was wet and green with spring, and both of them nearly slipped, but they made it to the bottom without serious incident and went their separate ways. Aulan mounted his horse, took the reins from Rufus, and summoned Titus Marinus. The senior decurion obediently urged his big bay over with a resigned expression on his face, but at least there was no insubordination in his voice as he awaited orders.\n\n“Tribune?”\n\n“It appears the Magister’s doubts about the good faith of the villagers was well-founded. A squadron of horse is on its way towards the village. You and your men will come with me and we will await them in the road. Marcus Possidius will ride out behind them and block their retreat. Everyone is to keep his sword sheathed. The Magister will want to question them.”\n\n“Sir!” Marinus’s expression became more lively and he thumped his breastplate in a salute that was almost enthusiastic. He wheeled around to give orders to the three decurions who commanded the individual squadrons and Aulan found himself musing on the observation that discipline was a damned sight more useful than affection. In a matter of moments, the turma was neatly arrayed facing east and waiting for him to take the lead.\n\nThey rode slowly out along the base of the hill and onto the road, continuing about one hundred paces until they reached the spot he had indicated to Lucarus. Marinus barked out a command and the turma smoothly executed a revolution that left Aulan and the decurions facing west. The knights were bored and eager for anything that would break the tedium. Aulan could feel it, and he hoped the decurion in command of the enemy squadron wouldn’t do anything foolish. In such a state, it would be harder to rein the men in than to stop an unleashed dog that scared up a rabbit, discipline be damned.\n\nIt didn’t take long before they heard the muted clip-clopping of horses trotting toward them. Fortunately, the wind was in their faces, so it was their horses that caught the scent of the newcomers and began to whicker and toss their heads. Aulan could tell the moment the first rider spotted them blocking the road, as the man immediately pulled up and the squadron behind him came to an immediate halt.\n\n“Shall we go after them?” Marinus asked as several of the riders began to turn their horses around.\n\n“No,” Aulan answered, seeing that the unknown decurion had merely glanced behind him before gesticulating angrily at the men who had looked to retreat. A sensible man, it appeared, or else a naïve one. He counted twelve riders in all, and waited as the decurion rode towards him, the blue transverse plume on his helm bobbing up and down. The decurion’s horse was a grey of modest quality, his breastplate had the gleam of iron unmarred by combat, and most importantly, his sword remained sheathed. He didn’t even have a lance or bow attached to his saddle, although there was a large round shield atop the bag behind his saddle.\n\n“What legion are you with, Tribune?” he called as he approached.\n\n“Legio XV,” Aulan answered. The decurion did not look surprised.\n\n“You’re with Valerius Magnus, then.”\n\n“Your name and legion, decurion?” Aulan saw no need to belabor the obvious. “And your business here?”\n\nThe decurion glanced from one side of the formation to the other. He didn’t need to count the exact number to know he was overmatched even without Possidius’s turma coming slowly down the road behind him.\n\n“I am Sextus Lucretius, with Legio XXXI. I was ordered here to escort Valerius Magnus back to Amorr, as the Consul Provincae wishes to inquire of his recent activities in Vallyria and consult with him concerning the recent uprisings.” Lucretius turned back and searched in the pack behind his saddle, and eventually produced a sealed scroll, which he brandished. “This is the summons I was ordered to deliver to the senator.”\n\nThe seal was marked with the SPA of the Senate and People. Aulan laughed under his breath. He had no doubt that the Consul Provincae, whoever he was, would very much like to consult with Magnus. Preferably in the company of a torturer, a priest, and a strangler.\n\n“Then deliver it you shall,” Aulan declared, enjoying the look of surprise on Lucretius’s face. “In fact, we shall escort you to Magnus. Fortunately for you, the journey is not far. As we speak, he is here in Cernobus, meeting with the elders of the town.”\n\nHe smiled as the decurion’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, betraying his previous knowledge of Magnus’s whereabouts. But to his credit, Lucretius didn’t insult his intelligence by pretending otherwise.\n\n“So I was informed,” he admitted.\n\n“By whom?”\n\n“My legate, Roscius Coelus. My understanding is that Coelus was told Magnus would be in Cernobus this afternoon by the praetor urbanus.”\n\nAulan nodded. It wasn’t as if the responsible elder, or elders, would have written to an insignificant decurion. If the urban praetor had given Lucretius’s legate his orders, then a senator was involved, most likely one with ties to Vallyria.\n\n“Very well. Come along then, and tell your men to behave themselves. There’s no need for any unpleasantries.” He leaned towards Marinus and made a circular gesture with his left hand. “Let’s help the good decurion deliver his message, shall we?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2173, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch05_aulan-P2", "chapter": "ch05_aulan", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCernobus / Cernobians — village and demonym; keep both forms.\nPriscum / Tarquinian — nearby place names as written.\nIllyris Baara — fertile comparison-province; keep spelling.\nConsul Socii / Consul Utruccae / Consul Aquilae / Consul Provincae — proposed and existing consul titles; capitalize both words.\nFalerna / Utrucca / Utruccan — regional names; keep forms.\nOrontines / Bithnyans — peoples named in Magnus’s speech.\nImmaculate / Most High God / Sanctified Father — religious capitals as written.\nLucius Annius — white-haired Cernobian elder; both names.\nLegio XXXI / Marcus Roscius Coelus — new Senate legion and its plebeian legate.\nValerius Veheminus / Valerius Veneficus — praise-name versus Annius’s insult; keep spellings.\nAve Magnus — salute formula; capitalize Ave.\nSPA — already delivered scroll seal; torn on stage.\n\n### STORY\nOutside Cernobus Aulan watches Magnus’s meeting with the village elders and catches a twelve-rider squadron under Sextus Lucretius of Legio XXXI carrying an SPA summons; he bags them with Marinus in the road and Possidius behind, keeps swords sheathed, and turns to escort the decurion into town to deliver his message.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nAulan\nRiding into Cernobus with Possidius’s turma; Lucretius kept to the rear so the square will not read the trap early. Ready to play messenger until Magnus cues the reveal. Privately awed—and newly uneasy—at Magnus’s power to move a crowd and to turn surprises into theater.\n\nMarcus Valerius Magnus\nIn the square mid-oration: empire into kingdoms, equal consuls, shared Amorran name. Barrel-chested, lion-loud, quick to seize Aulan’s entrance. Will tear the Senate scroll and demand Aulan’s allegiance aloud.\n\nSextus Lucretius\nWhite-faced but obedient; dismounts to deliver the summons; answers Magnus’s questions without fretting the theater.\n\nLucius Annius\nTall white-haired elder; skeptical; points at Aulan’s knights as Amorr’s true argument; will call Magnus Veneficus and be named the betrayer who invited the summons.\n\nTitus Marinus\nOutside town holding Lucretius’s eleven.\n\nMarcus Possidius / Lucarus\nPossidius’s men in the square with Aulan; Lucarus not required on stage here.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“No,” Aulan answered, seeing that the unknown decurion had merely glanced behind him before gesticulating angrily at the men who had looked to retreat. A sensible man, it appeared, or else a naïve one. He counted twelve riders in all, and waited as the decurion rode towards him, the blue transverse plume on his helm bobbing up and down. The decurion’s horse was a grey of modest quality, his breastplate had the gleam of iron unmarred by combat, and most importantly, his sword remained sheathed. He didn’t even have a lance or bow attached to his saddle, although there was a large round shield atop the bag behind his saddle.\n\n“What legion are you with, Tribune?” he called as he approached.\n\n“Legio XV,” Aulan answered. The decurion did not look surprised.\n\n“You’re with Valerius Magnus, then.”\n\n“Your name and legion, decurion?” Aulan saw no need to belabor the obvious. “And your business here?”\n\nThe decurion glanced from one side of the formation to the other. He didn’t need to count the exact number to know he was overmatched even without Possidius’s turma coming slowly down the road behind him.\n\n“I am Sextus Lucretius, with Legio XXXI. I was ordered here to escort Valerius Magnus back to Amorr, as the Consul Provincae wishes to inquire of his recent activities in Vallyria and consult with him concerning the recent uprisings.” Lucretius turned back and searched in the pack behind his saddle, and eventually produced a sealed scroll, which he brandished. “This is the summons I was ordered to deliver to the senator.”\n\nThe seal was marked with the SPA of the Senate and People. Aulan laughed under his breath. He had no doubt that the Consul Provincae, whoever he was, would very much like to consult with Magnus. Preferably in the company of a torturer, a priest, and a strangler.\n\n“Then deliver it you shall,” Aulan declared, enjoying the look of surprise on Lucretius’s face. “In fact, we shall escort you to Magnus. Fortunately for you, the journey is not far. As we speak, he is here in Cernobus, meeting with the elders of the town.”\n\nHe smiled as the decurion’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, betraying his previous knowledge of Magnus’s whereabouts. But to his credit, Lucretius didn’t insult his intelligence by pretending otherwise.\n\n“So I was informed,” he admitted.\n\n“By whom?”\n\n“My legate, Roscius Coelus. My understanding is that Coelus was told Magnus would be in Cernobus this afternoon by the praetor urbanus.”\n\nAulan nodded. It wasn’t as if the responsible elder, or elders, would have written to an insignificant decurion. If the urban praetor had given Lucretius’s legate his orders, then a senator was involved, most likely one with ties to Vallyria.\n\n“Very well. Come along then, and tell your men to behave themselves. There’s no need for any unpleasantries.” He leaned towards Marinus and made a circular gesture with his left hand. “Let’s help the good decurion deliver his message, shall we?”\n\n### NOTES\nCernobus has no walls; bricked streets; grain warehouses mark the boundary; fresh stucco, two- and three-level houses.\nCentral square open-air; townsmen assembled around Magnus.\nLucretius’s eleven remain with Marinus outside; only the decurion enters with Aulan.\nScroll sealed with SPA; Magnus will break and tear it.\nLate afternoon continuing from the road ambush.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Aulan.\n\nThey enter past grain barns and curious faces; Lucretius’s men stay with Marinus. Magnus is mid-sermon on equal consuls and one Amorran name when Aulan holds the edge of the square and keeps the little decurion back. Annius asks who will lead against Amorr’s approaching steel and points at the knights; Aulan plays the Senate’s messenger, Magnus bids the scroll forward, and Lucretius names Legio XXXI and a Roscius legate.\n\nMagnus mocks a plebeian command, tears the summons, and throws the pieces at the decurion. Annius answers that iron beats silver tongues. Magnus turns the knife: he demands Aulan’s name and service; Aulan thumps Legio XV for Veheminus Magnus and the squadrons crash Ave Magnus until Annius reels. Veneficus follows; Magnus masters the urge to strike and instead names the betrayal aloud—Annius invited him to be bound for the Senate—and the square gasps. The scene ends on that gasp, before Magnus turns Lucretius into a witness.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2100 words. Public oratory dense where Magnus speaks; Aulan’s awe and unease in thought, not speech. Land on the crowd’s gasp at the betrayal charge.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Cernobus was a wealthy village not untypical of Vallyria. Its prosperity was derived from the fields that extended outside the town for leagues that produced wheat and hops. If the land was not so fertile as Illyris Baara, ships were not required to transport its harvests to Amorr and other Faleran cities even closer. It had no walls, but its streets were bricked and prior to the winter uprising there had even been discussion of a proper brick road being built between Cernobus and Priscum that would enable the village’s grain merchants to more easily cart their products to the Tarquinian seaport.\n\nAulan elected to enter the village with Possidius’s turma, ordering Lucretius to leave his men under the watchful eyes of Titus Marinus and his three squadrons. The loyalist decurion knew better than to protest. After eliciting a promise that his men would neither be harmed or disarmed, he told his optio, a young man who looked about as martial as a mouse, not to cause Marinus any trouble. Aulan shot Marinus a look that stilled him; he could see the decurion was on the verge of snickering at the thought.\n\nThe boundaries of the village proper were marked by two huge buildings that Aulan guessed were used for storing grain. After entering the town, they rode past buildings that boasted fresh stucco and two, sometimes even three levels. The village was clean, the gates well-tended, and the inhabitants they passed were more curious than alarmed at their presence. They found Magnus holding court in the central square. There was no other way to describe it; the big barrel-chested ex-consul was standing in the midst of the townsmen, stalking back and forth like a well-fed lion as he set out his vision for the transforming the Amorran empire into a republic of sovereign and independent kingdoms.\n\nAs they approached the square and heads began to turn their way, Aulan realized that whoever had sold out Magnus would not know him from Sextus Lucretius. So, he pointed to the decurion and indicated that the man from Legio XXXI should be kept at the rear of their formation, then pulled up at the corner of the square without giving any indication that he was with Magnus. Magnus glanced over at him, but didn’t stop speaking and the powerful voice that had been heard so many times by the Amorran Senate now boomed throughout the open air of the village square.\n\n“Elders of Cernobus, noble men of Vallyria, do not look upon the man who stands before you as a patrician of Amorr. Do not look upon me as an ex-consul and a stranger. I am one of you! I am one of you and I say it is time for the Senate and People of Amorr to cease at length treating with you on a footing of superiority! Look around you! We see Vallyria in a most flourishing state by the bounty of God in arms and men, the Legio Civitas being vanquished in war, the Orontines and Bithnyans in league, the Utruccans now united in alliance, and the noble peoples of the former provinces preferring their own governance to that of Amorr.\n\n“But since the three consuls do not bring their minds to put an end to their arbitrary despotism, we, though able by force of arms to vindicate the independence of the various peoples of Falerna, will even so make this concession to the ties of blood between us and them, as to offer terms of peace on terms of equality for both, since it has pleased the Immaculate to grant that the strength of Amorr is divided while the strength of Utrucca is united. Here is the plan I set before you. In the new year, one of the consuls will be selected out of Amorr, as before, but the second out of the Falernan kingdoms, and the third from the Utruccan lands. In the place of a Consul Provincae we shall have a Consul Socii, in the place of a Consul Aquilae we will have a Consul Utruccae, and no more will the eagles march against the very lands that supply the legions! An equal portion of the senate will be from all three parties. We must be one people and one republic by the grace of the Most High God and the guidance of the Sanctified Father!\n\n“And that the seat of government may be the same, and we all may have the same name, since the concession must be made by the one party or others, let this, and may it be auspicious to both, have the advantage of being the mother country, and let us all be called Amorrans and citizens and countrymen!”\n\nIn truth, it was a bold and compelling vision. Even Aulan, who knew it was nothing but a means to an end for an ambitious man, felt caught up in it. Magnus had the Cernobians all but spellbound, dreaming of a new age where they would no longer be regarded as lesser men and third-class country cousins, but equals and co-citizens. It was not the first time he had witnessed this performance, but nevertheless, its effects, its power to move men’s emotions, amazed him every time. No wonder his father, even as Prince of the Senate, had once feared this man!\n\n“A compelling dream,” a tall, white-haired man with a skeptical expression on his face called out. “But tell us, Valerius Magnus, who is going to lead us against the might of Amorr that even now approaches this assembly?”\n\nHe pointed towards Aulan and his squadrons. Was he the man responsible for the letter to Amorr, Aulan wondered? Or was he merely quicker-witted than most? They would find out soon enough. In the meantime, Aulan had his part to play.\n\n“Marcus Valerius Magnus!” he pointed at Magnus. “The Senate has a message for you.”\n\nThe men standing between him and Magnus moved to one side or the other as their faces turned towards him. Magnus didn’t betray his familiarity with his men, instead he smiled confidently and folded his arms. “Then let the messenger deliver his message.”\n\nAulan glanced back and waved Lucretius forward. The decurion was white-faced and wide-eyed, but he obediently dismounted and walked through the crowd of men that surrounded Magnus. He was a little man and the plume of his helmet barely reached the top of Magnus’s head. He bowed respectfully, showing Magnus the respect due a senator and ex-consul, however rebellious, and extended the sealed scroll to him.\n\n“Your name and legion, decurion?” Magnus asked him as he accepted the scroll.\n\n“Sextus Lucretius, Legio XXXI,” Lucretius answered.\n\n“Legio XXXI? I am not familiar with it.” Magnus looked out at the Cernobians. “Men of Cernobus, do you know this legion?”\n\n“No,” came a few scattered answering cries.\n\n“Which House Martial fields this Legio XXXI, decurion? Who is its legate?”\n\n“No House, Lord Valerius. The Senate has newly raised the legion itself. Marcus Roscius Coelus is the legate commanding.”\n\n“A Roscius? What is a Roscius?” Magnus spread his hands as if mystified. “Do you mean to tell me that a plebian from a minor House now thinks to command a legion? A senatorial legion? And to what end? Perhaps this missive will further enlighten us.” He cracked the seal, unrolled the scroll, and looked it over quickly, nodding once or twice as he read.\n\n“Well, decurion, it seems the Senate demands I return to Amorr with you to face an accounting for my actions.” Magnus smiled and held up the scroll before his face, then tore it in two, crumpled up both pieces, and tossed them at Lucretius, who fumbled with them and nearly dropped one, but managed to hold onto it before it fell to the bricks. “Elders of Cernobus, men of Vallyria, that is my answer to the Senate of Amorr! I do not answer to them? Do you?”\n\n“No!” a few more men shouted back. But Aulan noticed that the tall white-haired man and many of the men in his vicinity were silent, looking on skeptically with their arms folded.\n\n“Brave words, Valerius Magnus,” the white-haired man said. “Will you say as much to the tribune mounted hither, with the twenty armed knights at his command? Amorr’s argument is eloquent, for all that it requires no words. No matter how silver one’s tongue, one cannot win a debate against iron and steel.”\n\nA frosty smile spread across Magnus’s face, and Aulan was struck again by the man’s agile mind, his genius for turning any unexpected development to his own advantage. He had seen the ex-consul win over one town council after another, seduce one village after another to his cause. In only a matter of months, he had seen generals voluntarily hand commands to Magnus, seen Magnus wrest an entire legion from an adversary by the force of arms. Surely this man was nothing less than a king, and a thrice-worthy king at that!\n\nAnd for the first time, he found himself wondering if his father might have bitten off more than his heirs could chew by encouraging the Valerian in his ambitions.\n\n“Your name and legion,” Magnus shouted as he pointed at Aulan. “Your name and legion, tribune!”\n\nThe man was truly a master of extemporaneous theater, Aulan thought as he stifled the urge to laugh and shake his head in awe. Instead, he kept a straight face and answered truthfully. “Aulus Severus Aulan, Lord Valerius, of Legio XV.”\n\n“And who do you serve?”\n\n“Marcus Valerius Veheminus Magnus!” he answered, thumping his breastplate loudly. “Ave Magnus!”\n\n“Ave Magnus!” his two squadrons echoed, the clash of their gauntlets against their iron breastplates echoing through the square.\n\nIt was even harder not to laugh at the shocked look on the face of the white-haired man and his allies. Crestfallen didn’t even begin to describe the expression on the man’s face as he took a step back and literally reeled in dismay. Magnus didn’t hesitate to seize the opportunity, as he pointed at the man in righteous contempt.\n\n“You wanted to know who will lead you against the might of Amorr, Lucius Annius? I tell you this: I am the might of Amorr! I am House Valerius! If the Senate will not see reason, if the Senate will not compromise, then the Senate shall see defeat at my hands! At our hands!”\n\n“You presume much, Magnus,” Annius shot back, recovering rapidly. “Perhaps too much. A man who changes sides as readily as a snake changes its skin may well change them again. Valerius Veheminus? I say Valerius Veneficus!”\n\nMagnus’s face turned red with rage. He clenched his fists, and for a moment, Aulan thought the big Valerian might charge into the crowd and strike the older man down. But somehow, he mastered himself. “You tempt me sorely, Lucius Annius. You bait me. But you will not taunt me into lessening myself in your colleague’s eyes. Would you call me traitor? Would you call me a snake with a poisoned tongue?”\n\n“Here speaks an Amorran who would lead us into war against the Senate, and yet he blushes to be named traitor!” Annius gestured towards Magnus with his hand as he turned his head and addressed several of his nearby companions. “Does the bird deny its feathers? Does the cat deny its claws? Does the snake deny its fangs?”\n\n“I was no traitor to Amorr, Lucius Annius. Amorr was a traitor to me! My son was slain by my own brother, he was murdered by hide-bound traditions no more right or just than those that now subjugate the people of Vallyria! Is it treason to have one’s eyes opened at last? Is it poisonous to finally wake from a life of long-dead dreams? Is it snakish to realize that one is swimming in a noxious swamp of lies?”\n\nMagnus’s eyes narrowed like a lion readying himself for the kill. He and Annius were staring at each other as if they were alone in the square. “And who are you, Lucius Annius, to speak of treason and snakes when you invited me here today in order to betray me to the Senate and send me bound and delivered to Amorr?”\n\nA gasp went up from the men assembled in the square.\n", "completion": "Cernobus was a wealthy village not untypical of Vallyria. Its prosperity was derived from the fields that extended outside the town for leagues that produced wheat and hops. If the land was not so fertile as Illyris Baara, ships were not required to transport its harvests to Amorr and other Faleran cities even closer. It had no walls, but its streets were bricked and prior to the winter uprising there had even been discussion of a proper brick road being built between Cernobus and Priscum that would enable the village’s grain merchants to more easily cart their products to the Tarquinian seaport.\n\nAulan elected to enter the village with Possidius’s turma, ordering Lucretius to leave his men under the watchful eyes of Titus Marinus and his three squadrons. The loyalist decurion knew better than to protest. After eliciting a promise that his men would neither be harmed or disarmed, he told his optio, a young man who looked about as martial as a mouse, not to cause Marinus any trouble. Aulan shot Marinus a look that stilled him; he could see the decurion was on the verge of snickering at the thought.\n\nThe boundaries of the village proper were marked by two huge buildings that Aulan guessed were used for storing grain. After entering the town, they rode past buildings that boasted fresh stucco and two, sometimes even three levels. The village was clean, the gates well-tended, and the inhabitants they passed were more curious than alarmed at their presence. They found Magnus holding court in the central square. There was no other way to describe it; the big barrel-chested ex-consul was standing in the midst of the townsmen, stalking back and forth like a well-fed lion as he set out his vision for the transforming the Amorran empire into a republic of sovereign and independent kingdoms.\n\nAs they approached the square and heads began to turn their way, Aulan realized that whoever had sold out Magnus would not know him from Sextus Lucretius. So, he pointed to the decurion and indicated that the man from Legio XXXI should be kept at the rear of their formation, then pulled up at the corner of the square without giving any indication that he was with Magnus. Magnus glanced over at him, but didn’t stop speaking and the powerful voice that had been heard so many times by the Amorran Senate now boomed throughout the open air of the village square.\n\n“Elders of Cernobus, noble men of Vallyria, do not look upon the man who stands before you as a patrician of Amorr. Do not look upon me as an ex-consul and a stranger. I am one of you! I am one of you and I say it is time for the Senate and People of Amorr to cease at length treating with you on a footing of superiority! Look around you! We see Vallyria in a most flourishing state by the bounty of God in arms and men, the Legio Civitas being vanquished in war, the Orontines and Bithnyans in league, the Utruccans now united in alliance, and the noble peoples of the former provinces preferring their own governance to that of Amorr.\n\n“But since the three consuls do not bring their minds to put an end to their arbitrary despotism, we, though able by force of arms to vindicate the independence of the various peoples of Falerna, will even so make this concession to the ties of blood between us and them, as to offer terms of peace on terms of equality for both, since it has pleased the Immaculate to grant that the strength of Amorr is divided while the strength of Utrucca is united. Here is the plan I set before you. In the new year, one of the consuls will be selected out of Amorr, as before, but the second out of the Falernan kingdoms, and the third from the Utruccan lands. In the place of a Consul Provincae we shall have a Consul Socii, in the place of a Consul Aquilae we will have a Consul Utruccae, and no more will the eagles march against the very lands that supply the legions! An equal portion of the senate will be from all three parties. We must be one people and one republic by the grace of the Most High God and the guidance of the Sanctified Father!\n\n“And that the seat of government may be the same, and we all may have the same name, since the concession must be made by the one party or others, let this, and may it be auspicious to both, have the advantage of being the mother country, and let us all be called Amorrans and citizens and countrymen!”\n\nIn truth, it was a bold and compelling vision. Even Aulan, who knew it was nothing but a means to an end for an ambitious man, felt caught up in it. Magnus had the Cernobians all but spellbound, dreaming of a new age where they would no longer be regarded as lesser men and third-class country cousins, but equals and co-citizens. It was not the first time he had witnessed this performance, but nevertheless, its effects, its power to move men’s emotions, amazed him every time. No wonder his father, even as Prince of the Senate, had once feared this man!\n\n“A compelling dream,” a tall, white-haired man with a skeptical expression on his face called out. “But tell us, Valerius Magnus, who is going to lead us against the might of Amorr that even now approaches this assembly?”\n\nHe pointed towards Aulan and his squadrons. Was he the man responsible for the letter to Amorr, Aulan wondered? Or was he merely quicker-witted than most? They would find out soon enough. In the meantime, Aulan had his part to play.\n\n“Marcus Valerius Magnus!” he pointed at Magnus. “The Senate has a message for you.”\n\nThe men standing between him and Magnus moved to one side or the other as their faces turned towards him. Magnus didn’t betray his familiarity with his men, instead he smiled confidently and folded his arms. “Then let the messenger deliver his message.”\n\nAulan glanced back and waved Lucretius forward. The decurion was white-faced and wide-eyed, but he obediently dismounted and walked through the crowd of men that surrounded Magnus. He was a little man and the plume of his helmet barely reached the top of Magnus’s head. He bowed respectfully, showing Magnus the respect due a senator and ex-consul, however rebellious, and extended the sealed scroll to him.\n\n“Your name and legion, decurion?” Magnus asked him as he accepted the scroll.\n\n“Sextus Lucretius, Legio XXXI,” Lucretius answered.\n\n“Legio XXXI? I am not familiar with it.” Magnus looked out at the Cernobians. “Men of Cernobus, do you know this legion?”\n\n“No,” came a few scattered answering cries.\n\n“Which House Martial fields this Legio XXXI, decurion? Who is its legate?”\n\n“No House, Lord Valerius. The Senate has newly raised the legion itself. Marcus Roscius Coelus is the legate commanding.”\n\n“A Roscius? What is a Roscius?” Magnus spread his hands as if mystified. “Do you mean to tell me that a plebian from a minor House now thinks to command a legion? A senatorial legion? And to what end? Perhaps this missive will further enlighten us.” He cracked the seal, unrolled the scroll, and looked it over quickly, nodding once or twice as he read.\n\n“Well, decurion, it seems the Senate demands I return to Amorr with you to face an accounting for my actions.” Magnus smiled and held up the scroll before his face, then tore it in two, crumpled up both pieces, and tossed them at Lucretius, who fumbled with them and nearly dropped one, but managed to hold onto it before it fell to the bricks. “Elders of Cernobus, men of Vallyria, that is my answer to the Senate of Amorr! I do not answer to them? Do you?”\n\n“No!” a few more men shouted back. But Aulan noticed that the tall white-haired man and many of the men in his vicinity were silent, looking on skeptically with their arms folded.\n\n“Brave words, Valerius Magnus,” the white-haired man said. “Will you say as much to the tribune mounted hither, with the twenty armed knights at his command? Amorr’s argument is eloquent, for all that it requires no words. No matter how silver one’s tongue, one cannot win a debate against iron and steel.”\n\nA frosty smile spread across Magnus’s face, and Aulan was struck again by the man’s agile mind, his genius for turning any unexpected development to his own advantage. He had seen the ex-consul win over one town council after another, seduce one village after another to his cause. In only a matter of months, he had seen generals voluntarily hand commands to Magnus, seen Magnus wrest an entire legion from an adversary by the force of arms. Surely this man was nothing less than a king, and a thrice-worthy king at that!\n\nAnd for the first time, he found himself wondering if his father might have bitten off more than his heirs could chew by encouraging the Valerian in his ambitions.\n\n“Your name and legion,” Magnus shouted as he pointed at Aulan. “Your name and legion, tribune!”\n\nThe man was truly a master of extemporaneous theater, Aulan thought as he stifled the urge to laugh and shake his head in awe. Instead, he kept a straight face and answered truthfully. “Aulus Severus Aulan, Lord Valerius, of Legio XV.”\n\n“And who do you serve?”\n\n“Marcus Valerius Veheminus Magnus!” he answered, thumping his breastplate loudly. “Ave Magnus!”\n\n“Ave Magnus!” his two squadrons echoed, the clash of their gauntlets against their iron breastplates echoing through the square.\n\nIt was even harder not to laugh at the shocked look on the face of the white-haired man and his allies. Crestfallen didn’t even begin to describe the expression on the man’s face as he took a step back and literally reeled in dismay. Magnus didn’t hesitate to seize the opportunity, as he pointed at the man in righteous contempt.\n\n“You wanted to know who will lead you against the might of Amorr, Lucius Annius? I tell you this: I am the might of Amorr! I am House Valerius! If the Senate will not see reason, if the Senate will not compromise, then the Senate shall see defeat at my hands! At our hands!”\n\n“You presume much, Magnus,” Annius shot back, recovering rapidly. “Perhaps too much. A man who changes sides as readily as a snake changes its skin may well change them again. Valerius Veheminus? I say Valerius Veneficus!”\n\nMagnus’s face turned red with rage. He clenched his fists, and for a moment, Aulan thought the big Valerian might charge into the crowd and strike the older man down. But somehow, he mastered himself. “You tempt me sorely, Lucius Annius. You bait me. But you will not taunt me into lessening myself in your colleague’s eyes. Would you call me traitor? Would you call me a snake with a poisoned tongue?”\n\n“Here speaks an Amorran who would lead us into war against the Senate, and yet he blushes to be named traitor!” Annius gestured towards Magnus with his hand as he turned his head and addressed several of his nearby companions. “Does the bird deny its feathers? Does the cat deny its claws? Does the snake deny its fangs?”\n\n“I was no traitor to Amorr, Lucius Annius. Amorr was a traitor to me! My son was slain by my own brother, he was murdered by hide-bound traditions no more right or just than those that now subjugate the people of Vallyria! Is it treason to have one’s eyes opened at last? Is it poisonous to finally wake from a life of long-dead dreams? Is it snakish to realize that one is swimming in a noxious swamp of lies?”\n\nMagnus’s eyes narrowed like a lion readying himself for the kill. He and Annius were staring at each other as if they were alone in the square. “And who are you, Lucius Annius, to speak of treason and snakes when you invited me here today in order to betray me to the Senate and send me bound and delivered to Amorr?”\n\nA gasp went up from the men assembled in the square.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2088, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch05_aulan-P3", "chapter": "ch05_aulan", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSextus Lucretius — loyalist decurion being turned; Lucretius in address.\nLucius Annius — elder marked for the road.\nAve, First Knights — Magnus’s salute line to Legio XV horse; keep capitals on Ave.\nLegio XV / Montmila — prior fight against Magnus named in his recruitment pitch.\nTrivicum — refuge Magnus names for Annius.\nLucarus — to take a squadron on the road; spelling Lucarus.\nAulus Severus — Magnus’s familiar address for Aulan in the closing confidence.\ncathouse — camp/crude noun; one word lowercase.\nVeheminus — Magnus’s agnomen; keep spelling when implied by prior.\n\n### STORY\nOutside Cernobus Aulan bags Lucretius’s twelve on the muddy road, keeps swords sheathed for questions, and escorts the SPA summons into Cernobus under Marinus’s watch on the held riders.\n\nIn the square Magnus finishes his equality sermon, tears the SPA summons, and uses Aulan’s Ave Magnus reveal to smash Lucius Annius’s skepticism; when Annius calls him Veneficus, Magnus names Annius as the host who sold him to the Senate, and the crowd gasps.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nAulan\nStill in the square with his knights after the gasp. Grinning at Lucretius’s civility; ready to get the captured horse drunk and useful. Unsurprised when Magnus’s mercy for Annius comes with a private order for the road.\n\nMarcus Valerius Magnus\nTurning the gasp into proof, recruitment, and example. Will spare Annius publicly, hire Lucretius’s men, then quietly tell Aulan to have Lucarus finish the elder beyond the village.\n\nSextus Lucretius\nAnswers the leading questions; demands to share his men’s fate; accepts three months’ pay and senior decurion rank with a forearm clasp. Scheduled to ride alone toward Amorr with Magnus’s defiance.\n\nLucius Annius\nFolded arms through the chant; lasts a staring match; admits death as a false host’s reward; accepts exile to Trivicum with three companions—marked without knowing it.\n\nLucarus / Marinus / Possidius\nLucarus to take a squadron five leagues out; Marinus and Possidius to help persuade the captives tonight.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nIt was even harder not to laugh at the shocked look on the face of the white-haired man and his allies. Crestfallen didn’t even begin to describe the expression on the man’s face as he took a step back and literally reeled in dismay. Magnus didn’t hesitate to seize the opportunity, as he pointed at the man in righteous contempt.\n\n“You wanted to know who will lead you against the might of Amorr, Lucius Annius? I tell you this: I am the might of Amorr! I am House Valerius! If the Senate will not see reason, if the Senate will not compromise, then the Senate shall see defeat at my hands! At our hands!”\n\n“You presume much, Magnus,” Annius shot back, recovering rapidly. “Perhaps too much. A man who changes sides as readily as a snake changes its skin may well change them again. Valerius Veheminus? I say Valerius Veneficus!”\n\nMagnus’s face turned red with rage. He clenched his fists, and for a moment, Aulan thought the big Valerian might charge into the crowd and strike the older man down. But somehow, he mastered himself. “You tempt me sorely, Lucius Annius. You bait me. But you will not taunt me into lessening myself in your colleague’s eyes. Would you call me traitor? Would you call me a snake with a poisoned tongue?”\n\n“Here speaks an Amorran who would lead us into war against the Senate, and yet he blushes to be named traitor!” Annius gestured towards Magnus with his hand as he turned his head and addressed several of his nearby companions. “Does the bird deny its feathers? Does the cat deny its claws? Does the snake deny its fangs?”\n\n“I was no traitor to Amorr, Lucius Annius. Amorr was a traitor to me! My son was slain by my own brother, he was murdered by hide-bound traditions no more right or just than those that now subjugate the people of Vallyria! Is it treason to have one’s eyes opened at last? Is it poisonous to finally wake from a life of long-dead dreams? Is it snakish to realize that one is swimming in a noxious swamp of lies?”\n\nMagnus’s eyes narrowed like a lion readying himself for the kill. He and Annius were staring at each other as if they were alone in the square. “And who are you, Lucius Annius, to speak of treason and snakes when you invited me here today in order to betray me to the Senate and send me bound and delivered to Amorr?”\n\nA gasp went up from the men assembled in the square.\n\n### NOTES\nEleven knights of Legio XXXI still outside with Marinus.\nMagnus offers three months’ pay up front for the men, six for Lucretius plus senior decurion.\nPublic sentence for Annius: leave tonight for Trivicum; private sentence: no survivors on the road, blamed on bandits.\nWine and at least one cathouse noted on the way into Cernobus.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Aulan.\n\nMagnus walks Lucretius through the trap in public—how many riders, how large a bodyguard expected, where the rest are—until even the slow grasp that Annius sold the visit. He sends the decurion back toward Amorr with a spoken defiance for the Senate and keeps the eleven to turn their coats; Lucretius flashes angry, then takes the forearm and the pay. The younger Cernobians chant Magnus and Vallyria; Annius stays silent until Magnus crowds him into exile instead of a public kill.\n\nThe square breaks into wine and loyalty. Magnus thumps Aulan for timing, wants the captives drunk, and in a lowered voice marks Annius for Lucarus five leagues out—thorough, bandits, uncertain times. The scene ends on that quiet order.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1300 words. Keep the square’s noise public and the murder private; Aulan unsurprised, not eager. Land on Magnus’s bandit line; do not follow the squadron out.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Magnus turned to the decurion. “Tell me, Sextus Lucretius, did you ride here alone?”\n\n“No, Lord Valerius. I came in the company of eleven other knights.”\n\n“Are the roads so dangerous these days that you required so many simply to deliver a message to me?”\n\n“No, Lord Valerius.”\n\n“I see.” Magnus nodded and looked out at the Cernobians. “Were you anticipating possible resistance on my part?”\n\n“Yes, Lord Valerius. We were informed you would have a small bodyguard.”\n\nThe elders and onlookers began murmuring amongst themselves, and more than a few men pointed at Annius and his companions.\n\n“As I do,” Magnus gestured to the four legionaries who were standing several paces behind him. “Where are the rest of your men, decurion?”\n\n“We were intercepted by Tribune Severus en route. My men remain with his other turma outside the town.”\n\nMagnus made a gesture of feigned surprise with both hands. A few snickers could be heard from the crowd. “It sounds to me as if my resistance has been successful, wouldn’t you say so, decurion?”\n\n“Without question, Lord Valerius.”\n\n“Then seeing as your business here is concluded, decurion, I wonder if you might be willing to take a message back to the Senate for me?”\n\n“It would be an honor, Lord Valerius.” Aulan grinned at the man’s respectful civility. Sextus Lucretius might have fallen into his ambush as blithely as a virgin in a whorehouse, but he was clearly no fool.\n\n“My message to my former colleagues in the Senate is this: Magnus is waiting! If you will not grant independence to all peregrini or full citizenship to the Utruccan people, war and defeat awaits you! Send your slaves and your criminals to march here if you dare; the fields of Vallyria will be watered with their blood!”\n\nAs his voice rang throughout the square, the decurion bowed. “It shall be delivered even as you said, Lord Valerius. May I have your permission to withdraw with my men?”\n\n“You may return to Amorr, but your men may not,” Magnus told him.\n\n“Lord Valerius, I was told my men would be unharmed!” Lucretius’s eyes flashed angrily as he looked over at Aulan, then back again to Magnus. “I demand to share their fate, whatever it might be!”\n\n“Perhaps you shall, should you return.” Magnus glanced at Aulan, his jowled face creased with amusement. “Decurion, you misunderstand me. I mean your knights no harm. I intend for them to take service with me.”\n\n“You expect them to turn their coats?”\n\n“The equestrian who is not with me may well one day find himself riding against me. Be advised that the men who captured you today are from Legio XV, a legion that fought against me at Montmila.” He turned towards Aulan’s formation and extended his right arm, palm upward. “Ave, First Knights!”\n\nTheir response came immediately again, punctuated by the metal-on-metal clash of their salute. “Ave, Magnus!”\n\nMagnus turned to the decurion, lowered his arm, and extended it to the smaller man. “Three months’ pay up front for your men, Lucretius. Six months’ for you, as well as promotion to senior decurion. You are a good officer, Sextus Lucretius, and there is a place in my army for every good man I can find!”\n\nThe decurion hesitated a moment, and then he seemed to come to a decision. He took Magnus’s forearm and gripped it firmly. The two men nodded at each other, then Lucretius turned and walked towards Aulan. The Cernobians watching were silent, though whether in fear or awe of Magnus, Aulan couldn’t tell.\n\n“What of you, Elders of Cernobus? What of you, men of Vallyria?” Magnus challenged them. “Are you with Magnus and Vallyria? Or are you slaves of Amorr?”\n\nThe silence was first broken by the younger men. “Magnus, Vallyria!” they began to chant. “Magnus, Vallyria!” Gradually, more of the older men joined them, until at last one of the elders did. But Lucius Annius remained silent, his arms folded, and his eyes narrow with anger.\n\nMagnus raised his hand and the Cernobians subsided. He nodded in satisfaction. “You have chosen wisely, my friends. I will not let you down.”\n\nThen he walked towards Annius. The men intervening moved out of his way, until the two men were standing face to face. They were very nearly of a height, Aulan noted, although Magnus was half again heavier than the Cernobian man. Neither of them spoke, but locked eyes in a contest of wills. Annius’s pride was such that he lasted longer than Aulan would have guessed, but finally the white-haired elder looked away.\n\n“I will not stand in your way, Valerius Magnus. But neither will I support you.”\n\nMagnus slowly shook his head. “Neither your support nor your opposition concerns me, Annius. You are an elder of this village. Advise me. When a host sells his guest to his enemy and his treachery is discovered, what is his rightful reward?”\n\n“Death,” Annius answered without flinching. He glanced over at Aulan and his men. “I am not afraid.”\n\n“I should hope not at your age,” Magnus said wryly, prompting nervous laughter from the men around him. “I will not kill a man for being misguided in his loyalties, not unless he insists upon standing in my way. Leave tonight, Lucius Annius. Amorr’s gates may be closed to you, but Trivicum’s are not. For my part, I will spare you and we will forget this ever happened.”\n\nFor a moment, it seemed as if the haughty man would reject Magnus’s mercy. But discretion proved the better part of pride, and at last Annius nodded briskly. He turned and made his way through the hushed crowd, followed by three of his companions, whose expressions ranged the gamut from shocked to relieved.\n\n“Now, friends, we have much to discuss!” Magnus lifted his arms and smiled beatifically at the men who had chosen to cast their lot with him. But first, I understand there are men who know their wine in Cernobus. Shall we refresh ourselves?”\n\nThe assembly broke up in a chaotic manner, as some hurried home to tell their wives of the momentous events and others pressed forward to greet Magnus and assure him of their personal loyalty. But Magnus put them off momentarily with the help of his bodyguard, and beckoned for Aulan to come to him.\n\nAulan dismounted and approached, curious as to what the great man wanted. Magnus thumped his back and put a beefy arm around his armored shoulders. “Well done, son. Your timing couldn’t have been better.”\n\n“It was no problem at all. I hope that Lucretius does come back to us. He’s sensible.”\n\n“He will,” Magnus said confidently. “Get his men good and drunk tonight. We need them.”\n\n“I saw a cathouse or two on the way in. I imagine between Marinus, Possidius, and me, we can make a persuasive case.”\n\n“I have the utmost confidence in you three,” Magnus laughed. Then he lowered his voice. “You marked the man who spoke out?”\n\n“I did.”\n\n“Tell Lucarus to take a squadron and intercept him five leagues hence.”\n\nAulan nodded, unsurprised. Magnus wasn’t one to leave an enemy at his back if he didn’t have to. “Just the old man or do you wish there to be no survivors?”\n\nThe ex-consul clapped him again on the back. “I think it would be best if the decurion were to be thorough, Aulus Severus. I understand bandits are a terrible problem on the roads in these uncertain times.”\n", "completion": "Magnus turned to the decurion. “Tell me, Sextus Lucretius, did you ride here alone?”\n\n“No, Lord Valerius. I came in the company of eleven other knights.”\n\n“Are the roads so dangerous these days that you required so many simply to deliver a message to me?”\n\n“No, Lord Valerius.”\n\n“I see.” Magnus nodded and looked out at the Cernobians. “Were you anticipating possible resistance on my part?”\n\n“Yes, Lord Valerius. We were informed you would have a small bodyguard.”\n\nThe elders and onlookers began murmuring amongst themselves, and more than a few men pointed at Annius and his companions.\n\n“As I do,” Magnus gestured to the four legionaries who were standing several paces behind him. “Where are the rest of your men, decurion?”\n\n“We were intercepted by Tribune Severus en route. My men remain with his other turma outside the town.”\n\nMagnus made a gesture of feigned surprise with both hands. A few snickers could be heard from the crowd. “It sounds to me as if my resistance has been successful, wouldn’t you say so, decurion?”\n\n“Without question, Lord Valerius.”\n\n“Then seeing as your business here is concluded, decurion, I wonder if you might be willing to take a message back to the Senate for me?”\n\n“It would be an honor, Lord Valerius.” Aulan grinned at the man’s respectful civility. Sextus Lucretius might have fallen into his ambush as blithely as a virgin in a whorehouse, but he was clearly no fool.\n\n“My message to my former colleagues in the Senate is this: Magnus is waiting! If you will not grant independence to all peregrini or full citizenship to the Utruccan people, war and defeat awaits you! Send your slaves and your criminals to march here if you dare; the fields of Vallyria will be watered with their blood!”\n\nAs his voice rang throughout the square, the decurion bowed. “It shall be delivered even as you said, Lord Valerius. May I have your permission to withdraw with my men?”\n\n“You may return to Amorr, but your men may not,” Magnus told him.\n\n“Lord Valerius, I was told my men would be unharmed!” Lucretius’s eyes flashed angrily as he looked over at Aulan, then back again to Magnus. “I demand to share their fate, whatever it might be!”\n\n“Perhaps you shall, should you return.” Magnus glanced at Aulan, his jowled face creased with amusement. “Decurion, you misunderstand me. I mean your knights no harm. I intend for them to take service with me.”\n\n“You expect them to turn their coats?”\n\n“The equestrian who is not with me may well one day find himself riding against me. Be advised that the men who captured you today are from Legio XV, a legion that fought against me at Montmila.” He turned towards Aulan’s formation and extended his right arm, palm upward. “Ave, First Knights!”\n\nTheir response came immediately again, punctuated by the metal-on-metal clash of their salute. “Ave, Magnus!”\n\nMagnus turned to the decurion, lowered his arm, and extended it to the smaller man. “Three months’ pay up front for your men, Lucretius. Six months’ for you, as well as promotion to senior decurion. You are a good officer, Sextus Lucretius, and there is a place in my army for every good man I can find!”\n\nThe decurion hesitated a moment, and then he seemed to come to a decision. He took Magnus’s forearm and gripped it firmly. The two men nodded at each other, then Lucretius turned and walked towards Aulan. The Cernobians watching were silent, though whether in fear or awe of Magnus, Aulan couldn’t tell.\n\n“What of you, Elders of Cernobus? What of you, men of Vallyria?” Magnus challenged them. “Are you with Magnus and Vallyria? Or are you slaves of Amorr?”\n\nThe silence was first broken by the younger men. “Magnus, Vallyria!” they began to chant. “Magnus, Vallyria!” Gradually, more of the older men joined them, until at last one of the elders did. But Lucius Annius remained silent, his arms folded, and his eyes narrow with anger.\n\nMagnus raised his hand and the Cernobians subsided. He nodded in satisfaction. “You have chosen wisely, my friends. I will not let you down.”\n\nThen he walked towards Annius. The men intervening moved out of his way, until the two men were standing face to face. They were very nearly of a height, Aulan noted, although Magnus was half again heavier than the Cernobian man. Neither of them spoke, but locked eyes in a contest of wills. Annius’s pride was such that he lasted longer than Aulan would have guessed, but finally the white-haired elder looked away.\n\n“I will not stand in your way, Valerius Magnus. But neither will I support you.”\n\nMagnus slowly shook his head. “Neither your support nor your opposition concerns me, Annius. You are an elder of this village. Advise me. When a host sells his guest to his enemy and his treachery is discovered, what is his rightful reward?”\n\n“Death,” Annius answered without flinching. He glanced over at Aulan and his men. “I am not afraid.”\n\n“I should hope not at your age,” Magnus said wryly, prompting nervous laughter from the men around him. “I will not kill a man for being misguided in his loyalties, not unless he insists upon standing in my way. Leave tonight, Lucius Annius. Amorr’s gates may be closed to you, but Trivicum’s are not. For my part, I will spare you and we will forget this ever happened.”\n\nFor a moment, it seemed as if the haughty man would reject Magnus’s mercy. But discretion proved the better part of pride, and at last Annius nodded briskly. He turned and made his way through the hushed crowd, followed by three of his companions, whose expressions ranged the gamut from shocked to relieved.\n\n“Now, friends, we have much to discuss!” Magnus lifted his arms and smiled beatifically at the men who had chosen to cast their lot with him. But first, I understand there are men who know their wine in Cernobus. Shall we refresh ourselves?”\n\nThe assembly broke up in a chaotic manner, as some hurried home to tell their wives of the momentous events and others pressed forward to greet Magnus and assure him of their personal loyalty. But Magnus put them off momentarily with the help of his bodyguard, and beckoned for Aulan to come to him.\n\nAulan dismounted and approached, curious as to what the great man wanted. Magnus thumped his back and put a beefy arm around his armored shoulders. “Well done, son. Your timing couldn’t have been better.”\n\n“It was no problem at all. I hope that Lucretius does come back to us. He’s sensible.”\n\n“He will,” Magnus said confidently. “Get his men good and drunk tonight. We need them.”\n\n“I saw a cathouse or two on the way in. I imagine between Marinus, Possidius, and me, we can make a persuasive case.”\n\n“I have the utmost confidence in you three,” Magnus laughed. Then he lowered his voice. “You marked the man who spoke out?”\n\n“I did.”\n\n“Tell Lucarus to take a squadron and intercept him five leagues hence.”\n\nAulan nodded, unsurprised. Magnus wasn’t one to leave an enemy at his back if he didn’t have to. “Just the old man or do you wish there to be no survivors?”\n\nThe ex-consul clapped him again on the back. “I think it would be best if the decurion were to be thorough, Aulus Severus. I understand bandits are a terrible problem on the roads in these uncertain times.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1268, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch06_lodi-P1", "chapter": "ch06_lodi", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nLodi / Lodi, son of Dunmorin — dwarf protagonist; patronymic form when he names himself.\nDunmorin — father’s name; keep spelling.\nSouth Goloi Vein — home mine district; capitalize Vein.\nIron Mountain — dwarven royal seat; both words capitalized.\nDikhizhod — dwarf-realm adjective/name as written.\nGreenwaste — forest region; one word, capital G.\nMerithaim — elven land; keep spelling.\nAvarus / Thursia / Amorr — Man ports and city; keep forms.\nDwarroways / Dwarrowdoor / Dwarrowdoors — tunnel-system and hidden doors; capital D, forms as written.\nElebrion — High Elven capital; keep spelling.\nSavondir / Malkan — realms on the Dwarroways map.\nTroll King / Guldur Goblinsbane — both titles/names as written.\nValerius Clericus — Man legate Lodi helped; both names.\nTessini — mountain range; keep spelling.\nSelenoth — continent name when used.\nwarhawk — elven mount; one word lowercase unless starting a sentence.\ngreenskins — lowercase collective for orc/goblin/troll foes.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nDwarf of the South Goloi Vein, formerly a gladiator-slave in Amorr, lately a Kingsguard runner walking the overground. Alive in the wooded foothills on the Amorran/Elfland border after ship-hopping from the Tessini roots via Avarus, Amorr’s outer markets, and Thursia. Armed with a battleaxe and a cheap Man crossbow he has plate-stabilized. Searching days for a hidden Dwarrowdoor whose map is only a crude X; foggy on local doorcraft because he did not expect this approach. Knows orcs infest the Greenwaste; will not risk Merithaim lightly. Alone at scene open.\n\n### RECALL\n(Book 1 — summary)\nLodi fought as a shaved dwarf slave in Amorr’s Arena, later helped Valerius Clericus’s legion escape through the Tessini roots, and has been moving toward Iron Mountain by overland and sea routes rather than through orc-heavy Greenwaste or uncertain Merithaim.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nWooded foothills under which a Dwarroway artery runs; border with theoretical Elflands unmarked by river or ridge.\nNo elves in evidence; few travelers.\nMan civil war has not stopped merchant shipping; Amorr admits no foreigners inside the walls—markets sit outside.\nLodi has already spent three fruitless days searching; has allotted two more before trying Merithaim.\nSeason not foregrounded; forest silence will matter when goblins arrive.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nUnderground would be better, but there is no clean tunnel from the Dikhizhod roots to Iron Mountain, and the Greenwaste is orc country, so he came the long Man way—ships, Amorr’s outside markets, Thursia’s pig-iron rebels—and walked north with traders when he could. A shoddy crossbow with homemade plates is cold comfort in foothills where Dwarrowdoors hide and his map is an X without a border mark.\n\nThree days find nothing; he gives himself two more before gambling on Merithaim’s arrows. He is still hunting the door when the forest’s pattern breaks. The scene ends on the encounter itself—goblins—before blades.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Practical dwarf travel voice; no epic overture. Land on meeting the goblins; do not start the fight.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It was good to be underground again. After helping Valerius Clericus and his legion safely escape through the roots of the Tessini mountains, Lodi had turned to the east and begun his long, laborious journey back to Iron Mountain. Unfortunately, there was no direct system of tunnels connecting the realm of the Dikhizhod dwarves to the royal mountains north of the Greenwaste, which was a problem considering that the vast forest had been heavily infested by orcs since the last time he’d been there. So, instead of attempting to retrace his path through the elven lands of Merithaim, he had traveled south, through the Man lands, and taken ship at Avarus. He crossed the sea to Amorr, the great Man city in which he’d been forced to fight as a slave for the entertainment of the tall barbarians, then found another ship that carried him to Thursia.\n\nThe Man ships were a marginally more comfortable way to travel than on the back of an elven warhawk, and they were certainly faster than walking on dwarven legs across half the continent. The Man lords might be at war with each other, but as far as Lodi could tell, their merchants still haggled and bickered and traded and sailed as if nothing at all had changed. No foreigners were being permitted inside Amorr’s city walls, but the only consequence was that the trader’s markets had moved outside the walls and prices were duly increased to account for the cartmen who charged a handsome rate to transport goods the two leagues it took to reach the imperial city by land.\n\nHe lost two days at Amorr waiting for a Thursian ship, but finally found a captain of a small shallow-bottomed ship who was carrying pig iron to his home port in support of the rebel provincials there. Lodi found it remarkable that men would sell other men the very means that were intended for use against them, but he had spent enough time above ground in the Man lands that he had learned not to question the various idiosyncrasies of the tall ones. In any event, it wasn’t his concern and he expected that the men of Thursia would soon find that the orcs advancing southward amounted to a more pressing problem than whatever their current differences of opinion with their Amorran brethren might be.\n\nFrom the port he made his way north, occasionally alone, sometimes in the company of traders who were pleased to have their small parties augmented by a dwarf armed with a battle axe. He managed to procure a crossbow from one Man who was bringing a load of furs south to the port; it was a cheap and shoddy piece of work, but with a little effort he was able to add a pair of small wooden plates that better stabilized the nut. It was probably a fool’s comfort, he told himself, but possessing it made him feel safer nonetheless.\n\nAnd he needed that comfort, as he spent three days going back and forth across the border that separated the Amorran Empire from what were theoretically the Elflands. But he saw no sign of elves, indeed, he saw few signs of anyone in the wooded foothills under which lay one of the arteries of the great triumph of his people, the Dwarroways. There were scores of access points to the vast system of tunnels that ran under the earth and stone of northern and eastern Selenoth.\n\nBuilt over the centuries, some were boltholes secretly opening into the Man and Elf lands and designed to provide a means of escape, or alternatively, invasion. The Dwarroways did not yet reach into the Amorran Empire proper, as the way for which he was searching was among the closest, but they did extend into Savondir, Malkan, Merithaim, and even to the underground river that flowed beneath the High Elven capital of Elebrion. Prior to the unexpected rise of the Troll King, Guldur Goblinsbane, that led to the siege of Iron Mountain, one of the primary subjects of discussion in the Iron King’s Court had been the construction of the first major addition to the Dwarroways in over a century.\n\nBut he could not find the one that he recalled was somewhere in the vicinity. The system used to locate a Dwarrowdoor in the mountains, which was where most of them were located, simply did not work in the forests and he could not seem to find the caves that he knew would be used to hide the door. Every dwarf who left the safety of the world to walk upon the bright and hostile overground was instructed in the art of the Dwarrowdoors as well as their locations, but since Lodi had not expected to be traveling in this area, he was somewhat foggy on the specific details of where it was to be found.\n\nHe had a map, of course, but it was of severely limited utility in that it featured nothing more informative than an X marked crudely in the general area north of the line that demarcated the border. But since there was nothing to mark the actual border, not even a natural landmark such as a river, a mountain range, or even a sizable hill, he was left to search the wilderness for a door that was intentionally hidden. His prospects of success, he concluded grimly, were poor. And yet, what were his alternatives? To march northward and hope he managed to evade the various greenskins infesting the forest? Return south and wait for a dwarven party more familiar with the local terrain?\n\nAfter three days of fruitless searching, he decided to devote two more days to finding the Dwarrowdoor, after which he would attempt to travel through Merithaim and hope that he could somehow avoid any elves, orcs, or goblins. The elves might be less inclined to intentionally slay him out of hand, but then, if they were on the war footing he assumed them to be, they would be likely to loose arrows first and ask questions later. And even if they were sincerely apologetic, apologies had never been known to raise a dwarf from the dead.\n\nHe was still searching for the door when he encountered the goblins.\n", "completion": "It was good to be underground again. After helping Valerius Clericus and his legion safely escape through the roots of the Tessini mountains, Lodi had turned to the east and begun his long, laborious journey back to Iron Mountain. Unfortunately, there was no direct system of tunnels connecting the realm of the Dikhizhod dwarves to the royal mountains north of the Greenwaste, which was a problem considering that the vast forest had been heavily infested by orcs since the last time he’d been there. So, instead of attempting to retrace his path through the elven lands of Merithaim, he had traveled south, through the Man lands, and taken ship at Avarus. He crossed the sea to Amorr, the great Man city in which he’d been forced to fight as a slave for the entertainment of the tall barbarians, then found another ship that carried him to Thursia.\n\nThe Man ships were a marginally more comfortable way to travel than on the back of an elven warhawk, and they were certainly faster than walking on dwarven legs across half the continent. The Man lords might be at war with each other, but as far as Lodi could tell, their merchants still haggled and bickered and traded and sailed as if nothing at all had changed. No foreigners were being permitted inside Amorr’s city walls, but the only consequence was that the trader’s markets had moved outside the walls and prices were duly increased to account for the cartmen who charged a handsome rate to transport goods the two leagues it took to reach the imperial city by land.\n\nHe lost two days at Amorr waiting for a Thursian ship, but finally found a captain of a small shallow-bottomed ship who was carrying pig iron to his home port in support of the rebel provincials there. Lodi found it remarkable that men would sell other men the very means that were intended for use against them, but he had spent enough time above ground in the Man lands that he had learned not to question the various idiosyncrasies of the tall ones. In any event, it wasn’t his concern and he expected that the men of Thursia would soon find that the orcs advancing southward amounted to a more pressing problem than whatever their current differences of opinion with their Amorran brethren might be.\n\nFrom the port he made his way north, occasionally alone, sometimes in the company of traders who were pleased to have their small parties augmented by a dwarf armed with a battle axe. He managed to procure a crossbow from one Man who was bringing a load of furs south to the port; it was a cheap and shoddy piece of work, but with a little effort he was able to add a pair of small wooden plates that better stabilized the nut. It was probably a fool’s comfort, he told himself, but possessing it made him feel safer nonetheless.\n\nAnd he needed that comfort, as he spent three days going back and forth across the border that separated the Amorran Empire from what were theoretically the Elflands. But he saw no sign of elves, indeed, he saw few signs of anyone in the wooded foothills under which lay one of the arteries of the great triumph of his people, the Dwarroways. There were scores of access points to the vast system of tunnels that ran under the earth and stone of northern and eastern Selenoth.\n\nBuilt over the centuries, some were boltholes secretly opening into the Man and Elf lands and designed to provide a means of escape, or alternatively, invasion. The Dwarroways did not yet reach into the Amorran Empire proper, as the way for which he was searching was among the closest, but they did extend into Savondir, Malkan, Merithaim, and even to the underground river that flowed beneath the High Elven capital of Elebrion. Prior to the unexpected rise of the Troll King, Guldur Goblinsbane, that led to the siege of Iron Mountain, one of the primary subjects of discussion in the Iron King’s Court had been the construction of the first major addition to the Dwarroways in over a century.\n\nBut he could not find the one that he recalled was somewhere in the vicinity. The system used to locate a Dwarrowdoor in the mountains, which was where most of them were located, simply did not work in the forests and he could not seem to find the caves that he knew would be used to hide the door. Every dwarf who left the safety of the world to walk upon the bright and hostile overground was instructed in the art of the Dwarrowdoors as well as their locations, but since Lodi had not expected to be traveling in this area, he was somewhat foggy on the specific details of where it was to be found.\n\nHe had a map, of course, but it was of severely limited utility in that it featured nothing more informative than an X marked crudely in the general area north of the line that demarcated the border. But since there was nothing to mark the actual border, not even a natural landmark such as a river, a mountain range, or even a sizable hill, he was left to search the wilderness for a door that was intentionally hidden. His prospects of success, he concluded grimly, were poor. And yet, what were his alternatives? To march northward and hope he managed to evade the various greenskins infesting the forest? Return south and wait for a dwarven party more familiar with the local terrain?\n\nAfter three days of fruitless searching, he decided to devote two more days to finding the Dwarrowdoor, after which he would attempt to travel through Merithaim and hope that he could somehow avoid any elves, orcs, or goblins. The elves might be less inclined to intentionally slay him out of hand, but then, if they were on the war footing he assumed them to be, they would be likely to loose arrows first and ask questions later. And even if they were sincerely apologetic, apologies had never been known to raise a dwarf from the dead.\n\nHe was still searching for the door when he encountered the goblins.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1051, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch06_lodi-P2", "chapter": "ch06_lodi", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nskydoors / Dwarrowdoor — surface access doors; skydoors as the Guard’s sealing term.\nHigh Guard — local dwarf militia title; both words capitalized.\nKingsmoot — dwarven decision-assembly; one word, capital K.\nIron King / Iron Mountain — royal references; capitalize as written.\nOverlands / overground — surface world; Overlands capital when the Guard says it.\nPlate Armor / Red Beard / Chain Mail — Lodi’s temporary tags for the three rescuers; treat as descriptive labels, not formal names.\nwolfrider / wolfriders — goblin wolf-cavalry; one word.\ngreenskin / greenskins — lowercase.\nSouth Goloi Vein — Lodi’s home when he names himself.\nAmorr — Man city that shaved him; Guard has never heard of it.\nKingsguard — Lodi’s service; one word, capital K when the office is meant.\n\n### STORY\nAfter sea and road travel from the Tessini escape, Lodi hunts a hidden Dwarrowdoor on the unmarked Amorran–Elfland border with a poor map and a patched crossbow; three days fail, he grants himself two more before risking Merithaim, and he is still searching when he encounters goblins.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nAlone against wolfriders in the trees; axe and crossbow ready; expects to die expensive. Does not yet know High Guard are near. After the fight: lance through the left shoulder, wolf-torn left calf, half-conscious, furious that there has been no Kingsmoot and the skydoors are sealing.\n\nPlate Armor\nBlack-bearded dwarf in full plate; axe-man who breaks the remaining fight. Local High Guard; helps support Lodi; scans for more foes.\n\nRed Beard\nLong red beard; retrieves Lodi’s axe; helps carry; startled by Amorran beard-shaving and by Kingsguard status later.\n\nChain Mail\nBlack-bearded in chain with crossbow; offers spirit from a tin flask; stitches plans; helps bear Lodi to the door; last words before Lodi blacks out.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nBuilt over the centuries, some were boltholes secretly opening into the Man and Elf lands and designed to provide a means of escape, or alternatively, invasion. The Dwarroways did not yet reach into the Amorran Empire proper, as the way for which he was searching was among the closest, but they did extend into Savondir, Malkan, Merithaim, and even to the underground river that flowed beneath the High Elven capital of Elebrion. Prior to the unexpected rise of the Troll King, Guldur Goblinsbane, that led to the siege of Iron Mountain, one of the primary subjects of discussion in the Iron King’s Court had been the construction of the first major addition to the Dwarroways in over a century.\n\nBut he could not find the one that he recalled was somewhere in the vicinity. The system used to locate a Dwarrowdoor in the mountains, which was where most of them were located, simply did not work in the forests and he could not seem to find the caves that he knew would be used to hide the door. Every dwarf who left the safety of the world to walk upon the bright and hostile overground was instructed in the art of the Dwarrowdoors as well as their locations, but since Lodi had not expected to be traveling in this area, he was somewhat foggy on the specific details of where it was to be found.\n\nHe had a map, of course, but it was of severely limited utility in that it featured nothing more informative than an X marked crudely in the general area north of the line that demarcated the border. But since there was nothing to mark the actual border, not even a natural landmark such as a river, a mountain range, or even a sizable hill, he was left to search the wilderness for a door that was intentionally hidden. His prospects of success, he concluded grimly, were poor. And yet, what were his alternatives? To march northward and hope he managed to evade the various greenskins infesting the forest? Return south and wait for a dwarven party more familiar with the local terrain?\n\nAfter three days of fruitless searching, he decided to devote two more days to finding the Dwarrowdoor, after which he would attempt to travel through Merithaim and hope that he could somehow avoid any elves, orcs, or goblins. The elves might be less inclined to intentionally slay him out of hand, but then, if they were on the war footing he assumed them to be, they would be likely to loose arrows first and ask questions later. And even if they were sincerely apologetic, apologies had never been known to raise a dwarf from the dead.\n\nHe was still searching for the door when he encountered the goblins.\n\n### NOTES\nSeven goblin wolfriders initially; starved wolves with visible ribs; leather armor hanging loose; lances and one short bow.\nFighting ground: forest oaks, grass underfoot.\nSpirit in the tin flask is strong enough to burn.\nSkydoors ordered sealed starting two days from the Guard’s account; war coming; wolfriders in these parts are not chance.\nPath to the door is a painful walk Lodi barely finishes.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nSilence and stink mean goblins; wolfriders step out starved and smiling. Seven is too many for hope, and an archer settles it—he shoots first, charges into axe-work, takes a lance through the shoulder and a wolf through the calf, and is going down when dwarven crossbows and a plate-armored axe turn the fight. Two goblins flee; the rest are meat.\n\nThe High Guard will not leave a dwarf in the Overlands with the skydoors sealing. Spirit, names, South Goloi Vein, the shame of an Amorran shave, and the harder shock: no Kingsmoot, no army marching, only orders to lock the world out. They half-carry him toward the door while he swallows the King’s folly behind a wince about his wound. The walk blurs; Chain Mail says they are almost there; Lodi lets the dark take him. The scene ends on that unconscious drop, before any bed.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2600 words. Fight concrete and unsentimental; dwarf banter dry. Land when consciousness goes—do not wake him underground yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "He sensed the presence of danger in the air a moment before it arrived. Perhaps it was the sudden silence in the trees around him. Perhaps it was the sensation of enemy eyes upon him. Or perhaps it was simply the hard-won experience of a dwarf who had survived the great Arena of Amorr by learning to trust in his instincts. Regardless, something made him stop and sniff suspiciously at the air. It was a scent he knew all too well.\n\nGoblins… goblin wolfriders, to be exact. He cursed under his breath, knowing it would do him no good to run or even hide, not with the noses on the shaggy, long-legged beasts that the goblin light cavalry rode. He set his axe down upon a nearby tree, then wound the crank on his crossbow and slipped a bolt into the slot. Returning it, now loaded, to his belt, he picked up his axe and held it in both hands, peering intently into the shadows of the surrounding trees. This was as good a place to die as any other, he told himself grimly, but he vowed that he would not do so alone.\n\n“Come on out, ye cowards,” he roared in the direction he suspected them to be. “Fear to face a lone dwarf, does ye?”\n\nA wolf growled behind him, and he whirled around to see a pair of riders emerging from either side of a large oak tree. They were scrawny, ill-favored creatures, with pinched, pale green faces and yellow eyes that stared at him in a frighteningly hungry manner. He could see the ribs on their beasts; it was apparent that neither the wolves nor their riders had been eating well in recent days. Troll, orc or goblin, logistics had never been the strongest suit of the various greenskin generals. Both goblins were armed with long wooden lances that would serve equally well as spear or cooking spit, and based on the smiles that exposed their sharp, jagged teeth, Lodi could see they were anticipating dwarf for dinner come evening.\n\nAnother pair of riders came into view, followed by three more. Given the light leather armor that hung loosely over their thin-chested torsos, it appeared as if he had run into an entire patrol of scouts. Had they been stalking him or was this merely misfortune? He shrugged. It really didn’t matter. Against two, he might have had a chance. Against seven, his only hope was that they would run away after he killed their leader.\n\nBut their desperate state dashed even that remote hope. Half-starved and probably half-mad with hunger, Lodi knew neither wolves nor goblins would be even remotely dissuaded by the threat of losing two or three of their number. He hefted his axe, wondering if he should charge them or wait for them to come at him. The decision was made for him when the first goblin reached down the other side of his wolf before producing a bow as well as a quiver of short, black-feathered arrows that he slung over his shoulder. The goblin strung the bow in two simple moves, and the expert ease with which it did so caused Lodi’s heart to sink.\n\nSo, Lodi didn’t wait for the archer to nock an arrow to the string. He released his axe with his right hand and let the heavy double-bladed head fall to the ground as he unslung his crossbow from a hook on his belt and raised it with lethal intent. The goblin’s eyes widened, and two of its comrades shouted, but before any of them could move, the crossbow thrummed and the bolt slammed into the archer’s throat. Lodi had actually been aiming at the goblin’s chest, but it appeared the weapon had a tendency to shoot high.\n\nHe didn’t hesitate, but took advantage of the goblins’ momentary surprise to charge at them, dropping the crossbow and sweeping up the shaft of the heavy battleaxe to balance it in both hands. He lopped off the front third of the lance that was feebly poked in his direction with a half-swing, then punched the axe’s spike right through the skull of the goblin who’d stabbed the lance at him. Its wolf snarled and slashed at him, and he felt a burning pain sear his left forearm as he pulled the axe free of the spasming goblin. He smashed the butt of the axe against the wolf’s muzzle and it leaped away yelping, leaving its rider to die on the ground behind it.\n\nBefore he could turn around, however, he felt something punch through his armor as it drove all the way through his left shoulder. Caught by surprise by the unexpected eruption of pain in his back, he uttered a most undwarfish cry. The object—it was a lance—was removed almost as quickly as it had struck, but as the goblin rode past him, its wolf ripped at the back of his left leg with its fangs. Already off-balance, Lodi fell to the ground in agony. But he fought through the pain to roll over, even though he knew there was little point in continued resistance. He planted the butt of his axe on the ground and pulled himself up to his feet, even as a goblin bared its yellow teeth at him and kicked its snarling wolf forward. Lodi supposed he might be able to duck under goblin’s lance, but he didn’t have the strength to lift his weapon, and he knew that the wolf would be going right for his throat if its rider failed to spit him on the knotted wood of the rudely constructed lance.\n\nAs the wolfrider rushed towards him, he dropped his axe and threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the fire-blackened tip that was aimed at his chest. What he would do next, he didn’t know; his immediate priority was to avoid impalement. But the expected wolf-attack didn’t come. Instead, he heard a pair of crossbows thrum, and heard a goblin shriek in what could have been fear, pain, or outrage. The sound of a dwarven battle cry inspired him with new hope, and he rolled over twice more before daring to push himself up using his right hand.\n\nFour goblins and two wolves were already lying dead or dying on the grass. A fifth goblin toppled screaming from its mount, as its pathetic wooden shield and its shield arm were sheared through in a single axestroke by a powerful black-bearded dwarf wearing full plate armor. Its screaming stopped a moment later with the backswing. Before it had even fallen, the other two wolfriders turned tail and fled, followed closely by the three surviving wolves, one of which was limping badly.\n\nA second dwarf with a long red beard bent over to retrieve Lodi’s axe and offered it to him. “We’d better get you under before they come back in strength. They’ll want the bodies, if nothing else. Can you walk?”\n\nLodi glared at the red-bearded dwarf. “Of course I can walk!”\n\nHe took one hobbled step, then another. Then he pointed to his left calf, which was bleeding badly enough that he wasn’t sure he could walk far without collapsing. The torn flesh was visible through the shredded leather of his boot. “Any chance you could tie that up first, though?”\n\nA black-bearded dwarf wearing chain mail with a crossbow slung over his shoulder had already drawn a knife and was starting to kneel down behind him. In a matter of moments, he had adroitly cut through the back of Lodi’s boot, washed out the wounds with a pungent spirit that made Lodi gasp, and bound Lodi’s calf tightly enough to stop the bleeding. He also soaked a cloth and pressed it into Lodi’s shoulder; Lodi gritted his teeth as the alcohol seemed to ignite the wound with fire.\n\n“This might help,” he said, offering the tin flask containing the spirit to Lodi. “We don’t have time to do anything more for your shoulder now. Don’t look like it pierced your lung, so you’ll make it.”\n\n“What are you doing here?” Lodi asked. Whatever it was, the spirit was strong enough to make his head spin merely from scenting it. He took a careful sip and blinked in disbelief as it burned its way down his gullet. If nothing else, it would take the edge off the pain in his arm, shoulder, and leg. He took a longer swig, then handed it back to the other dwarf.\n\n“We’re the local High Guard. The King ordered the sealing of all the skydoors two days from now, so we’ve been keeping an eye out for stragglers. We saw you tramping around here yesterday, but lost sight of you before we could find you.”\n\n“The skydoors are being sealed?”\n\n“War is on the way, friend. It weren’t no accident that those wolfriders was about these parts. The orcs is on the march, the elves is gearing up, and men be already fighting amongst themselves. The king don’t want no part of none of it, so we’ll hunker down and go about our business while the skydwellers slaughter each other.”\n\nLodi wasn’t sure that was either a wise option or a genuine one, considering the size of the army he’d seen months ago, and he was astonished to learn that the war hadn’t already begun in earnest. It seemed that the vast gathering of orc tribes he’d seen on the east side of the Greenwaste had barely stirred itself while he’d been trudging halfway across Selenoth and back.\n\n“What’s your name, straggler” the big dwarf wearing plate armor asked as the red-bearded dwarf helped Lodi support his weight on his left side. On the other side, he used his axe as an impromptu crutch. “And what sort of piss-poor clan cuts its beards off like that?”\n\n“Lodi, son of Dunmorin, of the South Goloi Vein.”\n\n“I heard of them,” the dwarf supporting him said. “They own a couple of good mines right near the royal mountain.”\n\n“What happened to your beard, Lodi, son of Dunmorin?”\n\n“Was a slave in Amorr until about a year ago.”\n\n“Amorr?” The two dwarves looked at each other, puzzled. “Never heard of it.”\n\nLodi laughed, then grimaced. “Big Man city. Long way southwest of here. They shave the dwarves they catch.”\n\n“The King knows about this?” Red Beard asked. His eyes were narrow with fury.\n\n“Looks like you’re some kind of lodestone for trouble,” Plate Armor said with a wry smile.\n\n“You might say that,” Lodi agreed. “The King knows. I’ve been out walking the overground on assignment for him.”\n\nThe two dwarves looked at each other, although Lodi couldn’t tell if they were impressed or alarmed. “Anything to do with the war?” asked Plate Armor.\n\n“You might say that too.” Despite the pain from his wounds, Lodi felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders. For months, he had been nagged by the thought that Thorald might not have made it back to Iron Mountain with either the King’s shield they’d retrieved from the drake or news of the tremendous orc invasion. He’d wondered if he should have accepted the elven offer to fly both of them there, or if he’d done the right thing by going in search of the one Man family he’d known would listen to him. Of course, if the elves had been inclined to murder them and steal the shield, they’d have been able to do it even if he’d been there.\n\nIn the sky, a dwarf was nearly as helpless as an elf trying to make its way underground through a dwarf tunnel.\n\n“What’s the news. What did the Kingsmoot decide? Have we marched up already?”\n\n“There hasn’t been any Kingsmoot,” Red Beard said.\n\n“No one is marching anywhere,” Plate Armor added. “We were given orders to seal off the skydoor three days ago, but Bori spotted you through the glass. We’ve been following the goblins who were following you since this morning.”\n\n“You were looking for me?”\n\n“Not you in particular. We just didn’t want to leave a dwarf in the Overlands. From the sounds of it, it may be years before the skydoors open again.”\n\nLodi frowned, and not because of the pain. No Kingsmoot. No army on the march. The sealing of the skydoors. That could only mean one thing. The King of Iron Mountain had no intention of interfering with the orc invasion of the Overland realms of Man and Elf. The dwarves were playing turtle and pulling their head and legs into their massive, earthen shell.\n\n“The damned fool,” he growled.\n\n“What’s that?” one of the dwarves said.\n\n“This damned wound!” He winced and gingerly prodded at his shoulder. Without knowing anything about his rescuers, badmouthing the king was probably unwise. Then, without warning, he found himself light-headed and staggering. Red Beard swore as he struggled to keep Lodi from falling to the ground.\n\n“Hold your tongue, dwarf, and save your energy!”\n\n“Is he bleeding out?” Plate Armor asked.\n\n“No, he’s just weak and swooning from shock, not blood loss. You could take his other side.”\n\n“Aye, I could,” Plate Armor said as he scanned the forest around them with one hand caressing the wooden shaft of his axe. “But I won’t. Them gobbos are still about.”\n\nFortunately for Lodi’s sake, Chain Mail was willing to help, and between him and Red Beard, they managed to half-support, half-drag him along with them.\n\nThe rest of the walk soon became a painful blur to Lodi. He somehow managed to stumble along with the help of Red Beard until he found himself in the cool darkness of a hillside cave. It had been artfully concealed by a pair of fallen trees, which were somehow raised by the use of a secret lever hidden under a stump. The cave itself appeared to be a nothing more than a simple cave with no outlet until Plate Armor pounded the butt of his axe against the smooth stone wall at the end of the cave, and the wall slid silently back to reveal a downward-sloping passageway lined with lichmoss. If the silence of the secret door was not enough to indicate that it was well-maintained, the scent of oil that filled his nose as Plate Armor slid it shut again, then pulled an arm-sized metal bar down to lock it, was.\n\n“Ain’t no one around to come in after us, ’cept skins. We’re the last.”\n\nLodi was in no position to argue, as he was beginning to dip in and out of consciousness.\n\n“Hey, now, hold on there, friend!” Chain Mail encouraged him. “We’re almost there.” Lodi tried to stay awake, but it was too much effort for him, and it was with no little relief that he closed his eyes and allowed the cool comfort of the darkness to claim him.\n", "completion": "He sensed the presence of danger in the air a moment before it arrived. Perhaps it was the sudden silence in the trees around him. Perhaps it was the sensation of enemy eyes upon him. Or perhaps it was simply the hard-won experience of a dwarf who had survived the great Arena of Amorr by learning to trust in his instincts. Regardless, something made him stop and sniff suspiciously at the air. It was a scent he knew all too well.\n\nGoblins… goblin wolfriders, to be exact. He cursed under his breath, knowing it would do him no good to run or even hide, not with the noses on the shaggy, long-legged beasts that the goblin light cavalry rode. He set his axe down upon a nearby tree, then wound the crank on his crossbow and slipped a bolt into the slot. Returning it, now loaded, to his belt, he picked up his axe and held it in both hands, peering intently into the shadows of the surrounding trees. This was as good a place to die as any other, he told himself grimly, but he vowed that he would not do so alone.\n\n“Come on out, ye cowards,” he roared in the direction he suspected them to be. “Fear to face a lone dwarf, does ye?”\n\nA wolf growled behind him, and he whirled around to see a pair of riders emerging from either side of a large oak tree. They were scrawny, ill-favored creatures, with pinched, pale green faces and yellow eyes that stared at him in a frighteningly hungry manner. He could see the ribs on their beasts; it was apparent that neither the wolves nor their riders had been eating well in recent days. Troll, orc or goblin, logistics had never been the strongest suit of the various greenskin generals. Both goblins were armed with long wooden lances that would serve equally well as spear or cooking spit, and based on the smiles that exposed their sharp, jagged teeth, Lodi could see they were anticipating dwarf for dinner come evening.\n\nAnother pair of riders came into view, followed by three more. Given the light leather armor that hung loosely over their thin-chested torsos, it appeared as if he had run into an entire patrol of scouts. Had they been stalking him or was this merely misfortune? He shrugged. It really didn’t matter. Against two, he might have had a chance. Against seven, his only hope was that they would run away after he killed their leader.\n\nBut their desperate state dashed even that remote hope. Half-starved and probably half-mad with hunger, Lodi knew neither wolves nor goblins would be even remotely dissuaded by the threat of losing two or three of their number. He hefted his axe, wondering if he should charge them or wait for them to come at him. The decision was made for him when the first goblin reached down the other side of his wolf before producing a bow as well as a quiver of short, black-feathered arrows that he slung over his shoulder. The goblin strung the bow in two simple moves, and the expert ease with which it did so caused Lodi’s heart to sink.\n\nSo, Lodi didn’t wait for the archer to nock an arrow to the string. He released his axe with his right hand and let the heavy double-bladed head fall to the ground as he unslung his crossbow from a hook on his belt and raised it with lethal intent. The goblin’s eyes widened, and two of its comrades shouted, but before any of them could move, the crossbow thrummed and the bolt slammed into the archer’s throat. Lodi had actually been aiming at the goblin’s chest, but it appeared the weapon had a tendency to shoot high.\n\nHe didn’t hesitate, but took advantage of the goblins’ momentary surprise to charge at them, dropping the crossbow and sweeping up the shaft of the heavy battleaxe to balance it in both hands. He lopped off the front third of the lance that was feebly poked in his direction with a half-swing, then punched the axe’s spike right through the skull of the goblin who’d stabbed the lance at him. Its wolf snarled and slashed at him, and he felt a burning pain sear his left forearm as he pulled the axe free of the spasming goblin. He smashed the butt of the axe against the wolf’s muzzle and it leaped away yelping, leaving its rider to die on the ground behind it.\n\nBefore he could turn around, however, he felt something punch through his armor as it drove all the way through his left shoulder. Caught by surprise by the unexpected eruption of pain in his back, he uttered a most undwarfish cry. The object—it was a lance—was removed almost as quickly as it had struck, but as the goblin rode past him, its wolf ripped at the back of his left leg with its fangs. Already off-balance, Lodi fell to the ground in agony. But he fought through the pain to roll over, even though he knew there was little point in continued resistance. He planted the butt of his axe on the ground and pulled himself up to his feet, even as a goblin bared its yellow teeth at him and kicked its snarling wolf forward. Lodi supposed he might be able to duck under goblin’s lance, but he didn’t have the strength to lift his weapon, and he knew that the wolf would be going right for his throat if its rider failed to spit him on the knotted wood of the rudely constructed lance.\n\nAs the wolfrider rushed towards him, he dropped his axe and threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the fire-blackened tip that was aimed at his chest. What he would do next, he didn’t know; his immediate priority was to avoid impalement. But the expected wolf-attack didn’t come. Instead, he heard a pair of crossbows thrum, and heard a goblin shriek in what could have been fear, pain, or outrage. The sound of a dwarven battle cry inspired him with new hope, and he rolled over twice more before daring to push himself up using his right hand.\n\nFour goblins and two wolves were already lying dead or dying on the grass. A fifth goblin toppled screaming from its mount, as its pathetic wooden shield and its shield arm were sheared through in a single axestroke by a powerful black-bearded dwarf wearing full plate armor. Its screaming stopped a moment later with the backswing. Before it had even fallen, the other two wolfriders turned tail and fled, followed closely by the three surviving wolves, one of which was limping badly.\n\nA second dwarf with a long red beard bent over to retrieve Lodi’s axe and offered it to him. “We’d better get you under before they come back in strength. They’ll want the bodies, if nothing else. Can you walk?”\n\nLodi glared at the red-bearded dwarf. “Of course I can walk!”\n\nHe took one hobbled step, then another. Then he pointed to his left calf, which was bleeding badly enough that he wasn’t sure he could walk far without collapsing. The torn flesh was visible through the shredded leather of his boot. “Any chance you could tie that up first, though?”\n\nA black-bearded dwarf wearing chain mail with a crossbow slung over his shoulder had already drawn a knife and was starting to kneel down behind him. In a matter of moments, he had adroitly cut through the back of Lodi’s boot, washed out the wounds with a pungent spirit that made Lodi gasp, and bound Lodi’s calf tightly enough to stop the bleeding. He also soaked a cloth and pressed it into Lodi’s shoulder; Lodi gritted his teeth as the alcohol seemed to ignite the wound with fire.\n\n“This might help,” he said, offering the tin flask containing the spirit to Lodi. “We don’t have time to do anything more for your shoulder now. Don’t look like it pierced your lung, so you’ll make it.”\n\n“What are you doing here?” Lodi asked. Whatever it was, the spirit was strong enough to make his head spin merely from scenting it. He took a careful sip and blinked in disbelief as it burned its way down his gullet. If nothing else, it would take the edge off the pain in his arm, shoulder, and leg. He took a longer swig, then handed it back to the other dwarf.\n\n“We’re the local High Guard. The King ordered the sealing of all the skydoors two days from now, so we’ve been keeping an eye out for stragglers. We saw you tramping around here yesterday, but lost sight of you before we could find you.”\n\n“The skydoors are being sealed?”\n\n“War is on the way, friend. It weren’t no accident that those wolfriders was about these parts. The orcs is on the march, the elves is gearing up, and men be already fighting amongst themselves. The king don’t want no part of none of it, so we’ll hunker down and go about our business while the skydwellers slaughter each other.”\n\nLodi wasn’t sure that was either a wise option or a genuine one, considering the size of the army he’d seen months ago, and he was astonished to learn that the war hadn’t already begun in earnest. It seemed that the vast gathering of orc tribes he’d seen on the east side of the Greenwaste had barely stirred itself while he’d been trudging halfway across Selenoth and back.\n\n“What’s your name, straggler” the big dwarf wearing plate armor asked as the red-bearded dwarf helped Lodi support his weight on his left side. On the other side, he used his axe as an impromptu crutch. “And what sort of piss-poor clan cuts its beards off like that?”\n\n“Lodi, son of Dunmorin, of the South Goloi Vein.”\n\n“I heard of them,” the dwarf supporting him said. “They own a couple of good mines right near the royal mountain.”\n\n“What happened to your beard, Lodi, son of Dunmorin?”\n\n“Was a slave in Amorr until about a year ago.”\n\n“Amorr?” The two dwarves looked at each other, puzzled. “Never heard of it.”\n\nLodi laughed, then grimaced. “Big Man city. Long way southwest of here. They shave the dwarves they catch.”\n\n“The King knows about this?” Red Beard asked. His eyes were narrow with fury.\n\n“Looks like you’re some kind of lodestone for trouble,” Plate Armor said with a wry smile.\n\n“You might say that,” Lodi agreed. “The King knows. I’ve been out walking the overground on assignment for him.”\n\nThe two dwarves looked at each other, although Lodi couldn’t tell if they were impressed or alarmed. “Anything to do with the war?” asked Plate Armor.\n\n“You might say that too.” Despite the pain from his wounds, Lodi felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders. For months, he had been nagged by the thought that Thorald might not have made it back to Iron Mountain with either the King’s shield they’d retrieved from the drake or news of the tremendous orc invasion. He’d wondered if he should have accepted the elven offer to fly both of them there, or if he’d done the right thing by going in search of the one Man family he’d known would listen to him. Of course, if the elves had been inclined to murder them and steal the shield, they’d have been able to do it even if he’d been there.\n\nIn the sky, a dwarf was nearly as helpless as an elf trying to make its way underground through a dwarf tunnel.\n\n“What’s the news. What did the Kingsmoot decide? Have we marched up already?”\n\n“There hasn’t been any Kingsmoot,” Red Beard said.\n\n“No one is marching anywhere,” Plate Armor added. “We were given orders to seal off the skydoor three days ago, but Bori spotted you through the glass. We’ve been following the goblins who were following you since this morning.”\n\n“You were looking for me?”\n\n“Not you in particular. We just didn’t want to leave a dwarf in the Overlands. From the sounds of it, it may be years before the skydoors open again.”\n\nLodi frowned, and not because of the pain. No Kingsmoot. No army on the march. The sealing of the skydoors. That could only mean one thing. The King of Iron Mountain had no intention of interfering with the orc invasion of the Overland realms of Man and Elf. The dwarves were playing turtle and pulling their head and legs into their massive, earthen shell.\n\n“The damned fool,” he growled.\n\n“What’s that?” one of the dwarves said.\n\n“This damned wound!” He winced and gingerly prodded at his shoulder. Without knowing anything about his rescuers, badmouthing the king was probably unwise. Then, without warning, he found himself light-headed and staggering. Red Beard swore as he struggled to keep Lodi from falling to the ground.\n\n“Hold your tongue, dwarf, and save your energy!”\n\n“Is he bleeding out?” Plate Armor asked.\n\n“No, he’s just weak and swooning from shock, not blood loss. You could take his other side.”\n\n“Aye, I could,” Plate Armor said as he scanned the forest around them with one hand caressing the wooden shaft of his axe. “But I won’t. Them gobbos are still about.”\n\nFortunately for Lodi’s sake, Chain Mail was willing to help, and between him and Red Beard, they managed to half-support, half-drag him along with them.\n\nThe rest of the walk soon became a painful blur to Lodi. He somehow managed to stumble along with the help of Red Beard until he found himself in the cool darkness of a hillside cave. It had been artfully concealed by a pair of fallen trees, which were somehow raised by the use of a secret lever hidden under a stump. The cave itself appeared to be a nothing more than a simple cave with no outlet until Plate Armor pounded the butt of his axe against the smooth stone wall at the end of the cave, and the wall slid silently back to reveal a downward-sloping passageway lined with lichmoss. If the silence of the secret door was not enough to indicate that it was well-maintained, the scent of oil that filled his nose as Plate Armor slid it shut again, then pulled an arm-sized metal bar down to lock it, was.\n\n“Ain’t no one around to come in after us, ’cept skins. We’re the last.”\n\nLodi was in no position to argue, as he was beginning to dip in and out of consciousness.\n\n“Hey, now, hold on there, friend!” Chain Mail encouraged him. “We’re almost there.” Lodi tried to stay awake, but it was too much effort for him, and it was with no little relief that he closed his eyes and allowed the cool comfort of the darkness to claim him.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2566, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch06_lodi-P3", "chapter": "ch06_lodi", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMorits, son of Morits — mayor’s patronymic doubled as written.\nMulma Bodel-wife — elder dwarfess; Bodel-wife as the married form given.\nMyf — young dwarfess to be escorted; spelling Myf not Myth.\nIron Mountain — destination below.\nKingsguard — Lodi’s office when he admits it.\nSouth Goloi Vein — again when he names his family.\nblood-rot — infection fear; hyphenated as written if present.\nskydoors — already sealing above.\nMadame Bodel-wife — Lodi’s polite address form for Mulma.\n\n### STORY\nAfter days hunting a hidden Dwarrowdoor on the unmarked Amorran–Elfland border, Lodi walks into a starved goblin wolfrider patrol with only axe and crossbow for answer.\n\nHe kills the archer and two more before a lance and a wolf put him down; local High Guard finish the patrol, tell him the skydoors are sealing with no Kingsmoot called, and half-carry him under as he loses consciousness.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nWaking on a proper dwarf bed under stone for the first time in years (save a short spell under Iron Mountain). Shoulder packed with unfamiliar moss-herb, not stitched; calf neatly sewn and fungused. Chest partly shaved for the dressing—fresh humiliation after the Arena’s beard. Coherent, sore, wary of owing strangers; Kingsguard enough to make a mayor blink. Does not want a journey with a girl who will not speak to him, but three days’ heal-up is the bargain.\n\nMulma Bodel-wife\nOlder dwarfess ~150; stitches and manners; amused at Myf’s silence; asks if he heals fast.\n\nMorits, son of Morits\nGreybearded mayor; booming voice; honors a South Goloi gold family; needs an escort below for his mute-acting daughter.\n\nMyf\nYoung fair-skinned dwarfess; first visitor; says only to please not talk to her and leaves. Needs passage deeper; silence is temperament, not injury.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nLodi frowned, and not because of the pain. No Kingsmoot. No army on the march. The sealing of the skydoors. That could only mean one thing. The King of Iron Mountain had no intention of interfering with the orc invasion of the Overland realms of Man and Elf. The dwarves were playing turtle and pulling their head and legs into their massive, earthen shell.\n\n“The damned fool,” he growled.\n\n“What’s that?” one of the dwarves said.\n\n“This damned wound!” He winced and gingerly prodded at his shoulder. Without knowing anything about his rescuers, badmouthing the king was probably unwise. Then, without warning, he found himself light-headed and staggering. Red Beard swore as he struggled to keep Lodi from falling to the ground.\n\n“Hold your tongue, dwarf, and save your energy!”\n\n“Is he bleeding out?” Plate Armor asked.\n\n“No, he’s just weak and swooning from shock, not blood loss. You could take his other side.”\n\n“Aye, I could,” Plate Armor said as he scanned the forest around them with one hand caressing the wooden shaft of his axe. “But I won’t. Them gobbos are still about.”\n\nFortunately for Lodi’s sake, Chain Mail was willing to help, and between him and Red Beard, they managed to half-support, half-drag him along with them.\n\nThe rest of the walk soon became a painful blur to Lodi. He somehow managed to stumble along with the help of Red Beard until he found himself in the cool darkness of a hillside cave. It had been artfully concealed by a pair of fallen trees, which were somehow raised by the use of a secret lever hidden under a stump. The cave itself appeared to be a nothing more than a simple cave with no outlet until Plate Armor pounded the butt of his axe against the smooth stone wall at the end of the cave, and the wall slid silently back to reveal a downward-sloping passageway lined with lichmoss. If the silence of the secret door was not enough to indicate that it was well-maintained, the scent of oil that filled his nose as Plate Armor slid it shut again, then pulled an arm-sized metal bar down to lock it, was.\n\n“Ain’t no one around to come in after us, ’cept skins. We’re the last.”\n\nLodi was in no position to argue, as he was beginning to dip in and out of consciousness.\n\n“Hey, now, hold on there, friend!” Chain Mail encouraged him. “We’re almost there.” Lodi tried to stay awake, but it was too much effort for him, and it was with no little relief that he closed his eyes and allowed the cool comfort of the darkness to claim him.\n\n### NOTES\nRoom under timber-reinforced ceiling that sits alarmingly near the surface for Lodi’s taste.\nBandages waiting on a table for him to change.\nOffer: rest three days, then escort Myf downward; further reward depends on the King.\nLodi’s older pink gladiator scar is visible on his side besides the new wounds.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nHe wakes on moss mattress softness he has nearly forgotten, then on pain—shoulder packed, calf sewn, chest shaved again like a joke the world will not drop. A fair young dwarfess enters, tells him not to talk to her, and flees; he is still frowning at the bandages when Mulma Bodel-wife and Mayor Morits arrive with congratulations and curiosity.\n\nGold vein, honor, introductions; they need him to take quiet Myf down toward Iron Mountain once he can walk. He bargains with Kingsguard truth—odd jobs for the King—and startles them into a three-day heal and a hope of royal favor. He eyes the bandages and tells Madame Bodel-wife that blood-rot will make him a poor chaperone if they leave it in. The scene ends on that practical acceptance.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1400 words. Underground relief without softness; humor in the shaving and the silent girl. Land on his agreement to heal and escort—not on the road below.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "He awoke on the most comfortable bed he’d known in literally years. Except for a short period back home under Iron Mountain last year, he hadn’t slept on a proper dwarf bed since he’d been captured and sold into Amorran slavery. The moss-stuffed mattress was soft and sweet-smelling, and for a moment, until he shifted his body, he forgot that he’d been wounded. He hissed as the pain shot through his shoulder, and then, as if in sympathetic echo, his left leg. He’d been undressed while he was unconscious, he realized, and when he gingerly poked at where the point of the goblin lance had emerged, he discovered that his unknown benefactors had also shaved part of his chest. The wound wasn’t stitched, but it was packed with some sort of mossy herbal concoction he did not recognize.\n\nHis leg, on the other hand, had been threaded together neatly by an expert hand. It was smeared with a fungal unguent that he remembered from the war; the pungent odor it gave off was not readily forgotten. That was good. Ragged wounds of the sort the wolf had torn in his calf were easily infected, and who knew what sort of filthy carrion the beast had been feeding on before biting him.\n\nHe sighed, ruefully running his hand lightly over the bare patch on his chest. First his beard, now his chest. If things continued in this vein, the next time he’d probably find that someone had shaved his bloody bollocks. He’d look like a stumpy shaven elf if he didn’t manage to change his fortunes soon.\n\nThere were footsteps outside the door and then it opened. His visitor was a young, fair-skinned dwarfess with the palest green eyes he had ever seen. She was pretty too, even allowing for the fact that it had been a cursed long time since he’d last laid eyes on a dwarf maiden. She wasn’t even thirty yet, he estimated, as she shyly averted her eyes and placed the tray she was carrying on the little table near his head. There were bandages and pack-moss on the tray, and he wondered if the young lass had been his nurse.\n\n“Was it you stitched me up?” he asked.\n\n“Please don’t talk to me,” she answered without looking at him. Then she quickly left the room and shut the door, leaving him to wonder what he could have done to offend her so.\n\nHe looked at the bandages on the table. Surely he wasn’t supposed to change them himself. Not that he couldn’t, although in the absence of pack-moss he’d learned to get by with the fiery sting of spirits to clean out his wounds, but the pretty dwarfess’s strange behavior was at odds with how carefully he’d otherwise been tended.\n\nThe door opened again. This time it was an older dwarfess of perhaps 150 years, followed by a grey-bearded dwarf who carried himself with an air of authority.\n\n“Glad to hear you’re awake and coherent,” the dwarf said in a booming voice. He extended a hand to Lodi, who was unsurprised to discover the greybeard had a firm, confident grip. “You’ll have to excuse young Audra, she was not expecting you to be alert yet. I understand your name is Lodi, of the South Goloi?”\n\n“Lodi, son of Dunmorin, sir. As you say, my family mines the South Goloi Vein.”\n\n“A rich one, I hope. Silver?”\n\n“Gold, as it happens, sir.”\n\n“Ah, all the better!” The greybeard chuckled. “We are honored! I am Morits, son of Morits, who was himself the son of Morits. We are a sadly unimaginative lot, I’m afraid. I am the mayor of this cavern, which is rather a grand way to describe what is little more than a half-buried Man village!”\n\nLodi eyed the ceiling, which was reinforced with timbers. It was alarmingly close to the surface, even for a high town, if the hazy recollection of his descent was a reliable guide. Well, it held no fears for one who had spent as much time under the sky as he had. He looked at the dwarfess whom the mayor had not bothered to introduce. Not his wife or a local dignitary, then, which meant she was likely a healer. “And is it you, madam, I have to thank for the care I have received?”\n\n“It was our privilege to serve such a brave warrior of the Deep, son of Dunmorin.” She smiled and curtsied. “I am Mulma, wife to Bodel, son of Hodel.”\n\n“Charmed,” Lodi said, feeling considerably more foolish than brave. On the other hand, the formidable collection of his old scars, from the Amorran arenas as well as seven years of siege warfare prior, could hardly be denied under his present circumstances. Then his eyes narrowed. The two older dwarves were eyeing him in a suspiciously familiar manner. He had the distinct impression that they wanted something from him, and a moment later, Morits son of Morits confirmed it.\n\n“I see this is not the first time you have recovered from such grievous wounds.”\n\n“No, sir. I had some bad luck along the way.”\n\n“Would you say that you heal quickly, Lodi, son of Dunmorin?”\n\nHe looked down at the big pink scar in his side that an orc gladiator had given him on the sands and remembered the long days of sheer agony he’d spent tied to the back of a donkey on the hellish ride that had taken him to the Elflands and purchased his freedom in the end. “Quick enough. What do you need from me?”\n\n“Do you recall the young dwarfess who was in here previously?”\n\n“The one who told me not to talk to her?”\n\nThe elder dwarfess laughed, and the sparkle in her eyes seemed to take decades off her face. “Yes, that would be Myf. I’m afraid she has some unusual perspectives. The problem we have presently is that she is of one of the Deepest clans. She only came here to deliver some very particular fungi we had ordered from her family. But with the king placing the Heights under war law, none of our dwarves are permitted to leave the upper caverns.”\n\n“We need you to escort her below, son of Dunmorin,” the mayor clarified unnecessarily. “It seemed likely that you were intending to descend, so we thought perhaps you might be willing to see her safely to her clan.”\n\nLodi stroked his beard, such as it was. The lass didn’t sound like an ideal travel companion, but a silent one would be better than an overly talkative one. And she would have to pass through Iron Mountain if she was headed for the Heart of Fire, which was where the Deepest dwelled. “I can take her as far as Iron Mountain. Beyond that will depend upon the King. But if I can’t take her deeper, I vow I’ll find someone who can, someone reliable.”\n\n“What will depend upon the King?”\n\n“I’m Kingsguard.”\n\nMulma and the mayor looked at each other, visibly startled. “You’re Kingsguard?” the dwarfess said. “What are you doing in the Above?”\n\n“In a manner of speaking. I don’t do a lot of guarding anymore, but I still do a few odd jobs for His Majesty from time to time.” He smiled at the mayor’s discomfiture. “I’ll take care of the lass if the Bodel-wife here can get me back on my feet, or at least my arse, before the tunnel-train arrives. If you’re in the habit of trading with the Deepest, I can only assume this is a shaft terminus.”\n\n“Three days,” the mayor said, eyeing Lodi with a mix of suspicion and respect. He wasn’t the sort of dwarf to appreciate his sense of self-importance being trumped and Lodi’s offhand reference to the King of Iron Mountain had thrown him for a loss. “The next one is scheduled to arrive in three days. After that, with a war on, who can say?”\n\nLodi nodded and glanced at the bandages on the table. “Well, Madame Bodel-wife, if I have only three days to recover, we had better be sure any blood-rot is cleaned out, or the only thing accompanying your young Myf will be my corpse!”\n", "completion": "He awoke on the most comfortable bed he’d known in literally years. Except for a short period back home under Iron Mountain last year, he hadn’t slept on a proper dwarf bed since he’d been captured and sold into Amorran slavery. The moss-stuffed mattress was soft and sweet-smelling, and for a moment, until he shifted his body, he forgot that he’d been wounded. He hissed as the pain shot through his shoulder, and then, as if in sympathetic echo, his left leg. He’d been undressed while he was unconscious, he realized, and when he gingerly poked at where the point of the goblin lance had emerged, he discovered that his unknown benefactors had also shaved part of his chest. The wound wasn’t stitched, but it was packed with some sort of mossy herbal concoction he did not recognize.\n\nHis leg, on the other hand, had been threaded together neatly by an expert hand. It was smeared with a fungal unguent that he remembered from the war; the pungent odor it gave off was not readily forgotten. That was good. Ragged wounds of the sort the wolf had torn in his calf were easily infected, and who knew what sort of filthy carrion the beast had been feeding on before biting him.\n\nHe sighed, ruefully running his hand lightly over the bare patch on his chest. First his beard, now his chest. If things continued in this vein, the next time he’d probably find that someone had shaved his bloody bollocks. He’d look like a stumpy shaven elf if he didn’t manage to change his fortunes soon.\n\nThere were footsteps outside the door and then it opened. His visitor was a young, fair-skinned dwarfess with the palest green eyes he had ever seen. She was pretty too, even allowing for the fact that it had been a cursed long time since he’d last laid eyes on a dwarf maiden. She wasn’t even thirty yet, he estimated, as she shyly averted her eyes and placed the tray she was carrying on the little table near his head. There were bandages and pack-moss on the tray, and he wondered if the young lass had been his nurse.\n\n“Was it you stitched me up?” he asked.\n\n“Please don’t talk to me,” she answered without looking at him. Then she quickly left the room and shut the door, leaving him to wonder what he could have done to offend her so.\n\nHe looked at the bandages on the table. Surely he wasn’t supposed to change them himself. Not that he couldn’t, although in the absence of pack-moss he’d learned to get by with the fiery sting of spirits to clean out his wounds, but the pretty dwarfess’s strange behavior was at odds with how carefully he’d otherwise been tended.\n\nThe door opened again. This time it was an older dwarfess of perhaps 150 years, followed by a grey-bearded dwarf who carried himself with an air of authority.\n\n“Glad to hear you’re awake and coherent,” the dwarf said in a booming voice. He extended a hand to Lodi, who was unsurprised to discover the greybeard had a firm, confident grip. “You’ll have to excuse young Audra, she was not expecting you to be alert yet. I understand your name is Lodi, of the South Goloi?”\n\n“Lodi, son of Dunmorin, sir. As you say, my family mines the South Goloi Vein.”\n\n“A rich one, I hope. Silver?”\n\n“Gold, as it happens, sir.”\n\n“Ah, all the better!” The greybeard chuckled. “We are honored! I am Morits, son of Morits, who was himself the son of Morits. We are a sadly unimaginative lot, I’m afraid. I am the mayor of this cavern, which is rather a grand way to describe what is little more than a half-buried Man village!”\n\nLodi eyed the ceiling, which was reinforced with timbers. It was alarmingly close to the surface, even for a high town, if the hazy recollection of his descent was a reliable guide. Well, it held no fears for one who had spent as much time under the sky as he had. He looked at the dwarfess whom the mayor had not bothered to introduce. Not his wife or a local dignitary, then, which meant she was likely a healer. “And is it you, madam, I have to thank for the care I have received?”\n\n“It was our privilege to serve such a brave warrior of the Deep, son of Dunmorin.” She smiled and curtsied. “I am Mulma, wife to Bodel, son of Hodel.”\n\n“Charmed,” Lodi said, feeling considerably more foolish than brave. On the other hand, the formidable collection of his old scars, from the Amorran arenas as well as seven years of siege warfare prior, could hardly be denied under his present circumstances. Then his eyes narrowed. The two older dwarves were eyeing him in a suspiciously familiar manner. He had the distinct impression that they wanted something from him, and a moment later, Morits son of Morits confirmed it.\n\n“I see this is not the first time you have recovered from such grievous wounds.”\n\n“No, sir. I had some bad luck along the way.”\n\n“Would you say that you heal quickly, Lodi, son of Dunmorin?”\n\nHe looked down at the big pink scar in his side that an orc gladiator had given him on the sands and remembered the long days of sheer agony he’d spent tied to the back of a donkey on the hellish ride that had taken him to the Elflands and purchased his freedom in the end. “Quick enough. What do you need from me?”\n\n“Do you recall the young dwarfess who was in here previously?”\n\n“The one who told me not to talk to her?”\n\nThe elder dwarfess laughed, and the sparkle in her eyes seemed to take decades off her face. “Yes, that would be Myf. I’m afraid she has some unusual perspectives. The problem we have presently is that she is of one of the Deepest clans. She only came here to deliver some very particular fungi we had ordered from her family. But with the king placing the Heights under war law, none of our dwarves are permitted to leave the upper caverns.”\n\n“We need you to escort her below, son of Dunmorin,” the mayor clarified unnecessarily. “It seemed likely that you were intending to descend, so we thought perhaps you might be willing to see her safely to her clan.”\n\nLodi stroked his beard, such as it was. The lass didn’t sound like an ideal travel companion, but a silent one would be better than an overly talkative one. And she would have to pass through Iron Mountain if she was headed for the Heart of Fire, which was where the Deepest dwelled. “I can take her as far as Iron Mountain. Beyond that will depend upon the King. But if I can’t take her deeper, I vow I’ll find someone who can, someone reliable.”\n\n“What will depend upon the King?”\n\n“I’m Kingsguard.”\n\nMulma and the mayor looked at each other, visibly startled. “You’re Kingsguard?” the dwarfess said. “What are you doing in the Above?”\n\n“In a manner of speaking. I don’t do a lot of guarding anymore, but I still do a few odd jobs for His Majesty from time to time.” He smiled at the mayor’s discomfiture. “I’ll take care of the lass if the Bodel-wife here can get me back on my feet, or at least my arse, before the tunnel-train arrives. If you’re in the habit of trading with the Deepest, I can only assume this is a shaft terminus.”\n\n“Three days,” the mayor said, eyeing Lodi with a mix of suspicion and respect. He wasn’t the sort of dwarf to appreciate his sense of self-importance being trumped and Lodi’s offhand reference to the King of Iron Mountain had thrown him for a loss. “The next one is scheduled to arrive in three days. After that, with a war on, who can say?”\n\nLodi nodded and glanced at the bandages on the table. “Well, Madame Bodel-wife, if I have only three days to recover, we had better be sure any blood-rot is cleaned out, or the only thing accompanying your young Myf will be my corpse!”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1416, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch07_marcus-P1", "chapter": "ch07_marcus", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nLegio XVII — Marcus’s legion; Roman numerals as written.\nCavator — Marcus’s accepted agnomen; capital C.\nFrontinus — strategist cited on orc “devilries”; keep spelling.\nGorignia — prior goblin campaign; keep spelling.\nVia Pumilia — dwarvenway under the mountains; both words capitalized as the men’s name for it.\nIron Law / Law of the Eagles — legionary discipline codes; capitalize as written.\nSintas Tertius — primus-pilus name form used by the messenger; keep Sintas.\ncastra — legion camp; lowercase except sentence start.\ndecurion — cavalry officer rank; lowercase.\nBithnyan — horse breed Marcus knows; keep spelling.\nIncitatus — Fortex’s stallion name; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nMarcus rides back from the royal meeting through southern Savondir, accepts the agnomen Cavator at the Porta Praetoria, and enters the castra with de Forbonnais and Vitalis.\nInside the gate a crucified peasant screams in Savonnais; Marcus greets Trebonius and the senior officers, stows the royal liaison until dinner, and calls the staff to the command tent with word of bad news.\nIn the tent he tells them Corvus and the Sanctiff are dead by fire; he refuses a southward march, discloses Savonderic titles and orc-war pay, and calls for wine and a wax board.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nLegate of Legio XVII, agnomen Cavator, riding a gifted Savondese roan under knight escort. Alive on morning exercise outside the castra. Knows Corvus and the Sanctiff are dead; has chosen to hold east against the orc tendril rather than march for Amorr. Brooding on Frontinus’s allusive “devilries,” missing Michaelines, and the lack of a safe test engagement before the main orc body is weeks away. Does not yet know about the firewood patrol’s discovery.\n\nGirart de Forbonnais\nYoung Savondese comte and suspected kingsmage; not present on this ride. Marcus will not press him on magic among devout Amorrans while thinking through Frontinus.\n\nSintas Tertius\nPrimus pilus who has both guilty men under arrest; not on the road with Marcus, but named by the messenger.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“He did. He offered me something called a marquisat, which I understand is a larger province and a higher rank. I refused, of course.”\n\n“Why?” Tertius and Proculus asked at the same time.\n\n“I am of House Valerius,” Marcus answered simply. “I would not have accepted the crown, had he offered it.”\n\nThe men, somewhat to his surprise, burst out laughing. Marcus ignored them and continued. “What’s more important is that in addition to the lands and income he’s given Gaius Trebonius, the king has agreed to keep us supplied through next winter and meet our payroll for the duration of the summer campaign.”\n\n“Can’t collect if you’re dead,” Tertius said, rubbing skeptically at his unshaven chin. “Maybe that’s why he’s throwing us in the gap. Figures he can kill two birds with the one stone, getting rid of us and a whole passel of orcs at one throw.”\n\nMarcus shrugged. “Men, you want to honor the General. This is how we’re going to do it. We’re going to honor him by slaughtering these orcs and striking fear into the hearts of every man, orc, and goblin in the north.”\n\n“This is madness!” Tertius protested.\n\n“Clericus, you’ve never even fought the orc before!” Cassabus reminded him.\n\n“Cavator,” Marcus corrected the primus pilus. “I hear the men are calling me Cavator now. And I’ve decided they may as well, because I’ve come up with a plan, and as it happens, it is one that may involve a considerable quantity of digging.”\n\nThe senior officers looked at each other in silence. Then Proculus groaned and pretended to rub at his back.\n\n“Damn their numbers, General! Can’t we just face them in the open and die like men?”\n\nThe officers laughed again, but there was a faint edge of something that, in lesser men, might have been described as hysteria. Marcus only smiled, located a chair, and pointed to the flagon, relieved to see that they were still with him.\n\n“You’d better pour us that wine, Arvandus. Trebonius, see if you can locate a wax board and a stylus. This could take some time.”\n\n### NOTES\nMorning ride outside the legionary castra in eastern Savondir; dawn clearing to blue sky.\nTwo Savondese knights trail at respectful distance as an illusion of solitude.\nMain orc body a few weeks’ march east; tendril must be cut before reinforcement.\nScouts have already fixed tonight’s encampment location; march schedule set with the Savondese.\nWhispers of Iron Law breaches under Via Pumilia were never pursued.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nHe rides the big royal roan ahead of his knight escort and works the problem that will not leave him alone: orc numbers he can answer with training and iron, orc devil-magic he cannot, Frontinus alluding rather than describing, and no clean way to feel the enemy out before strategy forces a cut at the tendril. He is loading the dice in his head when a Second Cohort decurion gallops from camp.\n\nThe knights peel off at a look. Firewood duty; a cavalry patrol; one legionary using the other in an unnatural manner; both under arrest with Sintas Tertius. Whispers from the tunnels are suddenly fact. Marcus clears his throat, commits to address it straightaway, and thunders for the castra with the decurion at his heels. The scene ends on that return ride, before the command tent.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1500 words. Cool command voice under rising disgust; land on the gallop back, not the tribunal.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The roan he’d been gifted by the royal councillor was bigger and more powerful than the Bithnyan ones to which he was accustomed. A stallion, it was even bigger than Fortex’s Incitatus. Marcus supposed the larger horses were necessary, considering the heavy steel armor worn from head to toe by the Savondese cavalrymen, but he wondered about their stamina. The big roan was spirited, though, and made for a boon companion on Marcus’s morning rides that marked his only escape from the ever-present duties of the legion.\n\nHe wasn’t alone, of course, although the pair of knights who accompanied him were gracious enough to remain well behind him, in sight but far enough back that he could seldom hear them. It was only an illusion of solitude, but it was a welcome one nonetheless. He had much upon which to muse and this was the one time of day when he could be certain to be free from the regular series of interruptions that never failed to shatter his train of thought.\n\nThe sheer numbers of the orcs they would soon be facing was a challenge, but at least it was a known one. There were a myriad of ways in which a commander could address his numerical disadvantage, especially one who had the benefit of knowing his men were better trained, better armed, and more disciplined than the enemy. The orcs might be stronger and more powerful than the goblins his men had faced in Gorignia, but everything he had read, and everyone to whom he had spoken, assured him that he need have no fears for the centuries that threw back the charge of Legio VII.\n\nOf more concern was the unknown threat posed by the orcish devil-magic. Here the centurions who had experience fighting the orc were of little help, none of them having been privy to the discussions of either the generals or the Michaelines to whom the responsibility for negating the enemy magic fell. The Savondese accompanying him were too young to have any experience of it themselves and although he suspected de Forbonnais of being a kingsmage, the young noble wasn’t about to admit to being a warmage while surrounded by devout Amorran soldiers who might well be inclined to burn him first and ask permission of their commander later.\n\nNor was Frontinus of much assistance either. To his disappointment, there were relatively few descriptions of battles against the orc and the scanty references to enemy magic were more allusive than descriptive. It seemed the great strategist had found it wise to be delicate in his description of such forbidden tactics, even those utilized by the soiled and godless enemy.\n\nWhat was one to make of sentences such as this? “The accursed enemy’s devilries struck fear into Proximus’s right, prompting many a legionary to quake and turn white with fear.”\n\nWas it a spell that had been cast upon them? Had a demon been summoned, the sight of which had struck men dumb with terror? Or perhaps it was merely the illusion of a summoning, a false image designed to fool unwary and innocent minds? Or was “devilries” no reference to dark magics at all, but merely a description of the evil antics of the subhuman warriors? Frontinus did not say.\n\nSuch tactics as were described were precisely as Marcus had seen his father and Saturnius utilize in his first battle, when Legio XVII destroyed the two goblin tribes. Keen-eyed spotters were assigned to the ballistarii, who targeted the enemy magicians with artillery as soon as they were identified. Large and heavy rocks were an effective antidote to occult weaponry. But what if the orc-shamans were more capable than their goblin counterparts and smart enough to focus their spells on the ballistae first? It was bad enough to be without the priests of St. Michael, but if the artillery was destroyed, the legion would be forced to rely on its slingers and archers. And he could not find anyone to reliably tell him what sort of range these orc-shamans might have.\n\nWhat he really needed was a test engagement, a limited battle that would allow him to feel out the enemy’s capabilities without risking serious loss to his men. But the strategic situation didn’t allow for that, not with the main body of orcs only a few weeks’ march to the east. The strategic imperative was clear. He had to sever the tendril, cut it off and destroy it entirely before it could be reinforced. And that would require taking the sort of risk that he was extremely loathe to take.\n\nHe sighed. If there was one thing he had learned from Corvus, it was that strategy always trumped tactics. He had no choice but to roll the dice and gamble that his ignorance of the orc would hurt him less than the orc general’s ignorance of the legion. But if he had to roll the dice, perhaps he could arrange to see that the dice were loaded, however slightly, and increase the odds in his favor.\n\nA shout came from behind him, drawing his attention. He pulled at the reins, turning the roan around, and saw that a decurion was riding towards him at a gallop from the direction of the camp. Frowning, he kicked his horse into a trot; the two knights of his guard were already moving to intercept the incoming rider. What was it now? It could be anything, but of one thing he was certain: it wasn’t good news the decurion was bearing.\n\n“Lord Valerius!” The decurion saluted as Marcus approached. “The primus pilus sends me to request that you return to the camp immediately!”\n\n“Why?” He couldn’t place the decurion’s name, but recognized him as an officer of the Second. He looked around, and neither heard nor saw anything out of the ordinary. It didn’t appear they were under attack.\n\nThe cavalry officer glanced meaningfully at the two knights. They took the hint and kicked their horses into a trot towards the castra. “Two legionaries from the Fourth were out on firewood duty this morning. One of the cavalry patrols came across them…”\n\nHis voice trailed off.\n\n“And what?” Marcus demanded, his relief that the castra wasn’t under attack transforming itself into irritation. “A patrol came across them and what?”\n\n“One was using the other,” the decurion said, his eyes cast down and his voice tight with disgust. “In an unnatural manner.”\n\n“Great filth!” Marcus swore inadvertently. The decurion blinked, surprised by the unexpected outburst, but then nodded in confirmation.\n\n“I’m afraid so, general. The patrol escorted them back to the castra and Sintas Tertius has placed both men under arrest.”\n\nMarcus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The unsettling news would delay the morning’s march no matter how he elected to handle the situation. Such a gross violation of legionary law could not possibly be ignored, and the fact that the guilty men had been marched back to the camp and handed over to the primus pilus meant there was no chance that he could look the other way even if he were inclined to do so. Which was most certainly not the case.\n\nHe cleared his throat and spat. There had been whispers of men engaging in forbidden behavior during the long march through the dark tunnels of the Via Pumilia, as the dwarvenway deep under the mountains had come to be known. But they were whispers, rumors, nothing more, and none of the senior centurions had thought it wise to demoralize the legion by conducting what might turn out to be a hunt for an imaginary evil. The unwritten rule of the legion was that an officer would look past violations of the Iron Law so long as the violations were minor and the violator was discreet. It was, for example, customary to ignore illicit vows secretly exchanged with a camp wife, a little interest charged on a personal loan, or an overnight excursion from a castra that happened to be situated near the village of one’s birth.\n\n“Very well then,” Marcus told the decurion. “We’d better address this straightaway.”\n\nHe whistled at the two knights and waved them forward. After kicking the big roan into a gallop, he gained on them quickly, with the decurion only a length or two behind. As the sun rose higher and the red rays of dawn began to give way to a clear blue sky, the four horses thundered back towards the legionary encampment.\n", "completion": "The roan he’d been gifted by the royal councillor was bigger and more powerful than the Bithnyan ones to which he was accustomed. A stallion, it was even bigger than Fortex’s Incitatus. Marcus supposed the larger horses were necessary, considering the heavy steel armor worn from head to toe by the Savondese cavalrymen, but he wondered about their stamina. The big roan was spirited, though, and made for a boon companion on Marcus’s morning rides that marked his only escape from the ever-present duties of the legion.\n\nHe wasn’t alone, of course, although the pair of knights who accompanied him were gracious enough to remain well behind him, in sight but far enough back that he could seldom hear them. It was only an illusion of solitude, but it was a welcome one nonetheless. He had much upon which to muse and this was the one time of day when he could be certain to be free from the regular series of interruptions that never failed to shatter his train of thought.\n\nThe sheer numbers of the orcs they would soon be facing was a challenge, but at least it was a known one. There were a myriad of ways in which a commander could address his numerical disadvantage, especially one who had the benefit of knowing his men were better trained, better armed, and more disciplined than the enemy. The orcs might be stronger and more powerful than the goblins his men had faced in Gorignia, but everything he had read, and everyone to whom he had spoken, assured him that he need have no fears for the centuries that threw back the charge of Legio VII.\n\nOf more concern was the unknown threat posed by the orcish devil-magic. Here the centurions who had experience fighting the orc were of little help, none of them having been privy to the discussions of either the generals or the Michaelines to whom the responsibility for negating the enemy magic fell. The Savondese accompanying him were too young to have any experience of it themselves and although he suspected de Forbonnais of being a kingsmage, the young noble wasn’t about to admit to being a warmage while surrounded by devout Amorran soldiers who might well be inclined to burn him first and ask permission of their commander later.\n\nNor was Frontinus of much assistance either. To his disappointment, there were relatively few descriptions of battles against the orc and the scanty references to enemy magic were more allusive than descriptive. It seemed the great strategist had found it wise to be delicate in his description of such forbidden tactics, even those utilized by the soiled and godless enemy.\n\nWhat was one to make of sentences such as this? “The accursed enemy’s devilries struck fear into Proximus’s right, prompting many a legionary to quake and turn white with fear.”\n\nWas it a spell that had been cast upon them? Had a demon been summoned, the sight of which had struck men dumb with terror? Or perhaps it was merely the illusion of a summoning, a false image designed to fool unwary and innocent minds? Or was “devilries” no reference to dark magics at all, but merely a description of the evil antics of the subhuman warriors? Frontinus did not say.\n\nSuch tactics as were described were precisely as Marcus had seen his father and Saturnius utilize in his first battle, when Legio XVII destroyed the two goblin tribes. Keen-eyed spotters were assigned to the ballistarii, who targeted the enemy magicians with artillery as soon as they were identified. Large and heavy rocks were an effective antidote to occult weaponry. But what if the orc-shamans were more capable than their goblin counterparts and smart enough to focus their spells on the ballistae first? It was bad enough to be without the priests of St. Michael, but if the artillery was destroyed, the legion would be forced to rely on its slingers and archers. And he could not find anyone to reliably tell him what sort of range these orc-shamans might have.\n\nWhat he really needed was a test engagement, a limited battle that would allow him to feel out the enemy’s capabilities without risking serious loss to his men. But the strategic situation didn’t allow for that, not with the main body of orcs only a few weeks’ march to the east. The strategic imperative was clear. He had to sever the tendril, cut it off and destroy it entirely before it could be reinforced. And that would require taking the sort of risk that he was extremely loathe to take.\n\nHe sighed. If there was one thing he had learned from Corvus, it was that strategy always trumped tactics. He had no choice but to roll the dice and gamble that his ignorance of the orc would hurt him less than the orc general’s ignorance of the legion. But if he had to roll the dice, perhaps he could arrange to see that the dice were loaded, however slightly, and increase the odds in his favor.\n\nA shout came from behind him, drawing his attention. He pulled at the reins, turning the roan around, and saw that a decurion was riding towards him at a gallop from the direction of the camp. Frowning, he kicked his horse into a trot; the two knights of his guard were already moving to intercept the incoming rider. What was it now? It could be anything, but of one thing he was certain: it wasn’t good news the decurion was bearing.\n\n“Lord Valerius!” The decurion saluted as Marcus approached. “The primus pilus sends me to request that you return to the camp immediately!”\n\n“Why?” He couldn’t place the decurion’s name, but recognized him as an officer of the Second. He looked around, and neither heard nor saw anything out of the ordinary. It didn’t appear they were under attack.\n\nThe cavalry officer glanced meaningfully at the two knights. They took the hint and kicked their horses into a trot towards the castra. “Two legionaries from the Fourth were out on firewood duty this morning. One of the cavalry patrols came across them…”\n\nHis voice trailed off.\n\n“And what?” Marcus demanded, his relief that the castra wasn’t under attack transforming itself into irritation. “A patrol came across them and what?”\n\n“One was using the other,” the decurion said, his eyes cast down and his voice tight with disgust. “In an unnatural manner.”\n\n“Great filth!” Marcus swore inadvertently. The decurion blinked, surprised by the unexpected outburst, but then nodded in confirmation.\n\n“I’m afraid so, general. The patrol escorted them back to the castra and Sintas Tertius has placed both men under arrest.”\n\nMarcus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The unsettling news would delay the morning’s march no matter how he elected to handle the situation. Such a gross violation of legionary law could not possibly be ignored, and the fact that the guilty men had been marched back to the camp and handed over to the primus pilus meant there was no chance that he could look the other way even if he were inclined to do so. Which was most certainly not the case.\n\nHe cleared his throat and spat. There had been whispers of men engaging in forbidden behavior during the long march through the dark tunnels of the Via Pumilia, as the dwarvenway deep under the mountains had come to be known. But they were whispers, rumors, nothing more, and none of the senior centurions had thought it wise to demoralize the legion by conducting what might turn out to be a hunt for an imaginary evil. The unwritten rule of the legion was that an officer would look past violations of the Iron Law so long as the violations were minor and the violator was discreet. It was, for example, customary to ignore illicit vows secretly exchanged with a camp wife, a little interest charged on a personal loan, or an overnight excursion from a castra that happened to be situated near the village of one’s birth.\n\n“Very well then,” Marcus told the decurion. “We’d better address this straightaway.”\n\nHe whistled at the two knights and waved them forward. After kicking the big roan into a gallop, he gained on them quickly, with the decurion only a length or two behind. As the sun rose higher and the red rays of dawn began to give way to a clear blue sky, the four horses thundered back towards the legionary encampment.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1442, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch07_marcus-P2", "chapter": "ch07_marcus", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nfustuarium — clubbing execution by tentmates; keep Latin form.\ndecapitatio — beheading alternative; keep Latin form.\nsacramentum — legionary oath; lowercase.\ncontubernales / contubernii — tentmates; Latin plurals as written.\nClaudius Cerficius Fuscus / Quintus Annius — condemned pair; full names at first address.\nLongus Avso — optio who traded places; keep Longus Avso.\nMarcus Caecilius — optio of Annius’s century; keep form.\nClemens — executioner centurion’s ironic cognomen; capital C.\nFather Gennadius — legion priest; Father as address.\nModus Austeris — harsh enemy-territory discipline; both words capitalized.\nChalonu / Vakhuyu — goblin tribes of the prior war; keep spellings.\nLaw of the Eagles — capitalize as written.\nvitis / flagrum — centurion’s vine-staff and slave scourge; Latin forms.\n\n### STORY\nMarcus rides back from the royal meeting through southern Savondir, accepts Cavator, and in the command tent tells his seniors Corvus and the Sanctiff are dead while refusing a southward march.\nOn a morning ride he is recalled by a Second Cohort decurion: two legionaries caught in an unnatural act on firewood duty, both arrested by Sintas Tertius; he gallops for the castra to address it.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nJust back from the ride; summoned Father Gennadius, Proculus, and Trebonius Lecerus to the command tent. Determined not to let the march schedule dictate justice; hand already shaking over wine at the thought of commanding blood. Remembers Corvus standing dry-eyed when Fortex died.\n\nFather Gennadius\nShort middle-aged priest; recovering weight from the underground march. No mercy for abomination; demands confession before execution.\n\nCaius Proculus\nPrimus pilus; eager for the prescribed punishment and an on-time march.\n\nTrebonius Lecerus\nTribune laticlavius; angry that the pair were not even contubernales; wants them confessed, killed, and the column moving toward thirty thousand orcs.\n\nClaudius Cerficius Fuscus\nBalding unshaven legionary ~30; planned the exchange; unrepentant.\n\nQuintus Annius\nBeardless youth younger than Marcus; weeping; popular with his tent.\n\nLongus Avso\nOptio who traded duty places with Fuscus; ferret-chinned; not yet aware he will be flogged.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“One was using the other,” the decurion said, his eyes cast down and his voice tight with disgust. “In an unnatural manner.”\n\n“Great filth!” Marcus swore inadvertently. The decurion blinked, surprised by the unexpected outburst, but then nodded in confirmation.\n\n“I’m afraid so, general. The patrol escorted them back to the castra and Sintas Tertius has placed both men under arrest.”\n\nMarcus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The unsettling news would delay the morning’s march no matter how he elected to handle the situation. Such a gross violation of legionary law could not possibly be ignored, and the fact that the guilty men had been marched back to the camp and handed over to the primus pilus meant there was no chance that he could look the other way even if he were inclined to do so. Which was most certainly not the case.\n\nHe cleared his throat and spat. There had been whispers of men engaging in forbidden behavior during the long march through the dark tunnels of the Via Pumilia, as the dwarvenway deep under the mountains had come to be known. But they were whispers, rumors, nothing more, and none of the senior centurions had thought it wise to demoralize the legion by conducting what might turn out to be a hunt for an imaginary evil. The unwritten rule of the legion was that an officer would look past violations of the Iron Law so long as the violations were minor and the violator was discreet. It was, for example, customary to ignore illicit vows secretly exchanged with a camp wife, a little interest charged on a personal loan, or an overnight excursion from a castra that happened to be situated near the village of one’s birth.\n\n“Very well then,” Marcus told the decurion. “We’d better address this straightaway.”\n\nHe whistled at the two knights and waved them forward. After kicking the big roan into a gallop, he gained on them quickly, with the decurion only a length or two behind. As the sun rose higher and the red rays of dawn began to give way to a clear blue sky, the four horses thundered back towards the legionary encampment.\n\n### NOTES\nCommand tent first; then the camp tribunal / makeshift podium before nearly five thousand.\nTwo wooden stumps; Clemens’s execution axe — the same that killed Marcus’s cousin.\nAnnius’s contubernales carry clubs for a quick kill; Fuscus’s stand unarmed, intending to draw it out.\nFustuarium is the Law’s default; Marcus will commute to decapitatio.\nMarch still required to reach the scouted site before nightfall.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nIn the tent he makes Gennadius argue for mercy and gets none; Proculus and Trebonius want the pair confessed, killed, and the legion moving. He assents, orders the assembly, and walks to the tribunal sick in the stomach, hand still unsteady from wine.\n\nOn the podium he condemns Fuscus and Annius under the Law of the Eagles, then sentences Longus Avso — who only traded places — to a stroke for every blow of a fustuarium. He commutes the condemned to the axe instead, lets Gennadius shrive Annius, and when Fuscus refuses confession Marcus respects the courage, returns the phantom salute, and turns his back on the thud. Avso takes two strokes. Marcus addresses the legion on discipline without Modus Austeris among Savonners, forbids unauthorized duty swaps on pain of ten lashes, and orders the march inside the hour as Proculus bawls the order. The scene ends as Marcus leaves the stairs, column not yet under way.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2800 words. Unsentimental justice; Marcus’s nausea stays inward. Land when Proculus takes the march order — do not start the road talk.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Make the case for mercy,” Marcus demanded of Father Gennadius. “If you can.” He had summoned the legion’s priest, along with its senior centurion and the tribune laticlavius, now dignified with the cognomen Lecerus, to his command tent, where they were discussing the correct way to deal with the incident. Proculus, the primus pilus, was eager to subject the two men, Claudius Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius, to the prescribed punishment and get the legion on the march without further delay, but Marcus was determined not to let military exigencies dictate justice. So long as they reached the location identified by the scouts before nightfall, they would lose nothing from the schedule set by the Savondese.\n\nThe short, middle-aged cleric, who was already to regain some of the weight he had lost on their long march underground, shook his head. “There is no case for it, Marcus Valerius. There can be no mercy where abomination is concerned. The Law of the Eagles is clear, as are the consequences for breaking it. My sole concern, indeed, I would go so far as to call it my sole demand, is that the guilty men be given the opportunity to confess themselves before being executed. They must die, but I would not see even creatures such as them damned.”\n\n“I don’t understand how this could have happened!” Trebonius said angrily. “They are not even contubernales! How is it that they were out gathering firewood together in the first place?”\n\n“I asked Longus Avso that,” Proculus answered. “Fuscus arranged to trade places with another member of Annius’s tent. They was planning it. If Annius had been only whoring himself out, we might give a thought to spare Fuscus, but as it stands, there ain’t no doubt about either of them.”\n\n“Who is Avso?” asked Father Gennadius.\n\n“Their optio.”\n\n“Ah, yes, of course,” the priest nodded. “Then he would have been in a position to know the duty roster.”\n\n“If they planned this, then they knew the risks they were taking,” Trebonius said. He sniffed, his dark eyes devoid of mercy. “Proculus is right, Marcus. Confess them, kill them, and get the men on the move. There are thirty thousand orcs waiting for us four days’ march to the east. We have no time for these trivialities.”\n\nMarcus looked at each man in turn. They met his eyes without flinching. All three of them, centurion, priest, and tribune, were in one accord. He closed his eyes, uttered a silent plea for wisdom, then nodded his assent. “Call the assembly, Lecerus. Have their centurion bring both of the accuseds’ contubernii to the fore and see that he informs them of their customary responsibility, Caius Proculus. And Father, please give both men the opportunity to confess and be cleansed.”\n\nFather Gennadius nodded as the two officers saluted, then departed. Marcus watched them leave the tent, feeling troubled but knowing he had done as his duty to the legion demanded. Was this how his father had felt when news of Fortex’s fatal disobedience arrived? Had Corvus ever known this sick and empty feeling at the bottom of his stomach? If so, he had shown no sign of it while standing before the legion, not even when the executioner’s axe had struck off his own nephew’s head right before his eyes.\n\nBut despite his best efforts to maintain his equanimity, Marcus found that his hand shook when he poured himself a goblet of wine. He made a few desultory efforts to gather his belongings, then gave up, called in a guard, and told him to summon the centurion responsible for packing the command tent. The officer and his men had just arrived and were beginning to go about their business when the horn summoning the assembly was blown. The centurion looked at Marcus quizzically, as if to ask if he and his men should continue with their preparations for the day’s march.\n\n“Carry on,” Marcus told him. The sooner they would be able to leave this place of blood that would be shed at his command, the better.\n\nHe took his time in walking to the tribunal, lost amidst all the noise and hubbub of men rushing to the center of the camp, many of them trying to finish putting on and buckling their armor as they ran, greaves in hand and helmets under arms. It was a good sign, he thought, that they obeyed with such alacrity. They knew as well as he and the senior centurions did that safety on the battlefield was to be found primarily in iron discipline. But discipline was owed by a commander to his men as surely as they owed it to him. He consoled himself with that thought as he stood below the crudely erected tribunal, watching one officer after another mount the wooden steps, and waiting for Proculus to let him know that he should take his place among them upon the makeshift podium.\n\nAt last, the noise of the men taking their places died down. The primus pilus beckoned him forward as a hush fell over the legion. He took the five steps without hesitation, although feeling more as if he was mounting the gallows himself than assuming the place of judgment. Nearly five thousand faces looked up at him, but he had eyes for only the two men standing stripped and bound at the front of the legion, both of them flanked by seven armored men. To either side of Fuscus and Annius stood their centurion and their optio, and behind them, their signifier held the century’s red standard that was marked with a large III sewn in yellow thread.\n\nAs he reached the front of the podium and came to parade rest, his arms behind his back, there was a tremendous clash as the entire legion slammed their fists against their breastplates. The entire legion present, save the two men with their hands bound before them, stood there at attention. Fuscus, a balding, unshaven man in his early thirties stood his ground bravely, shameless and glowering unrepentantly up at Marcus. Annius, on the other hand, was a beardless youth younger than Marcus. He was red-eyed from crying and nearly lost his balance when he startled at the crashing sound of the legionary salute. Only Caecilius’s stretched-out hand prevented the young soldier from falling over.\n\n“Claudius Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius, you have violated the laws of God and Amorr by your shameful actions this day.” Marcus addressed them loudly enough for the rear ranks to hear him. “Your crimes were witnessed and you have both admitted your guilt. As you admit to having broken your sworn sacramentum, I pronounce you guilty and sentence you to death by fustuarium, as per the Law of the Eagles.”\n\nAnnius sobbed aloud and dropped to his knees. Fuscus merely stared at Marcus and spat contemptuously on the ground.\n\nMarcus looked beyond them to the two pairs of seven men behind them. It appeared Annius had been popular with his tentmates. Their faces were white, their jaws clenched, and each of the seven bore a wooden club. From that, Marcus knew they intended for their young contubernalis to die as quickly and mercifully as possible. The tent-companions of Fuscus, however, were unarmed, and several of them were staring at the man with expressions of savage satisfaction. They clearly intended to draw out the beating and make him suffer before he died. Combined with Fuscus’s surly and unrepentant manner, Marcus surmised that Annius was not the first to be the subject of the older man’s blandishments, although he hoped the youth had been the first to succumb.\n\n“Come forward, Longus Avso,” Marcus declared.\n\nThere was a moment’s perturbation among the two groups of contubernales as the men looked at each other, then one man stepped uncertainly forward, the legionary who had exchanged places with Fuscus. He was tall and young, but with a weak chin that made him look rather like a ferret. A buzzing rose up from the ranks as the men asked each other what Marcus might be intending.\n\n“General!” Avso saluted.\n\n“Claudius Longus Avso, you have committed no crime. However, as a result of your self-centered indiscipline, Legio XVII has been deprived of two soldiers on the eve of battle. Therefore, I sentence you to be flogged, one stroke for every blow required to execute the sentence pronounced upon Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius. Marcus Caecilius, strip him and prepare him for the flogging!”\n\nAvso reeled in horror, almost stumbling backward, upon hearing the sentence. He knew, as did the assembled legion, that such a punishment might well amount to a death sentence in its own right. The vitis carried by each centurion could open a man’s back in ten strokes, and while it wasn’t nearly as brutal as the flagrum used on slaves and the very worst malefactors, enough strokes could kill a man. His life would depend upon how quickly his fellows killed their guilty men. As Caecilius, the optio, grabbed him roughly from behind and began unbuckling his armor, Avso did not protest, but stood there unresisting, silent and shaking with fear.\n\nMarcus returned his attention to the two condemned men. “Claudius Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius, as the legate of Legio XVII, I cannot and will not show you mercy. However, in light of the good reports I have had of your conduct during the war against the Chalonu and Vakhuyu, and at the Battle of the Three Legions as well, I have decided to grant your centurion’s request that you die by decapitatio instead of fustuarium.”\n\nHe gestured and two junior centurions brought out a pair of wooden stumps. A third centurion, a big, powerful man, who, in light of the circumstances, bore the ironic cognomen Clemens, came out from behind the platform, bearing the same large axe that had taken Marcus’s cousin’s life.\n\nThe relief on Avso’s face was as palpable as the terror on Annius’s. The news that his death would be a speedy one did not appear to cheer the young man in the slightest. But then Father Gennadius appeared, from where Marcus did not see, and whispered something to the young man that seemed to calm him considerably. Fuscus resisted momentarily, but his centurion expertly forced his subordinate to his knees, after which the recalcitrant man gave himself up to his fate and obediently lay his head on the block. Avso did likewise, with the gentler assistance of the optio, Caecilius.\n\nClemens hefted the executioner’s axe in both hands and looked up at Marcus. Marcus, not wishing to prolong Annius’s suffering, nodded in the direction of the younger man. The centurion raised the axe, and it was over in a flash. The ranks murmured with approval. The centurion shook his dripping axe, then moved onto Fuscus, looking up again at Marcus for the sign to proceed. But when Marcus glanced at Father Gennadius, the little priest shook his head. Marcus held up his hand, and Clemens dutifully stepped back.\n\nThe ranks began to shift and murmur as Marcus walked down the stairs to the ground and around the platform to where the convicted man was still kneeling with his head on the block. He ignored the blood and the headless body of Annius; fortunately, the young man had been permitted to void his bowels beforehand, so the smell was less noxious than it otherwise might have been.\n\n“Stand him up,” he told the centurion, and the man pulled Fuscus to his feet.\n\n“You have not been shriven?” he asked the older man. “You will not avail yourself of one last chance to confess your sins?”\n\nFuscus had small, mean eyes and sharp features that were too delicate for his broad-jawed face. He remained unrepentant, as far as Marcus could tell, although enough of his legionary discipline held to prevent him from being entirely disrespectful.\n\n“I did what I did. I am what I am and I ain’t sorry.” The man shrugged. “You can call me whatever you want. Just get it over with, General. I ain’t afraid and I ain’t asking for no mercy.”\n\n“And I will show you none, Cerficius Fuscus.” Marcus said. “I respect your courage, Fuscus. You do well not to fear me. I can only kill your body. But you would be wise to fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Hell.”\n\nThe condemned man wrinkled his lip and snorted. “Ain’t nobody can kill what ain’t there.”\n\n“Then you will not reconsider?”\n\nFuscus shook his head. Despite his bare torso, his bound hands, and his disheveled appearance, the disgraced legionary bore himself with all the pride of a patrician Senator. “No, General. I won’t. But my thanks for making this quick. I’d salute you, but for these.”\n\nHe lifted his bound hands with a rueful grin.\n\n“I will accept the thought for the deed,” Marcus answered gravely, then lightly touched his fist to his breast to return the phantom salute. “Very well, Claudius Cerficius. Let it be as you will have it, and I pray God will have mercy on your soul nevertheless.” He nodded to Clemens, turned his back on the doomed man, then walked back around the platform. As he approached the stairs, he heard a meaty thud behind him. By the time he had returned to the podium, Fuscus’s head was lying beside Annius’s on the bloody ground.\n\nLongus Avso took his two strokes bravely, obviously relieved to be receiving considerably fewer than he had feared. Marcus rather was less concerned that the man had learned his lesson than that the rest of the men had profited by it; he had no doubt that Avso would not make the same mistake again. As the bare-chested optio was led away by his centurion, his back discolored by two red stripes, Marcus addressed the legion.\n\n“Legio XVII, soon we will fight as brothers-in-arms once more. Together, we have known victory, and together we have tasted defeat. It is my intention that we will once more stand victorious on the field of battle, and it is to that end that I have enforced the Law of Eagles here today. This is my duty to you, both as your legate and as a true heir of your House Martial.”\n\nA few scattered cries of “Valerius” met his reference to his House, but for the most part the legionaries were silent, waiting to learn if there were further surprises in store for them.\n\n“In Gorignia, Marcus Saturnius and my father subjected you to the Modus Austeris, as you were in enemy territory. I will not do so, for the Savonners are not our enemies. But this does not mean you may relax your discipline, as in a mere matter of days we will be facing a savage and bestial enemy. The orcs make war like a pack of wild beasts, whereas we make a science of slaughter, as the goblins of the Chalonu and Vakhuyu tribes learned to their detriment. Therefore, let it be known that any man who exchanges his duty on the duty roster with another without first receiving permission from either his optio or his centurion will receive ten lashes!”\n\nThere was little protest at this aside from the usual murmuring; it was apparent that the men were expecting news that was more dramatic or related to the upcoming battle. For a moment, he was tempted to tell them about his father’s death, but he resisted the impulse. He was not here to entertain them or win them over, he simply wished to avoid any further incidents of this kind. Telling them risked demoralization, and in the meantime, they had leagues to cover and they were already late.\n\n“We will march inside the hour,” he concluded, and without further ado, he turned his back and signaled for the primus pilus to take the podium. Proculus was already bawling out the day’s order of march before he had descended again from the stairs.\n", "completion": "“Make the case for mercy,” Marcus demanded of Father Gennadius. “If you can.” He had summoned the legion’s priest, along with its senior centurion and the tribune laticlavius, now dignified with the cognomen Lecerus, to his command tent, where they were discussing the correct way to deal with the incident. Proculus, the primus pilus, was eager to subject the two men, Claudius Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius, to the prescribed punishment and get the legion on the march without further delay, but Marcus was determined not to let military exigencies dictate justice. So long as they reached the location identified by the scouts before nightfall, they would lose nothing from the schedule set by the Savondese.\n\nThe short, middle-aged cleric, who was already to regain some of the weight he had lost on their long march underground, shook his head. “There is no case for it, Marcus Valerius. There can be no mercy where abomination is concerned. The Law of the Eagles is clear, as are the consequences for breaking it. My sole concern, indeed, I would go so far as to call it my sole demand, is that the guilty men be given the opportunity to confess themselves before being executed. They must die, but I would not see even creatures such as them damned.”\n\n“I don’t understand how this could have happened!” Trebonius said angrily. “They are not even contubernales! How is it that they were out gathering firewood together in the first place?”\n\n“I asked Longus Avso that,” Proculus answered. “Fuscus arranged to trade places with another member of Annius’s tent. They was planning it. If Annius had been only whoring himself out, we might give a thought to spare Fuscus, but as it stands, there ain’t no doubt about either of them.”\n\n“Who is Avso?” asked Father Gennadius.\n\n“Their optio.”\n\n“Ah, yes, of course,” the priest nodded. “Then he would have been in a position to know the duty roster.”\n\n“If they planned this, then they knew the risks they were taking,” Trebonius said. He sniffed, his dark eyes devoid of mercy. “Proculus is right, Marcus. Confess them, kill them, and get the men on the move. There are thirty thousand orcs waiting for us four days’ march to the east. We have no time for these trivialities.”\n\nMarcus looked at each man in turn. They met his eyes without flinching. All three of them, centurion, priest, and tribune, were in one accord. He closed his eyes, uttered a silent plea for wisdom, then nodded his assent. “Call the assembly, Lecerus. Have their centurion bring both of the accuseds’ contubernii to the fore and see that he informs them of their customary responsibility, Caius Proculus. And Father, please give both men the opportunity to confess and be cleansed.”\n\nFather Gennadius nodded as the two officers saluted, then departed. Marcus watched them leave the tent, feeling troubled but knowing he had done as his duty to the legion demanded. Was this how his father had felt when news of Fortex’s fatal disobedience arrived? Had Corvus ever known this sick and empty feeling at the bottom of his stomach? If so, he had shown no sign of it while standing before the legion, not even when the executioner’s axe had struck off his own nephew’s head right before his eyes.\n\nBut despite his best efforts to maintain his equanimity, Marcus found that his hand shook when he poured himself a goblet of wine. He made a few desultory efforts to gather his belongings, then gave up, called in a guard, and told him to summon the centurion responsible for packing the command tent. The officer and his men had just arrived and were beginning to go about their business when the horn summoning the assembly was blown. The centurion looked at Marcus quizzically, as if to ask if he and his men should continue with their preparations for the day’s march.\n\n“Carry on,” Marcus told him. The sooner they would be able to leave this place of blood that would be shed at his command, the better.\n\nHe took his time in walking to the tribunal, lost amidst all the noise and hubbub of men rushing to the center of the camp, many of them trying to finish putting on and buckling their armor as they ran, greaves in hand and helmets under arms. It was a good sign, he thought, that they obeyed with such alacrity. They knew as well as he and the senior centurions did that safety on the battlefield was to be found primarily in iron discipline. But discipline was owed by a commander to his men as surely as they owed it to him. He consoled himself with that thought as he stood below the crudely erected tribunal, watching one officer after another mount the wooden steps, and waiting for Proculus to let him know that he should take his place among them upon the makeshift podium.\n\nAt last, the noise of the men taking their places died down. The primus pilus beckoned him forward as a hush fell over the legion. He took the five steps without hesitation, although feeling more as if he was mounting the gallows himself than assuming the place of judgment. Nearly five thousand faces looked up at him, but he had eyes for only the two men standing stripped and bound at the front of the legion, both of them flanked by seven armored men. To either side of Fuscus and Annius stood their centurion and their optio, and behind them, their signifier held the century’s red standard that was marked with a large III sewn in yellow thread.\n\nAs he reached the front of the podium and came to parade rest, his arms behind his back, there was a tremendous clash as the entire legion slammed their fists against their breastplates. The entire legion present, save the two men with their hands bound before them, stood there at attention. Fuscus, a balding, unshaven man in his early thirties stood his ground bravely, shameless and glowering unrepentantly up at Marcus. Annius, on the other hand, was a beardless youth younger than Marcus. He was red-eyed from crying and nearly lost his balance when he startled at the crashing sound of the legionary salute. Only Caecilius’s stretched-out hand prevented the young soldier from falling over.\n\n“Claudius Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius, you have violated the laws of God and Amorr by your shameful actions this day.” Marcus addressed them loudly enough for the rear ranks to hear him. “Your crimes were witnessed and you have both admitted your guilt. As you admit to having broken your sworn sacramentum, I pronounce you guilty and sentence you to death by fustuarium, as per the Law of the Eagles.”\n\nAnnius sobbed aloud and dropped to his knees. Fuscus merely stared at Marcus and spat contemptuously on the ground.\n\nMarcus looked beyond them to the two pairs of seven men behind them. It appeared Annius had been popular with his tentmates. Their faces were white, their jaws clenched, and each of the seven bore a wooden club. From that, Marcus knew they intended for their young contubernalis to die as quickly and mercifully as possible. The tent-companions of Fuscus, however, were unarmed, and several of them were staring at the man with expressions of savage satisfaction. They clearly intended to draw out the beating and make him suffer before he died. Combined with Fuscus’s surly and unrepentant manner, Marcus surmised that Annius was not the first to be the subject of the older man’s blandishments, although he hoped the youth had been the first to succumb.\n\n“Come forward, Longus Avso,” Marcus declared.\n\nThere was a moment’s perturbation among the two groups of contubernales as the men looked at each other, then one man stepped uncertainly forward, the legionary who had exchanged places with Fuscus. He was tall and young, but with a weak chin that made him look rather like a ferret. A buzzing rose up from the ranks as the men asked each other what Marcus might be intending.\n\n“General!” Avso saluted.\n\n“Claudius Longus Avso, you have committed no crime. However, as a result of your self-centered indiscipline, Legio XVII has been deprived of two soldiers on the eve of battle. Therefore, I sentence you to be flogged, one stroke for every blow required to execute the sentence pronounced upon Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius. Marcus Caecilius, strip him and prepare him for the flogging!”\n\nAvso reeled in horror, almost stumbling backward, upon hearing the sentence. He knew, as did the assembled legion, that such a punishment might well amount to a death sentence in its own right. The vitis carried by each centurion could open a man’s back in ten strokes, and while it wasn’t nearly as brutal as the flagrum used on slaves and the very worst malefactors, enough strokes could kill a man. His life would depend upon how quickly his fellows killed their guilty men. As Caecilius, the optio, grabbed him roughly from behind and began unbuckling his armor, Avso did not protest, but stood there unresisting, silent and shaking with fear.\n\nMarcus returned his attention to the two condemned men. “Claudius Cerficius Fuscus and Quintus Annius, as the legate of Legio XVII, I cannot and will not show you mercy. However, in light of the good reports I have had of your conduct during the war against the Chalonu and Vakhuyu, and at the Battle of the Three Legions as well, I have decided to grant your centurion’s request that you die by decapitatio instead of fustuarium.”\n\nHe gestured and two junior centurions brought out a pair of wooden stumps. A third centurion, a big, powerful man, who, in light of the circumstances, bore the ironic cognomen Clemens, came out from behind the platform, bearing the same large axe that had taken Marcus’s cousin’s life.\n\nThe relief on Avso’s face was as palpable as the terror on Annius’s. The news that his death would be a speedy one did not appear to cheer the young man in the slightest. But then Father Gennadius appeared, from where Marcus did not see, and whispered something to the young man that seemed to calm him considerably. Fuscus resisted momentarily, but his centurion expertly forced his subordinate to his knees, after which the recalcitrant man gave himself up to his fate and obediently lay his head on the block. Avso did likewise, with the gentler assistance of the optio, Caecilius.\n\nClemens hefted the executioner’s axe in both hands and looked up at Marcus. Marcus, not wishing to prolong Annius’s suffering, nodded in the direction of the younger man. The centurion raised the axe, and it was over in a flash. The ranks murmured with approval. The centurion shook his dripping axe, then moved onto Fuscus, looking up again at Marcus for the sign to proceed. But when Marcus glanced at Father Gennadius, the little priest shook his head. Marcus held up his hand, and Clemens dutifully stepped back.\n\nThe ranks began to shift and murmur as Marcus walked down the stairs to the ground and around the platform to where the convicted man was still kneeling with his head on the block. He ignored the blood and the headless body of Annius; fortunately, the young man had been permitted to void his bowels beforehand, so the smell was less noxious than it otherwise might have been.\n\n“Stand him up,” he told the centurion, and the man pulled Fuscus to his feet.\n\n“You have not been shriven?” he asked the older man. “You will not avail yourself of one last chance to confess your sins?”\n\nFuscus had small, mean eyes and sharp features that were too delicate for his broad-jawed face. He remained unrepentant, as far as Marcus could tell, although enough of his legionary discipline held to prevent him from being entirely disrespectful.\n\n“I did what I did. I am what I am and I ain’t sorry.” The man shrugged. “You can call me whatever you want. Just get it over with, General. I ain’t afraid and I ain’t asking for no mercy.”\n\n“And I will show you none, Cerficius Fuscus.” Marcus said. “I respect your courage, Fuscus. You do well not to fear me. I can only kill your body. But you would be wise to fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Hell.”\n\nThe condemned man wrinkled his lip and snorted. “Ain’t nobody can kill what ain’t there.”\n\n“Then you will not reconsider?”\n\nFuscus shook his head. Despite his bare torso, his bound hands, and his disheveled appearance, the disgraced legionary bore himself with all the pride of a patrician Senator. “No, General. I won’t. But my thanks for making this quick. I’d salute you, but for these.”\n\nHe lifted his bound hands with a rueful grin.\n\n“I will accept the thought for the deed,” Marcus answered gravely, then lightly touched his fist to his breast to return the phantom salute. “Very well, Claudius Cerficius. Let it be as you will have it, and I pray God will have mercy on your soul nevertheless.” He nodded to Clemens, turned his back on the doomed man, then walked back around the platform. As he approached the stairs, he heard a meaty thud behind him. By the time he had returned to the podium, Fuscus’s head was lying beside Annius’s on the bloody ground.\n\nLongus Avso took his two strokes bravely, obviously relieved to be receiving considerably fewer than he had feared. Marcus rather was less concerned that the man had learned his lesson than that the rest of the men had profited by it; he had no doubt that Avso would not make the same mistake again. As the bare-chested optio was led away by his centurion, his back discolored by two red stripes, Marcus addressed the legion.\n\n“Legio XVII, soon we will fight as brothers-in-arms once more. Together, we have known victory, and together we have tasted defeat. It is my intention that we will once more stand victorious on the field of battle, and it is to that end that I have enforced the Law of Eagles here today. This is my duty to you, both as your legate and as a true heir of your House Martial.”\n\nA few scattered cries of “Valerius” met his reference to his House, but for the most part the legionaries were silent, waiting to learn if there were further surprises in store for them.\n\n“In Gorignia, Marcus Saturnius and my father subjected you to the Modus Austeris, as you were in enemy territory. I will not do so, for the Savonners are not our enemies. But this does not mean you may relax your discipline, as in a mere matter of days we will be facing a savage and bestial enemy. The orcs make war like a pack of wild beasts, whereas we make a science of slaughter, as the goblins of the Chalonu and Vakhuyu tribes learned to their detriment. Therefore, let it be known that any man who exchanges his duty on the duty roster with another without first receiving permission from either his optio or his centurion will receive ten lashes!”\n\nThere was little protest at this aside from the usual murmuring; it was apparent that the men were expecting news that was more dramatic or related to the upcoming battle. For a moment, he was tempted to tell them about his father’s death, but he resisted the impulse. He was not here to entertain them or win them over, he simply wished to avoid any further incidents of this kind. Telling them risked demoralization, and in the meantime, they had leagues to cover and they were already late.\n\n“We will march inside the hour,” he concluded, and without further ado, he turned his back and signaled for the primus pilus to take the podium. Proculus was already bawling out the day’s order of march before he had descended again from the stairs.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2711, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch07_marcus-P3", "chapter": "ch07_marcus", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nGirart de Forbonnais / Comte de Ilyois — Savondese royal liaison; keep French forms.\nl’Académie des Sage Arts / l’École Militaire de Saint-Michel — school names; keep French accents and capitals.\nMichelards — young military students of Saint-Michel; capital M.\nMilitaire Royale — Savondese military; keep form.\nThauronian Guard — royal household troops; both words capitalized.\nla baguette magique — de Forbonnais’s crude joke; keep French.\nSavonners / Savondese — Marcus’s shifting labels for them; keep both forms as used.\nManlius Proximus — Frontinus’s named legate in the quoted passage.\nLady Shadowsong — elven contact Marcus will not admit as a magic tutor.\nLutèce — not yet; stay with École/Michelards vocabulary here.\n\n### STORY\nOn a morning ride Marcus is recalled for an Iron Law breach: two legionaries caught in an unnatural act; he returns to camp at a gallop.\nIn tribunal he condemns Fuscus and Annius, flogs the enabling optio Avso with two strokes after commuting the pair to the axe, addresses the legion on discipline, and orders the march inside the hour.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nOn the march past mid-day toward the scouted evening camp; foul mood after the morning’s blood; irritated that Savondese horse deliveries are half what was promised. Still hunting usable intelligence on orc magic without touching sorcery.\n\nGirart de Forbonnais\nUnarmored among the Savondese knights; long brown hair in a blue ribbon; probing Marcus about Amorran discipline and offering Michelard knowledge of orc dark magics. Suspected kingsmage; Marcus will not countenance spells even in extremis.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Legio XVII, soon we will fight as brothers-in-arms once more. Together, we have known victory, and together we have tasted defeat. It is my intention that we will once more stand victorious on the field of battle, and it is to that end that I have enforced the Law of Eagles here today. This is my duty to you, both as your legate and as a true heir of your House Martial.”\n\nA few scattered cries of “Valerius” met his reference to his House, but for the most part the legionaries were silent, waiting to learn if there were further surprises in store for them.\n\n“In Gorignia, Marcus Saturnius and my father subjected you to the Modus Austeris, as you were in enemy territory. I will not do so, for the Savonners are not our enemies. But this does not mean you may relax your discipline, as in a mere matter of days we will be facing a savage and bestial enemy. The orcs make war like a pack of wild beasts, whereas we make a science of slaughter, as the goblins of the Chalonu and Vakhuyu tribes learned to their detriment. Therefore, let it be known that any man who exchanges his duty on the duty roster with another without first receiving permission from either his optio or his centurion will receive ten lashes!”\n\nThere was little protest at this aside from the usual murmuring; it was apparent that the men were expecting news that was more dramatic or related to the upcoming battle. For a moment, he was tempted to tell them about his father’s death, but he resisted the impulse. He was not here to entertain them or win them over, he simply wished to avoid any further incidents of this kind. Telling them risked demoralization, and in the meantime, they had leagues to cover and they were already late.\n\n“We will march inside the hour,” he concluded, and without further ado, he turned his back and signaled for the primus pilus to take the podium. Proculus was already bawling out the day’s order of march before he had descended again from the stairs.\n\n### NOTES\nGreen fields of eastern Savondir; no road — the legion’s sandals tear a ten-cubit dirt path.\nPast the mid-day pause; more than halfway to the scouted night position.\nSavondese cavalry structure: peasant levy, battlemages, noble heavy horse; no proper foot beyond a royal regiment and a five-hundred Thauronian Guard.\nMarcus has Frontinus’s devilries line memorized.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nDe Forbonnais rides back from the Savondese and needles him about the morning’s unpleasantries and where soldiers put la baguette magique. Marcus answers with contempt for peasant sticks and half-delivered horses; the comte, taken aback, offers hard-won orc-magic knowledge from l’École as well as l’Académie, names the Michelards, and survives Marcus’s crack about a king with one cohort of foot.\n\nAfter a stretch of saddle-creak silence Marcus asks if de Forbonnais is himself a Michelard. The answer is a sly willingness to tell what he knows — blood already paid — and Marcus, still reserved, forbids any use of spells, recites Frontinus, and admits proudly that he wants no understanding of magical principles. De Forbonnais looks at the post-zenith sun and remarks dryly on the joys of an enthusiastic student. The scene ends on that sarcasm, before any real briefing.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Dry irritation between allies; no lecture dumped yet. Land on de Forbonnais’s sarcastic line.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "They had passed the mid-day pause and were more than halfway to the location the scouts had identified for their evening encampment when Girart de Forbonnais rode back from where he had been accompanying the other Savondese knights and requested permission to speak with Marcus. Unlike the mounted Amorrans, the Comte de Ilyois was unarmored, and his scabbarded sword was tied to the saddlebags behind him. In stark contrast to the shaved heads and close-cropped hair of the Amorrans, his brown hair was long and tied back with a blue ribbon.\n\n“I understand there were some unpleasantries prior to the march today,” the young man Marcus suspected of being a royal kingsmage said. “I was aware that Amorran discipline was commonly supposed to be harsh, but I had no idea it concerned itself with where its soldiers place la baguette magique.”\n\n“Legionary training involves more than distributing sticks to peasants in the hope that they won’t piss themselves and run away at the first sight of the enemy,” Marcus said sharply. He did not like the royal spy, he had no desire to revisit the morning’s events, and he was irritated that the Savondese had only delivered half the number of horses promised for his cavalry.\n\n“My friend, it was a mere comment, not a critique.” De Forbonnais appeared to be taken aback by Marcus’s contemptuous reaction. “We may not make, how did you say it, ‘a science of the slaughter’, but martial tradition is not unknown here in the realm. And I understand you are seeking information concerning the orcish way of battle. Why do you not come to me? I have some experience in these matters.”\n\nMarcus eyed de Forbonnais skeptically, unsurprised that the Savondese man was aware of his actions. “If you had the sort of knowledge that would be of use to me at the moment, I would have cause to burn you as a witch and I doubt your king would appreciate my treating one of his pet mages in that manner.”\n\n“Are all Amorrans so grim and legalistic?”\n\n“Are all Savonners so frivolous and corrupt?”\n\n“My, you are in a foul mood today, Lord Valerius. Perhaps you will be more amenable if I attempt this from another angle. As it happens, it is not only l’Académie des Sage Arts that takes an interest in the dark magics of the orc. L’École Militaire de Saint-Michel also devotes considerable attention to the subject, in fact, significantly more than l’Académie. As the nature of l’École’s studies are rather more practical than l’Académie’s theoretical approach, I suspect they may be more directly applicable to your needs. Not only that, but I believe you can contemplate them in good conscience without imperiling your mortal soul.”\n\n“The Michaelines have a school here?”\n\nDe Forbonnais laughed. “No, Lord Valerius, these are soldiers, not warrior priests. Young soldiers. They are scions of the nobility, usually the second sons, who are sent by their fathers to the school to learn the art of war. We call them Michelards, and they make up a considerable quantity of what I suppose you would call our centurions, or as is probably more to the point, decurions, since we have no foot-officers in the Militaire Royale.”\n\n“Which makes sense, considering that you have no actual foot,” Marcus observed. He was still mildly incredulous to have confirmed Quintus Veranius’s seemingly absurd claim that the Savondese did not utilize any proper infantry. It seemed their king made do with the annual peasant levy, supported by his battlemages and the heavy cavalry of his nobles. No wonder the Savondese couldn’t defeat the orcs on their own! How could any general expect to win and hold ground with cavalry and farmers?\n\n“The king maintains a regiment of royal men-at-arms,” de Forbonnais protested. “And then there is the Thauronian Guard, which protects his lands and household.”\n\n“A whole regiment! And how many men comprise this Guard?”\n\n“Five hundred.”\n\n“So your mighty king has little more than a single infantry cohort at his disposal,” Marcus observed dismissively. “It is well for you that the mountains separated our two nations, or one of our proconsuls might have added your kingdom as an imperial province decades ago. Inadvertently.”\n\nDe Forbonnais shook his head and sniffed disdainfully, but he did not attempt to dispute the point. The two men rode in silence for a time, or as near to silence as it could be with the incessant creaking of the leather saddles, the occasional snorting of the horses, and the dull tromp-tromp-tromp of five thousand men trudging methodically through the green fields of eastern Savondir. The legion followed no road, but by the time it had passed, the iron-shod sandals of its legionaries had torn and compressed the virgin ground into a hard dirt path more than ten cubits wide.\n\n“This École… you are telling me that your military men study the orc magics as well as your mages. Are you telling me that you are yourself one of these Michelards?”\n\nDe Forbonnais shot him a sly glance. “I am simply telling you that I am willing to tell you what I know. And there are others who may be able to tell you more. Lord Valerius, I understand your discomfort with these matters. But you know as well as I do that you would be remiss in your duty to your men if you refused to accept freely offered knowledge that was so hard-won. Everything we know about the orcs was paid for in blood over the years. Do you wish to pay that price yourself when you need not?”\n\n“No. No, of course not. Not when it is so easily avoided.” Marcus held up a hand in warning. “But I will not countenance any use of magic spells or sorceries, Seigneur de Forbonnais. Not even in extremis.”\n\n“I understand. So what is it that you wish to know?”\n\nStill feeling some reservations, Marcus told de Forbonnais about the passage from Frontinus. He recited it from memory. “Now, what do you suppose were the ’accursed enemy’s devilries’ to which he referred? And how did it strike fear into an entire flank of Manlius Proximus’s legion?”\n\n“Am I correct you know nothing about magic?”\n\n“Nothing,” Marcus said proudly, if not quite accurately. He had, in fact, picked up a few glimmerings here and there by virtue of being in the vicinity of the Lady Shadowsong for extended periods of time.\n\n“And I presume you have no desire to achieve a basic understanding of the principles involved.”\n\n“None at all.”\n\nDe Forbonnais sighed and looked up into the sky, where the sun had not long ago passed its zenith. “Well, I’ve heard there are few things more satisfactory than an enthusiastic student hungry for knowledge,” he said, with no small tone of sarcasm.\n", "completion": "They had passed the mid-day pause and were more than halfway to the location the scouts had identified for their evening encampment when Girart de Forbonnais rode back from where he had been accompanying the other Savondese knights and requested permission to speak with Marcus. Unlike the mounted Amorrans, the Comte de Ilyois was unarmored, and his scabbarded sword was tied to the saddlebags behind him. In stark contrast to the shaved heads and close-cropped hair of the Amorrans, his brown hair was long and tied back with a blue ribbon.\n\n“I understand there were some unpleasantries prior to the march today,” the young man Marcus suspected of being a royal kingsmage said. “I was aware that Amorran discipline was commonly supposed to be harsh, but I had no idea it concerned itself with where its soldiers place la baguette magique.”\n\n“Legionary training involves more than distributing sticks to peasants in the hope that they won’t piss themselves and run away at the first sight of the enemy,” Marcus said sharply. He did not like the royal spy, he had no desire to revisit the morning’s events, and he was irritated that the Savondese had only delivered half the number of horses promised for his cavalry.\n\n“My friend, it was a mere comment, not a critique.” De Forbonnais appeared to be taken aback by Marcus’s contemptuous reaction. “We may not make, how did you say it, ‘a science of the slaughter’, but martial tradition is not unknown here in the realm. And I understand you are seeking information concerning the orcish way of battle. Why do you not come to me? I have some experience in these matters.”\n\nMarcus eyed de Forbonnais skeptically, unsurprised that the Savondese man was aware of his actions. “If you had the sort of knowledge that would be of use to me at the moment, I would have cause to burn you as a witch and I doubt your king would appreciate my treating one of his pet mages in that manner.”\n\n“Are all Amorrans so grim and legalistic?”\n\n“Are all Savonners so frivolous and corrupt?”\n\n“My, you are in a foul mood today, Lord Valerius. Perhaps you will be more amenable if I attempt this from another angle. As it happens, it is not only l’Académie des Sage Arts that takes an interest in the dark magics of the orc. L’École Militaire de Saint-Michel also devotes considerable attention to the subject, in fact, significantly more than l’Académie. As the nature of l’École’s studies are rather more practical than l’Académie’s theoretical approach, I suspect they may be more directly applicable to your needs. Not only that, but I believe you can contemplate them in good conscience without imperiling your mortal soul.”\n\n“The Michaelines have a school here?”\n\nDe Forbonnais laughed. “No, Lord Valerius, these are soldiers, not warrior priests. Young soldiers. They are scions of the nobility, usually the second sons, who are sent by their fathers to the school to learn the art of war. We call them Michelards, and they make up a considerable quantity of what I suppose you would call our centurions, or as is probably more to the point, decurions, since we have no foot-officers in the Militaire Royale.”\n\n“Which makes sense, considering that you have no actual foot,” Marcus observed. He was still mildly incredulous to have confirmed Quintus Veranius’s seemingly absurd claim that the Savondese did not utilize any proper infantry. It seemed their king made do with the annual peasant levy, supported by his battlemages and the heavy cavalry of his nobles. No wonder the Savondese couldn’t defeat the orcs on their own! How could any general expect to win and hold ground with cavalry and farmers?\n\n“The king maintains a regiment of royal men-at-arms,” de Forbonnais protested. “And then there is the Thauronian Guard, which protects his lands and household.”\n\n“A whole regiment! And how many men comprise this Guard?”\n\n“Five hundred.”\n\n“So your mighty king has little more than a single infantry cohort at his disposal,” Marcus observed dismissively. “It is well for you that the mountains separated our two nations, or one of our proconsuls might have added your kingdom as an imperial province decades ago. Inadvertently.”\n\nDe Forbonnais shook his head and sniffed disdainfully, but he did not attempt to dispute the point. The two men rode in silence for a time, or as near to silence as it could be with the incessant creaking of the leather saddles, the occasional snorting of the horses, and the dull tromp-tromp-tromp of five thousand men trudging methodically through the green fields of eastern Savondir. The legion followed no road, but by the time it had passed, the iron-shod sandals of its legionaries had torn and compressed the virgin ground into a hard dirt path more than ten cubits wide.\n\n“This École… you are telling me that your military men study the orc magics as well as your mages. Are you telling me that you are yourself one of these Michelards?”\n\nDe Forbonnais shot him a sly glance. “I am simply telling you that I am willing to tell you what I know. And there are others who may be able to tell you more. Lord Valerius, I understand your discomfort with these matters. But you know as well as I do that you would be remiss in your duty to your men if you refused to accept freely offered knowledge that was so hard-won. Everything we know about the orcs was paid for in blood over the years. Do you wish to pay that price yourself when you need not?”\n\n“No. No, of course not. Not when it is so easily avoided.” Marcus held up a hand in warning. “But I will not countenance any use of magic spells or sorceries, Seigneur de Forbonnais. Not even in extremis.”\n\n“I understand. So what is it that you wish to know?”\n\nStill feeling some reservations, Marcus told de Forbonnais about the passage from Frontinus. He recited it from memory. “Now, what do you suppose were the ’accursed enemy’s devilries’ to which he referred? And how did it strike fear into an entire flank of Manlius Proximus’s legion?”\n\n“Am I correct you know nothing about magic?”\n\n“Nothing,” Marcus said proudly, if not quite accurately. He had, in fact, picked up a few glimmerings here and there by virtue of being in the vicinity of the Lady Shadowsong for extended periods of time.\n\n“And I presume you have no desire to achieve a basic understanding of the principles involved.”\n\n“None at all.”\n\nDe Forbonnais sighed and looked up into the sky, where the sun had not long ago passed its zenith. “Well, I’ve heard there are few things more satisfactory than an enthusiastic student hungry for knowledge,” he said, with no small tone of sarcasm.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1161, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch08_skuli-P1", "chapter": "ch08_skuli", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSkuli Skullbreaker / Bági Ulfs — protagonist and wolf-enemy praise-name; keep diacritics and forms.\nRaknarborg — besieged Dalarn fortress; keep spelling.\nAalvarg — wolf-demon foe; capital A.\nDalarn / Fifteen Clans — his people; keep forms.\nGlaðsheimr / Draugadróttinn — afterlife hall and death-lord; keep diacritics.\nSteinthor Strongbow — sword-brother; Strongbow as the familiar epithet.\nMord Redcheek — cunning warleader; Redcheek as epithet.\nHakon Hakonsson — young tongue-gifted warrior; keep patronymic.\nSurdaember — sole remaining southerner; keep spelling.\nHjalnek One-Hand / Tjolnir Horse-Bjorn — named dead/living companions; keep forms.\nsnekkja — longship type; lowercase.\nHovedholm — western island of Aalvarg origin; keep spelling.\nBrynjolf / Fjotra / Ingoberg — kin sent south; keep spellings.\nAsmund Hairy-Arse — man his wife nearly bit; keep epithet.\nWhite Sea / Wolf Isles — geography; capitalize as written.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSkuli Skullbreaker\nLast jarl of the Fifteen Clans, called Bági Ulfs for the Aalvarg he has stacked outside Raknarborg’s walls. Alive on the tower as dusk comes, wounded and soul-sick after seventeen or eighteen assaults since the demonspawn army arrived. Southern ships left two days ago with the last living Dalarn; his wife was bound and gagged onto the final vessel when she tried to stay and die with him. Two hundred walking wounded remain. He means the last provisioned snekkja to sail under Mord Redcheek into Hovedholm’s mountains for the Aalvarg’s secret — without him. He expects to die tonight beside Steinthor Strongbow.\n\nSteinthor Strongbow\nTall blond sword-brother; left leg ripped open two assaults past; limps up the tower stairs against orders. Scar under the chin from an earlier Aalvarg sword. Means to deny Skuli a clean death and force a quest into the saga.\n\nMord Redcheek\nMost cunning warleader still unscathed this season; left face white-scarred from five summers past. Chosen to command the forty on the longship; speaks for the crew that the Skullbreaker must board.\n\nHakon Hakonsson\nYoung, gift for southern tongues; also light-fingered enough to lift both of Skuli’s daggers before the meeting.\n\nSurdaember\nShort dark southerner who stayed when his fellows sailed; present, mostly unintelligible without Hakon.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nTower of Raknarborg over grey sea; clouds hiding the sun; night coming.\nSouthern evacuation complete two days past; last snekkja provisioned as if for a reaving season.\nForty men chosen for a night departure around the Isles toward Hovedholm — not south with the refugees.\nAalvarg assaults ongoing; end of the fortress inevitable once the last fighters leave or fall.\nNo abokhi-style camp detail — northern siege, stone and sea.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Skuli.\n\nFrom the tower he watches useless waves and counts assaults he has stopped numbering, proud of the dead stacked for the Skullbreaker and fond of the memory of his furious wife hauled aboard the last southern ship. Dusk means the final longship must go. Redcheek, Surdaember, Hakon, and a limping Strongbow arrive; Skuli blesses the Hovedholm quest and moves to embrace Redcheek — who refuses. The crew will not sail without the Skullbreaker. Strongbow owns the plot with a grin: no more choice than Skuli gave his wife.\n\nSkuli reaches for war dagger and meat blade and finds both scabbards empty. Hakon holds them; Redcheek takes them. Strongbow asks whether Skuli walks aboard or goes tied. The scene ends on that challenge, before Skuli answers.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1800 words. Northern saga register; pride and doom without sentimentality. Land on the tie-or-walk challenge; do not resolve it.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The southern ships were gone. They departed two days ago, their hulls and decks crowded with that most precious of cargos, the last of the Dalarn people. From time immemorial, the Fifteen Clans had dwelled upon these four islands, warring amongst themselves and raiding all across the northern coast of Selenoth. Now, the islands were all but devoid of Man.\n\nThe ships carried the last of the living Dalarn, but not the last of the dead. For thus it was that they regarded themselves, the warriors of besieged Raknarborg, those who remained behind. They were hard men, scarred men, men who had spent eighteen years fighting a losing battle against an implacable and inhuman foe. None of them had ever known a time when they did not hold a sword in their hands, few could even recall a time where the grey terror of the Aalvarg had not loomed over their humble wooden huts and palisaded towns like a dark and hungry shadow.\n\nThose huts and towns were gone now, destroyed, their inhabitants either fled or devoured. Even the proud stone towers of Raknarborg, though they jutted proudly from the sea to the sky, seemed like saplings before the raging demonic storm that had scoured the Wolf Isles from stem to stern. The Aalvarg numbers were not vast, at least not in comparison with the great cities across the sea, but their fury was far beyond even that of the most rabid berserker and their thirst for man’s blood had proven unquenchable.\n\nSkuli Skullbreaker looked out over the grey waters of the sea as the waves smashed themselves relentlessly against the rocks far below. Clouds obscured the sun, but the darkening sky offered a warning of the incipient night to come. He sniffed and shook his head; the mindless futility of the waves reminded him of the attack they’d turned back just the day before. Was it the seventeenth or the eighteenth assault since the day the demonspawn army was first seen approaching the fortress? He’d lost count. But the end was drawing near. It was inevitable. The southerners were gone; they had seen the futility of defending Raknarborg and followed the body of their slain prince back across the sea. Most of his men were either departed or fallen. The Fifteen Clans who had once been the terror of the White Sea were now reduced to two hundred of the walking, wounded dead.\n\nHe felt a fierce pride swell inside him at the thought of them. Hjalnek One-Hand. Tjolnir Horse-Bjorn. The Strongbow. What a privilege it was to die in the company of such men; as long as men prized courage, the bards would sing their names in the south. And if no one knew exactly how it was they fell, so much the better. No doubt the songs would tell it better than the grim horror of a warrior screaming in agony as a demon wolf ripped out his intestines and gobbled them up before his dying eyes. Not for the first time, he wondered what hellish god had thought to create such monsters, had burned with such fury that he determined to curse the land with them.\n\nHe snorted. Whatever that dark god’s intent, it had assured Skuli a place in Glaðsheimr. If ever a man had earned the name of Bági Ulfs, the Enemy of the Wolf, it was Skuli Skullbreaker. The Aalvarg would soon rule over the smoking ruins of Raknarborg, but they would not soon forget the Skullbreaker, not with damn near half their number lying dead in massive piles stacked outside the black stone walls. He didn’t think it likely that the beasts told bedtime stories to their whelps, but if they did, he had no doubt that the little ones would quake at the sound of his name for years to come.\n\nHe smiled at the thought. It was a good legacy. It was a man’s legacy.\n\nHis wife, on the other hand, was probably still cursing his name right now. He’d finally ordered her gagged as well as bound after she nearly bit off Asmund Hairy-Arse’s finger while he and the Strongbow were carrying her onto the last ship just prior to its departure. He smiled fondly at the memory of her storm blue eyes glaring at him, bright with furious tears of rage. What a woman! She’d expected to die by his side, and while he’d initially been tempted to let her do so, the more time he had spent with the touchy, prideful southerners, the more he’d come to realize that Brynjolf and Fjotra would be in dire need of her wisdom if their people were to live successfully among them.\n\nAnd now that the sun was sinking into the sea somewhere behind the clouds, it was time to send the final ship away.\n\nHe heard footsteps behind him and turned around to see the three men for whom he’d sent walking through the door from the tower steps. But behind them followed a fourth man. It was Steinthor Strongbow. He was limping badly; a wolf had ripped open the tall blond warrior’s left leg during the assault before the last one.\n\n“What are you doing here?” he asked the Strongbow. “You should be resting that leg for tonight, not climbing those stairs.”\n\n“Speak for yourself.” His friend’s mouth twisted in a half-smile. “Besides, we’ll all be resting in Draugadróttinn’s halls soon enough.”\n\n“Resting?” Skuli clapped Steinthor on the shoulder. “We’ll be feasting, man, and the gods themselves will drink to our deeds!”\n\nHe looked at the other three men. Mord Redcheek was his most cunning warleader, and unlike the Strongbow and Skuli himself, he was one of the few men still unscathed by the recent months of battle. The left side of his face was disfigured where an Aalvarg nearly tore it off five summers ago, but the terrible scars were white with time and he moved with the agility of a man half his forty years. Surdaember was the second man, short and dark in comparison with the two Dalarn, and the only southerner still remaining in Raknarborg. Skuli didn’t understand why the man chose to remain behind when the rest of his fellows were already sailing for the safety of home, but if anyone did, it would be the third man, young Hakon Hakonsson, who had a gift for tongues and somehow was able to understand most of the strange slurring sounds made by the southerners.\n\n“Is the longship ready?”\n\nThe Strongbow nodded. At Skuli’s order, he had provisioned the last snekkja that remained from what had once been a formidable fleet of sea reavers, as if for a long season of reaving. But the forty men who would be leaving the fortress as soon as darkness hid them from lupine eyes would not be following the rest of their people across the sea. Instead, Skuli intended that under the command of the Redcheek, the last survivors of Raknarborg would sail around the Isles and venture into the heart of the mountains on Hovedholm, the large island to the west from whence the Aalvarg had first come.\n\nThe wolf-demons might have driven the clans from the Isles, but they had not destroyed his people. Skuli had seen to that. Now Redcheek and the best of his surviving men would search for whatever secret lay behind their mysterious appearance, and when they found it, they would destroy it. One day, he vowed to himself and to sea and sky, the clans would return to the Isles. And when they did, they would not drive out the demons, they would destroy them, utterly, every single one.\n\n“Then be off with you, Mord Redcheek, and may the All-Father, the Stormbringer, and the Lord of the Waves be with you!” He stepped towards the Redcheek to embrace the man, but to his surprise, the warleader stepped back and shook his head.\n\n“No, Skuli. I have spoken with the men. To a man, they agree. The longship will not leave without the Skullbreaker.”\n\nSkuli stared at the man, astonished. Then he looked at the Strongbow, who was staring off towards the sea with an uncharacteristically innocent look on his face.\n\n“Steinthor?” he growled.\n\n“Yes, my lord?”\n\nHis ready deference confirmed Skuli’s suspicions.\n\n“Did you put them up to this? Would you truly deny me the honor of dying by your side?”\n\nThe Strongbow grinned, exposing the scar under his bearded chin that was only half-healed. An Aalvarg sword had very nearly taken his head off in one of the earlier attacks; fortunately the blade had somehow caught on the buckle for the strap that held his helm in place. The gods blessed the brave, but sooner or later, they had to withdraw their favor so the Choosers could come and claim their champions. Skuli had no doubt that the sky riders were jousting even now for the privilege of claiming his friend tonight.\n\n“The Skullbreaker’s Saga is a brave one, my lord, full of one noble defeat after another, but the one thing it lacks is a quest. It seems to me it would displease the gods if you were to deprive the bards of it.”\n\n“The Redcheek’s Saga don’t have the same ring to it,” the Redcheek added.\n\n“See, the thing is, we aren’t giving you any more choice than you gave your wife.” The Strongbow folded his arms. “My lord.”\n\n“The four of you can’t make me to go anywhere, least of all on that ship!” Perhaps if the Strongbow had been hale, he and the Redcheek might have been able to disarm him and bear him down, but his friend’s mangled leg rendered that impossible.\n\nHe reached for his war dagger. To his surprise, he discovered it wasn’t there. The scabbard was empty! He looked down at his hip in disbelief, needing his eyes to confirm what his right hand had told him. Puzzled, he went to draw his other dagger, his meat blade, and realized it was gone too!\n\n“Looking for those?” The Strongbow said with a self-satisfied smile and a sidelong glance towards Hakon.\n\nSkuli strove to conceal his astonishment at the sight of his two blades, one long and curved, the other short and serrated, in the hands of the young warrior. Hakon grinned, a little apologetically, and handed them to the Redcheek.\n\n“Tongues are not Hakon’s only talent,” he said, sounding amused. “Now, are you going to come along or do we have to tie you up and carry you onto the ship?”\n", "completion": "The southern ships were gone. They departed two days ago, their hulls and decks crowded with that most precious of cargos, the last of the Dalarn people. From time immemorial, the Fifteen Clans had dwelled upon these four islands, warring amongst themselves and raiding all across the northern coast of Selenoth. Now, the islands were all but devoid of Man.\n\nThe ships carried the last of the living Dalarn, but not the last of the dead. For thus it was that they regarded themselves, the warriors of besieged Raknarborg, those who remained behind. They were hard men, scarred men, men who had spent eighteen years fighting a losing battle against an implacable and inhuman foe. None of them had ever known a time when they did not hold a sword in their hands, few could even recall a time where the grey terror of the Aalvarg had not loomed over their humble wooden huts and palisaded towns like a dark and hungry shadow.\n\nThose huts and towns were gone now, destroyed, their inhabitants either fled or devoured. Even the proud stone towers of Raknarborg, though they jutted proudly from the sea to the sky, seemed like saplings before the raging demonic storm that had scoured the Wolf Isles from stem to stern. The Aalvarg numbers were not vast, at least not in comparison with the great cities across the sea, but their fury was far beyond even that of the most rabid berserker and their thirst for man’s blood had proven unquenchable.\n\nSkuli Skullbreaker looked out over the grey waters of the sea as the waves smashed themselves relentlessly against the rocks far below. Clouds obscured the sun, but the darkening sky offered a warning of the incipient night to come. He sniffed and shook his head; the mindless futility of the waves reminded him of the attack they’d turned back just the day before. Was it the seventeenth or the eighteenth assault since the day the demonspawn army was first seen approaching the fortress? He’d lost count. But the end was drawing near. It was inevitable. The southerners were gone; they had seen the futility of defending Raknarborg and followed the body of their slain prince back across the sea. Most of his men were either departed or fallen. The Fifteen Clans who had once been the terror of the White Sea were now reduced to two hundred of the walking, wounded dead.\n\nHe felt a fierce pride swell inside him at the thought of them. Hjalnek One-Hand. Tjolnir Horse-Bjorn. The Strongbow. What a privilege it was to die in the company of such men; as long as men prized courage, the bards would sing their names in the south. And if no one knew exactly how it was they fell, so much the better. No doubt the songs would tell it better than the grim horror of a warrior screaming in agony as a demon wolf ripped out his intestines and gobbled them up before his dying eyes. Not for the first time, he wondered what hellish god had thought to create such monsters, had burned with such fury that he determined to curse the land with them.\n\nHe snorted. Whatever that dark god’s intent, it had assured Skuli a place in Glaðsheimr. If ever a man had earned the name of Bági Ulfs, the Enemy of the Wolf, it was Skuli Skullbreaker. The Aalvarg would soon rule over the smoking ruins of Raknarborg, but they would not soon forget the Skullbreaker, not with damn near half their number lying dead in massive piles stacked outside the black stone walls. He didn’t think it likely that the beasts told bedtime stories to their whelps, but if they did, he had no doubt that the little ones would quake at the sound of his name for years to come.\n\nHe smiled at the thought. It was a good legacy. It was a man’s legacy.\n\nHis wife, on the other hand, was probably still cursing his name right now. He’d finally ordered her gagged as well as bound after she nearly bit off Asmund Hairy-Arse’s finger while he and the Strongbow were carrying her onto the last ship just prior to its departure. He smiled fondly at the memory of her storm blue eyes glaring at him, bright with furious tears of rage. What a woman! She’d expected to die by his side, and while he’d initially been tempted to let her do so, the more time he had spent with the touchy, prideful southerners, the more he’d come to realize that Brynjolf and Fjotra would be in dire need of her wisdom if their people were to live successfully among them.\n\nAnd now that the sun was sinking into the sea somewhere behind the clouds, it was time to send the final ship away.\n\nHe heard footsteps behind him and turned around to see the three men for whom he’d sent walking through the door from the tower steps. But behind them followed a fourth man. It was Steinthor Strongbow. He was limping badly; a wolf had ripped open the tall blond warrior’s left leg during the assault before the last one.\n\n“What are you doing here?” he asked the Strongbow. “You should be resting that leg for tonight, not climbing those stairs.”\n\n“Speak for yourself.” His friend’s mouth twisted in a half-smile. “Besides, we’ll all be resting in Draugadróttinn’s halls soon enough.”\n\n“Resting?” Skuli clapped Steinthor on the shoulder. “We’ll be feasting, man, and the gods themselves will drink to our deeds!”\n\nHe looked at the other three men. Mord Redcheek was his most cunning warleader, and unlike the Strongbow and Skuli himself, he was one of the few men still unscathed by the recent months of battle. The left side of his face was disfigured where an Aalvarg nearly tore it off five summers ago, but the terrible scars were white with time and he moved with the agility of a man half his forty years. Surdaember was the second man, short and dark in comparison with the two Dalarn, and the only southerner still remaining in Raknarborg. Skuli didn’t understand why the man chose to remain behind when the rest of his fellows were already sailing for the safety of home, but if anyone did, it would be the third man, young Hakon Hakonsson, who had a gift for tongues and somehow was able to understand most of the strange slurring sounds made by the southerners.\n\n“Is the longship ready?”\n\nThe Strongbow nodded. At Skuli’s order, he had provisioned the last snekkja that remained from what had once been a formidable fleet of sea reavers, as if for a long season of reaving. But the forty men who would be leaving the fortress as soon as darkness hid them from lupine eyes would not be following the rest of their people across the sea. Instead, Skuli intended that under the command of the Redcheek, the last survivors of Raknarborg would sail around the Isles and venture into the heart of the mountains on Hovedholm, the large island to the west from whence the Aalvarg had first come.\n\nThe wolf-demons might have driven the clans from the Isles, but they had not destroyed his people. Skuli had seen to that. Now Redcheek and the best of his surviving men would search for whatever secret lay behind their mysterious appearance, and when they found it, they would destroy it. One day, he vowed to himself and to sea and sky, the clans would return to the Isles. And when they did, they would not drive out the demons, they would destroy them, utterly, every single one.\n\n“Then be off with you, Mord Redcheek, and may the All-Father, the Stormbringer, and the Lord of the Waves be with you!” He stepped towards the Redcheek to embrace the man, but to his surprise, the warleader stepped back and shook his head.\n\n“No, Skuli. I have spoken with the men. To a man, they agree. The longship will not leave without the Skullbreaker.”\n\nSkuli stared at the man, astonished. Then he looked at the Strongbow, who was staring off towards the sea with an uncharacteristically innocent look on his face.\n\n“Steinthor?” he growled.\n\n“Yes, my lord?”\n\nHis ready deference confirmed Skuli’s suspicions.\n\n“Did you put them up to this? Would you truly deny me the honor of dying by your side?”\n\nThe Strongbow grinned, exposing the scar under his bearded chin that was only half-healed. An Aalvarg sword had very nearly taken his head off in one of the earlier attacks; fortunately the blade had somehow caught on the buckle for the strap that held his helm in place. The gods blessed the brave, but sooner or later, they had to withdraw their favor so the Choosers could come and claim their champions. Skuli had no doubt that the sky riders were jousting even now for the privilege of claiming his friend tonight.\n\n“The Skullbreaker’s Saga is a brave one, my lord, full of one noble defeat after another, but the one thing it lacks is a quest. It seems to me it would displease the gods if you were to deprive the bards of it.”\n\n“The Redcheek’s Saga don’t have the same ring to it,” the Redcheek added.\n\n“See, the thing is, we aren’t giving you any more choice than you gave your wife.” The Strongbow folded his arms. “My lord.”\n\n“The four of you can’t make me to go anywhere, least of all on that ship!” Perhaps if the Strongbow had been hale, he and the Redcheek might have been able to disarm him and bear him down, but his friend’s mangled leg rendered that impossible.\n\nHe reached for his war dagger. To his surprise, he discovered it wasn’t there. The scabbard was empty! He looked down at his hip in disbelief, needing his eyes to confirm what his right hand had told him. Puzzled, he went to draw his other dagger, his meat blade, and realized it was gone too!\n\n“Looking for those?” The Strongbow said with a self-satisfied smile and a sidelong glance towards Hakon.\n\nSkuli strove to conceal his astonishment at the sight of his two blades, one long and curved, the other short and serrated, in the hands of the young warrior. Hakon grinned, a little apologetically, and handed them to the Redcheek.\n\n“Tongues are not Hakon’s only talent,” he said, sounding amused. “Now, are you going to come along or do we have to tie you up and carry you onto the ship?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1795, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch08_skuli-P2", "chapter": "ch08_skuli", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nUlvdræber — longship name, “Wolfkiller”; keep the æ.\nHirdfestmåltid — warrior’s banquet; keep spelling.\nAldaföðr / Váði Vitnis / All-Father / Stormbringer / Lord of the Waves — divine names and epithets as written.\nOrvar-Odd / Njal the Grim / Jarl Halfrødr — saga dead and Skuli’s father; keep forms.\nChoosers — sky riders claiming the slain; capital C when that sense is meant.\nReaver King — Skuli’s bitter self-title; both words capitalized as used.\n\n### STORY\nAt dusk on Raknarborg’s tower Skuli means to send Mord Redcheek’s forty into Hovedholm without him and die beside Steinthor Strongbow; the crew refuses, Hakon has lifted both his daggers, and Strongbow asks whether he walks onto the snekkja or goes tied.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSkuli Skullbreaker\nWounded, tired, soul-sick; ready to die and afraid that wanting death is unmanly. About to choose the harder path — live, quest, avenge. Loves Strongbow; will give his word to board.\n\nSteinthor Strongbow\nSending his jarl away; will stay to die; asks Skuli’s word, then limps down without looking back.\n\nMord Redcheek\nReturns the daggers; swears obedience once Ulvdræber sees dawn with the Skullbreaker aboard — carefully timed.\n\nHakon Hakonsson / Surdaember\nPresent for the terms; Surdaember slurs, Hakon snaps back.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe Strongbow grinned, exposing the scar under his bearded chin that was only half-healed. An Aalvarg sword had very nearly taken his head off in one of the earlier attacks; fortunately the blade had somehow caught on the buckle for the strap that held his helm in place. The gods blessed the brave, but sooner or later, they had to withdraw their favor so the Choosers could come and claim their champions. Skuli had no doubt that the sky riders were jousting even now for the privilege of claiming his friend tonight.\n\n“The Skullbreaker’s Saga is a brave one, my lord, full of one noble defeat after another, but the one thing it lacks is a quest. It seems to me it would displease the gods if you were to deprive the bards of it.”\n\n“The Redcheek’s Saga don’t have the same ring to it,” the Redcheek added.\n\n“See, the thing is, we aren’t giving you any more choice than you gave your wife.” The Strongbow folded his arms. “My lord.”\n\n“The four of you can’t make me to go anywhere, least of all on that ship!” Perhaps if the Strongbow had been hale, he and the Redcheek might have been able to disarm him and bear him down, but his friend’s mangled leg rendered that impossible.\n\nHe reached for his war dagger. To his surprise, he discovered it wasn’t there. The scabbard was empty! He looked down at his hip in disbelief, needing his eyes to confirm what his right hand had told him. Puzzled, he went to draw his other dagger, his meat blade, and realized it was gone too!\n\n“Looking for those?” The Strongbow said with a self-satisfied smile and a sidelong glance towards Hakon.\n\nSkuli strove to conceal his astonishment at the sight of his two blades, one long and curved, the other short and serrated, in the hands of the young warrior. Hakon grinned, a little apologetically, and handed them to the Redcheek.\n\n“Tongues are not Hakon’s only talent,” he said, sounding amused. “Now, are you going to come along or do we have to tie you up and carry you onto the ship?”\n\n### NOTES\nSame tower; night and wolves coming; docks and Ulvdræber below.\nWind strong from the east — Skuli reads a possible omen.\nKin Brynjolf, Ingoberg, and Fjotra already leagues south across the sea.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Skuli.\n\nHe glares at the plotters and almost chooses death — defeat after defeat, people saved only into southern submission — until the fear of living itself convicts him. He grips Strongbow’s arm, wishes to die with him, and takes the charge to avenge instead; Strongbow will herald Bági Ulfs to the banquet. Word given, Strongbow limps into the stair dark for the last time in this life.\n\nDaggers returned, Skuli names the rule: first and last crew demand. The ship is Ulvdræber. Redcheek swears axe-backed obedience and that he will not raise a hand again once dawn kisses the deck with the Skullbreaker on it — closing the loophole Skuli had not planned to use. Skuli laughs, looks once toward the southern sea and the ember of hope, and limps for the docks with the men behind. Death can wait one more day. The scene ends on that descent.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Grief tight in the farewell; hope only an ember. Land as they take the stairs — do not cast off on the page.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Skuli glared at the plotters. In truth, he was more than ready to die. He was wounded. He was tired. He was soul-sick. His life had been one disastrous defeat after another; his only successes had been mitigating the extent to which his people were gradually destroyed. His one great achievement was to have arranged for the retreat of the remnants of the Dalarn from the Isles, sending them across the sea to dwell in humiliating submission to the very fishermen and farmers they had long reaved. What sort of warrior’s legacy was that for the Reaver King, the last jarl of the Fifteen Clans?\n\nDeath was nothing to fear. It promised a welcome refuge. And, if the bards were right, there would be the warrior’s banquet waiting for him, for the Strongbow, and for the best of his men. How he longed to meet the great men of the sagas such as Orvar-Odd and Njal the Grim, to say nothing of his mighty father, Jarl Halfrødr, whose booming laugh he had not heard for twelve long years.\n\nIt was the thought of living another day that seemed unbearable. Life meant the need to hope again when all hope had been dead for years. It was peering into the despair of the black abyss, seeking endlessly for a light that was extinguished long ago.\n\nAnd it was that unmanly fear of living that convinced him he must go with the Redcheek. When had anything ever come easily for him, for the Skullbreaker? Even Death himself must be put off as long as possible, must be fought as if he were just another ravenous wolf slavering after the blood of his people. Only then could Skuli be truly certain that he would be worthy to sit in the company of the Warrior’s Banquet, a man worthy to march into Glaðsheimr with his head held proudly high.\n\nSkuli gripped Steinthor’s arm and found his eyes were stinging. “I wish nothing more than to die with you tonight, sword-brother.”\n\n“I know.” The Strongbow smiled, although his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Go, instead, and avenge me. Avenge us all, Skullbreaker. And I will serve as your harbinger to let the Hirdfestmåltid know that Bági Ulfs is coming. You will board the ship?”\n\nSkuli nodded.\n\n“Your word on it?”\n\nHe nodded again.\n\nThe Strongbow squeezed Skuli’s arm tightly, then turned and limped towards the stairs without looking back. Skuli watched his friend go and waited until his head disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell before turning to the others. He knew it would be the last time he saw Steinthor Strongbow until they met again in Glaðsheimr. He turned and looked up towards the gray, darkening sky. Soon it would be the killing time.\n\nGive him a good death, Váði Vitnis, he prayed the Aldaföðr. Lend strength to his arm tonight, that the wolves may learn what fear is.\n\nThe Redcheek proffered his daggers to him and Skuli reclaimed them with what little dignity remained to him. As he sheathed them, he acknowledged Hakon’s skill with a little nod, and the young warrior smiled with pleasure.\n\n“Let us be clear on one thing, Mord Redcheek. This is the first and last time I will accept a demand from the crew. Once I set foot on that ship—what is she called?”\n\n“Ulvdræber,” the Redcheek answered. Wolfkiller.\n\n“A good name,” Skuli nodded approvingly. “Once I set foot on Ulvdræber, any more mutiny will be dealt with in the customary manner.”\n\nThe southerner, Surdaember, slurred something unintelligible at Hakon, who shook his head and answered sharply. Skuli ignored him. It was the Redcheek’s response that mattered; half the men chosen for the longship were his.\n\n“Any man who does not obey the Skullbreaker will face my axe. And I swear by the Strongbow that I will die before I raise my hand against you again… once Ulvdræber is kissed by tomorrow’s dawn with the Skullbreaker on her deck.”\n\nSkuli laughed. Not for nothing had he chosen Mord Redcheek to command this last desperate voyage of revenge. It seemed he had chosen well, for the man was a clever one. He hadn’t actually planned to leave the ship once he boarded it; that would be bad luck for him and demoralizing for the men. But the Redcheek wasn’t about to take the chance.\n\n“For good or ill, I am with you, Mord Redcheek. The night is coming, and with it the wolves. Let us go now, and leave Raknarborg to the noble dead.”\n\nHe took one last look out towards the sea. Leagues away to the south, were Brynjolf, Ingoberg, and Fjotra. Would he ever see their beloved faces again? Would he ever have the chance to once more hold them in his arms? It seemed unlikely. Ulvdræber was sailing from a place where Death was coming to a place where Death had reigned for a generation or more. What were the odds her crew would not meet him face to face?\n\nAnd yet, for the first time since he had bid his furious wife goodbye, the smallest ember of hope was kindled in his breast. Not even the Aldaföðr himself could be certain what tomorrow would bring. Tonight, the wind was strong and favorable, blowing from the east. Perhaps it was an omen. It was time to leave Raknarborg to its fate.\n\nHe strode, limping, but without hesitation, towards the stone stairs that would lead him down to the docks and to the ship that would deliver him to his unknown destiny. The men followed him. Death would have to wait one more day.\n", "completion": "Skuli glared at the plotters. In truth, he was more than ready to die. He was wounded. He was tired. He was soul-sick. His life had been one disastrous defeat after another; his only successes had been mitigating the extent to which his people were gradually destroyed. His one great achievement was to have arranged for the retreat of the remnants of the Dalarn from the Isles, sending them across the sea to dwell in humiliating submission to the very fishermen and farmers they had long reaved. What sort of warrior’s legacy was that for the Reaver King, the last jarl of the Fifteen Clans?\n\nDeath was nothing to fear. It promised a welcome refuge. And, if the bards were right, there would be the warrior’s banquet waiting for him, for the Strongbow, and for the best of his men. How he longed to meet the great men of the sagas such as Orvar-Odd and Njal the Grim, to say nothing of his mighty father, Jarl Halfrødr, whose booming laugh he had not heard for twelve long years.\n\nIt was the thought of living another day that seemed unbearable. Life meant the need to hope again when all hope had been dead for years. It was peering into the despair of the black abyss, seeking endlessly for a light that was extinguished long ago.\n\nAnd it was that unmanly fear of living that convinced him he must go with the Redcheek. When had anything ever come easily for him, for the Skullbreaker? Even Death himself must be put off as long as possible, must be fought as if he were just another ravenous wolf slavering after the blood of his people. Only then could Skuli be truly certain that he would be worthy to sit in the company of the Warrior’s Banquet, a man worthy to march into Glaðsheimr with his head held proudly high.\n\nSkuli gripped Steinthor’s arm and found his eyes were stinging. “I wish nothing more than to die with you tonight, sword-brother.”\n\n“I know.” The Strongbow smiled, although his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Go, instead, and avenge me. Avenge us all, Skullbreaker. And I will serve as your harbinger to let the Hirdfestmåltid know that Bági Ulfs is coming. You will board the ship?”\n\nSkuli nodded.\n\n“Your word on it?”\n\nHe nodded again.\n\nThe Strongbow squeezed Skuli’s arm tightly, then turned and limped towards the stairs without looking back. Skuli watched his friend go and waited until his head disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell before turning to the others. He knew it would be the last time he saw Steinthor Strongbow until they met again in Glaðsheimr. He turned and looked up towards the gray, darkening sky. Soon it would be the killing time.\n\nGive him a good death, Váði Vitnis, he prayed the Aldaföðr. Lend strength to his arm tonight, that the wolves may learn what fear is.\n\nThe Redcheek proffered his daggers to him and Skuli reclaimed them with what little dignity remained to him. As he sheathed them, he acknowledged Hakon’s skill with a little nod, and the young warrior smiled with pleasure.\n\n“Let us be clear on one thing, Mord Redcheek. This is the first and last time I will accept a demand from the crew. Once I set foot on that ship—what is she called?”\n\n“Ulvdræber,” the Redcheek answered. Wolfkiller.\n\n“A good name,” Skuli nodded approvingly. “Once I set foot on Ulvdræber, any more mutiny will be dealt with in the customary manner.”\n\nThe southerner, Surdaember, slurred something unintelligible at Hakon, who shook his head and answered sharply. Skuli ignored him. It was the Redcheek’s response that mattered; half the men chosen for the longship were his.\n\n“Any man who does not obey the Skullbreaker will face my axe. And I swear by the Strongbow that I will die before I raise my hand against you again… once Ulvdræber is kissed by tomorrow’s dawn with the Skullbreaker on her deck.”\n\nSkuli laughed. Not for nothing had he chosen Mord Redcheek to command this last desperate voyage of revenge. It seemed he had chosen well, for the man was a clever one. He hadn’t actually planned to leave the ship once he boarded it; that would be bad luck for him and demoralizing for the men. But the Redcheek wasn’t about to take the chance.\n\n“For good or ill, I am with you, Mord Redcheek. The night is coming, and with it the wolves. Let us go now, and leave Raknarborg to the noble dead.”\n\nHe took one last look out towards the sea. Leagues away to the south, were Brynjolf, Ingoberg, and Fjotra. Would he ever see their beloved faces again? Would he ever have the chance to once more hold them in his arms? It seemed unlikely. Ulvdræber was sailing from a place where Death was coming to a place where Death had reigned for a generation or more. What were the odds her crew would not meet him face to face?\n\nAnd yet, for the first time since he had bid his furious wife goodbye, the smallest ember of hope was kindled in his breast. Not even the Aldaföðr himself could be certain what tomorrow would bring. Tonight, the wind was strong and favorable, blowing from the east. Perhaps it was an omen. It was time to leave Raknarborg to its fate.\n\nHe strode, limping, but without hesitation, towards the stone stairs that would lead him down to the docks and to the ship that would deliver him to his unknown destiny. The men followed him. Death would have to wait one more day.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 953, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch09_aulan-P1", "chapter": "ch09_aulan", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMarcus Valerius Magnus — rebel Valerian commander; Magnus in address.\nAulus Severus Aulan / Severus Aulan — tribune protagonist; both forms as used.\nRegulus / Titus Severus — Aulan’s elder brother; Regulus common, Titus in grim thought.\nFulgetra / Legio III — Severan legion Aulan belongs to; keep forms.\nFalconius Buteo — Falconian legate with Fulgetra; keep spelling.\nSalventum / Cynothicum / Larinum / Vallyria — places; keep spellings.\nConsul Suffectus Aquilae / Rullianus / Marcus Andronicus — Senate figures; keep forms.\nTarrisinus Opilian — tribune of the XVth; keep spelling.\nGerontius — supply officer Magnus calls for.\nHouse Severus / Severus Patronus — Aulan’s house and dead father; keep forms.\nUtruccan League / Marruvian League — allied leagues; keep forms.\nWitchkings — historical sorcerous men; one word capital W.\n\n### STORY\nOutside Cernobus Aulan bags Lucretius’s twelve on the muddy road, keeps swords sheathed for questions, and escorts the SPA summons into town under Marinus’s watch on the held riders.\nIn the square Magnus tears the summons, turns the crowd with Aulan’s Ave Magnus, names Lucius Annius as the false host, recruits Lucretius’s horse, and privately orders Annius killed on the road as bandits.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nAulan\nTribune of Fulgetra, just back from carrying Magnus’s messages among the leagues; dust still on his armor. Alive entering Magnus’s quarters. Surprised by doubled guards after an assassination attempt two days past. Does not yet know Regulus has crowned himself in Salventum. Loyal enough to take a kill order against his brother if reason fails — and almost certain reason will not fail.\n\nMarcus Valerius Magnus\nGrey-haired, bulky Valerian legatus; scratch on his cheek from the failed assassins; dagger on his belt. Writing sealed letters demanding captured patricians as leverage for his sons. Needs Severan legions more than Regulus’s life; will move on Amorr as a distraction, not a storming.\n\nTarrisinus Opilian\nTribune of the XVth; fetches Gerontius and praefecti on Magnus’s bellow.\n\nRegulus\nNot present; has declared himself king in Salventum with Fulgetra and the City legion after Buteo marched south from Cynothicum.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nAulan has been riding Magnus’s errands since Cernobus, including pressure on Herius Obsidius and the Marruvian League to keep Amorran forces occupied away from Magnus’s flanks.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I should hope not at your age,” Magnus said wryly, prompting nervous laughter from the men around him. “I will not kill a man for being misguided in his loyalties, not unless he insists upon standing in my way. Leave tonight, Lucius Annius. Amorr’s gates may be closed to you, but Trivicum’s are not. For my part, I will spare you and we will forget this ever happened.”\n\nFor a moment, it seemed as if the haughty man would reject Magnus’s mercy. But discretion proved the better part of pride, and at last Annius nodded briskly. He turned and made his way through the hushed crowd, followed by three of his companions, whose expressions ranged the gamut from shocked to relieved.\n\n“Now, friends, we have much to discuss!” Magnus lifted his arms and smiled beatifically at the men who had chosen to cast their lot with him. But first, I understand there are men who know their wine in Cernobus. Shall we refresh ourselves?”\n\nThe assembly broke up in a chaotic manner, as some hurried home to tell their wives of the momentous events and others pressed forward to greet Magnus and assure him of their personal loyalty. But Magnus put them off momentarily with the help of his bodyguard, and beckoned for Aulan to come to him.\n\nAulan dismounted and approached, curious as to what the great man wanted. Magnus thumped his back and put a beefy arm around his armored shoulders. “Well done, son. Your timing couldn’t have been better.”\n\n“It was no problem at all. I hope that Lucretius does come back to us. He’s sensible.”\n\n“He will,” Magnus said confidently. “Get his men good and drunk tonight. We need them.”\n\n“I saw a cathouse or two on the way in. I imagine between Marinus, Possidius, and me, we can make a persuasive case.”\n\n“I have the utmost confidence in you three,” Magnus laughed. Then he lowered his voice. “You marked the man who spoke out?”\n\n“I did.”\n\n“Tell Lucarus to take a squadron and intercept him five leagues hence.”\n\nAulan nodded, unsurprised. Magnus wasn’t one to leave an enemy at his back if he didn’t have to. “Just the old man or do you wish there to be no survivors?”\n\nThe ex-consul clapped him again on the back. “I think it would be best if the decurion were to be thorough, Aulus Severus. I understand bandits are a terrible problem on the roads in these uncertain times.”\n\n### NOTES\nCommander’s quarters: four mixed-legion guards outside, two more in the entry; triclinium/staff chamber with white tile and a black mosaic of a pagan sea god spearing a male mer.\nBarely past noon; klinai pushed aside; undersized writing desk.\nAssassination two days ago killed a Fourth centurion and two guards; Magnus killed one assassin, a pilus prior the other.\nAulan is to dine tonight and ride for Salventum at dawn with both Fulgetra squadrons.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Aulan.\n\nHe finds Magnus’s door over-guarded, learns of the Senate’s assassination try, and clasps forearms with a scratched, amused Magnus who is already collecting captive nobles as hostages for his sons. Talk runs to Corvus and the Sanctiff — Magnus scoffs at demons, distrusts elves — until the real problem: Regulus has declared himself king in Salventum with Buteo and Fulgetra. Aulan explains the snobbery that makes his brother answer a Valerian crown rumor with a Severan one; Magnus tears unfinished letters and accelerates the move on Amorr as theater, not capture.\n\nHe seals a scroll for Buteo or the primus pilus if needed, orders Aulan to tell Regulus to march and pocket the crown, and if Regulus will not listen — kill him if he can. Opilian is sent for supply officers and the Larinum legati. Magnus thumps Aulan’s shoulder: get the House legions; Regulus can style himself king of elves and dwarves for all it matters. The scene ends on that demand, before the road.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2900 words. Political brutality without speechifying padding; Aulan dry, Magnus decisive. Land on the legions demand.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "As he approached the building that served as the commander’s quarters, Aulan was surprised to see no less than four armored legionaries standing guard outside the door. Previously, Magnus had always been content with two. He noticed the different numbers painted on the shields that were leaned against the brick sides of the building; the guards consisted of two pairs from different legions.\n\nThey saluted, recognizing his tribune’s helm, but did not move out of his way until the leftmost man, from Fulgetra, nodded and said his name.\n\n“It’s Severus Aulan. Stand aside.”\n\nThey moved out of his way, but Aulan stood his ground. “What’s this?”\n\n“Assassination attempt. Two days ago.”\n\n“Magnus?”\n\n“Yessir. He’s unharmed, sir. One of the centurions from the Fourth was killed, but he managed to wound one of the assassins. Magnus killed one, the pilus prior got the other.”\n\nAulan nodded. It was clever. With two legions, most of the officers were more or less familiar faces. But the legionaries were practically indistinguishable, especially when they were wearing their helms with their cheek-guards down.\n\n“Look sharp, then.”\n\n“Ave, sir!” The men saluted again, and this time he returned it. He opened the door and discovered two more guards inside the entry hall, but they did not attempt to stop him and merely regarded him impassively. He nodded to them and continued through the hall to the chamber that alternately served as Magnus’s triclinium or his staff center, depending upon his needs and the hour of the day. The floor was tiled in white, with a crude mosaic of a pagan sea god transfixing a thrashing male mer on his trident laid out in black.\n\nAs it was barely past noon, the klinai had been pushed to the corners of the tiled chamber and the big Valerian sat hunched over a writing desk that was comically small for his bulk, stamping a wax seal with his signet ring.\n\n“Ah, Aulan, you’re back,” he said, and he pushed back the chair before rising to his feet. They clasped forearms, and Aulan noticed a long scratch across the older man’s cheek.\n\n“I heard there was some excitement in my absence.”\n\n“It seems I may have frightened the Senate rather more than I intended.” Magnus shook his grey-haired head ruefully. “Those bastards cost me a good centurion too. Bad enough to lose the two guards, but losing an officer that way is downright vexatious.”\n\n“Are you sure it was the Senate?”\n\n“No, but one has to assume they’re the most likely candidates. All of their gear was correct. There are no shortage of those who’d like to see me dead, but these days, most of them are in Amorr.”\n\n“Pity you couldn’t capture one of them.”\n\n“Yes, well, I suspect you’ll discover a similar tendency to overreact if someone tries to stick a sword in your eye.” Magnus chuckled. “Didn’t know I could still move that fast, to be honest. You should have seen the bastard’s face when I stepped inside his guard and stuck my blade in under his arm. I vow he died more of embarrassment at being bested by an old fat man than from the stabbing.”\n\nMagnus patted his belly, and Aulan marked the short dagger that the legatus was wearing strapped to his belt. There was still a good deal of muscle under the fat, though, and Magnus was a big, powerful man who had seen more war than most men of his generation. It didn’t surprise Aulan that he’d survived the attack.\n\n“They’ll be taking other measures now,” he observed. “If they can’t kill you, they’ll try to pressure you in other ways.”\n\n“I know,” Magnus agreed. “That’s why I’ve been writing to each of our allies who has had the fortune to meet our former countrymen in battle. I am requiring that they turn over all captured patricians, tribunes, and equestrians from the wealthier families to me.”\n\n“Will they heed you?”\n\n“Considering their abject pleas for my assistance in various matters, to say nothing of no less than four requests to direct the campaign on behalf of both leagues, I expect so.”\n\n“How many?”\n\n“Probably around sixty or seventy young men, all told, although it’s only the Andronicans and Falconians that really matter. Seven or eight of them will give me more than enough leverage to safeguard my sons.”\n\n“Even though they’ve forsworn you?” Letters to that effect had arrived before Aulan’s recent departure. Marcus had read them, laughed at the futile appeals to end his rebellion they contained, and as far as Aulan had seen, forgot them entirely.\n\n“The Senate won’t give a damn. They’re growing more desperate every day. I think they’ll leave Julia alone since I divorced her.”\n\n“You think they’d try to use the women?” Aulan was genuinely surprised.\n\n“My daughters are safe enough. Their husbands, and more importantly, their fathers-in-law, won’t permit any action against them. But I can’t fault the Senate if they don’t place much weight in my sons’ disavowals. I wouldn’t. Appius Appuleius won’t harm them, but Marcus Andronicus wouldn’t shirk at it. He’s a cold-hearted bastard for all that he’s a weedy fellow. And the fact that Rullianus was chosen as Consul Suffectus Aquilae to replace my late and unlamented brother indicates the Senate is in a bloodthirsty mood.”\n\n“Is there any word on what happened to Corvus?”\n\n“God only knows.” Magnus snorted. “In spite of everything, I find myself grieving over the murdering prig. He always was so concerned with being correct and proper… and to think he died slaughtering the Sanctiff! For all that his actions last year were sheer lunacy, he never struck me as mad, but then, perhaps it was belated guilt over executing Gaius Valerius that sent him over the edge.”\n\n“Slaughtering the Sanctiff? I heard he died defending him!”\n\n“From a demon?” Magnus laughed and set down heavily in the wooden chair, which groaned under his weight. “And here I thought you were a cynic! You don’t genuinely put any stock in that story, do you?”\n\n“You have to admit that there has been a good deal of strangeness of late, Magnus. Two sanctiffs dead and God knows how many celestines as well, and all of them butchered right in the heart of the Church!”\n\n“Yes, well, consuls and senators have been dropping like flies in the first winter freeze too, and no one sees any sorcery in that!”\n\n“Most of the men say it was the elves. It’s known that the elven ambassador fled the city that same day.”\n\n“At least that’s a theory that makes some degree of sense. Demons! I have no idea what Ahenobarbus was thinking when he permitted the damned creatures into the city. Elves, that is, not demons. Pity they didn’t fry him instead of poor Sebastius. Souls or no, elves are wicked at heart. It’s the magic. Steep a race of men in such sorcery for generations and the results will be no different. The Witchkings proved that.”\n\n“Some say you’re a sorcerer.”\n\nMagnus laughed heartily. “Lesser minds find it difficult to accept their inferiority. It’s always luck or magic, never their own incompetence. Speaking of which, we have a situation I will require your help in addressing.”\n\nAulan sighed and looked down at the dust of the roads still covering his armor. “Immediately?”\n\n“Never fear, tribune, you’ll have time for a hot bath and a whore before I send you out again.”\n\n“I was hoping more for a decent night’s sleep.”\n\n“That too. It’s your brother.”\n\n“Regulus finally showed his hand?” Aulan perked up. His elder brother had been charged by their father to take charge of the Severan legions. “Don’t tell me he managed to find himself a battle and lose it!”\n\n“I wish he had. I knew he was vainglorious, but I didn’t know he was genuinely stupid. It seems your brother has declared himself king.”\n\nAulan’s jaw dropped open. “He did what? Of where?”\n\n“King. Salventum. Falconius Buteo marched south from Cynothicum to join him before the snows fully melted. So Regulus has Fulgetra as well as the City legion supporting him. That Buteo is a cynical bastard.”\n\n“That’s sheer madness!”\n\n“It’s brainless, is what it is. He can’t possibly think anyone is going to take him seriously, can he?”\n\nAulan was already wondering precisely the same thing. What could possibly have inspired his brother to such overt lunacy? Such a controversial action was certain to put the anti-Amorran alliance of the two leagues at risk; the allies would find themselves occupied with warring with each other at the very moment they needed to band together against the might of Amorr.\n\nThen a thought struck him. “I imagine he thinks it’s what father would have wanted him to do.”\n\n“That’s ridiculous!”\n\n“No, it’s not. Not from his perspective.” Aulan looked up at the ceiling and tried to put himself in his brother’s shoes. “You’ve always been father’s chief rival, just as House Valerius was our House’s chief rival. So, with all the rumors flying around about your intention to crown yourself king of Vallyria, Regulus must be thinking that the only way for House Severus to keep pace with House Valerius is to crown himself king in response.”\n\nMagnus’s lip curled contemptuously. “The arrogant puppy!”\n\nAulan shook his head. “It’s worse than arrogance. It’s a complete lack of any sense whatsoever. Regulus has always been a snob. He believes that the power comes from the name, be it Severus or Valerius, not the man.”\n\nThat inspired a short bark of derisive laughter. “I don’t suppose it crossed his mind that it is considerably different for the Vallyrians to accept a proconsul who has been commanding legions for nearly thirty years than for the men of Salventum to accept a boy who isn’t even old enough to enter the Senate on the strength of his House name.”\n\n“I very much doubt it has. As far back as I can remember, the full extent of Regulus’s analysis of anything extends no further than the question of whether he wants it or not.”\n\nMagnus swore a very unpatrician oath. “You couldn’t have told me this any sooner?”\n\n“How would I know he’d declare himself king? This is a depth of idiocy I didn’t even know existed!”\n\n“How is it possible for a son of Severus Patronus to be so stupid?” Magnus groaned. Then he stopped and corrected himself. “I suppose I should know. I fathered Sextus after all.”\n\n“I doubt Sextus would be so foolish as to declare himself king the moment he had an army at his command.”\n\n“Don’t underestimate my son’s capacity for foolishness. He would not only declare himself king, he’d stake his crown on a single throw of the dice.”\n\nAulan said nothing, having been there when Magnus led Legio VII into battle on disadvantageous ground against two Valerian legions. At least Sextus came by his predilection for gambling honestly. Aulan had no idea what obtuse Severan root might have produced Regulus’s spectacular, and hopefully singular, shortcomings. Neither Patronus nor their mother had ever struck him as being similarly short-sighted; even the nonentity that was his uncle Lucullus was more or less normal in that regard.\n\n“Fossa!” Magnus swore and tore two of the letters he’d recently written in half. “We’re going to have to move faster than I’d planned. If we don’t distract the allies and the provincials quickly, your cursed brother is going to break at least one of the leagues apart!”\n\n“How do we distract them?”\n\n“We move on Amorr. Right away. The Senate wouldn’t be trying to assassinate me if they weren’t frightened; they have no confidence in the new legion they’ll be raising, nor should they. Corvus couldn’t beat me, but they didn’t know that; without him, they’re stuck with Declama and Rullianus. Quintus Falconius is an aggressive, thoughtless bastard. He’ll come out to meet us so long as the numbers are in his favor.”\n\n“You can’t take Amorr with two legions!”\n\n“I said move on Amorr, not take it. The distinction is paramount.”\n\nAulan didn’t see what the point of moving on Amorr without taking it was, but he decided not to inquire. He knew Magnus would explain himself whenever he saw fit and no sooner. “All right. What about the Consul Provincae?”\n\n“What about him? Pansa is no general. Gaerus Tillius is good, as are two of the younger Cassanians, but the Cassanians won’t be given additional commands while Longinus is still in the field. The Gaeran legions will stay in the north, to keep the provincials from joining us.”\n\n“And Torquatus? He is no longer consul, but he is still a power in the Senate.” To say nothing of being an old friend and associate of one Valerius Magnus.\n\n“Titus Manlius will counsel caution and hiding behind the city’s walls. He knows me too well, he’ll know I don’t want a siege. He may talk sense into the Senate for a while, but he won’t be able to keep Rullianus on a leash for long. It won’t be hard to draw him out.”\n\n“Why are you so certain Rullianus will come out to meet us?”\n\n“He’s like your brother. He’s young and he’s greedy for fame. And how better to achieve it by defeating the great rebel Valerius Magnus, right in front of the walls of the Sacred City with every last knight and senator watching?”\n\n“You’re certain you can beat him?”\n\n“A fame-hungry hothead with green legions and no experienced centurions? Aulus Severus, I’ve half a mind to leave a legion behind just to make it a challenge! Any one of my cohorts will have more centurions with experience than his entire officer corps combined. You cannot win a battle without good centurions, Aulan. If you learn one thing from me, let it be that. The heart of the legion is its centurions.”\n\nAs he spoke, Magnus was quickly scratching out a short letter on a small scroll, which he sealed, stamped, then handed to Aulan. “Dine with me tonight. You’ll leave for Salventum in the morning; take both of your squadrons from Fulgetra with you.”\n\n“You’re sending me back to my brother?”\n\n“Tell him he’s to march on Amorr without delay. The rest of the Utruccan League may or may not come, but it makes little difference either way. The provincial legions are useless to me; worse than useless, given the logistical burden they’ll impose. And tell him to put the damned crown away and pretend he never claimed it. This is no time for such nonsense.”\n\n“And if he doesn’t listen to me?”\n\n“Kill him, if you can. If not, give the scroll to either Buteo or the primus pilus. Then tell them to march on Amorr without delay. I expect you’ll find them amenable.”\n\nAulan nodded grimly. He’d expected as much. If he’d learned one thing from Magnus, it was to act without hesitation once the decision was made. He was pleased, too, that Magnus honored him by assuming he would carry out the terrible order if possible. But it wouldn’t be necessary, he decided. He was certain he could convince Regulus to listen to reason. Almost certain, anyhow.\n\n“I’ll bring the Severan legions to Amorr one way or another,” he promised, then saluted the Valerian. How strange it was that events had come to this, that a Valerian should be able to order a Severan to kill another member of House Severus without being struck dead for his presumption! “How soon will you march?”\n\n“That’s what I’m about to find out.” Magnus cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Opilian!”\n\nAulan hadn’t seen Tarrisinus Opilian in the hall, but Magnus’s booming voice echoed off the tiled floor, and it was only a matter of moments before the tribune of the XVth appeared in the doorway. “Lord Valerius?”\n\n“Get me Gerontius and both praefecti, now. I need to know how our supplies stand, so they’d damn well better be ready to answer any questions in that regard. And send a rider to the legati of V and IX in Larinum. I need them here with their praefecti the day after tomorrow, if possible. No later than the day after that. Tell them we need to move the schedule forward.”\n\n“Sir!” Opilian saluted, and with a brief nod to acknowledge Aulan, he exited the room. The sound of his boots thumping through the hall was followed by the exterior door slamming, and then it was quiet again.\n\nMagnus looked thoughtful, then grunted as he rose to his feet and patted Aulan on his armored shoulder. “That’s four. But I’ll need five. Six would be better. It’s your House legions that matter, Aulus Severus. If you can get them to me without killing your brother, he can call himself the King of the fornicating Elves and Dwarves for all I care. But get me those damned legions!”\n", "completion": "As he approached the building that served as the commander’s quarters, Aulan was surprised to see no less than four armored legionaries standing guard outside the door. Previously, Magnus had always been content with two. He noticed the different numbers painted on the shields that were leaned against the brick sides of the building; the guards consisted of two pairs from different legions.\n\nThey saluted, recognizing his tribune’s helm, but did not move out of his way until the leftmost man, from Fulgetra, nodded and said his name.\n\n“It’s Severus Aulan. Stand aside.”\n\nThey moved out of his way, but Aulan stood his ground. “What’s this?”\n\n“Assassination attempt. Two days ago.”\n\n“Magnus?”\n\n“Yessir. He’s unharmed, sir. One of the centurions from the Fourth was killed, but he managed to wound one of the assassins. Magnus killed one, the pilus prior got the other.”\n\nAulan nodded. It was clever. With two legions, most of the officers were more or less familiar faces. But the legionaries were practically indistinguishable, especially when they were wearing their helms with their cheek-guards down.\n\n“Look sharp, then.”\n\n“Ave, sir!” The men saluted again, and this time he returned it. He opened the door and discovered two more guards inside the entry hall, but they did not attempt to stop him and merely regarded him impassively. He nodded to them and continued through the hall to the chamber that alternately served as Magnus’s triclinium or his staff center, depending upon his needs and the hour of the day. The floor was tiled in white, with a crude mosaic of a pagan sea god transfixing a thrashing male mer on his trident laid out in black.\n\nAs it was barely past noon, the klinai had been pushed to the corners of the tiled chamber and the big Valerian sat hunched over a writing desk that was comically small for his bulk, stamping a wax seal with his signet ring.\n\n“Ah, Aulan, you’re back,” he said, and he pushed back the chair before rising to his feet. They clasped forearms, and Aulan noticed a long scratch across the older man’s cheek.\n\n“I heard there was some excitement in my absence.”\n\n“It seems I may have frightened the Senate rather more than I intended.” Magnus shook his grey-haired head ruefully. “Those bastards cost me a good centurion too. Bad enough to lose the two guards, but losing an officer that way is downright vexatious.”\n\n“Are you sure it was the Senate?”\n\n“No, but one has to assume they’re the most likely candidates. All of their gear was correct. There are no shortage of those who’d like to see me dead, but these days, most of them are in Amorr.”\n\n“Pity you couldn’t capture one of them.”\n\n“Yes, well, I suspect you’ll discover a similar tendency to overreact if someone tries to stick a sword in your eye.” Magnus chuckled. “Didn’t know I could still move that fast, to be honest. You should have seen the bastard’s face when I stepped inside his guard and stuck my blade in under his arm. I vow he died more of embarrassment at being bested by an old fat man than from the stabbing.”\n\nMagnus patted his belly, and Aulan marked the short dagger that the legatus was wearing strapped to his belt. There was still a good deal of muscle under the fat, though, and Magnus was a big, powerful man who had seen more war than most men of his generation. It didn’t surprise Aulan that he’d survived the attack.\n\n“They’ll be taking other measures now,” he observed. “If they can’t kill you, they’ll try to pressure you in other ways.”\n\n“I know,” Magnus agreed. “That’s why I’ve been writing to each of our allies who has had the fortune to meet our former countrymen in battle. I am requiring that they turn over all captured patricians, tribunes, and equestrians from the wealthier families to me.”\n\n“Will they heed you?”\n\n“Considering their abject pleas for my assistance in various matters, to say nothing of no less than four requests to direct the campaign on behalf of both leagues, I expect so.”\n\n“How many?”\n\n“Probably around sixty or seventy young men, all told, although it’s only the Andronicans and Falconians that really matter. Seven or eight of them will give me more than enough leverage to safeguard my sons.”\n\n“Even though they’ve forsworn you?” Letters to that effect had arrived before Aulan’s recent departure. Marcus had read them, laughed at the futile appeals to end his rebellion they contained, and as far as Aulan had seen, forgot them entirely.\n\n“The Senate won’t give a damn. They’re growing more desperate every day. I think they’ll leave Julia alone since I divorced her.”\n\n“You think they’d try to use the women?” Aulan was genuinely surprised.\n\n“My daughters are safe enough. Their husbands, and more importantly, their fathers-in-law, won’t permit any action against them. But I can’t fault the Senate if they don’t place much weight in my sons’ disavowals. I wouldn’t. Appius Appuleius won’t harm them, but Marcus Andronicus wouldn’t shirk at it. He’s a cold-hearted bastard for all that he’s a weedy fellow. And the fact that Rullianus was chosen as Consul Suffectus Aquilae to replace my late and unlamented brother indicates the Senate is in a bloodthirsty mood.”\n\n“Is there any word on what happened to Corvus?”\n\n“God only knows.” Magnus snorted. “In spite of everything, I find myself grieving over the murdering prig. He always was so concerned with being correct and proper… and to think he died slaughtering the Sanctiff! For all that his actions last year were sheer lunacy, he never struck me as mad, but then, perhaps it was belated guilt over executing Gaius Valerius that sent him over the edge.”\n\n“Slaughtering the Sanctiff? I heard he died defending him!”\n\n“From a demon?” Magnus laughed and set down heavily in the wooden chair, which groaned under his weight. “And here I thought you were a cynic! You don’t genuinely put any stock in that story, do you?”\n\n“You have to admit that there has been a good deal of strangeness of late, Magnus. Two sanctiffs dead and God knows how many celestines as well, and all of them butchered right in the heart of the Church!”\n\n“Yes, well, consuls and senators have been dropping like flies in the first winter freeze too, and no one sees any sorcery in that!”\n\n“Most of the men say it was the elves. It’s known that the elven ambassador fled the city that same day.”\n\n“At least that’s a theory that makes some degree of sense. Demons! I have no idea what Ahenobarbus was thinking when he permitted the damned creatures into the city. Elves, that is, not demons. Pity they didn’t fry him instead of poor Sebastius. Souls or no, elves are wicked at heart. It’s the magic. Steep a race of men in such sorcery for generations and the results will be no different. The Witchkings proved that.”\n\n“Some say you’re a sorcerer.”\n\nMagnus laughed heartily. “Lesser minds find it difficult to accept their inferiority. It’s always luck or magic, never their own incompetence. Speaking of which, we have a situation I will require your help in addressing.”\n\nAulan sighed and looked down at the dust of the roads still covering his armor. “Immediately?”\n\n“Never fear, tribune, you’ll have time for a hot bath and a whore before I send you out again.”\n\n“I was hoping more for a decent night’s sleep.”\n\n“That too. It’s your brother.”\n\n“Regulus finally showed his hand?” Aulan perked up. His elder brother had been charged by their father to take charge of the Severan legions. “Don’t tell me he managed to find himself a battle and lose it!”\n\n“I wish he had. I knew he was vainglorious, but I didn’t know he was genuinely stupid. It seems your brother has declared himself king.”\n\nAulan’s jaw dropped open. “He did what? Of where?”\n\n“King. Salventum. Falconius Buteo marched south from Cynothicum to join him before the snows fully melted. So Regulus has Fulgetra as well as the City legion supporting him. That Buteo is a cynical bastard.”\n\n“That’s sheer madness!”\n\n“It’s brainless, is what it is. He can’t possibly think anyone is going to take him seriously, can he?”\n\nAulan was already wondering precisely the same thing. What could possibly have inspired his brother to such overt lunacy? Such a controversial action was certain to put the anti-Amorran alliance of the two leagues at risk; the allies would find themselves occupied with warring with each other at the very moment they needed to band together against the might of Amorr.\n\nThen a thought struck him. “I imagine he thinks it’s what father would have wanted him to do.”\n\n“That’s ridiculous!”\n\n“No, it’s not. Not from his perspective.” Aulan looked up at the ceiling and tried to put himself in his brother’s shoes. “You’ve always been father’s chief rival, just as House Valerius was our House’s chief rival. So, with all the rumors flying around about your intention to crown yourself king of Vallyria, Regulus must be thinking that the only way for House Severus to keep pace with House Valerius is to crown himself king in response.”\n\nMagnus’s lip curled contemptuously. “The arrogant puppy!”\n\nAulan shook his head. “It’s worse than arrogance. It’s a complete lack of any sense whatsoever. Regulus has always been a snob. He believes that the power comes from the name, be it Severus or Valerius, not the man.”\n\nThat inspired a short bark of derisive laughter. “I don’t suppose it crossed his mind that it is considerably different for the Vallyrians to accept a proconsul who has been commanding legions for nearly thirty years than for the men of Salventum to accept a boy who isn’t even old enough to enter the Senate on the strength of his House name.”\n\n“I very much doubt it has. As far back as I can remember, the full extent of Regulus’s analysis of anything extends no further than the question of whether he wants it or not.”\n\nMagnus swore a very unpatrician oath. “You couldn’t have told me this any sooner?”\n\n“How would I know he’d declare himself king? This is a depth of idiocy I didn’t even know existed!”\n\n“How is it possible for a son of Severus Patronus to be so stupid?” Magnus groaned. Then he stopped and corrected himself. “I suppose I should know. I fathered Sextus after all.”\n\n“I doubt Sextus would be so foolish as to declare himself king the moment he had an army at his command.”\n\n“Don’t underestimate my son’s capacity for foolishness. He would not only declare himself king, he’d stake his crown on a single throw of the dice.”\n\nAulan said nothing, having been there when Magnus led Legio VII into battle on disadvantageous ground against two Valerian legions. At least Sextus came by his predilection for gambling honestly. Aulan had no idea what obtuse Severan root might have produced Regulus’s spectacular, and hopefully singular, shortcomings. Neither Patronus nor their mother had ever struck him as being similarly short-sighted; even the nonentity that was his uncle Lucullus was more or less normal in that regard.\n\n“Fossa!” Magnus swore and tore two of the letters he’d recently written in half. “We’re going to have to move faster than I’d planned. If we don’t distract the allies and the provincials quickly, your cursed brother is going to break at least one of the leagues apart!”\n\n“How do we distract them?”\n\n“We move on Amorr. Right away. The Senate wouldn’t be trying to assassinate me if they weren’t frightened; they have no confidence in the new legion they’ll be raising, nor should they. Corvus couldn’t beat me, but they didn’t know that; without him, they’re stuck with Declama and Rullianus. Quintus Falconius is an aggressive, thoughtless bastard. He’ll come out to meet us so long as the numbers are in his favor.”\n\n“You can’t take Amorr with two legions!”\n\n“I said move on Amorr, not take it. The distinction is paramount.”\n\nAulan didn’t see what the point of moving on Amorr without taking it was, but he decided not to inquire. He knew Magnus would explain himself whenever he saw fit and no sooner. “All right. What about the Consul Provincae?”\n\n“What about him? Pansa is no general. Gaerus Tillius is good, as are two of the younger Cassanians, but the Cassanians won’t be given additional commands while Longinus is still in the field. The Gaeran legions will stay in the north, to keep the provincials from joining us.”\n\n“And Torquatus? He is no longer consul, but he is still a power in the Senate.” To say nothing of being an old friend and associate of one Valerius Magnus.\n\n“Titus Manlius will counsel caution and hiding behind the city’s walls. He knows me too well, he’ll know I don’t want a siege. He may talk sense into the Senate for a while, but he won’t be able to keep Rullianus on a leash for long. It won’t be hard to draw him out.”\n\n“Why are you so certain Rullianus will come out to meet us?”\n\n“He’s like your brother. He’s young and he’s greedy for fame. And how better to achieve it by defeating the great rebel Valerius Magnus, right in front of the walls of the Sacred City with every last knight and senator watching?”\n\n“You’re certain you can beat him?”\n\n“A fame-hungry hothead with green legions and no experienced centurions? Aulus Severus, I’ve half a mind to leave a legion behind just to make it a challenge! Any one of my cohorts will have more centurions with experience than his entire officer corps combined. You cannot win a battle without good centurions, Aulan. If you learn one thing from me, let it be that. The heart of the legion is its centurions.”\n\nAs he spoke, Magnus was quickly scratching out a short letter on a small scroll, which he sealed, stamped, then handed to Aulan. “Dine with me tonight. You’ll leave for Salventum in the morning; take both of your squadrons from Fulgetra with you.”\n\n“You’re sending me back to my brother?”\n\n“Tell him he’s to march on Amorr without delay. The rest of the Utruccan League may or may not come, but it makes little difference either way. The provincial legions are useless to me; worse than useless, given the logistical burden they’ll impose. And tell him to put the damned crown away and pretend he never claimed it. This is no time for such nonsense.”\n\n“And if he doesn’t listen to me?”\n\n“Kill him, if you can. If not, give the scroll to either Buteo or the primus pilus. Then tell them to march on Amorr without delay. I expect you’ll find them amenable.”\n\nAulan nodded grimly. He’d expected as much. If he’d learned one thing from Magnus, it was to act without hesitation once the decision was made. He was pleased, too, that Magnus honored him by assuming he would carry out the terrible order if possible. But it wouldn’t be necessary, he decided. He was certain he could convince Regulus to listen to reason. Almost certain, anyhow.\n\n“I’ll bring the Severan legions to Amorr one way or another,” he promised, then saluted the Valerian. How strange it was that events had come to this, that a Valerian should be able to order a Severan to kill another member of House Severus without being struck dead for his presumption! “How soon will you march?”\n\n“That’s what I’m about to find out.” Magnus cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Opilian!”\n\nAulan hadn’t seen Tarrisinus Opilian in the hall, but Magnus’s booming voice echoed off the tiled floor, and it was only a matter of moments before the tribune of the XVth appeared in the doorway. “Lord Valerius?”\n\n“Get me Gerontius and both praefecti, now. I need to know how our supplies stand, so they’d damn well better be ready to answer any questions in that regard. And send a rider to the legati of V and IX in Larinum. I need them here with their praefecti the day after tomorrow, if possible. No later than the day after that. Tell them we need to move the schedule forward.”\n\n“Sir!” Opilian saluted, and with a brief nod to acknowledge Aulan, he exited the room. The sound of his boots thumping through the hall was followed by the exterior door slamming, and then it was quiet again.\n\nMagnus looked thoughtful, then grunted as he rose to his feet and patted Aulan on his armored shoulder. “That’s four. But I’ll need five. Six would be better. It’s your House legions that matter, Aulus Severus. If you can get them to me without killing your brother, he can call himself the King of the fornicating Elves and Dwarves for all I care. But get me those damned legions!”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2943, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch09_aulan-P2", "chapter": "ch09_aulan", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nLucarus — Aulan’s decurion; spelling Lucarus not Lucretius.\nAppius Severus Pullus — current head of House Severus holding the Amorran domus.\nHerius Obsidius — Marruvian League head Aulan visited; keep spelling.\nLonginus — Amorran commander who murdered Patronus; keep spelling.\nTitus Junius — knight lost after Three Legions to a festered pilum wound.\nBattle of the Three Legions — named prior fight; keep capitals.\nCernobian — of Cernobus; the elder Aulan helped kill earlier.\n\n### STORY\nBack from league errands Aulan finds Magnus’s quarters double-guarded after an assassination attempt; Magnus reveals Regulus has crowned himself in Salventum, orders Aulan to bring the Severan legions for a move on Amorr, and authorizes killing Regulus if persuasion fails.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nAulan\nRiding familiar brick roads toward the family villa country and the Salventum castra with both Fulgetra squadrons. Rehearsing patience with Regulus’s temper; hoping not to have to kill him cold. Not yet decided whether to report first to Buteo or to his brother.\n\nLucarus\nDecurion; dour because his favorite became a camp wife; worrying about Buteo, flogging, and backpay; predator-quick when riders appear ahead.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAulan nodded grimly. He’d expected as much. If he’d learned one thing from Magnus, it was to act without hesitation once the decision was made. He was pleased, too, that Magnus honored him by assuming he would carry out the terrible order if possible. But it wouldn’t be necessary, he decided. He was certain he could convince Regulus to listen to reason. Almost certain, anyhow.\n\n“I’ll bring the Severan legions to Amorr one way or another,” he promised, then saluted the Valerian. How strange it was that events had come to this, that a Valerian should be able to order a Severan to kill another member of House Severus without being struck dead for his presumption! “How soon will you march?”\n\n“That’s what I’m about to find out.” Magnus cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Opilian!”\n\nAulan hadn’t seen Tarrisinus Opilian in the hall, but Magnus’s booming voice echoed off the tiled floor, and it was only a matter of moments before the tribune of the XVth appeared in the doorway. “Lord Valerius?”\n\n“Get me Gerontius and both praefecti, now. I need to know how our supplies stand, so they’d damn well better be ready to answer any questions in that regard. And send a rider to the legati of V and IX in Larinum. I need them here with their praefecti the day after tomorrow, if possible. No later than the day after that. Tell them we need to move the schedule forward.”\n\n“Sir!” Opilian saluted, and with a brief nod to acknowledge Aulan, he exited the room. The sound of his boots thumping through the hall was followed by the exterior door slamming, and then it was quiet again.\n\nMagnus looked thoughtful, then grunted as he rose to his feet and patted Aulan on his armored shoulder. “That’s four. But I’ll need five. Six would be better. It’s your House legions that matter, Aulus Severus. If you can get them to me without killing your brother, he can call himself the King of the fornicating Elves and Dwarves for all I care. But get me those damned legions!”\n\n### NOTES\nBrick roads across provinces; landmarks of vineyards, a lone copse in corn, straw-topped hovels.\nFork ahead: Amorr one way, permanent Severan castra the other — they keep straight for the castra.\nHorses weary after four provinces; any patrol mounts will be fresher.\nWinter absence from Fulgetra may look like desertion to Buteo.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Aulan.\n\nLeagues of brick make the country feel like home; he inventories summers at the villa, Patronus’s manumissions, Pullus in the Amorran domus, and the difference between his father’s web of debts and Magnus’s force of personality. He doubts Regulus would die as well as the Cernobian elder did, and tells himself that if the kill comes, Regulus must not see it.\n\nLucarus asks the fork; Aulan keeps them toward the castra and talks through glad-handing Regulus’s pretensions, Buteo’s possible anger, silence on Magnus’s plans, and the men’s invented claim to backpay. Then riders ahead — a patrol. The scene ends as Aulan asks Lucarus what he sees, decision still unsettled.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1500 words. Travel-thought tempo; Lucarus practical. Land on the patrol sighting line — do not resolve the intercept.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Aulan wasn’t certain at what point the roads over which they were riding began to strike him as being familiar. But gradually, as the leagues passed by to the monotonous accompaniment of the horses’ hooves against the bricks, he began to recognize more and more of the landmarks on either side. A half-ruined building set back amidst vineyards, an inexplicable copse of trees standing defiantly in the middle of a corn field, a certain collection of modest, straw-topped hovels; they struck long-forgotten chords in his memory that made him feel as if he was going home.\n\nHow long had it been since he’d last been back to the family villa? At least three years, maybe four. Some of his fondest memories were of summers spent there, playing with his brothers and the children of the household slaves. He wondered how many of them were still there, as Patronus had manumitted a number of the older slaves in his will. The villa was Regulus’s now, whereas the grand domus in Amorr remained with the head of House Severus, which at present was Appius Severus Pullus.\n\nHis mother and the two youngest children still lived there, of course, as the domus was large enough for several generations of Severans. But she was no longer the mistress there, just as his father was no longer the master of the Senate. And that, he imagined, was the thought that would be sticking in Regulus’s craw. Aulan didn’t fault him for his desire to salvage Severan influence; he shared it. But Regulus was too impatient, too narcissistic, and too confident in his inflated sense of self to understand that a patron had to earn the trust of his clients, that it was not simply his to claim by birth-right.\n\nThat was the difference between Patronus and Magnus, Aulan thought. They were both brilliant, accomplished, powerful men but Patronus had drawn men to him through a complex web of carefully constructed dependencies. Magnus achieved much the same results through sheer force of personality. Men owed Patronus, whereas they followed Magnus.\n\nHe wished he’d had the same opportunity to get to know his father that he’d had with Magnus over the last few months. But he’d been too young when his father was still commanding legions rather than Senate factions, and besides, it was easier in some ways for men to make demands of young men who were not their sons. Aulan rather doubted Magnus would so blithely have used any of his own sons as assassins, although to be fair, he couldn’t be entirely certain of that.\n\nAnd then, Magnus hadn’t actually told him to accompany Lucarus to kill the old Cernobian, that had been his choice. He smiled at the memory of the arrogant elder’s outraged face when he’d realized that the man he thought to betray had betrayed him instead. But the old man had courage, Aulan allowed, and didn’t embarrass himself by begging for mercy, either for himself or his family.\n\nSomehow, he doubted Regulus would die half as well under similar circumstances. That in itself was reason enough to ensure he was talked round; the thought of Titus Severus weeping and pleading for his life, shaming both his House and their father’s memory, sent a chill down Aulan’s spine.\n\nIf you have to do it, you’d better not let him see it coming, he told himself.\n\n“Do you know which way?” Lucarus called to him. They were approaching a fork in the road; one way led to Amorr and the other to the huge permanent castra that Aulan assumed was presently housing both Severan legions as well as the remnants of the Civic Legion.\n\n“Keep straight on,” he told the decurion. “With any luck, we’ll be riding that one within ten days.”\n\nThe men were in good spirits, considering that half of them had been with him when he’d been delivering Magnus’s messages to Herius Obsidius, the head of the Marruvian League. Obsidius had enjoyed some early success against Longinus, his father’s murderer, but had been reluctant to follow it up and thereby squandered his initial advantage. Magnus wasn’t overbothered by this, for as Aulan had been charged with explaining, his primary concern was for the Marruvian armies to keep the Amorran legions in the north and east of the empire occupied and away from his flanks when he moved on Amorr.\n\n“Think your brother will be glad to see you?” Lucarus had been unusually dour of late. Aulan put it down to his favorite having been made the camp wife of one of the centurions and subsequently taking herself out of commission.\n\n“He will if we play along with his pretensions.”\n\n“How do you expect to do that if Magnus wants him to set aside his crown?”\n\n“Magnus didn’t say we had to lead with that.” In truth, Aulan hadn’t decided yet upon what approach he should take with Regulus. No one knew better than he did how quick his older brother could be to anger when crossed, or worse, defied.\n\nHe had been six or seven the first time he’d realized how dangerous Regulus’s temper could be. They’d been arguing about something, probably a toy, when he swung at Regulus and hit him in the shoulder. Regulus had promptly hit him back, punching him hard in the stomach. That had hurt, but it was fair enough. What was much more frightening, in retrospect, was the way that Regulus stopped and stared at him while he was doubled over, then deliberately punched him in the face, knocking him down.\n\nThey’d only come to blows five or six times after that, and each time, Aulan had been careful not to strike the first blow. Regulus had beaten him, but he’d never again shown the cold, merciless fury of that earlier fight.\n\nHe’d have to be patient, he decided, and let his brother show his hand. Marching in and proclaiming Magnus’s demands would likely be counterproductive, and Regulus was not the sort to differentiate between message and messenger.\n\n“What about Buteo?”\n\n“What about him?” Aulan had not given the Falconian legate a moment’s thought since reaching Amorr last winter.\n\n“Well, we’re with Fulgetra, right? So, he’s your senior officer, and you didn’t have no orders to go riding off with Magnus, if I recall aright.”\n\nAulan frowned. It hadn’t occurred to him that Buteo might take exception to the absence of him and his men over the winter. Fulgetra was a Severan legion, after all, and ultimately answered to the head of House Severus. It shouldn’t be a problem, since they had been following his father’s orders, but Patronus was no longer around to verify them.\n\n“Buteo isn’t going to give us any trouble.”\n\n“He’s not going to give you any trouble,” the decurion muttered. “We’ll be lucky to get away with a flogging.”\n\n“Don’t be a worrywart. If anything, he’ll be happy to have twenty more horse at his disposal than he did yesterday.” Not that Magnus or Regulus were likely to leave them at the Falconian’s disposal for long. “Just keep your mouth shut if they ask you about Magnus’s intentions, and make sure none of the others do much talking either. I don’t know what he’s really up to and neither do any of you. If anyone starts asking questions, just start talking about the Battle of the Three Legions. That should distract them.”\n\n“Aye, I suppose it will at that.” Lucarus snorted. “Most of the boys think we was lucky to get away for the winter. Except Titus Junius, of course.”\n\n“Granted.” A pilum had been driven through Junius’s left leg during their charge that had broken the two Valerian legions, the wound had festered, and despite a belated amputation, Junius died three weeks later. But he’d been the only knight lost to Aulan since they’d parted company with Fulgetra, which was better than some considerably less adventurous winters Aulan had spent in the past.\n\nWinter was always a difficult time for the legionaries, and especially the knights, who, being accustomed to the greater liberty due their social rank, tended to go more than a little stir-crazy when trapped in a winter castra far from civilization and its amenities. Particularly amenities of the female variety.\n\n“What about our backpay?”\n\n“Backpay? You all got paid twice! First by my father, then by Patronus.”\n\n“The boys figured they was bonuses. You know, for the trouble. Besides, if we’re still on the legion’s roster, our wages is owed.”\n\nAulan sighed. Lucarus might be a stubborn old cur, but he knew his rights. “I’ll see what I can do. Say, is that a patrol up there?”\n", "completion": "Aulan wasn’t certain at what point the roads over which they were riding began to strike him as being familiar. But gradually, as the leagues passed by to the monotonous accompaniment of the horses’ hooves against the bricks, he began to recognize more and more of the landmarks on either side. A half-ruined building set back amidst vineyards, an inexplicable copse of trees standing defiantly in the middle of a corn field, a certain collection of modest, straw-topped hovels; they struck long-forgotten chords in his memory that made him feel as if he was going home.\n\nHow long had it been since he’d last been back to the family villa? At least three years, maybe four. Some of his fondest memories were of summers spent there, playing with his brothers and the children of the household slaves. He wondered how many of them were still there, as Patronus had manumitted a number of the older slaves in his will. The villa was Regulus’s now, whereas the grand domus in Amorr remained with the head of House Severus, which at present was Appius Severus Pullus.\n\nHis mother and the two youngest children still lived there, of course, as the domus was large enough for several generations of Severans. But she was no longer the mistress there, just as his father was no longer the master of the Senate. And that, he imagined, was the thought that would be sticking in Regulus’s craw. Aulan didn’t fault him for his desire to salvage Severan influence; he shared it. But Regulus was too impatient, too narcissistic, and too confident in his inflated sense of self to understand that a patron had to earn the trust of his clients, that it was not simply his to claim by birth-right.\n\nThat was the difference between Patronus and Magnus, Aulan thought. They were both brilliant, accomplished, powerful men but Patronus had drawn men to him through a complex web of carefully constructed dependencies. Magnus achieved much the same results through sheer force of personality. Men owed Patronus, whereas they followed Magnus.\n\nHe wished he’d had the same opportunity to get to know his father that he’d had with Magnus over the last few months. But he’d been too young when his father was still commanding legions rather than Senate factions, and besides, it was easier in some ways for men to make demands of young men who were not their sons. Aulan rather doubted Magnus would so blithely have used any of his own sons as assassins, although to be fair, he couldn’t be entirely certain of that.\n\nAnd then, Magnus hadn’t actually told him to accompany Lucarus to kill the old Cernobian, that had been his choice. He smiled at the memory of the arrogant elder’s outraged face when he’d realized that the man he thought to betray had betrayed him instead. But the old man had courage, Aulan allowed, and didn’t embarrass himself by begging for mercy, either for himself or his family.\n\nSomehow, he doubted Regulus would die half as well under similar circumstances. That in itself was reason enough to ensure he was talked round; the thought of Titus Severus weeping and pleading for his life, shaming both his House and their father’s memory, sent a chill down Aulan’s spine.\n\nIf you have to do it, you’d better not let him see it coming, he told himself.\n\n“Do you know which way?” Lucarus called to him. They were approaching a fork in the road; one way led to Amorr and the other to the huge permanent castra that Aulan assumed was presently housing both Severan legions as well as the remnants of the Civic Legion.\n\n“Keep straight on,” he told the decurion. “With any luck, we’ll be riding that one within ten days.”\n\nThe men were in good spirits, considering that half of them had been with him when he’d been delivering Magnus’s messages to Herius Obsidius, the head of the Marruvian League. Obsidius had enjoyed some early success against Longinus, his father’s murderer, but had been reluctant to follow it up and thereby squandered his initial advantage. Magnus wasn’t overbothered by this, for as Aulan had been charged with explaining, his primary concern was for the Marruvian armies to keep the Amorran legions in the north and east of the empire occupied and away from his flanks when he moved on Amorr.\n\n“Think your brother will be glad to see you?” Lucarus had been unusually dour of late. Aulan put it down to his favorite having been made the camp wife of one of the centurions and subsequently taking herself out of commission.\n\n“He will if we play along with his pretensions.”\n\n“How do you expect to do that if Magnus wants him to set aside his crown?”\n\n“Magnus didn’t say we had to lead with that.” In truth, Aulan hadn’t decided yet upon what approach he should take with Regulus. No one knew better than he did how quick his older brother could be to anger when crossed, or worse, defied.\n\nHe had been six or seven the first time he’d realized how dangerous Regulus’s temper could be. They’d been arguing about something, probably a toy, when he swung at Regulus and hit him in the shoulder. Regulus had promptly hit him back, punching him hard in the stomach. That had hurt, but it was fair enough. What was much more frightening, in retrospect, was the way that Regulus stopped and stared at him while he was doubled over, then deliberately punched him in the face, knocking him down.\n\nThey’d only come to blows five or six times after that, and each time, Aulan had been careful not to strike the first blow. Regulus had beaten him, but he’d never again shown the cold, merciless fury of that earlier fight.\n\nHe’d have to be patient, he decided, and let his brother show his hand. Marching in and proclaiming Magnus’s demands would likely be counterproductive, and Regulus was not the sort to differentiate between message and messenger.\n\n“What about Buteo?”\n\n“What about him?” Aulan had not given the Falconian legate a moment’s thought since reaching Amorr last winter.\n\n“Well, we’re with Fulgetra, right? So, he’s your senior officer, and you didn’t have no orders to go riding off with Magnus, if I recall aright.”\n\nAulan frowned. It hadn’t occurred to him that Buteo might take exception to the absence of him and his men over the winter. Fulgetra was a Severan legion, after all, and ultimately answered to the head of House Severus. It shouldn’t be a problem, since they had been following his father’s orders, but Patronus was no longer around to verify them.\n\n“Buteo isn’t going to give us any trouble.”\n\n“He’s not going to give you any trouble,” the decurion muttered. “We’ll be lucky to get away with a flogging.”\n\n“Don’t be a worrywart. If anything, he’ll be happy to have twenty more horse at his disposal than he did yesterday.” Not that Magnus or Regulus were likely to leave them at the Falconian’s disposal for long. “Just keep your mouth shut if they ask you about Magnus’s intentions, and make sure none of the others do much talking either. I don’t know what he’s really up to and neither do any of you. If anyone starts asking questions, just start talking about the Battle of the Three Legions. That should distract them.”\n\n“Aye, I suppose it will at that.” Lucarus snorted. “Most of the boys think we was lucky to get away for the winter. Except Titus Junius, of course.”\n\n“Granted.” A pilum had been driven through Junius’s left leg during their charge that had broken the two Valerian legions, the wound had festered, and despite a belated amputation, Junius died three weeks later. But he’d been the only knight lost to Aulan since they’d parted company with Fulgetra, which was better than some considerably less adventurous winters Aulan had spent in the past.\n\nWinter was always a difficult time for the legionaries, and especially the knights, who, being accustomed to the greater liberty due their social rank, tended to go more than a little stir-crazy when trapped in a winter castra far from civilization and its amenities. Particularly amenities of the female variety.\n\n“What about our backpay?”\n\n“Backpay? You all got paid twice! First by my father, then by Patronus.”\n\n“The boys figured they was bonuses. You know, for the trouble. Besides, if we’re still on the legion’s roster, our wages is owed.”\n\nAulan sighed. Lucarus might be a stubborn old cur, but he knew his rights. “I’ll see what I can do. Say, is that a patrol up there?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1500, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch09_aulan-P3", "chapter": "ch09_aulan", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNemonius Strabo — Second Cohort centurion who knows Aulan’s face; keep spelling.\nAppius Mallicus — named as legatus giving the arrest order; formerly laticlavius.\ncaligae — hobnailed sandals; Latin plural.\noptios — junior officers bawling the halt; keep form.\n\n### STORY\nRiding for Salventum with both Fulgetra squadrons after Magnus’s kill-or-convince order, Aulan rehearses handling Regulus and Buteo with Lucarus until two riders appear ahead on the brick road.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nAulan\nStill undecided between brother and legate when the patrol bolts; irritated more than afraid when centuries come out; will identify himself as tribune before swords leave scabbards.\n\nLucarus\nChuckles bitterly at the arrest; had expected trouble.\n\nNemonius Strabo\nSecond Cohort; glad to see the prodigal — and under orders to take his weapons.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAulan frowned. It hadn’t occurred to him that Buteo might take exception to the absence of him and his men over the winter. Fulgetra was a Severan legion, after all, and ultimately answered to the head of House Severus. It shouldn’t be a problem, since they had been following his father’s orders, but Patronus was no longer around to verify them.\n\n“Buteo isn’t going to give us any trouble.”\n\n“He’s not going to give you any trouble,” the decurion muttered. “We’ll be lucky to get away with a flogging.”\n\n“Don’t be a worrywart. If anything, he’ll be happy to have twenty more horse at his disposal than he did yesterday.” Not that Magnus or Regulus were likely to leave them at the Falconian’s disposal for long. “Just keep your mouth shut if they ask you about Magnus’s intentions, and make sure none of the others do much talking either. I don’t know what he’s really up to and neither do any of you. If anyone starts asking questions, just start talking about the Battle of the Three Legions. That should distract them.”\n\n“Aye, I suppose it will at that.” Lucarus snorted. “Most of the boys think we was lucky to get away for the winter. Except Titus Junius, of course.”\n\n“Granted.” A pilum had been driven through Junius’s left leg during their charge that had broken the two Valerian legions, the wound had festered, and despite a belated amputation, Junius died three weeks later. But he’d been the only knight lost to Aulan since they’d parted company with Fulgetra, which was better than some considerably less adventurous winters Aulan had spent in the past.\n\nWinter was always a difficult time for the legionaries, and especially the knights, who, being accustomed to the greater liberty due their social rank, tended to go more than a little stir-crazy when trapped in a winter castra far from civilization and its amenities. Particularly amenities of the female variety.\n\n“What about our backpay?”\n\n“Backpay? You all got paid twice! First by my father, then by Patronus.”\n\n“The boys figured they was bonuses. You know, for the trouble. Besides, if we’re still on the legion’s roster, our wages is owed.”\n\nAulan sighed. Lucarus might be a stubborn old cur, but he knew his rights. “I’ll see what I can do. Say, is that a patrol up there?”\n\n### NOTES\nCloser to the castra than Aulan guessed; sun still high when two centuries and flanking horse crest the hill.\nStandard mixed-force envelopment on the brick road.\nMallicus issuing legatus orders implies Buteo may be false, ill, or dead — situation in Salventum is not what Magnus assumed.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Aulan.\n\nThe patrol turns and vanishes; pursuit is pointless on weary horses. They come back with two centuries and a double envelopment; Aulan kills the pissing-match talk, lifts his tribune’s helm, and names himself. Strabo halts the line, grins at the prodigal, then orders weapons down — arrest by order of legatus Appius Mallicus. The title lands wrong: Mallicus should be laticlavius, not commander. Angry more than afraid, Aulan unbelts his sword onto the dusty bricks. The scene ends on that clatter.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 800 words. Tight intercept; no extended fight. Land when the sword hits the road.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The decurion squinted. “Riders, anyhow. Two of them. Could be. Did you make up your mind yet?”\n\nAulan wasn’t sure that he had. He had little stomach for facing his older brother today, and his obligation to report to Fulgetra’s legate was a perfectly adequate excuse for putting it off if he wanted one. Regulus was more likely to be reasonable if he didn’t show up with two squadrons of knights behind him; the last thing he wanted was to give Regulus the idea that he was after Regulus’s ridiculous crown.\n\nBut now, it seemed the decision might have been made for him. The riders in the distance had turned around abruptly and were rapidly disappearing. “Dammit!” he swore.\n\n“Should we go after them?”\n\n“And do what?” Aulan shook his head, irritated. Their horses weren’t blown, but they were weary after riding across four provinces, whereas the patrol’s would be fresh. They weren’t about to catch the other knights, nor did they know what to do with them if they did. Lucarus’s reaction was nothing more than simple instinct, a predator responding to the sight of possible prey running away. “They’ll be back with a century behind them before long.”\n\nHe was correct, and the speed with which they returned proved to Aulan that they were closer to the castra than he’d imagined. The sun was still high in the sky when they saw the column of infantry marching over the crest of a small hill ahead, flanked by a squadron of cavalry on either side. As the tromp-tromp-tromp of their caligae against the brick became audible, it soon became clear that Buteo had seen fit to send out two centuries against the unknown interlopers.\n\n“Keep your swords in your scabbards and your hands on your reins,” Aulan called out loudly behind him. “I don’t want any pissing matches today!”\n\nAhead of them, the two squadrons broke away from the infantry, abandoning the road to ride in a pair of semicircles that would permit a double-envelopment and hold Aulan and his twenty knights in place for the foot soldiers. It was a standard mixed-force tactic and no sooner did the men recognize it than they began heaping derision on the other knights.\n\n“Shut your damn mouths,” barked Lucarus, silencing them quickly. Like Aulan, he was tense. They both knew that the encounter wasn’t necessarily a safe one.\n\nThe squadrons kept their distance until the infantry column transformed into a three-deep line and Aulan could spot the transverse crests on the helmets of the two centurions. He couldn’t make out who they were, not with their cheek-plates obscuring their faces, and he doubted he could name more than two-thirds of Fulgetra’s officers on sight anyhow.\n\nBut as tribune, they would surely know his face. He reached back and untied his tribune’s helm from his saddle, then rose in his stirrups and held the helmet aloft. “I am Aulus Severus Aulan, Tribune of Legio III, commonly called Fulgetra!”\n\nThen he smiled as he saw the lead centurion stop and put up his hand, followed a moment later by a pair of optios bawling and the legionary line coming to a halt.\n\n“Aulus Severus, is that really you?” The centurion took off his helmet and Aulan recognized Nemonius Strabo, from the Second Cohort. “The prodigal finally returneth!”\n\nAulan grinned and winked at Lucarus. “You see,” he said archly. “There was never any cause for concern.” But what Strabo told him next abruptly wiped the smile from his lips.\n\n“I’m glad to see you, Aulus Severus, but you and your men will need to drop your weapons. I’m sorry, but I have orders to arrest you.”\n\nHe heard more than a few obscenities and vulgarities being uttered behind him, though Lucarus only chuckled bitterly. It was with some difficulty that Aulan managed to maintain a steady voice and shout back at the centurion.\n\n“Orders from whom?”\n\n“The legatus, Appius Mallicus.”\n\nThe legatus? That made no sense! Mallicus was the laticlavius, the legion’s senior tribune, not its commander. Had Falconius Buteo shown himself false? Or had he taken ill and died over the winter. Suddenly Aulan realized that the situation here in Salventum might be much different, and much more difficult, than either he or Magnus had anticipated.\n\nAnd so he watched, with no little irritation, as Strabo waved his hand to indicate that the two squadrons on their flanks should move in and take them into custody. It was with more anger than fear that he unbelted his sword and scabbard and let them slide down to clatter on the dusty bricks of the road.\n", "completion": "The decurion squinted. “Riders, anyhow. Two of them. Could be. Did you make up your mind yet?”\n\nAulan wasn’t sure that he had. He had little stomach for facing his older brother today, and his obligation to report to Fulgetra’s legate was a perfectly adequate excuse for putting it off if he wanted one. Regulus was more likely to be reasonable if he didn’t show up with two squadrons of knights behind him; the last thing he wanted was to give Regulus the idea that he was after Regulus’s ridiculous crown.\n\nBut now, it seemed the decision might have been made for him. The riders in the distance had turned around abruptly and were rapidly disappearing. “Dammit!” he swore.\n\n“Should we go after them?”\n\n“And do what?” Aulan shook his head, irritated. Their horses weren’t blown, but they were weary after riding across four provinces, whereas the patrol’s would be fresh. They weren’t about to catch the other knights, nor did they know what to do with them if they did. Lucarus’s reaction was nothing more than simple instinct, a predator responding to the sight of possible prey running away. “They’ll be back with a century behind them before long.”\n\nHe was correct, and the speed with which they returned proved to Aulan that they were closer to the castra than he’d imagined. The sun was still high in the sky when they saw the column of infantry marching over the crest of a small hill ahead, flanked by a squadron of cavalry on either side. As the tromp-tromp-tromp of their caligae against the brick became audible, it soon became clear that Buteo had seen fit to send out two centuries against the unknown interlopers.\n\n“Keep your swords in your scabbards and your hands on your reins,” Aulan called out loudly behind him. “I don’t want any pissing matches today!”\n\nAhead of them, the two squadrons broke away from the infantry, abandoning the road to ride in a pair of semicircles that would permit a double-envelopment and hold Aulan and his twenty knights in place for the foot soldiers. It was a standard mixed-force tactic and no sooner did the men recognize it than they began heaping derision on the other knights.\n\n“Shut your damn mouths,” barked Lucarus, silencing them quickly. Like Aulan, he was tense. They both knew that the encounter wasn’t necessarily a safe one.\n\nThe squadrons kept their distance until the infantry column transformed into a three-deep line and Aulan could spot the transverse crests on the helmets of the two centurions. He couldn’t make out who they were, not with their cheek-plates obscuring their faces, and he doubted he could name more than two-thirds of Fulgetra’s officers on sight anyhow.\n\nBut as tribune, they would surely know his face. He reached back and untied his tribune’s helm from his saddle, then rose in his stirrups and held the helmet aloft. “I am Aulus Severus Aulan, Tribune of Legio III, commonly called Fulgetra!”\n\nThen he smiled as he saw the lead centurion stop and put up his hand, followed a moment later by a pair of optios bawling and the legionary line coming to a halt.\n\n“Aulus Severus, is that really you?” The centurion took off his helmet and Aulan recognized Nemonius Strabo, from the Second Cohort. “The prodigal finally returneth!”\n\nAulan grinned and winked at Lucarus. “You see,” he said archly. “There was never any cause for concern.” But what Strabo told him next abruptly wiped the smile from his lips.\n\n“I’m glad to see you, Aulus Severus, but you and your men will need to drop your weapons. I’m sorry, but I have orders to arrest you.”\n\nHe heard more than a few obscenities and vulgarities being uttered behind him, though Lucarus only chuckled bitterly. It was with some difficulty that Aulan managed to maintain a steady voice and shout back at the centurion.\n\n“Orders from whom?”\n\n“The legatus, Appius Mallicus.”\n\nThe legatus? That made no sense! Mallicus was the laticlavius, the legion’s senior tribune, not its commander. Had Falconius Buteo shown himself false? Or had he taken ill and died over the winter. Suddenly Aulan realized that the situation here in Salventum might be much different, and much more difficult, than either he or Magnus had anticipated.\n\nAnd so he watched, with no little irritation, as Strabo waved his hand to indicate that the two squadrons on their flanks should move in and take them into custody. It was with more anger than fear that he unbelted his sword and scabbard and let them slide down to clatter on the dusty bricks of the road.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 796, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch10_marcus-P1", "chapter": "ch10_marcus", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCapitaine Renier / Compagnie du Saint Léopold — Savondese mercenary captain and company; keep French forms.\nSièculaire / garçon / perfide / belette / reynard / déchets / pillards / magiciens / Pauvre pisse — Renier’s cant; keep spellings and accents as written.\nEstmarcher — region of prior orc incursions; keep spelling.\ntetsudo — shield formation Renier/Proculus reference; keep form as in text.\nCassabus — artillery praefectus named in Proculus’s plan talk.\nJulianus — Amorran decurion present at the fire.\nLutèce — market for orc ears; keep accent.\nFrontinus — again for the flaming-cattle stratagem Marcus misremembers then corrects.\n\n### STORY\nOn a morning ride Marcus is recalled for an Iron Law breach: two legionaries caught in an unnatural act; he returns to camp at a gallop.\nIn tribunal he condemns Fuscus and Annius, flogs the enabling optio Avso after commuting the pair to the axe, addresses the legion on discipline, and orders the march inside the hour.\nOn the road de Forbonnais needles him about Amorran discipline and offers Michelard knowledge of orc magic; Marcus forbids any use of spells and admits he wants none of the principles.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAt a night fire with Proculus, Julianus, de Forbonnais, and Capitaine Renier. Two or three days from first major contact with orcs; every Amorran instinct feels wrong against shaman sand-magic and Savondese militia structure. Reaching for strategy over tactics — darkness as the equalizer — and forming a night-march plan that uses the prince as anvil.\n\nCaius Proculus\nPrimus pilus; drinking; dismissive of militia and eager to meet light foot head-on behind a tetsudo and ballista rocks.\n\nGirart de Forbonnais\nTranslating when needed; dry about battlemages killing curious shamans; will protest attacking twenty-five thousand with five thousand.\n\nCapitaine Renier\nGrizzled Estmarcher veteran recruiting for Saint Léopold; conscripted as a font of orc-fighting lore; holds his wine; will ride for ten silver deniers.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nDe Forbonnais offered Michelard and École knowledge of orc devilries after the morning executions; Marcus forbade sorcery but asked what Frontinus meant by fear on a legion’s flank.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nDe Forbonnais shook his head and sniffed disdainfully, but he did not attempt to dispute the point. The two men rode in silence for a time, or as near to silence as it could be with the incessant creaking of the leather saddles, the occasional snorting of the horses, and the dull tromp-tromp-tromp of five thousand men trudging methodically through the green fields of eastern Savondir. The legion followed no road, but by the time it had passed, the iron-shod sandals of its legionaries had torn and compressed the virgin ground into a hard dirt path more than ten cubits wide.\n\n“This École… you are telling me that your military men study the orc magics as well as your mages. Are you telling me that you are yourself one of these Michelards?”\n\nDe Forbonnais shot him a sly glance. “I am simply telling you that I am willing to tell you what I know. And there are others who may be able to tell you more. Lord Valerius, I understand your discomfort with these matters. But you know as well as I do that you would be remiss in your duty to your men if you refused to accept freely offered knowledge that was so hard-won. Everything we know about the orcs was paid for in blood over the years. Do you wish to pay that price yourself when you need not?”\n\n“No. No, of course not. Not when it is so easily avoided.” Marcus held up a hand in warning. “But I will not countenance any use of magic spells or sorceries, Seigneur de Forbonnais. Not even in extremis.”\n\n“I understand. So what is it that you wish to know?”\n\nStill feeling some reservations, Marcus told de Forbonnais about the passage from Frontinus. He recited it from memory. “Now, what do you suppose were the ’accursed enemy’s devilries’ to which he referred? And how did it strike fear into an entire flank of Manlius Proximus’s legion?”\n\n“Am I correct you know nothing about magic?”\n\n“Nothing,” Marcus said proudly, if not quite accurately. He had, in fact, picked up a few glimmerings here and there by virtue of being in the vicinity of the Lady Shadowsong for extended periods of time.\n\n“And I presume you have no desire to achieve a basic understanding of the principles involved.”\n\n“None at all.”\n\nDe Forbonnais sighed and looked up into the sky, where the sun had not long ago passed its zenith. “Well, I’ve heard there are few things more satisfactory than an enthusiastic student hungry for knowledge,” he said, with no small tone of sarcasm.\n\n### NOTES\nCampfire night; wine too young and sweet for Renier’s taste.\nOrc force ahead is raiders — pillards — not a set-piece host; few shamans, no pigs/materials as in older wars.\nWolfriders more active after dark; main body avoids night fighting.\nPrince’s camp reachable by morning with a two-knight escort.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nAround the fire Renier sells sand that stripped unarmored militia to the bone, weasel-cunning orcs, and the limits of set-piece lessons against pillards. Proculus wants a head-on iron wall; Marcus asks about night, chain of command, and wolfriders, then stops chasing the raiders back to the main body in his head. Frontinus’s cattle-torches become legionary brands on dirt lines; he hires Renier for a night ride to the prince — ten silver deniers — with orders to keep the royal force ready the night after next and collect ears for Lutèce.\n\nDe Forbonnais calls him mad for striking twenty-five thousand without joining the prince; Marcus shrugs that two cohorts may be enough and that he means to kill, not merely attack. He drinks, promises ears for the market, and lets Proculus cheer the night march. The scene ends on Lutèce’s market for ears.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2500 words. Firelight planning voice; foreign cant exact. Land on the ear-market line — do not cut to the forest castra yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“They killed the front two lines with nothing but a pile of sand?” Proculus said incredulously. The big centurion was sitting on the other side of the fire from the old Savondese mercenary captain who was regaling the Amorrans with his stories of past battles against the orc. Fortunately, the captain had roved far to the south in his youth, and although his Utruccan accent was heavy, they were able to understand most of his account.\n\nBelieving it, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.\n\n“Stupid they are not, Sièculaire.” The old mercenary threw back the last dregs of the wine in his goblet and grimaced. “Too sweet, you drink it much too young! The orc is crude, but he is cunning. Like an animal cunning, but an evil animal, perfide! The belette, you understand, not the reynard.”\n\n“More weasel than fox,” Girart de Forbonnais clarified. He was there to translate for them, but for the most part his services were proving to be unnecessary. Marcus would have liked to send the supercilious nobleman away, but he had no reasonable excuse. And while de Forbonnais had not managed to produce one of the famous Michelards, he found Capitaine Renier in a tavern in one of the towns through which they had marched, and the mercenary was proving to be a useful font of information about orc-fighting.\n\nThe mercenary was there recruiting to add to his small company, the Compagnie du Saint Léopold, but had found himself instead conscripted by the nobleman due to his experience with some of the historical orc incursions into Estmarcher. Much to Marcus’s surprise, the capitaine’s information was turning out to be a veritable gold mine, particularly as it related to the way in which the orc shamans utilized magic on the battlefield.\n\n“Was there nothing to be done?” he asked the grizzled old man, whose grey hair hung in long and stringy locks that were streaked with white.\n\n“The sand stripped the skin from their bones, garçon. They was militia. They had no shields, no metal armors. What was to be done?”\n\nMarcus ignored the minor insult, assessing that it was not intended as such. “They could have been ordered to lie down. When the grit was hurled, was it in a horizontal plane? It would be wasteful to project it en masse. And at what height was it hurled? How thick an area did the projectiles cover?”\n\nProculus laughed. “Militia? They’d be scratching their bums and looking about for their blankets until they found themselves scoured clean by the sand, General. I suspect their horse would be no better.”\n\n“How do you protect your cavalry against such attacks?” Julianus wondered. “Surely the caparisons you utilize do not cover them from head to hoof!\n\nDe Forbonnais stared at his Amorran counterpart for a moment, and the shadows from the dancing flames made the pitying look he gave the decurion a cruel, almost inhuman edge. “We find it is the rare orc shaman that is inclined to test its martial aptitude within range of our battlemages,” he said dryly. “Any who are so inclined do not survive the experience.”\n\n“Yes, yes, of course, I’d forgotten,” Julianus said hurriedly.\n\nMarcus winced. All of their reactions, all of their martial instincts, were out of balance here. They were unsuitable. In two days, three at most, they would be meeting a large quantity of orcs in combat for the first time, and every tactical decision he or his subordinate officers would be called to make on the battlefield were almost certain to be based on incorrect assumptions and irrelevant experiences. Which meant they were almost guaranteed to be wrong.\n\nIt wasn’t only the orcs. The way the Savonners—Savondese, he corrected himself—were structured militarily was, to the extent that he understood it, entirely insane. Untrained, unarmored, almost unarmed infantry that was only available for two months out of the year was combined with heavy cavalry that was similarly indisposable, although less predictably, since each noble’s commitment to his commander varied from one man to the next. Apparently the basic idea was for the infantry to engage the enemy and tie it up long enough to give the cavalry a static target to smash. A sound enough concept, and not entirely dissimilar to the way Fortex had used the Second Knights, but an extraordinarily limited variant.\n\nEspecially when, to fill in the many gaps that presented themselves, the Savondese resorted to mercenary companies whose term of service was unlimited, and who provided a heavier, more capable infantry than the peasant levies, but whose commitment only went as far as their employer’s coin. Or rather, their ability to spend that coin. It was sheer madness!\n\nHe sighed and stared at the fire as if it might contain answers to make sense of the situation. But it was nothing more than superheated wood, glowing red and yellow and white against the night. It burned brightly for a moment and then it was gone. For some reason, it made him think of his father and of Marcus Saturnius. The strategist and the master tactician. Both much better suited to lead the legion into battle than him. And both now gone. Then a thought struck him. He could not count upon his tactics or his allies. That much was clear. So what did that leave? Strategy. That was the only thing that remained, beyond the discipline and courage of his men. If only he could get the strategy sufficiently right, then perhaps he could render the subsequent tactics irrelevant!\n\n“Capitaine Renier, every example you’ve given us is indicative of set-piece battles. But is a marauding force of the sort we’re up against, even such a sizable one, likely to be given to such tactics? Would they even be equipped with proper magiciens?”\n\n“I don’t see why they wouldn’t use glass instead of sand anyhow,” Proculus said dismissively.\n\n“Orcs don’t blow no glass, Sièculaire. And you, you talk like a damned Michelard, garçon. But it’s true, these déchets are pillards, they have no pigs, no materials, and their shamans will be few.”\n\n“Pillards?” Marcus glanced at de Forbonnais.\n\n“Raiders.” The young noble smiled faintly. “Déchets is merely a derogatory term.”\n\n“Sounds like a good name for the little shits,” Proculus declared as he tossed an empty skin of wine aside and reached for a fresh reinforcement. “Dayshits or peelarses, General, everything we’ve learned says they’re nothing but light foot buttressed by a light cavalry auxiliary. They’ve got numbers, but nothing else, and you saw at Gorignia that numbers don’t signify nothing without weight. If their shamans throw some magic at us, it will meet an iron wall. Fire won’t burn a tetsudo and sand won’t crush it. Once they show themselves, Cassabus and his boys will drop rocks on their heads like a thunderstorm. We should meet them head-on. Ten-to-one or twenty-to-one don’t matter. We stand, we kill them, and then they run.”\n\n“How do they fight at night?” Marcus ignored the primus pilus. “Do either of you know?”\n\n“They don’t,” answered de Forbonnais. “They’re scared of it. Too many run-ins with dwarves and elvenkind, I imagine.”\n\n“Pauvre pisse,” Renier said at almost the same time. He spat into the fire, which hissed momentarily, as if protesting. “The pillards will be more active after dark than the main body, because their wolves can see at night and don’t spook so easy. Them pigs, they are usually staked to the ground come nightfall.”\n\n“And they have no chain of command worth speaking of, from everything I’ve read,” Marcus mused aloud. “That alone would preclude any substantive maneuvers after dark.”\n\n“Their warleaders are usually the biggest, fiercest members of the chieftain’s clan. The warbands can range from ten or so up to several hundred.”\n\n“Not the smartest?”\n\n“Who can tell?” De Forbonnais shrugged. “Even if there was a proper general among them, the rabble are such that they would not be capable of understanding, much less complying with, any complicated orders. The warleaders have teams of overseers who whip the foot into place, usually the heavy cavalry as well. The light cavalry, the wolfriders, run freely as they see fit, mostly as scouts and skirmishers. They’re less tractable than our own peasant levies, and even our own foot isn’t capable of doing anything more at night than sleeping or running away.”\n\nMarcus nodded. A plan of attack was beginning to take form in his mind. He closed his mind, envisioning the map over which he’d been repeatedly poring the past few days. Darkness was the key. With each setting sun, darkness removed virtually all of the orcs’ advantages, while costing the legion little more than the ability of the spotters to identify targets for the ballistarii. He leaned forward, seeking to feel the heat from the fire against his face.\n\nIt wasn’t enough to make them run. They already ran from the cavalry patrols that were active in the north. And despite the large size of the enemy force, it wasn’t a proper army, it was more like a massive band of raiders who would sooner flee than face a real fight, even one where the numbers were heavily in their favor. Chasing them back to the main body might relieve the pressure on a few besieged towns and villages, and it would certainly meet the objectives set him by the king’s men, but it would accomplish nothing. Within months, perhaps even weeks, the same troublesome pillards would be back, most likely marching in the van of a much larger and more dangerous army.\n\nWhat he needed was to find a way to apply the legion’s particular science. He thought back to what he now thought of as the last day of his boyhood, the final moments of his childhood innocence. His father had explained to him the abstract concept of Saturnius’s geometries, describing the way the movement of the legion’s elements over the course of the battle could be seen as lines and blocks, weapons that were moved into position in order to pierce the enemy units in a manner more deadly than any sword-thrust or crush them more finely than a millstone. It was dangerous, he realized, to apply the tactical concept too literally to strategic operations; to do so meant ignoring terrain, logistics, troop quality, and any number of other vital elements.\n\nBut it could be done. And he couldn’t shake one of Frontinus’s examples from his mind. He pictured the terrified herd thundering down the hillside, blazing brands affixed to their horns, sending the surrounding enemy scattering into the night in every direction. How did it go, exactly? He closed his eyes, and with a little effort, was able to envision the text.\n\n“He tied torches to the horns of all the cattle he had in the camp (and there were many), and when night came he lighted the torches, extinguished all the camp fires, and commanded the strictest silence. Then he ordered the most courageous of his young men to drive the cattle up the rocky places between the enemy and the pass.”\n\nAh, it seemed he didn’t remember it quite correctly. The flaming cattle had merely been a distraction, they had drawn the attention of the besieging enemy, they had not frightened him away. But there was a world of difference between well-trained, heavily armored Amorran infantry and a rabble of orc raiders. And then there was the fact that the cattle the legion presently possessed were required for purposes considerably more important than scaring orcs at night.\n\nThen again, one could tie a torch to a legionary as easily as a cow. He smiled, then reached into the fire and withdrew a newly added brand that had only caught fire on one end. As the flames guttered out, he marked three spots on the dirt in front of him, then drew three lines.\n\n“What’s on your mind, General?”\n\nMarcus ignored Proculus. Instead, he tossed the brand back onto the fire, then sat back and dusted off his hands. “Capitaine Renier, I wish to hire you this evening, for a single night’s ride. You will be well compensated. If Monseigneur de Forbonnais provides you with an escort, do you think you can arrange to locate the prince’s camp by morning?”\n\nThe other four men sitting around the fire all stared at him for a moment. De Forbonnais was the first to find his tongue. “The hour is late. My men will have been drinking. Is it really a matter of such urgency, Lord Valerius?”\n\nThe old mercenary took a long swig of the wineskin, then wiped his mouth and met Marcus’s eyes. There was no avid greed in his face, only a wary respect. He nodded slowly, then rubbed his finger against his thumb. “Ten deniers. Silver. Give me two knights for company and I’ll take the prince your message, garçon. I can hold my wine and neither the night nor the forest holds any fears for Saint Léopold.”\n\n“It will hold them for the déchets, Capitaine.” Marcus smiled grimly. “I will write out the scroll while Monseigneur prepares your escort. But you may tell the prince to keep his men ready for company the night after next. And tell him that as I intend to make a present of orcs to his Royal Highness, I shall expect a similarly handsome present of their ears in return.”\n\nProculus laughed. “A night march and a night attack. Ave, Valerius! We’ll give the prince his glorious victory, and all he needs to do is sit tight and play anvil to our hammer.”\n\n“Are you mad?” demanded de Forbonnais. “Lord Valerius, there are twenty-five thousand orcs rampaging throughout the March! You cannot intend to attack them without first joining forces with His Royal Highness! You have barely five thousand men!”\n\n“Five thousand?” Marcus shrugged in the face of the noble’s disbelief. “I think two cohorts should be sufficient. And I’m not intending to attack them, Monseigneur. I intend to kill them. The larger part of them, I expect. If you will excuse a paraphrase of the Sacred Word of Our Lord, their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will stink, and the March will be soaked with their blood.”\n\nHe reached for the wineskin and Capitaine Renier handed it to him. He squeezed a long stream into his mouth, swallowed it, and handed it back. “Their ears, on the other hand, will travel to Lutèce. I understand there is a handsome market for them there.”\n", "completion": "“They killed the front two lines with nothing but a pile of sand?” Proculus said incredulously. The big centurion was sitting on the other side of the fire from the old Savondese mercenary captain who was regaling the Amorrans with his stories of past battles against the orc. Fortunately, the captain had roved far to the south in his youth, and although his Utruccan accent was heavy, they were able to understand most of his account.\n\nBelieving it, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.\n\n“Stupid they are not, Sièculaire.” The old mercenary threw back the last dregs of the wine in his goblet and grimaced. “Too sweet, you drink it much too young! The orc is crude, but he is cunning. Like an animal cunning, but an evil animal, perfide! The belette, you understand, not the reynard.”\n\n“More weasel than fox,” Girart de Forbonnais clarified. He was there to translate for them, but for the most part his services were proving to be unnecessary. Marcus would have liked to send the supercilious nobleman away, but he had no reasonable excuse. And while de Forbonnais had not managed to produce one of the famous Michelards, he found Capitaine Renier in a tavern in one of the towns through which they had marched, and the mercenary was proving to be a useful font of information about orc-fighting.\n\nThe mercenary was there recruiting to add to his small company, the Compagnie du Saint Léopold, but had found himself instead conscripted by the nobleman due to his experience with some of the historical orc incursions into Estmarcher. Much to Marcus’s surprise, the capitaine’s information was turning out to be a veritable gold mine, particularly as it related to the way in which the orc shamans utilized magic on the battlefield.\n\n“Was there nothing to be done?” he asked the grizzled old man, whose grey hair hung in long and stringy locks that were streaked with white.\n\n“The sand stripped the skin from their bones, garçon. They was militia. They had no shields, no metal armors. What was to be done?”\n\nMarcus ignored the minor insult, assessing that it was not intended as such. “They could have been ordered to lie down. When the grit was hurled, was it in a horizontal plane? It would be wasteful to project it en masse. And at what height was it hurled? How thick an area did the projectiles cover?”\n\nProculus laughed. “Militia? They’d be scratching their bums and looking about for their blankets until they found themselves scoured clean by the sand, General. I suspect their horse would be no better.”\n\n“How do you protect your cavalry against such attacks?” Julianus wondered. “Surely the caparisons you utilize do not cover them from head to hoof!\n\nDe Forbonnais stared at his Amorran counterpart for a moment, and the shadows from the dancing flames made the pitying look he gave the decurion a cruel, almost inhuman edge. “We find it is the rare orc shaman that is inclined to test its martial aptitude within range of our battlemages,” he said dryly. “Any who are so inclined do not survive the experience.”\n\n“Yes, yes, of course, I’d forgotten,” Julianus said hurriedly.\n\nMarcus winced. All of their reactions, all of their martial instincts, were out of balance here. They were unsuitable. In two days, three at most, they would be meeting a large quantity of orcs in combat for the first time, and every tactical decision he or his subordinate officers would be called to make on the battlefield were almost certain to be based on incorrect assumptions and irrelevant experiences. Which meant they were almost guaranteed to be wrong.\n\nIt wasn’t only the orcs. The way the Savonners—Savondese, he corrected himself—were structured militarily was, to the extent that he understood it, entirely insane. Untrained, unarmored, almost unarmed infantry that was only available for two months out of the year was combined with heavy cavalry that was similarly indisposable, although less predictably, since each noble’s commitment to his commander varied from one man to the next. Apparently the basic idea was for the infantry to engage the enemy and tie it up long enough to give the cavalry a static target to smash. A sound enough concept, and not entirely dissimilar to the way Fortex had used the Second Knights, but an extraordinarily limited variant.\n\nEspecially when, to fill in the many gaps that presented themselves, the Savondese resorted to mercenary companies whose term of service was unlimited, and who provided a heavier, more capable infantry than the peasant levies, but whose commitment only went as far as their employer’s coin. Or rather, their ability to spend that coin. It was sheer madness!\n\nHe sighed and stared at the fire as if it might contain answers to make sense of the situation. But it was nothing more than superheated wood, glowing red and yellow and white against the night. It burned brightly for a moment and then it was gone. For some reason, it made him think of his father and of Marcus Saturnius. The strategist and the master tactician. Both much better suited to lead the legion into battle than him. And both now gone. Then a thought struck him. He could not count upon his tactics or his allies. That much was clear. So what did that leave? Strategy. That was the only thing that remained, beyond the discipline and courage of his men. If only he could get the strategy sufficiently right, then perhaps he could render the subsequent tactics irrelevant!\n\n“Capitaine Renier, every example you’ve given us is indicative of set-piece battles. But is a marauding force of the sort we’re up against, even such a sizable one, likely to be given to such tactics? Would they even be equipped with proper magiciens?”\n\n“I don’t see why they wouldn’t use glass instead of sand anyhow,” Proculus said dismissively.\n\n“Orcs don’t blow no glass, Sièculaire. And you, you talk like a damned Michelard, garçon. But it’s true, these déchets are pillards, they have no pigs, no materials, and their shamans will be few.”\n\n“Pillards?” Marcus glanced at de Forbonnais.\n\n“Raiders.” The young noble smiled faintly. “Déchets is merely a derogatory term.”\n\n“Sounds like a good name for the little shits,” Proculus declared as he tossed an empty skin of wine aside and reached for a fresh reinforcement. “Dayshits or peelarses, General, everything we’ve learned says they’re nothing but light foot buttressed by a light cavalry auxiliary. They’ve got numbers, but nothing else, and you saw at Gorignia that numbers don’t signify nothing without weight. If their shamans throw some magic at us, it will meet an iron wall. Fire won’t burn a tetsudo and sand won’t crush it. Once they show themselves, Cassabus and his boys will drop rocks on their heads like a thunderstorm. We should meet them head-on. Ten-to-one or twenty-to-one don’t matter. We stand, we kill them, and then they run.”\n\n“How do they fight at night?” Marcus ignored the primus pilus. “Do either of you know?”\n\n“They don’t,” answered de Forbonnais. “They’re scared of it. Too many run-ins with dwarves and elvenkind, I imagine.”\n\n“Pauvre pisse,” Renier said at almost the same time. He spat into the fire, which hissed momentarily, as if protesting. “The pillards will be more active after dark than the main body, because their wolves can see at night and don’t spook so easy. Them pigs, they are usually staked to the ground come nightfall.”\n\n“And they have no chain of command worth speaking of, from everything I’ve read,” Marcus mused aloud. “That alone would preclude any substantive maneuvers after dark.”\n\n“Their warleaders are usually the biggest, fiercest members of the chieftain’s clan. The warbands can range from ten or so up to several hundred.”\n\n“Not the smartest?”\n\n“Who can tell?” De Forbonnais shrugged. “Even if there was a proper general among them, the rabble are such that they would not be capable of understanding, much less complying with, any complicated orders. The warleaders have teams of overseers who whip the foot into place, usually the heavy cavalry as well. The light cavalry, the wolfriders, run freely as they see fit, mostly as scouts and skirmishers. They’re less tractable than our own peasant levies, and even our own foot isn’t capable of doing anything more at night than sleeping or running away.”\n\nMarcus nodded. A plan of attack was beginning to take form in his mind. He closed his mind, envisioning the map over which he’d been repeatedly poring the past few days. Darkness was the key. With each setting sun, darkness removed virtually all of the orcs’ advantages, while costing the legion little more than the ability of the spotters to identify targets for the ballistarii. He leaned forward, seeking to feel the heat from the fire against his face.\n\nIt wasn’t enough to make them run. They already ran from the cavalry patrols that were active in the north. And despite the large size of the enemy force, it wasn’t a proper army, it was more like a massive band of raiders who would sooner flee than face a real fight, even one where the numbers were heavily in their favor. Chasing them back to the main body might relieve the pressure on a few besieged towns and villages, and it would certainly meet the objectives set him by the king’s men, but it would accomplish nothing. Within months, perhaps even weeks, the same troublesome pillards would be back, most likely marching in the van of a much larger and more dangerous army.\n\nWhat he needed was to find a way to apply the legion’s particular science. He thought back to what he now thought of as the last day of his boyhood, the final moments of his childhood innocence. His father had explained to him the abstract concept of Saturnius’s geometries, describing the way the movement of the legion’s elements over the course of the battle could be seen as lines and blocks, weapons that were moved into position in order to pierce the enemy units in a manner more deadly than any sword-thrust or crush them more finely than a millstone. It was dangerous, he realized, to apply the tactical concept too literally to strategic operations; to do so meant ignoring terrain, logistics, troop quality, and any number of other vital elements.\n\nBut it could be done. And he couldn’t shake one of Frontinus’s examples from his mind. He pictured the terrified herd thundering down the hillside, blazing brands affixed to their horns, sending the surrounding enemy scattering into the night in every direction. How did it go, exactly? He closed his eyes, and with a little effort, was able to envision the text.\n\n“He tied torches to the horns of all the cattle he had in the camp (and there were many), and when night came he lighted the torches, extinguished all the camp fires, and commanded the strictest silence. Then he ordered the most courageous of his young men to drive the cattle up the rocky places between the enemy and the pass.”\n\nAh, it seemed he didn’t remember it quite correctly. The flaming cattle had merely been a distraction, they had drawn the attention of the besieging enemy, they had not frightened him away. But there was a world of difference between well-trained, heavily armored Amorran infantry and a rabble of orc raiders. And then there was the fact that the cattle the legion presently possessed were required for purposes considerably more important than scaring orcs at night.\n\nThen again, one could tie a torch to a legionary as easily as a cow. He smiled, then reached into the fire and withdrew a newly added brand that had only caught fire on one end. As the flames guttered out, he marked three spots on the dirt in front of him, then drew three lines.\n\n“What’s on your mind, General?”\n\nMarcus ignored Proculus. Instead, he tossed the brand back onto the fire, then sat back and dusted off his hands. “Capitaine Renier, I wish to hire you this evening, for a single night’s ride. You will be well compensated. If Monseigneur de Forbonnais provides you with an escort, do you think you can arrange to locate the prince’s camp by morning?”\n\nThe other four men sitting around the fire all stared at him for a moment. De Forbonnais was the first to find his tongue. “The hour is late. My men will have been drinking. Is it really a matter of such urgency, Lord Valerius?”\n\nThe old mercenary took a long swig of the wineskin, then wiped his mouth and met Marcus’s eyes. There was no avid greed in his face, only a wary respect. He nodded slowly, then rubbed his finger against his thumb. “Ten deniers. Silver. Give me two knights for company and I’ll take the prince your message, garçon. I can hold my wine and neither the night nor the forest holds any fears for Saint Léopold.”\n\n“It will hold them for the déchets, Capitaine.” Marcus smiled grimly. “I will write out the scroll while Monseigneur prepares your escort. But you may tell the prince to keep his men ready for company the night after next. And tell him that as I intend to make a present of orcs to his Royal Highness, I shall expect a similarly handsome present of their ears in return.”\n\nProculus laughed. “A night march and a night attack. Ave, Valerius! We’ll give the prince his glorious victory, and all he needs to do is sit tight and play anvil to our hammer.”\n\n“Are you mad?” demanded de Forbonnais. “Lord Valerius, there are twenty-five thousand orcs rampaging throughout the March! You cannot intend to attack them without first joining forces with His Royal Highness! You have barely five thousand men!”\n\n“Five thousand?” Marcus shrugged in the face of the noble’s disbelief. “I think two cohorts should be sufficient. And I’m not intending to attack them, Monseigneur. I intend to kill them. The larger part of them, I expect. If you will excuse a paraphrase of the Sacred Word of Our Lord, their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will stink, and the March will be soaked with their blood.”\n\nHe reached for the wineskin and Capitaine Renier handed it to him. He squeezed a long stream into his mouth, swallowed it, and handed it back. “Their ears, on the other hand, will travel to Lutèce. I understand there is a handsome market for them there.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2481, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch10_marcus-P2", "chapter": "ch10_marcus", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTitus Cassabus — praefectus castrorum leading the detached strike; keep full name in address.\nAleator / Phreneticus — cognomina Cassabus jokes he might earn; keep forms.\nFather Gennadius — to confess and bless the detachment before march.\nTrebonius / Tertius — officers Marcus rejects for this command (inexperience / hot head).\nPorta Decumana — rear gate under construction in later beat; may appear only as destination talk here.\n\n### STORY\nAt a night fire Capitaine Renier schools the staff on orc sand-magic and pillard habits; Marcus hires him to reach the prince by morning, cue an anvil the night after next, and promise Lutèce ears despite de Forbonnais’s protest.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAt the new forest-edge castra after a thirty-league day. Chose Cassabus to lead five centuries into the orc camp at night because he is calm and will fall back rather than die glorious. Paying men by the ear matters as much as the kill. Hiding nerves; will not sleep easily.\n\nTitus Cassabus\nPraefectus; tanned face worried; understands the plan is risky not crazy; jokes about Aleator; needs Marcus’s certainty that this is not vanity for a first blow.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe other four men sitting around the fire all stared at him for a moment. De Forbonnais was the first to find his tongue. “The hour is late. My men will have been drinking. Is it really a matter of such urgency, Lord Valerius?”\n\nThe old mercenary took a long swig of the wineskin, then wiped his mouth and met Marcus’s eyes. There was no avid greed in his face, only a wary respect. He nodded slowly, then rubbed his finger against his thumb. “Ten deniers. Silver. Give me two knights for company and I’ll take the prince your message, garçon. I can hold my wine and neither the night nor the forest holds any fears for Saint Léopold.”\n\n“It will hold them for the déchets, Capitaine.” Marcus smiled grimly. “I will write out the scroll while Monseigneur prepares your escort. But you may tell the prince to keep his men ready for company the night after next. And tell him that as I intend to make a present of orcs to his Royal Highness, I shall expect a similarly handsome present of their ears in return.”\n\nProculus laughed. “A night march and a night attack. Ave, Valerius! We’ll give the prince his glorious victory, and all he needs to do is sit tight and play anvil to our hammer.”\n\n“Are you mad?” demanded de Forbonnais. “Lord Valerius, there are twenty-five thousand orcs rampaging throughout the March! You cannot intend to attack them without first joining forces with His Royal Highness! You have barely five thousand men!”\n\n“Five thousand?” Marcus shrugged in the face of the noble’s disbelief. “I think two cohorts should be sufficient. And I’m not intending to attack them, Monseigneur. I intend to kill them. The larger part of them, I expect. If you will excuse a paraphrase of the Sacred Word of Our Lord, their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will stink, and the March will be soaked with their blood.”\n\nHe reached for the wineskin and Capitaine Renier handed it to him. He squeezed a long stream into his mouth, swallowed it, and handed it back. “Their ears, on the other hand, will travel to Lutèce. I understand there is a handsome market for them there.”\n\n### NOTES\nCastra rising at the border of the forest sheltering the enemy; sun already setting after ten leagues beyond the usual twenty.\nFive centuries detached; machines to be abandoned if they retreat — men rarer than ballistae this far north.\nSquadron of horse plus four mounted Savondese guides for contact.\nDawn: main body feeds and pushes north to relieve.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nExhausted men raise the castra at the forest edge while Marcus walks Cassabus through the detachment: surprise on the rear of a raider camp, fall back on real resistance, leave the machines, hold only until the legion pressures from the north, drive them toward villages and abandoned plunder so they must exit the trees. Cassabus names the math — five centuries against five legions’ worth — and Marcus answers with ignorance on the orc side, money for ears, and trust that chooses Cassabus over Trebonius, Proculus, or Tertius.\n\nHe orders double meat, half wine, confession under Gennadius, and his own presence at the gate with Trebonius at send-off. Alone afterward his mind races through bad outcomes. The scene ends on that sleepless fear, before he chooses what to do about possible revolt.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1300 words. Practical command briefing; fear only after Cassabus leaves. Land on Marcus’s racing mind — do not resolve the spy question.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The men were visibly exhausted as they went about the various tasks necessary to construct the castra. Their movements were slow, and even the shouts of their centurions seemed a little subdued. The sun was already setting, as they had marched nearly ten more leagues than their usual twenty today, not stopping until they reached the borders of the massive forest in which the enemy army was known to be sheltering.\n\n“You’re taking a terrible risk, you know, Marcus.” Cassabus’s concerns were visible on his tanned face.\n\n“Most of which falls on your shoulders. I know. But an attack now will be much less dangerous than it looks.” Marcus sought to reassure Cassabus, who would be commanding the detached centuries. “Surprise is the key. They don’t know we’re here and they’re not looking for trouble to their rear. If for some reason they don’t run, if you meet any serious resistance, you’re to fall back here at once. Be sure the crews understand they are to leave their machines behind in the event of a retreat. If you’re forced to fall back and I see any crew has salvaged their machine, I’ll have them flogged.”\n\nThe praefectus winced, but nodded. It took time, but war machines could be replaced. This far north of Amorr, legionaries were considerably harder to come by.\n\n“At dawn, we’ll feed the men and push north as fast as we can. You’ll have a squadron of horse, plus four Savondese guides with mounts, so use them to stay in regular contact with us. You’ll only have to hold for a few hours after the sun rises. Keep the pressure on them so long as they look like running. Once you see any sign they’re starting to regroup, fall back to a defensible position. Everything I’ve read, everything the capitaine told us, indicates that they’re not likely to counterattack before we relieve you.”\n\n“I understand the plan, Marcus. And I understand your reasoning. It’s risky, it’s not crazy. But the fact is you’re sending me to attack five legions’ worth of orcs with only five centuries!”\n\n“I know that. And you know that. What matters is that they don’t know that. The scouts have found their camp, so as long as they don’t see you coming, and I don’t know how they possibly could once night falls, they won’t know if you’re hitting them with five centuries or ten legions.”\n\n“I wish I had ten legions. I wish I had two!”\n\nNow it was Marcus’s turn to wince. He knew Cassabus wasn’t trying to remind him of the legion he’d lost, the legion that abandoned him in favor of Magnus after the Battle of the Three Legions, but the reminder stung even so. “So do I.”\n\n“Why are you so sure we’ll be able to push them all the way out of the trees? It’s a long way from that big clearing in which they’ve settled to the edge of the forest.”\n\n“That’s where the villages are. That’s where the supplies they need are. Once you drive them from the camp and they’re forced to leave all the goods they’ve pillaged behind, they’ll have no choice but to emerge or starve.”\n\n“Or turn on each other.”\n\n“I don’t care who kills them, so long as someone does it in a manner that permits us to collect their ears.”\n\nCassabus grinned despite himself. “You’ve turned outright barbarian, Marcus.”\n\n“Paying the men is only second to keeping them alive. If the Savondese would pay for their balls, I’d harvest them too.”\n\n“Now that I’d like to see!” Cassabus snorted.\n\nMarcus put both hands on the praefectus’s shoulders. It was far from normal procedure for the thirdmost senior officer of the legion, the camp commander, to lead such an attack, but Marcus had come to value the older man’s calm and patient detachment. Their officer corps was perilously thin; Trebonius was too inexperienced, Proculus too prone to risk-taking, and Tertius too hot-headed, but Marcus knew he could rely on Cassabus to extricate the men under his command before they were seriously imperiled. Killing the orcs and driving them towards the Savondese was the objective, but minimizing their own casualties was even more important.\n\n“I would lead the attack myself, Titus Cassabus, if I could. You know that. I trust you more than any other man in the legion and that is why I chose you over the others. And know this: I have no fears for you, Cassabus, none at all. Put them to the torch, put them to the sword, and they will flee before you. They have never faced the iron of Amorr. They will not stand before the valor of a Valerian legion!”\n\nCassabus nodded, his face set like stone. “Well, if this goes well, at least I can hope to claim a cognomen of distinction. Aleator would be fitting, or perhaps Phreneticus.”\n\n“It only looks like rolling the dice or foolishness to those without the eyes to see. You cannot let the men see your doubts.”\n\n“Are you hiding yours from me?”\n\n“There is nothing to hide! Do you not trust me?”\n\n“I do, Marcus Valerius. But even the most trustworthy man fools himself from time to time. Are you sure you are not fooling yourself in your desire to strike the first blow against the orc?”\n\nOr in your desire to win a victory that will finally secure your place with the legion, were the words the older man left unsaid, words that Marcus could see in the other’s eyes. “I am certain. We can only surprise them once, Titus Cassabus. Once they know our quality, they will do their best to avoid meeting us directly again, and being more heavily armored, we cannot match their speed. This is our one and only opportunity to take them wholly unawares and prevent them from escaping us. And there is another factor.”\n\n“Such as?”\n\n“The money.” He smiled and held up two fingers, then crossed his fingers. “The two factors are intertwined. Do you think the crown will be so willing to promise us a silver an ear once they learn how effectively the legion butchers its foes? We can feed the men and keep them paid for months—months, Cassabus! And an opportunity such as this will not come again, not soon, at any rate.”\n\n“I see,” the praefactus said, nodding slowly. “It is still a gamble, Marcus, but I can see why you deem it a gamble worth taking. I only wish I were not the one sitting in the sling, being hurled at the foe!”\n\n“I can’t blame you.” Marcus slapped Cassabus on the shoulder. “Feed your men when they wake, with a double-ration of meat and a half-ration of wine, then see that they are confessed and blessed by Father Gennadius before you march. I will be at the gate with Trebonius to see you off.”\n\nThe praefectus nodded, saluted, and went off in search of the five centurions who would be serving under him tonight. He would not sleep, Marcus knew, nor would the other officers. He could only hope that the lack of sleep would not overly hinder the men’s decision-making faculties. He should sleep himself, he knew, for tomorrow would be a long and brutal day, but he doubted he would be able to fall asleep no matter how badly he needed the rest. His mind was racing with all the possibilities, all the various outcomes, and far too many of them were bad.\n", "completion": "The men were visibly exhausted as they went about the various tasks necessary to construct the castra. Their movements were slow, and even the shouts of their centurions seemed a little subdued. The sun was already setting, as they had marched nearly ten more leagues than their usual twenty today, not stopping until they reached the borders of the massive forest in which the enemy army was known to be sheltering.\n\n“You’re taking a terrible risk, you know, Marcus.” Cassabus’s concerns were visible on his tanned face.\n\n“Most of which falls on your shoulders. I know. But an attack now will be much less dangerous than it looks.” Marcus sought to reassure Cassabus, who would be commanding the detached centuries. “Surprise is the key. They don’t know we’re here and they’re not looking for trouble to their rear. If for some reason they don’t run, if you meet any serious resistance, you’re to fall back here at once. Be sure the crews understand they are to leave their machines behind in the event of a retreat. If you’re forced to fall back and I see any crew has salvaged their machine, I’ll have them flogged.”\n\nThe praefectus winced, but nodded. It took time, but war machines could be replaced. This far north of Amorr, legionaries were considerably harder to come by.\n\n“At dawn, we’ll feed the men and push north as fast as we can. You’ll have a squadron of horse, plus four Savondese guides with mounts, so use them to stay in regular contact with us. You’ll only have to hold for a few hours after the sun rises. Keep the pressure on them so long as they look like running. Once you see any sign they’re starting to regroup, fall back to a defensible position. Everything I’ve read, everything the capitaine told us, indicates that they’re not likely to counterattack before we relieve you.”\n\n“I understand the plan, Marcus. And I understand your reasoning. It’s risky, it’s not crazy. But the fact is you’re sending me to attack five legions’ worth of orcs with only five centuries!”\n\n“I know that. And you know that. What matters is that they don’t know that. The scouts have found their camp, so as long as they don’t see you coming, and I don’t know how they possibly could once night falls, they won’t know if you’re hitting them with five centuries or ten legions.”\n\n“I wish I had ten legions. I wish I had two!”\n\nNow it was Marcus’s turn to wince. He knew Cassabus wasn’t trying to remind him of the legion he’d lost, the legion that abandoned him in favor of Magnus after the Battle of the Three Legions, but the reminder stung even so. “So do I.”\n\n“Why are you so sure we’ll be able to push them all the way out of the trees? It’s a long way from that big clearing in which they’ve settled to the edge of the forest.”\n\n“That’s where the villages are. That’s where the supplies they need are. Once you drive them from the camp and they’re forced to leave all the goods they’ve pillaged behind, they’ll have no choice but to emerge or starve.”\n\n“Or turn on each other.”\n\n“I don’t care who kills them, so long as someone does it in a manner that permits us to collect their ears.”\n\nCassabus grinned despite himself. “You’ve turned outright barbarian, Marcus.”\n\n“Paying the men is only second to keeping them alive. If the Savondese would pay for their balls, I’d harvest them too.”\n\n“Now that I’d like to see!” Cassabus snorted.\n\nMarcus put both hands on the praefectus’s shoulders. It was far from normal procedure for the thirdmost senior officer of the legion, the camp commander, to lead such an attack, but Marcus had come to value the older man’s calm and patient detachment. Their officer corps was perilously thin; Trebonius was too inexperienced, Proculus too prone to risk-taking, and Tertius too hot-headed, but Marcus knew he could rely on Cassabus to extricate the men under his command before they were seriously imperiled. Killing the orcs and driving them towards the Savondese was the objective, but minimizing their own casualties was even more important.\n\n“I would lead the attack myself, Titus Cassabus, if I could. You know that. I trust you more than any other man in the legion and that is why I chose you over the others. And know this: I have no fears for you, Cassabus, none at all. Put them to the torch, put them to the sword, and they will flee before you. They have never faced the iron of Amorr. They will not stand before the valor of a Valerian legion!”\n\nCassabus nodded, his face set like stone. “Well, if this goes well, at least I can hope to claim a cognomen of distinction. Aleator would be fitting, or perhaps Phreneticus.”\n\n“It only looks like rolling the dice or foolishness to those without the eyes to see. You cannot let the men see your doubts.”\n\n“Are you hiding yours from me?”\n\n“There is nothing to hide! Do you not trust me?”\n\n“I do, Marcus Valerius. But even the most trustworthy man fools himself from time to time. Are you sure you are not fooling yourself in your desire to strike the first blow against the orc?”\n\nOr in your desire to win a victory that will finally secure your place with the legion, were the words the older man left unsaid, words that Marcus could see in the other’s eyes. “I am certain. We can only surprise them once, Titus Cassabus. Once they know our quality, they will do their best to avoid meeting us directly again, and being more heavily armored, we cannot match their speed. This is our one and only opportunity to take them wholly unawares and prevent them from escaping us. And there is another factor.”\n\n“Such as?”\n\n“The money.” He smiled and held up two fingers, then crossed his fingers. “The two factors are intertwined. Do you think the crown will be so willing to promise us a silver an ear once they learn how effectively the legion butchers its foes? We can feed the men and keep them paid for months—months, Cassabus! And an opportunity such as this will not come again, not soon, at any rate.”\n\n“I see,” the praefactus said, nodding slowly. “It is still a gamble, Marcus, but I can see why you deem it a gamble worth taking. I only wish I were not the one sitting in the sling, being hurled at the foe!”\n\n“I can’t blame you.” Marcus slapped Cassabus on the shoulder. “Feed your men when they wake, with a double-ration of meat and a half-ration of wine, then see that they are confessed and blessed by Father Gennadius before you march. I will be at the gate with Trebonius to see you off.”\n\nThe praefectus nodded, saluted, and went off in search of the five centurions who would be serving under him tonight. He would not sleep, Marcus knew, nor would the other officers. He could only hope that the lack of sleep would not overly hinder the men’s decision-making faculties. He should sleep himself, he knew, for tomorrow would be a long and brutal day, but he doubted he would be able to fall asleep no matter how badly he needed the rest. His mind was racing with all the possibilities, all the various outcomes, and far too many of them were bad.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1302, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch10_marcus-P3", "chapter": "ch10_marcus", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nnomen gentilicium / House Martial — patrician name-law vocabulary; keep forms.\nPorta Decumana — rear gate; both words capitalized.\nClaudius Didius — eighth-cohort centurion raising the gate; keep spelling.\nDeep March — prior underground ordeal that showed the men’s quality; both words capitalized.\nImmaculate Son / Holy Mother Church — Marcus’s prayer and fallback vocation language.\nMarcus Saturnius — dead predecessor betrayed by his own centurions; keep both names.\n\n### STORY\nAfter hiring Renier to cue the prince as anvil, Marcus briefs Titus Cassabus at the forest-edge castra to take five centuries into the orc camp by night, fall back rather than die on the machines, and drive the pillards toward Savondese blades and payable ears.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAlone with the cost if Cassabus is encircled: decimation, revolt, authority that may not survive a second failure after the Three Legions. Tempted to plant spies among instinctive rebels; decides trust is the bond he will not sever. Ready to resign for the Church if God signals another defeat. Lighter once vanity is named.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nOr in your desire to win a victory that will finally secure your place with the legion, were the words the older man left unsaid, words that Marcus could see in the other’s eyes. “I am certain. We can only surprise them once, Titus Cassabus. Once they know our quality, they will do their best to avoid meeting us directly again, and being more heavily armored, we cannot match their speed. This is our one and only opportunity to take them wholly unawares and prevent them from escaping us. And there is another factor.”\n\n“Such as?”\n\n“The money.” He smiled and held up two fingers, then crossed his fingers. “The two factors are intertwined. Do you think the crown will be so willing to promise us a silver an ear once they learn how effectively the legion butchers its foes? We can feed the men and keep them paid for months—months, Cassabus! And an opportunity such as this will not come again, not soon, at any rate.”\n\n“I see,” the praefactus said, nodding slowly. “It is still a gamble, Marcus, but I can see why you deem it a gamble worth taking. I only wish I were not the one sitting in the sling, being hurled at the foe!”\n\n“I can’t blame you.” Marcus slapped Cassabus on the shoulder. “Feed your men when they wake, with a double-ration of meat and a half-ration of wine, then see that they are confessed and blessed by Father Gennadius before you march. I will be at the gate with Trebonius to see you off.”\n\nThe praefectus nodded, saluted, and went off in search of the five centurions who would be serving under him tonight. He would not sleep, Marcus knew, nor would the other officers. He could only hope that the lack of sleep would not overly hinder the men’s decision-making faculties. He should sleep himself, he knew, for tomorrow would be a long and brutal day, but he doubted he would be able to fall asleep no matter how badly he needed the rest. His mind was racing with all the possibilities, all the various outcomes, and far too many of them were bad.\n\n### NOTES\nEighth cohort raising Porta Decumana under Claudius Didius; enemy near enough that malingering is scarce.\nNight coming; steel and flame will move in the forest before dawn tells Marcus his vocation.\nFather Gennadius already busy with Cassabus’s men — Marcus will wait for shriving.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nHe works through the revolt that would follow if five centuries die in the trees, nearly decides to cage troublemakers, then watches Didius’s cohort raise the rear gate without a malingerer and remembers the Deep March. Spies would break the legate–legion bond even if the men never learned; Saturnius trusted and died anyway. He prays, postpones confession, mocks his own waiting as an Iron Law, and finally laughs vanity down: another failure and he will hand the legion to Trebonius and the seniors and go back to the Church.\n\nLighter, he walks toward the half-built Porta Decumana as the sun sinks — steel and flame tonight, vocation by morning. The scene ends on that walk into gathering dark.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Interior command crisis without melodrama; land on the vocation line as night falls.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "If, against his expectations, the orcs stood firm and somehow managed to encircle Cassabus and his five centuries, they would likely be wiped out. In their heavy armor, his legionaries could not outrun the orc raiders, still less the goblin wolf-riders. The legion would be literally decimated and Marcus would almost surely find himself facing an open revolt, from the men and the junior centurions at the very least, if not the senior officers themselves. For all that they had supported his decision to risk the attack, he knew that it was more his right to make the decision that they’d been supporting than the decision itself. He’d failed them once, and failed them badly. He knew his authority might not survive a second such failure, and not even a patrician nomen gentilicium from a much-storied House Martial would be sufficient to preserve it.\n\nPerhaps he should prepare for the possibility, set a few spies among the men, and imprison any likely troublemakers. His father had told him there were always a few instinctive rebels in any unit. Keeping them under watch, or even under guard, might dampen any ardor for insurrection. And yet, betraying mistrust of his men might spark the very unrest he sought to avoid, were it to become known.\n\nHe watched the men of the eighth cohort raising the gate for the Porta Decumana. He could see Claudius Didius, their centurion, shouting instructions as the men pulled at the ropes that set the freshly cut beams into place. Although they were tired, Marcus could not see a single malingerer in their midst; no doubt every man in the cohort understood that with the enemy nearby, they were liable to be attacked at any moment. And while a few of them occasionally shot envious looks at the tents of the slumbering men excused from their usual duties, he guessed that most of them had enough experience to know that a wise man wouldn’t want to trade places with them.\n\nThey were good men. Fine soldiers. He had gotten to know their true colors during the Deep March. How could he fail to trust them now? How could he expect them to trust him to lead them in the future if he failed to give them the benefit of the doubt now? It was one thing to hold his tongue about Corvus. That was a family matter, and no man would blame him for his silence. But to set spies upon them would be a violation of confidence from which he might never recover. Even if the men never found out, the senior centurions would know. And necessity or not, such a demonstration of weakness might well plant seeds of doubt in their own minds.\n\nThe commander who expects to be obeyed must first show himself worthy of obedience, his father once told him. Was it not true, then, that the commander who expects to be trusted must first show himself worthy of trust? No, he decided. He would set no spies. It would be better to fall to a traitor’s blade in the night than sever the sacred bond between legate and legion.\n\nOf course, Marcus Saturnius may well have felt the same before being betrayed by his own centurions. It was a haunting thought for the dead man’s successor.\n\nGrant me wisdom, Father, he prayed, not for the first or the fiftieth time today. Lord give them, the servants of your Immaculate Son, victory in the dark night to come, in His most Clean and Perfect Name!\n\nHe felt like finding Father Gennadius and confessing himself; being purified and blessed might lift some of the terrible burden he was now feeling descend upon him. But the priest would already be occupied with the men of Cassabus’s detachment, at least those who were too troubled by sin or fear to sleep. He could wait. He would have to wait.\n\nThat should be one of the Iron Laws of the Legion, he thought. Thou shalt wait. Thou shalt wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, until finally, at long last, thou shalt know terror sufficient to turn thy bowels to water.\n\nNow that was enough, he told himself. There was too much to be done before tomorrow morning to permit himself the indulgence of useless worry. Cassabus was right to call himself Aleator. The die was cast, or at least the decision to cast it had been made.\n\nWhat would you do, father? Not for the first time, he desperately wished he was still simply one of the legion’s tribunes, carrying out orders rather than issuing them as its commander. What a perfect fool he had been to harbor ambitions of command! Had he known two years ago what he knew now, nothing, not even Corvus’s deepest disapproval, would have convinced him to abandon his studies and place his name before the assembled tribes.\n\nBut that die, too, had been cast. Then, to his surprise, he laughed. Why should failure hold any fears for him? He would do well to fear for Cassabus, to fear for the men of the legion, to fear for House Valerius and for the fate of Amorr itself, but what was it to him if the legion would not serve him as they served his father, and his father’s father, before him? It was simple vanity that was haunting his thoughts, he realized, and little more than vanity. He came to a decision. If God willed that he failed in yet another battle, then he would take it as a clear sign that he had made a mistake in abandoning the priesthood. He would resign as legate, turn the legion over to Trebonius Lecerus and the senior centurions if they would permit him to do so, and return to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Where and how, he did not know; moreover, he did not care.\n\nIt was with a lighter heart and a clearer mind that he strode towards the half-built Porta Decumana. Already the sun was low in the sky and soon the night would fall. Then steel and flame would shed blood in the dark heart of the forest, and by the time the sun rose again, he would know in which direction his true vocation lay.\n", "completion": "If, against his expectations, the orcs stood firm and somehow managed to encircle Cassabus and his five centuries, they would likely be wiped out. In their heavy armor, his legionaries could not outrun the orc raiders, still less the goblin wolf-riders. The legion would be literally decimated and Marcus would almost surely find himself facing an open revolt, from the men and the junior centurions at the very least, if not the senior officers themselves. For all that they had supported his decision to risk the attack, he knew that it was more his right to make the decision that they’d been supporting than the decision itself. He’d failed them once, and failed them badly. He knew his authority might not survive a second such failure, and not even a patrician nomen gentilicium from a much-storied House Martial would be sufficient to preserve it.\n\nPerhaps he should prepare for the possibility, set a few spies among the men, and imprison any likely troublemakers. His father had told him there were always a few instinctive rebels in any unit. Keeping them under watch, or even under guard, might dampen any ardor for insurrection. And yet, betraying mistrust of his men might spark the very unrest he sought to avoid, were it to become known.\n\nHe watched the men of the eighth cohort raising the gate for the Porta Decumana. He could see Claudius Didius, their centurion, shouting instructions as the men pulled at the ropes that set the freshly cut beams into place. Although they were tired, Marcus could not see a single malingerer in their midst; no doubt every man in the cohort understood that with the enemy nearby, they were liable to be attacked at any moment. And while a few of them occasionally shot envious looks at the tents of the slumbering men excused from their usual duties, he guessed that most of them had enough experience to know that a wise man wouldn’t want to trade places with them.\n\nThey were good men. Fine soldiers. He had gotten to know their true colors during the Deep March. How could he fail to trust them now? How could he expect them to trust him to lead them in the future if he failed to give them the benefit of the doubt now? It was one thing to hold his tongue about Corvus. That was a family matter, and no man would blame him for his silence. But to set spies upon them would be a violation of confidence from which he might never recover. Even if the men never found out, the senior centurions would know. And necessity or not, such a demonstration of weakness might well plant seeds of doubt in their own minds.\n\nThe commander who expects to be obeyed must first show himself worthy of obedience, his father once told him. Was it not true, then, that the commander who expects to be trusted must first show himself worthy of trust? No, he decided. He would set no spies. It would be better to fall to a traitor’s blade in the night than sever the sacred bond between legate and legion.\n\nOf course, Marcus Saturnius may well have felt the same before being betrayed by his own centurions. It was a haunting thought for the dead man’s successor.\n\nGrant me wisdom, Father, he prayed, not for the first or the fiftieth time today. Lord give them, the servants of your Immaculate Son, victory in the dark night to come, in His most Clean and Perfect Name!\n\nHe felt like finding Father Gennadius and confessing himself; being purified and blessed might lift some of the terrible burden he was now feeling descend upon him. But the priest would already be occupied with the men of Cassabus’s detachment, at least those who were too troubled by sin or fear to sleep. He could wait. He would have to wait.\n\nThat should be one of the Iron Laws of the Legion, he thought. Thou shalt wait. Thou shalt wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, until finally, at long last, thou shalt know terror sufficient to turn thy bowels to water.\n\nNow that was enough, he told himself. There was too much to be done before tomorrow morning to permit himself the indulgence of useless worry. Cassabus was right to call himself Aleator. The die was cast, or at least the decision to cast it had been made.\n\nWhat would you do, father? Not for the first time, he desperately wished he was still simply one of the legion’s tribunes, carrying out orders rather than issuing them as its commander. What a perfect fool he had been to harbor ambitions of command! Had he known two years ago what he knew now, nothing, not even Corvus’s deepest disapproval, would have convinced him to abandon his studies and place his name before the assembled tribes.\n\nBut that die, too, had been cast. Then, to his surprise, he laughed. Why should failure hold any fears for him? He would do well to fear for Cassabus, to fear for the men of the legion, to fear for House Valerius and for the fate of Amorr itself, but what was it to him if the legion would not serve him as they served his father, and his father’s father, before him? It was simple vanity that was haunting his thoughts, he realized, and little more than vanity. He came to a decision. If God willed that he failed in yet another battle, then he would take it as a clear sign that he had made a mistake in abandoning the priesthood. He would resign as legate, turn the legion over to Trebonius Lecerus and the senior centurions if they would permit him to do so, and return to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Where and how, he did not know; moreover, he did not care.\n\nIt was with a lighter heart and a clearer mind that he strode towards the half-built Porta Decumana. Already the sun was low in the sky and soon the night would fall. Then steel and flame would shed blood in the dark heart of the forest, and by the time the sun rose again, he would know in which direction his true vocation lay.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1060, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch11_lugbol-P1", "chapter": "ch11_lugbol", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nshugaba / shugaba'ugh — warband captain(s); plural takes -'ugh; never “captain” in orc mouths when the rank is meant.\ngungiyar / gungiyar'ugh — a warband; plural often marked -'ugh.\nkai hari gungiyar — a large or primary warband; keep the two-word form.\nkor / kors — rank-and-file orc warrior(s).\nGor-Gor — hyphenated; orc war god; epithets Blood-bather, Flesh-chewer stay capitalized.\nZlatagh — warleader's name; not Zlatag.\nManeater — praise-name, one word, capital M; do not write Man-eater in narrative.\nHeadchopper — Zlatagh's cleaver; one word.\nSnaghak — rival shugaba; not Snaghack.\nAzzakhar — Great Orc; praise-name Mansbane is his to hold.\nMansbane — higher praise-name; one word.\nKorokhurmagh — the woods of the campaign; keep the spelling.\nMan-Zarki'agh — epithet in war-boasts; hyphen and apostrophe as written.\nMandokki — metal-clad Man cavalry; do not respell.\nabokhi'agh — orc females; not she-men.\nshe-men — orc term for human women captives.\nwolfrider — goblin wolf-cavalry; one word.\norcling — young orc.\nsquagging — vulgar orc term for sex; camp register.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nShugaba of his own gungiyar in Zlatagh Maneater's raiding army. Alive, camped in the Korokhurmagh after two moons of burning Man villages. One arm was badly burned by a Man mage on a prior raid and is still healing; he has only the other for work and fighting. He wants a night of rest, a trophy keg, and time for four wounded kors more than he wants glory. He reads Snaghak's hatred clearly and is forbidden to gut him in camp.\n\nZlatagh\nCalled Maneater. Mountain-orc warleader of the raiding army under Great Orc Azzakhar. Alive, in absolute control after an unbroken spring of victories. Stands nearly a head taller than the captains around him; tusks unsharpened; wields the cleaver Headchopper. Ban on killing fellow captains and on clan war in camp. Has not moved the encampment toward the Man army since wolfriders fled the Mandokki. Hungers after the praise-name Mansbane and will not claim it.\n\nSnaghak\nRival shugaba from lower Hagahorn. Alive, in the same camp. Hates Lugbol; commands a larger gungiyar of about three hundred with more siri-kors. Staring at Lugbol with hatred and triumph at the start of the evening assembly.\n\nAzzakhar\nGreat Orc who ordered the invasion. Holds the praise-name Mansbane. Not present; the main army is the place a raider might fall back to.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nThe encampment lies deep in the Korokhurmagh. A Man army waits at the northwestern forest edge; Zlatagh has not advanced on it.\nKilling a fellow shugaba in camp is forbidden. A shaman in the grip of Gor-Gor is not to be clawed.\nCaptives are held in a corral. No abokhi'agh were permitted on this campaign.\nEvening, orc war-camp, circle of about fifty warband leaders.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nEvening in Zlatagh's camp, and Lugbol is watching Snaghak watch him. The shugaba from lower Hagahorn has hatred in his eyes and triumph too, and Lugbol would like to walk over and gut him, except the Maneater would strangle him for killing a captain in camp. So he waits, and listens to Zlatagh stalk the circle of warband leaders boasting of Manflesh and burned cities and kings pissing themselves at a name Lugbol doubts any Man-King has ever heard.\n\nHe knows the campaign has been easy — villages, herds, captives, fat bellies — and he also knows the mounted Mandokki and the waiting Man army are not villages. When Zlatagh asks who marches, Lugbol raises a fist without meaning it. He wants the next day or three in camp: wounded kors, a keg of yellow stuff that hits harder than ale, and no screaming she-men from the corral if he can help it. One arm is still no good to him.\n\nThen the augurs come, and a goblin, and Gor-Gor speaks through guts the way he always does until he doesn't. The tattooed shaman goes white-eyed and talks of fire, iron demons, death for orcs throughout the woods, not for Man cities. Zlatagh hits him for it. The second shaman, no fool, turns the omen into a warning that Gor-Gor has not been paid. Zlatagh, blood on his fist, promises every Man captive to the war god in the morning and a trophy from each gungiyar on the fires.\n\nThe captains chant Maneater, and Lugbol is glad of two days' rest until he catches Snaghak's yellow eyes still on him, murderous now instead of triumphant. He leaves the circle knowing he will not squat alone in the dark, and that if Snaghak has no night-stabber on his tent he will volunteer his own entrails for the next reading.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2800 words. Coarse orc-camp register; contempt stays in Lugbol's head, boasts and orders in the mouths. Land the scene as he leaves the circle, still hunted.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Lugbol didn’t like the way Snaghak was staring at him. The hatred in the shugaba’s piggish little eyes was easy to read, but so was the triumph. The sneaky bastard was up to something. That much was clear. Lugbol was of a mind to walk right over and gut the coward, but killing a fellow captain in camp was strictly forbidden. Zlatagh would strangle him with his own guts if he gave Snaghak what he deserved, so Lugbol would just have to wait.\n\n“I have tasted Manflesh! I have raped she-men! I have burned Man cities!”\n\nLugbol rolled his eyes. Who hadn’t? He was almost embarrassed for the big mountain orc, who was boasting of his accomplishments while stalking back and forth in a large circle of about fifty warband leaders listening to their warleader’s customary evening rant. As for the burned cities, most of them had held populations smaller than Lugbol’s own kai hari gungiyar. If they were the terrible Man cities of which Lugbol had been told frightening stories since he was a small orcling, then he was a one-armed goblin.\n\n“Man-Zarki’agh shaking in their tents! Man-Kings on their thrones pissing themselves when they hear the name Zlatagh! Zlatagh Life-taker! Zlatagh Piss-maker! Zlatagh Man-eater!”\n\nThat was their cue. “Maneater! Maneater!” the shugaba’ugh obediently chanted, Lugbol among them. He knew that Zlatagh secretly hungered after the praise-name Mansbane, but even the giant warleader knew better than to risk stepping on the clawed toes of the Great Orc Azzakhar, whose claim to the title would certainly trump Zlatagh’s.\n\nAnd Lugbol rather doubted any Man-King had ever heard the name Zlatagh, let alone pissed himself for fear of it.\n\nZlatagh was an imposing brute, though, even for a mountain orc. He stood nearly a head taller than most of the shugaba’ugh gathered around him, with a thick chest and heavy muscles that belied his violent speed. A pair of captured iron Man plates covered each powerful shoulder; two cow’s horns had somehow been driven through the center of both breastplates, curving upward like two spare pairs of tusks. Zlatagh’s own tusks were nearly as large; they were thick, yellowed with maturity, and reached nearly to the tip of his nose. Almost unique among the orcs present, Zlatagh’s tusks were unsharpened and unadorned with any bone, paint, or metal.\n\nBut that didn’t mean they weren’t fearsome weapons. Lugbol had seen with his own eyes how the big orc once used them to disembowel a goblin. The goblin had been wearing leather armor too, which made the feat all the more impressive. After Azzakhar commanded Zlatagh to invade the Man lands two moons past, the Maneater had found himself facing three challenges to his leadership, two of them on the very first day. Zlatagh beheaded one with the monstrous cleaver he called Headchopper, blinded the second with his bare hands, and ripped the arm off the third before using it to bash in the skull of the overmatched orc. At this point, only a truly thick-skulled shugaba would dare to cross the giant orc, let alone challenge him.\n\nNor, beyond personal ambition, was there any reason for anyone to do so. Zlatagh was a good warleader, and the warbands over which he’d been given command had enjoyed an unbroken string of victories under his leadership. More than one hundred Man villages had been pillaged and burned, and the orc encampment was littered with the broken remnants of trophies taken throughout the spring campaign. None could complain that he had not passed the ultimate test of leadership; providing his followers with more food than they could eat and more booty than they could carry. Not a single orc’s belly didn’t bulge with fat of the last two moons’ devourings, and even the most cowardly goblin wolfrider wore decorative trophies of one sort or another by now.\n\nThat didn’t mean Lugbol was entirely confident in the big mountain orc. Smashing sparsely guarded hamlets and carrying off helpless herds and captives was one thing, defeating a large and well-armed army of the sort that waited for them at the northwestern edge of the Korokhurmagh was another. Zlatagh could boast that the Man chieftains were pissing themselves and afraid to take the field against him all he liked, but it hadn’t escaped Lugbol’s notice that it was their forces who avoided meeting the mounted patrols that chased them throughout the woods, and that Zlatagh hadn’t moved their encampment one step closer to the Man army ever since its presence had been reported by wolfriders fleeing from the metal-clad Mandokki warriors and the huge, fierce, four-legged beasts they rode.\n\n“Who marches today! Who takes the fight to Man!”\n\n“Lugbol!” Lugbol raised his fist and cried halfheartedly, quite happy to be outshouted by other shugaba’ugh more eager to demonstrate their enthusiasm to the big orc. “Lugbol!”\n\nIn truth, he was hoping to spend the next day or three in the camp, sleeping, squagging, and allowing four of his wounded warriors to recover from their injuries. One of his trophies was a large keg of yellow liquid that looked like piss, tasted like honey, and hit the skull harder than ale, wine, or club. He didn’t know what it was called, but he fully intended to drain it with the help of a few select companions this evening. It was a pity no females had been permitted; a few abokhi’agh would just about make for a perfect way to spend a lazy afternoon. There were a few she-men in the prisoner corral, but Lugbol was more in the mood for some relaxed and drunken squagging than having his ears assaulted by the piercing shrieks of a raped man. Rape was a fine thing when the dead enemy was strewn about, smoke was in one’s nostrils, and one’s blood was up, but for now it struck him as being more akin to work than pleasure. Especially considering how he only had one good arm at his disposal at the moment.\n\nHe watched the Maneater nod with satisfaction as the big orc looked over the shouting captains vying for his attention. Zlatagh laughed, a deep guttural sound, as he basked in the raw power of the moment. Two months of slaughter and victory had given him absolute control over the shugaba’ugh, and it was clear that he knew it.\n\n“The auguries!” Zlatagh cried suddenly. “Bring forward the augurs! What say Gor-Gor?”\n\nAs the shouting dissolved into a general cheering, Lugbol saw a pair of heavily tattooed orcs with sharpened silver tusk-caps push into the center of the circle. They accompanied someone; at first Lugbol thought it might be a juvenile Man, but then he caught a sight of yellow-green skin and realized it was a goblin. Nearly half their troops were goblins; they had started out with ten thousand but thanks to the inevitable costs of the campaign, there were about fifteen hundred fewer of them now. The doomed creature looked wild with terror; he seemed to have a fair notion of his imminent fate. But he was silent and he did not struggle; there was literally nothing that a single goblin could do to save itself, not when surrounded by howling, blood-hungry orcs with arms twice the thickness of his legs.\n\nThe augury looked to be the usual entrail-reading. For some reason Lugbol had never quite grasped, Gor-Gor preferred to speak to his priests through the intestines of his lesser worshippers. Goblins were the preferred method of communication, though orcs, Men, and even large rats would do in a pinch. He noticed Gor-Gor never seemed to speak through either wolves or warboars, two martial commodities that were always in great demand.\n\nThe goblin broke his silence when one shaman kneeled down before him, then ripped open his stomach with both silver-tipped tusks. As the other shaman held the victim, chanting all the while, the killer began calling out the haruspictic ritual and reached into the goblin with both hands. Then he began walking backwards, pulling the dying goblin’s innards out. After taking seven steps, he gave three firm tugs, then finally released the bloody, stinking offal and let it fall with a wet thud. The other shaman followed his example, stepping back and finally allowing the moaning goblin to collapse, dying, to the ground.\n\nLugbol saw the shaman raise his bloody hands and call out to Gor-Gor. The shaman’s eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and he swayed back and forth, as if drunk, while looking over the entrails spread out upon the ground. He took a step forward, then another, holding his palms toward the ground with his fingers spread wide. It was as if he was feeling his way through something rising up from the spilled innards. Several of the shaman’s tattoos flared into life; a rune on his shoulder blazed red and began to smoke as it burned away his skin, but the shaman didn’t seem to feel or notice anything was wrong. With nothing but the whites of his eyes showing, he began to grunt and growl. Gradually, the guttural noises became discernible as words.\n\n“Fire,” he rumbled. “Fire burns. Demon wings of fire, burning, burning. Demons, iron demons, and death.”\n\nThe shugaba’ugh looked at each other, confused. This was not how the ritual usually proceeded. Zlatagh’s eyes narrowed and he made as if to step forward, then the big orc stopped himself. Even a warleader would not dare to lay claws upon a shaman in the holy grip of Gor-Gor.\n\n“Death come, death come, on fire and iron, death come to all!” The shaman’s voice rose into a shriek and he thrust his bloody hands skyward. Then, he began to shake and shiver, as if Gor-Gor was attempting to rid himself of his puppet. Finally, the shaman collapsed face-first on the ground, where he lay motionless except for his labored breathing. Smoke, stinking of burned flesh, rose from three or four blackened tattoos on his back and shoulders.\n\n“The Hell he say? What does that mean?” a furious Zlatagh demanded of the other shaman. One might have almost thought that he was alarmed. “What was the damn augury?”\n\nLugbol looked around at his fellow shugaba’ugh. They were agitated and alarmed, with one significant exception. Snaghak, alone among the warband captains, wore an expression that was full of fury. He no longer looked triumphant, he looked downright vengeful. And, for once, Lugbol thought, Snaghak’s hatred didn’t appear to be directed at him. He stifled a dismissive snort and returned his attention to Zlatagh, who had grabbed the smaller shaman by his tattooed shoulders and was shaking him while shouting in his face.\n\n“I don’t know!” the smaller orc pleaded. “I swear, I swear by Gor-Gor’s tail, I don’t know what happened!”\n\nZlatagh snarled in disgust and shoved the tattooed orc away from him. Then a groan from the fallen shaman caught the big orc’s attention and he whirled around to see the shaman, his skin still smoking slightly, trying to push himself up from the ground. The injured shaman failed the first time with a barely muted cry, then his muscles bulged with effort as he succeeded in rising to his knees on his second attempt. He didn’t seem to have known what happened to him earlier, because he suddenly winced and looked down at the burns on his shoulders with an expression of pained surprise.\n\n“You!” Zlatagh said, reaching out and pulling the shaman to his feet. “What did you do? What thing did you see in the guts there? What secrets did Gor-Gor tell you?”\n\nThe shaman rolled his eyes and slumped in the warleader’s grasp. His initial reply was a drawn-out groan, but when the warleader violently shook him, it seemed to pull him out of his swoon. “I saw death. Everywhere, death.”\n\n“Whose death! The Man cities?”\n\n“No,” the stricken shaman said. He stared intensely into Zlatagh’s face. “Ours. Everywhere, all throughout the woods, I saw orcs dead on the ground, murdered, all of them, by demons of fire and iron!”\n\n“You lie!” Zlatagh shouted instinctively, before driving an oversized fist into the shaman’s tattooed face. There was a loud crunch and the shaman crumpled as if he’d been cloven through the head with a dwarven axe. Whether the shaman was dead or not, Lugbol couldn’t tell, but he wouldn’t be surprised either way.\n\nZlatagh pointed at the other shaman, who was cringing behind the corpse of the goblin. “You, read the bloody guts! And tell me the truth or I’ll rip your balls out of your sack and feed them to you!”\n\nThe second shaman was no fool. He quickly stretched out his hands over the dark green ruin of the goblin’s innards and began intoning some babbled nonsense about death. His fear was transparent and the augury wasn’t at all convincing, but Zlatagh didn’t seem to care if any of the shugaba’ugh were buying the shaman’s performance or not. As he glared at the shaman, it seemed to Lugbol that all the warleader cared about was avoiding the fateful warning of the first augury.\n\n“He was wrong, O Maneater,” the shaman finally quit pretending to read the entrails and pointed to the ground. “The vision was a warning, not a promise of things to come. Gor-Gor has given you many victories, but you have not given him his due! You must give him a sacrifice, and soon, Warleader, or he will smash you with his terrible fist!”\n\nZlatagh’s expression mingled anger with relief as his face flushed dark green with shame. The shugaba’ugh murmured and muttered amongst themselves; the shaman spoke truly. As their warbands had rampaged through Man village after Man village for weeks, as they fled from the mounted patrols that the Men sent out against them, then regrouped to rampage again, Zlatagh had not once halted the campaign long enough to honor the terrible war god, or repay Gor-Gor for the favors he had granted.\n\n“What does Gor-Gor want?” he asked.\n\n“The war god demands his due! Give him fire and blood and honor. You have captives in the corral. Let them be sacrificed in the morning, then pile their skulls high into an offering to Gor-Gor Blood-bather, Gor-Gor Flesh-chewer. Let their blood be drunk and their flesh be devoured, that every orc in your army will know that they eat by the will of Gor-Gor, that they slay by the will of Gor-Gor, that they triumph by the will of Gor-Gor!”\n\nZlatagh looked out at the assembled warband leaders to gauge their mood. The shugaba’ugh stared back at him expectantly; Lugbol had the impression that most of them were hoping the warleader would have the sense to heed the shaman’s warning. Seeing no signs of challenge or contempt, Zlatagh nodded and raised his fist, still splattered with the blood of the shaman. “Gor-Gor speaks in blood. Zlatagh hears! I will give every Man captive here to the war god. And each shugaba gungiyar shall bring a trophy to cast upon the fires! Gor-Gor has given us victory over Men! Gor-Gor will give us more victory over Men! I have said this, I, Zlatagh Maneater!”\n\n“Maneater!” the shugaba’ugh chanted, and their enthusiasm was not entirely feigned. Lugbol, for one, was content to know that he and his kors would have at least two days to rest before departing on their next raid. “Maneater!”\n\nBut he was not entirely confident he would get much chance to rest when he caught a frustrated Snaghak staring at him with a murderous gleam in his yellow eyes. He didn’t know what the orc from lower Hagahorn was up to, but he knew that it would be unwise, and perhaps even fatal, to let his guard down as long as Snaghak and his three-hundred-strong gungiyar were in the same camp. He didn’t think Snaghak would dare to openly attack him, not as long as Zlatagh’s ban on clan wars was in effect, but he wasn’t about to go out and squat alone in the dark anytime soon. If Snaghak didn’t have a night-stabber or two sneaking about and keeping an eye on his tent, Lugbol would volunteer his entrails for the next reading.\n", "completion": "Lugbol didn’t like the way Snaghak was staring at him. The hatred in the shugaba’s piggish little eyes was easy to read, but so was the triumph. The sneaky bastard was up to something. That much was clear. Lugbol was of a mind to walk right over and gut the coward, but killing a fellow captain in camp was strictly forbidden. Zlatagh would strangle him with his own guts if he gave Snaghak what he deserved, so Lugbol would just have to wait.\n\n“I have tasted Manflesh! I have raped she-men! I have burned Man cities!”\n\nLugbol rolled his eyes. Who hadn’t? He was almost embarrassed for the big mountain orc, who was boasting of his accomplishments while stalking back and forth in a large circle of about fifty warband leaders listening to their warleader’s customary evening rant. As for the burned cities, most of them had held populations smaller than Lugbol’s own kai hari gungiyar. If they were the terrible Man cities of which Lugbol had been told frightening stories since he was a small orcling, then he was a one-armed goblin.\n\n“Man-Zarki’agh shaking in their tents! Man-Kings on their thrones pissing themselves when they hear the name Zlatagh! Zlatagh Life-taker! Zlatagh Piss-maker! Zlatagh Man-eater!”\n\nThat was their cue. “Maneater! Maneater!” the shugaba’ugh obediently chanted, Lugbol among them. He knew that Zlatagh secretly hungered after the praise-name Mansbane, but even the giant warleader knew better than to risk stepping on the clawed toes of the Great Orc Azzakhar, whose claim to the title would certainly trump Zlatagh’s.\n\nAnd Lugbol rather doubted any Man-King had ever heard the name Zlatagh, let alone pissed himself for fear of it.\n\nZlatagh was an imposing brute, though, even for a mountain orc. He stood nearly a head taller than most of the shugaba’ugh gathered around him, with a thick chest and heavy muscles that belied his violent speed. A pair of captured iron Man plates covered each powerful shoulder; two cow’s horns had somehow been driven through the center of both breastplates, curving upward like two spare pairs of tusks. Zlatagh’s own tusks were nearly as large; they were thick, yellowed with maturity, and reached nearly to the tip of his nose. Almost unique among the orcs present, Zlatagh’s tusks were unsharpened and unadorned with any bone, paint, or metal.\n\nBut that didn’t mean they weren’t fearsome weapons. Lugbol had seen with his own eyes how the big orc once used them to disembowel a goblin. The goblin had been wearing leather armor too, which made the feat all the more impressive. After Azzakhar commanded Zlatagh to invade the Man lands two moons past, the Maneater had found himself facing three challenges to his leadership, two of them on the very first day. Zlatagh beheaded one with the monstrous cleaver he called Headchopper, blinded the second with his bare hands, and ripped the arm off the third before using it to bash in the skull of the overmatched orc. At this point, only a truly thick-skulled shugaba would dare to cross the giant orc, let alone challenge him.\n\nNor, beyond personal ambition, was there any reason for anyone to do so. Zlatagh was a good warleader, and the warbands over which he’d been given command had enjoyed an unbroken string of victories under his leadership. More than one hundred Man villages had been pillaged and burned, and the orc encampment was littered with the broken remnants of trophies taken throughout the spring campaign. None could complain that he had not passed the ultimate test of leadership; providing his followers with more food than they could eat and more booty than they could carry. Not a single orc’s belly didn’t bulge with fat of the last two moons’ devourings, and even the most cowardly goblin wolfrider wore decorative trophies of one sort or another by now.\n\nThat didn’t mean Lugbol was entirely confident in the big mountain orc. Smashing sparsely guarded hamlets and carrying off helpless herds and captives was one thing, defeating a large and well-armed army of the sort that waited for them at the northwestern edge of the Korokhurmagh was another. Zlatagh could boast that the Man chieftains were pissing themselves and afraid to take the field against him all he liked, but it hadn’t escaped Lugbol’s notice that it was their forces who avoided meeting the mounted patrols that chased them throughout the woods, and that Zlatagh hadn’t moved their encampment one step closer to the Man army ever since its presence had been reported by wolfriders fleeing from the metal-clad Mandokki warriors and the huge, fierce, four-legged beasts they rode.\n\n“Who marches today! Who takes the fight to Man!”\n\n“Lugbol!” Lugbol raised his fist and cried halfheartedly, quite happy to be outshouted by other shugaba’ugh more eager to demonstrate their enthusiasm to the big orc. “Lugbol!”\n\nIn truth, he was hoping to spend the next day or three in the camp, sleeping, squagging, and allowing four of his wounded warriors to recover from their injuries. One of his trophies was a large keg of yellow liquid that looked like piss, tasted like honey, and hit the skull harder than ale, wine, or club. He didn’t know what it was called, but he fully intended to drain it with the help of a few select companions this evening. It was a pity no females had been permitted; a few abokhi’agh would just about make for a perfect way to spend a lazy afternoon. There were a few she-men in the prisoner corral, but Lugbol was more in the mood for some relaxed and drunken squagging than having his ears assaulted by the piercing shrieks of a raped man. Rape was a fine thing when the dead enemy was strewn about, smoke was in one’s nostrils, and one’s blood was up, but for now it struck him as being more akin to work than pleasure. Especially considering how he only had one good arm at his disposal at the moment.\n\nHe watched the Maneater nod with satisfaction as the big orc looked over the shouting captains vying for his attention. Zlatagh laughed, a deep guttural sound, as he basked in the raw power of the moment. Two months of slaughter and victory had given him absolute control over the shugaba’ugh, and it was clear that he knew it.\n\n“The auguries!” Zlatagh cried suddenly. “Bring forward the augurs! What say Gor-Gor?”\n\nAs the shouting dissolved into a general cheering, Lugbol saw a pair of heavily tattooed orcs with sharpened silver tusk-caps push into the center of the circle. They accompanied someone; at first Lugbol thought it might be a juvenile Man, but then he caught a sight of yellow-green skin and realized it was a goblin. Nearly half their troops were goblins; they had started out with ten thousand but thanks to the inevitable costs of the campaign, there were about fifteen hundred fewer of them now. The doomed creature looked wild with terror; he seemed to have a fair notion of his imminent fate. But he was silent and he did not struggle; there was literally nothing that a single goblin could do to save itself, not when surrounded by howling, blood-hungry orcs with arms twice the thickness of his legs.\n\nThe augury looked to be the usual entrail-reading. For some reason Lugbol had never quite grasped, Gor-Gor preferred to speak to his priests through the intestines of his lesser worshippers. Goblins were the preferred method of communication, though orcs, Men, and even large rats would do in a pinch. He noticed Gor-Gor never seemed to speak through either wolves or warboars, two martial commodities that were always in great demand.\n\nThe goblin broke his silence when one shaman kneeled down before him, then ripped open his stomach with both silver-tipped tusks. As the other shaman held the victim, chanting all the while, the killer began calling out the haruspictic ritual and reached into the goblin with both hands. Then he began walking backwards, pulling the dying goblin’s innards out. After taking seven steps, he gave three firm tugs, then finally released the bloody, stinking offal and let it fall with a wet thud. The other shaman followed his example, stepping back and finally allowing the moaning goblin to collapse, dying, to the ground.\n\nLugbol saw the shaman raise his bloody hands and call out to Gor-Gor. The shaman’s eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and he swayed back and forth, as if drunk, while looking over the entrails spread out upon the ground. He took a step forward, then another, holding his palms toward the ground with his fingers spread wide. It was as if he was feeling his way through something rising up from the spilled innards. Several of the shaman’s tattoos flared into life; a rune on his shoulder blazed red and began to smoke as it burned away his skin, but the shaman didn’t seem to feel or notice anything was wrong. With nothing but the whites of his eyes showing, he began to grunt and growl. Gradually, the guttural noises became discernible as words.\n\n“Fire,” he rumbled. “Fire burns. Demon wings of fire, burning, burning. Demons, iron demons, and death.”\n\nThe shugaba’ugh looked at each other, confused. This was not how the ritual usually proceeded. Zlatagh’s eyes narrowed and he made as if to step forward, then the big orc stopped himself. Even a warleader would not dare to lay claws upon a shaman in the holy grip of Gor-Gor.\n\n“Death come, death come, on fire and iron, death come to all!” The shaman’s voice rose into a shriek and he thrust his bloody hands skyward. Then, he began to shake and shiver, as if Gor-Gor was attempting to rid himself of his puppet. Finally, the shaman collapsed face-first on the ground, where he lay motionless except for his labored breathing. Smoke, stinking of burned flesh, rose from three or four blackened tattoos on his back and shoulders.\n\n“The Hell he say? What does that mean?” a furious Zlatagh demanded of the other shaman. One might have almost thought that he was alarmed. “What was the damn augury?”\n\nLugbol looked around at his fellow shugaba’ugh. They were agitated and alarmed, with one significant exception. Snaghak, alone among the warband captains, wore an expression that was full of fury. He no longer looked triumphant, he looked downright vengeful. And, for once, Lugbol thought, Snaghak’s hatred didn’t appear to be directed at him. He stifled a dismissive snort and returned his attention to Zlatagh, who had grabbed the smaller shaman by his tattooed shoulders and was shaking him while shouting in his face.\n\n“I don’t know!” the smaller orc pleaded. “I swear, I swear by Gor-Gor’s tail, I don’t know what happened!”\n\nZlatagh snarled in disgust and shoved the tattooed orc away from him. Then a groan from the fallen shaman caught the big orc’s attention and he whirled around to see the shaman, his skin still smoking slightly, trying to push himself up from the ground. The injured shaman failed the first time with a barely muted cry, then his muscles bulged with effort as he succeeded in rising to his knees on his second attempt. He didn’t seem to have known what happened to him earlier, because he suddenly winced and looked down at the burns on his shoulders with an expression of pained surprise.\n\n“You!” Zlatagh said, reaching out and pulling the shaman to his feet. “What did you do? What thing did you see in the guts there? What secrets did Gor-Gor tell you?”\n\nThe shaman rolled his eyes and slumped in the warleader’s grasp. His initial reply was a drawn-out groan, but when the warleader violently shook him, it seemed to pull him out of his swoon. “I saw death. Everywhere, death.”\n\n“Whose death! The Man cities?”\n\n“No,” the stricken shaman said. He stared intensely into Zlatagh’s face. “Ours. Everywhere, all throughout the woods, I saw orcs dead on the ground, murdered, all of them, by demons of fire and iron!”\n\n“You lie!” Zlatagh shouted instinctively, before driving an oversized fist into the shaman’s tattooed face. There was a loud crunch and the shaman crumpled as if he’d been cloven through the head with a dwarven axe. Whether the shaman was dead or not, Lugbol couldn’t tell, but he wouldn’t be surprised either way.\n\nZlatagh pointed at the other shaman, who was cringing behind the corpse of the goblin. “You, read the bloody guts! And tell me the truth or I’ll rip your balls out of your sack and feed them to you!”\n\nThe second shaman was no fool. He quickly stretched out his hands over the dark green ruin of the goblin’s innards and began intoning some babbled nonsense about death. His fear was transparent and the augury wasn’t at all convincing, but Zlatagh didn’t seem to care if any of the shugaba’ugh were buying the shaman’s performance or not. As he glared at the shaman, it seemed to Lugbol that all the warleader cared about was avoiding the fateful warning of the first augury.\n\n“He was wrong, O Maneater,” the shaman finally quit pretending to read the entrails and pointed to the ground. “The vision was a warning, not a promise of things to come. Gor-Gor has given you many victories, but you have not given him his due! You must give him a sacrifice, and soon, Warleader, or he will smash you with his terrible fist!”\n\nZlatagh’s expression mingled anger with relief as his face flushed dark green with shame. The shugaba’ugh murmured and muttered amongst themselves; the shaman spoke truly. As their warbands had rampaged through Man village after Man village for weeks, as they fled from the mounted patrols that the Men sent out against them, then regrouped to rampage again, Zlatagh had not once halted the campaign long enough to honor the terrible war god, or repay Gor-Gor for the favors he had granted.\n\n“What does Gor-Gor want?” he asked.\n\n“The war god demands his due! Give him fire and blood and honor. You have captives in the corral. Let them be sacrificed in the morning, then pile their skulls high into an offering to Gor-Gor Blood-bather, Gor-Gor Flesh-chewer. Let their blood be drunk and their flesh be devoured, that every orc in your army will know that they eat by the will of Gor-Gor, that they slay by the will of Gor-Gor, that they triumph by the will of Gor-Gor!”\n\nZlatagh looked out at the assembled warband leaders to gauge their mood. The shugaba’ugh stared back at him expectantly; Lugbol had the impression that most of them were hoping the warleader would have the sense to heed the shaman’s warning. Seeing no signs of challenge or contempt, Zlatagh nodded and raised his fist, still splattered with the blood of the shaman. “Gor-Gor speaks in blood. Zlatagh hears! I will give every Man captive here to the war god. And each shugaba gungiyar shall bring a trophy to cast upon the fires! Gor-Gor has given us victory over Men! Gor-Gor will give us more victory over Men! I have said this, I, Zlatagh Maneater!”\n\n“Maneater!” the shugaba’ugh chanted, and their enthusiasm was not entirely feigned. Lugbol, for one, was content to know that he and his kors would have at least two days to rest before departing on their next raid. “Maneater!”\n\nBut he was not entirely confident he would get much chance to rest when he caught a frustrated Snaghak staring at him with a murderous gleam in his yellow eyes. He didn’t know what the orc from lower Hagahorn was up to, but he knew that it would be unwise, and perhaps even fatal, to let his guard down as long as Snaghak and his three-hundred-strong gungiyar were in the same camp. He didn’t think Snaghak would dare to openly attack him, not as long as Zlatagh’s ban on clan wars was in effect, but he wasn’t about to go out and squat alone in the dark anytime soon. If Snaghak didn’t have a night-stabber or two sneaking about and keeping an eye on his tent, Lugbol would volunteer his entrails for the next reading.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2810, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch11_lugbol-P2", "chapter": "ch11_lugbol", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngalvebel — senior NCO under a shugaba; Ghurash and Korpaghu hold the rank for Lugbol; do not translate as sergeant in orc mouths.\nGrun-kor — form of address the kors use for Lugbol; hyphenated.\nskwaak — unblooded junior warrior; white line over the nose until blooded.\nsiri-kors — more seasoned, blooded kors.\nkai hari shugaba — the top slot of a gungiyar; keep the form.\ngungiyar'ugh — plural warbands.\nunyi — orc curse/exclamation.\nvank — vulgar term for male genitals; threats and jokes.\nsquag / squagging — vulgar term for sex.\nagha'ugh — armed Man village defenders.\nspellfire — a Man mage's fire; one word.\nrot demons — orc name for the infection that eats a burn if it is not treated.\nHagahorn — Snaghak's country; lower Hagahorn marks him an outsider.\n\n### STORY\nAt the evening assembly Lugbol reads Snaghak's hatred and sits through Zlatagh's boasts until the shamans' goblin-augury turns into a vision of orc death by fire and iron; Zlatagh strikes the seer, accepts a second reading that Gor-Gor has not been paid, and decrees the captives for the war god in the morning; Lugbol leaves the circle knowing Snaghak is still hunting him.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nStill shugaba; still one good arm. Has just left Zlatagh's circle after the sacrifice decree. Expects two days' rest he does not trust. Will not go unguarded while Snaghak shares the camp.\n\nGhurash\nLugbol's senior galvebel. Alive, at the warband fire. Old, wiry, white-streaked mane; the kor Lugbol can tell doubts to. No ambition to take the gungiyar.\n\nKorpaghu\nLugbol's other galvebel. Alive. Speaks little except to eat; keeps order with his cleaver. No ambition to replace Lugbol.\n\nSnaghak\nAlive, still in camp with three hundred kors. Frustrated and murderous after the augury did not serve him; Lugbol believes he may send a night-stabber.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nZlatagh’s expression mingled anger with relief as his face flushed dark green with shame. The shugaba’ugh murmured and muttered amongst themselves; the shaman spoke truly. As their warbands had rampaged through Man village after Man village for weeks, as they fled from the mounted patrols that the Men sent out against them, then regrouped to rampage again, Zlatagh had not once halted the campaign long enough to honor the terrible war god, or repay Gor-Gor for the favors he had granted.\n\n“What does Gor-Gor want?” he asked.\n\n“The war god demands his due! Give him fire and blood and honor. You have captives in the corral. Let them be sacrificed in the morning, then pile their skulls high into an offering to Gor-Gor Blood-bather, Gor-Gor Flesh-chewer. Let their blood be drunk and their flesh be devoured, that every orc in your army will know that they eat by the will of Gor-Gor, that they slay by the will of Gor-Gor, that they triumph by the will of Gor-Gor!”\n\nZlatagh looked out at the assembled warband leaders to gauge their mood. The shugaba’ugh stared back at him expectantly; Lugbol had the impression that most of them were hoping the warleader would have the sense to heed the shaman’s warning. Seeing no signs of challenge or contempt, Zlatagh nodded and raised his fist, still splattered with the blood of the shaman. “Gor-Gor speaks in blood. Zlatagh hears! I will give every Man captive here to the war god. And each shugaba gungiyar shall bring a trophy to cast upon the fires! Gor-Gor has given us victory over Men! Gor-Gor will give us more victory over Men! I have said this, I, Zlatagh Maneater!”\n\n“Maneater!” the shugaba’ugh chanted, and their enthusiasm was not entirely feigned. Lugbol, for one, was content to know that he and his kors would have at least two days to rest before departing on their next raid. “Maneater!”\n\nBut he was not entirely confident he would get much chance to rest when he caught a frustrated Snaghak staring at him with a murderous gleam in his yellow eyes. He didn’t know what the orc from lower Hagahorn was up to, but he knew that it would be unwise, and perhaps even fatal, to let his guard down as long as Snaghak and his three-hundred-strong gungiyar were in the same camp. He didn’t think Snaghak would dare to openly attack him, not as long as Zlatagh’s ban on clan wars was in effect, but he wasn’t about to go out and squat alone in the dark anytime soon. If Snaghak didn’t have a night-stabber or two sneaking about and keeping an eye on his tent, Lugbol would volunteer his entrails for the next reading.\n\n### NOTES\nLugbol's tents are on the southeastern side of the big encampment. His own tent is boarskin, larger than the rest, with a bearskin bed taken last moon.\nThe trophy keg of yellow firewater is with the warband; Zlatagh has ordered every gungiyar to give a trophy to Gor-Gor's fires.\nA Man mage-child burned Lugbol's cleaver-arm on a raid; a shaman's ice and healing kept the rot demons off it. The scars run from claws to elbow and are going shiny.\nNight. The kors are singing camp songs.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nHe comes back to his own tents with the captains' chant still in his ears and the kors already into an old song about arses and a dwarf in the cookpot. He puts Ghurash on three guards to a side because Snaghak is up to something, and he tells the old galvebel about the shaman going kreara with iron demons and fire-wings. Ghurash has never heard of iron demons, only Man cavalry in iron, which is not the same thing.\n\nLugbol will not have the keg tapped tonight. Gor-Gor is owed a trophy and the kors are still closer to skwaaks than to a real fight, and Snaghak has more siri-kors besides. Ghurash takes it badly and does not argue. Guards on the perimeter, guards on the firewater, first watch to wake the grun-kor at the change. Then Lugbol is done with them.\n\nIn the tent he unwraps the filthy bandage and looks at the arm the mage-bitch nearly cooked. Twelve kors dead on that raid, the scars weeping when he flexes, no place in the Maneater's army for a one-arm except the pot. Ghurash is too old to want his slot and Korpaghu only opens his mouth to eat, and together they still crack down on anyone who says One-Arm. Lugbol works the arm anyway, swearing, then leaves the bandage off for sleep the way the shaman said, stretches out on the bearskin that still smells of the village fire, and takes the smoke for victory.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nExpand to a maximum of 1300 words. Vulgar camp talk, tired rather than epic; the arm is work, not pathos. Land on sleep.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The kors were singing again when he reached the tents allotted to his warband, their deep bass voices raised in an old campfire favorite.\n\nA Goblin’s arse is green and tight,\n\nAn Elven arse is white.\n\nA Kobber’s arse is small and pink,\n\nA Man’s arse is just right.\n\nA Kobold’s got a furry arse,\n\nA Troll’s big arse is stone.\n\nAnd you’ll damn well leave the bloody Dwarf alone,\n\nSave the Dwarf for the cookpot!\n\n“I want three guards on all four sides,” he told Ghurash, his senior galvebel, who was roasting something on a stick over the fire. Ghurash’s once-powerful frame was now wiry like a goblin’s and his mane was streaked with white, but he was a wily old kor and one of the few orcs with whom Lugbol could share his doubts without announcing them to the rest of the tribe. “That yellow-bellied bastard from Hagahorn is up to something. You know, I had the idea he was waiting for the shaman to do something, point me out as a traitor or something, right up until the first one went kreara and started babbling about how we was all going to die.”\n\nGhurash frowned. “We all going to die?”\n\n“Yeah, iron demons with wings made out of fire killing everyone. Like I said, kreara.”\n\n“Ain’t never heard of no iron demons. Some of the Man cavalry wear iron though.”\n\n“They don’t got no fire-wings.”\n\nThe kors came to the chorus and they launched into it with the full-throated enthusiasm of the half-drunk.\n\nSave the Dwarf, save the Dwarf,\n\nSave the Dwarf for the cookpot.\n\nThrow the one you caught,\n\nIn the fire red-hot,\n\nSave the Dwarf for the cookpot!\n\n“No, they don’t… unyi!” The galvebel had been absent-mindedly at one of the burning logs with his stick, and swore as whatever he was roasting caught fire. He pulled the stick off the fire and smashed it into the dirt repeatedly, switching sides with each blow to extinguish the flames. “Want some?”\n\nLugbol stared at the blackened, dirt-encrusted goblin’s foot. “Nah, I think I’ll save my belly for tomorrow. There will be Man-flesh a-plenty. Zlatagh is going to give the heads of all the prisoners to Gor-Gor, then feast us.”\n\n“Suit yourself.” Ghurash tore a strip of black flesh from the foot and tossed it on the fire, then dug out a piece of pale yellow meat with a claw and popped it in his mouth. “You said we have to sacrifice something too?”\n\n“All the gungiyar’ugh are to give up a trophy. I think we’ll have to give him the keg.”\n\n“The sweet firewater?” Ghurash couldn’t have looked more horrified if Lugbol had announced he was volunteering the galvebel for a diplomatic squagging by a squad of dwarves. “You can’t mean that!”\n\n“I don’t want the kors getting drunk on it tonight when that kob-squagger Snaghak is after my vank. They think they’re hard now, but you know as well as I do that they may as well be skwaaks for all the real fighting they’ve seen. It’s one thing to burn down a few Man villages with only a few handfuls of agha’ugh to defend them, it’s another to fight real kors with their blood up. And for all that Snaghak is a sack of rank unyi, he’s got more siri-kors than we do.”\n\n“Squats!” Ghurash said morosely. But he didn’t argue.\n\n“See that guards are posted on the perimeter. And set a pair on the firewater too. I don’t want any ‘accidents’. Tell them if I find it’s been tapped tomorrow, I’ll skin them. Now I’m going to sleep. Tell the first watch to wake me at the change!”\n\nLugbol made his way through the camp to his tent, which was in the center of the area allotted to his gungiyar. Twice the size of the others that surrounded it, it was made from tanned boarskin and featured his prize possession, a bearskin liberated from a Man village the previous moon that now served as his bed. He carefully unwound the bandage, which was already filthy and stained even though he’d washed it only three days prior, and examined his burned arm.\n\nThat little mage-bitch had damn near cooked it for him. The raid on the village had gone smoothly enough, but then he’d lost twelve good kors to a single Man clan living outside it. He’d nearly lost the arm too, but fortunately, one of Zlatagh’s shamans had been raiding with them and promptly cast some sort of ice spell on it that prevented the spellfire from burning the flesh down to the bone. A pair of healing spells had kept the rot demons from eating the burned flesh, and now the angry, twisted scars that ran from his claws to his elbow were growing shiny, indicating that he’d soon be able to use it again.\n\nDamn the little bitch!\n\nRecovering the use of his cleaver arm couldn’t happen too soon for Lugbol, because he couldn’t count on his galvebels to keep order in his stead much longer. Fortunately, Ghurash was too old to aspire to kai hari shugaba and Korpaghu only opened his mouth in order to eat. Neither of them had any ambition to replace him, and both of them knew that whoever took Lugbol’s place would want his own galvebels. So, the two of them cracked down hard on any orc who so much as hinted at the idea that Lugbol was unable to lead the gungiyar’s kors into battle with only one arm. Lugbol himself had cracked the pate of one piss-taker who’d called him One-Arm to his face; he might not be clever with his left arm, but it didn’t take a lot of cleverness to swing a wooden club.\n\nHe flexed his fingers slowly and winced as the thick scabs cracked and began to weep. He didn’t have a full range of motion, not yet, but every day he sat, and swore, and sweated as he forced his scarred arm up, then down, then left, then right. Then he would curl and uncurl his fingers, trying to bring the tips of his claws to his palm. Over and over he repeated the exercises, gasping at the pain, but knowing that leaving the arm to uselessly wither and curl would bring about his death almost as quickly as the rot demons would have. There was no place for a one-armed kor in the Maneater’s army, except perhaps in the cookpots.\n\n“Boil the dwarf, boil the dwarf!” The kors had come to the end of a particularly vulgar verse describing the violent abuse of an unlucky elf in considerable detail and were launching into the chorus again. Lugbol grinned at their good humor, remembering the days of being a young kor with no responsibilities and nothing more to worry about than what to eat, who to kill, and where something to drink might be found.\n\nHe thought about washing the bandage, but decided to leave it for the morning. The shaman had said it was better if he didn’t wear it while he was sleeping anyway. He stood up, removed his boar-hide belt, slid his cleaver’s scabbard off it, and tossed it to the side. He grunted as he awkwardly laid down using only his left arm, then sighed as he stretched out upon the soft fur of the bearskin rug. It still smelled faintly of the smoke from the fire his kors had set, but that didn’t bother him at all. What was smoke, if not the scent of victory?\n", "completion": "The kors were singing again when he reached the tents allotted to his warband, their deep bass voices raised in an old campfire favorite.\n\nA Goblin’s arse is green and tight,\n\nAn Elven arse is white.\n\nA Kobber’s arse is small and pink,\n\nA Man’s arse is just right.\n\nA Kobold’s got a furry arse,\n\nA Troll’s big arse is stone.\n\nAnd you’ll damn well leave the bloody Dwarf alone,\n\nSave the Dwarf for the cookpot!\n\n“I want three guards on all four sides,” he told Ghurash, his senior galvebel, who was roasting something on a stick over the fire. Ghurash’s once-powerful frame was now wiry like a goblin’s and his mane was streaked with white, but he was a wily old kor and one of the few orcs with whom Lugbol could share his doubts without announcing them to the rest of the tribe. “That yellow-bellied bastard from Hagahorn is up to something. You know, I had the idea he was waiting for the shaman to do something, point me out as a traitor or something, right up until the first one went kreara and started babbling about how we was all going to die.”\n\nGhurash frowned. “We all going to die?”\n\n“Yeah, iron demons with wings made out of fire killing everyone. Like I said, kreara.”\n\n“Ain’t never heard of no iron demons. Some of the Man cavalry wear iron though.”\n\n“They don’t got no fire-wings.”\n\nThe kors came to the chorus and they launched into it with the full-throated enthusiasm of the half-drunk.\n\nSave the Dwarf, save the Dwarf,\n\nSave the Dwarf for the cookpot.\n\nThrow the one you caught,\n\nIn the fire red-hot,\n\nSave the Dwarf for the cookpot!\n\n“No, they don’t… unyi!” The galvebel had been absent-mindedly at one of the burning logs with his stick, and swore as whatever he was roasting caught fire. He pulled the stick off the fire and smashed it into the dirt repeatedly, switching sides with each blow to extinguish the flames. “Want some?”\n\nLugbol stared at the blackened, dirt-encrusted goblin’s foot. “Nah, I think I’ll save my belly for tomorrow. There will be Man-flesh a-plenty. Zlatagh is going to give the heads of all the prisoners to Gor-Gor, then feast us.”\n\n“Suit yourself.” Ghurash tore a strip of black flesh from the foot and tossed it on the fire, then dug out a piece of pale yellow meat with a claw and popped it in his mouth. “You said we have to sacrifice something too?”\n\n“All the gungiyar’ugh are to give up a trophy. I think we’ll have to give him the keg.”\n\n“The sweet firewater?” Ghurash couldn’t have looked more horrified if Lugbol had announced he was volunteering the galvebel for a diplomatic squagging by a squad of dwarves. “You can’t mean that!”\n\n“I don’t want the kors getting drunk on it tonight when that kob-squagger Snaghak is after my vank. They think they’re hard now, but you know as well as I do that they may as well be skwaaks for all the real fighting they’ve seen. It’s one thing to burn down a few Man villages with only a few handfuls of agha’ugh to defend them, it’s another to fight real kors with their blood up. And for all that Snaghak is a sack of rank unyi, he’s got more siri-kors than we do.”\n\n“Squats!” Ghurash said morosely. But he didn’t argue.\n\n“See that guards are posted on the perimeter. And set a pair on the firewater too. I don’t want any ‘accidents’. Tell them if I find it’s been tapped tomorrow, I’ll skin them. Now I’m going to sleep. Tell the first watch to wake me at the change!”\n\nLugbol made his way through the camp to his tent, which was in the center of the area allotted to his gungiyar. Twice the size of the others that surrounded it, it was made from tanned boarskin and featured his prize possession, a bearskin liberated from a Man village the previous moon that now served as his bed. He carefully unwound the bandage, which was already filthy and stained even though he’d washed it only three days prior, and examined his burned arm.\n\nThat little mage-bitch had damn near cooked it for him. The raid on the village had gone smoothly enough, but then he’d lost twelve good kors to a single Man clan living outside it. He’d nearly lost the arm too, but fortunately, one of Zlatagh’s shamans had been raiding with them and promptly cast some sort of ice spell on it that prevented the spellfire from burning the flesh down to the bone. A pair of healing spells had kept the rot demons from eating the burned flesh, and now the angry, twisted scars that ran from his claws to his elbow were growing shiny, indicating that he’d soon be able to use it again.\n\nDamn the little bitch!\n\nRecovering the use of his cleaver arm couldn’t happen too soon for Lugbol, because he couldn’t count on his galvebels to keep order in his stead much longer. Fortunately, Ghurash was too old to aspire to kai hari shugaba and Korpaghu only opened his mouth in order to eat. Neither of them had any ambition to replace him, and both of them knew that whoever took Lugbol’s place would want his own galvebels. So, the two of them cracked down hard on any orc who so much as hinted at the idea that Lugbol was unable to lead the gungiyar’s kors into battle with only one arm. Lugbol himself had cracked the pate of one piss-taker who’d called him One-Arm to his face; he might not be clever with his left arm, but it didn’t take a lot of cleverness to swing a wooden club.\n\nHe flexed his fingers slowly and winced as the thick scabs cracked and began to weep. He didn’t have a full range of motion, not yet, but every day he sat, and swore, and sweated as he forced his scarred arm up, then down, then left, then right. Then he would curl and uncurl his fingers, trying to bring the tips of his claws to his palm. Over and over he repeated the exercises, gasping at the pain, but knowing that leaving the arm to uselessly wither and curl would bring about his death almost as quickly as the rot demons would have. There was no place for a one-armed kor in the Maneater’s army, except perhaps in the cookpots.\n\n“Boil the dwarf, boil the dwarf!” The kors had come to the end of a particularly vulgar verse describing the violent abuse of an unlucky elf in considerable detail and were launching into the chorus again. Lugbol grinned at their good humor, remembering the days of being a young kor with no responsibilities and nothing more to worry about than what to eat, who to kill, and where something to drink might be found.\n\nHe thought about washing the bandage, but decided to leave it for the morning. The shaman had said it was better if he didn’t wear it while he was sleeping anyway. He stood up, removed his boar-hide belt, slid his cleaver’s scabbard off it, and tossed it to the side. He grunted as he awkwardly laid down using only his left arm, then sighed as he stretched out upon the soft fur of the bearskin rug. It still smelled faintly of the smoke from the fire his kors had set, but that didn’t bother him at all. What was smoke, if not the scent of victory?\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1325, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch11_lugbol-P3", "chapter": "ch11_lugbol", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nGrun-kor — kors' address for Lugbol; hyphenated.\nskwaak — unblooded junior; the white line of the battle virgin.\ngobbo — camp slang for goblin.\nGreen Talons — neighboring warband between Lugbol's tents and the outer ditch; two words, both capital.\nZoth Ommog — mountain homeland of the great mountain orcs; keep both words.\nElvenwood — Man or elf name sometimes used for these woods.\n\n### STORY\nAt the evening assembly Lugbol reads Snaghak's hatred and sits through Zlatagh's boasts until the shamans' goblin-augury turns into a vision of orc death by fire and iron; Zlatagh strikes the seer, decrees the captives for Gor-Gor, and Lugbol leaves the circle still hunted.\n\nBack at his tents Lugbol sets triple guards against Snaghak, refuses to tap the firewater trophy, works the burned cleaver-arm, and sleeps on the bearskin with the bandage off.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nAwake in the dark after a young kor calls him at the watch change. The malice in Snaghak's eyes will not let him lie back down. He will walk the perimeter himself. The burned arm still flares when he tries to push up on it.\n\nGhurash\nAlive, asleep until sent for. Senior galvebel.\n\nKorpaghu\nAlive, asleep until sent for.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nRecovering the use of his cleaver arm couldn’t happen too soon for Lugbol, because he couldn’t count on his galvebels to keep order in his stead much longer. Fortunately, Ghurash was too old to aspire to kai hari shugaba and Korpaghu only opened his mouth in order to eat. Neither of them had any ambition to replace him, and both of them knew that whoever took Lugbol’s place would want his own galvebels. So, the two of them cracked down hard on any orc who so much as hinted at the idea that Lugbol was unable to lead the gungiyar’s kors into battle with only one arm. Lugbol himself had cracked the pate of one piss-taker who’d called him One-Arm to his face; he might not be clever with his left arm, but it didn’t take a lot of cleverness to swing a wooden club.\n\nHe flexed his fingers slowly and winced as the thick scabs cracked and began to weep. He didn’t have a full range of motion, not yet, but every day he sat, and swore, and sweated as he forced his scarred arm up, then down, then left, then right. Then he would curl and uncurl his fingers, trying to bring the tips of his claws to his palm. Over and over he repeated the exercises, gasping at the pain, but knowing that leaving the arm to uselessly wither and curl would bring about his death almost as quickly as the rot demons would have. There was no place for a one-armed kor in the Maneater’s army, except perhaps in the cookpots.\n\n“Boil the dwarf, boil the dwarf!” The kors had come to the end of a particularly vulgar verse describing the violent abuse of an unlucky elf in considerable detail and were launching into the chorus again. Lugbol grinned at their good humor, remembering the days of being a young kor with no responsibilities and nothing more to worry about than what to eat, who to kill, and where something to drink might be found.\n\nHe thought about washing the bandage, but decided to leave it for the morning. The shaman had said it was better if he didn’t wear it while he was sleeping anyway. He stood up, removed his boar-hide belt, slid his cleaver’s scabbard off it, and tossed it to the side. He grunted as he awkwardly laid down using only his left arm, then sighed as he stretched out upon the soft fur of the bearskin rug. It still smelled faintly of the smoke from the fire his kors had set, but that didn’t bother him at all. What was smoke, if not the scent of victory?\n\n### NOTES\nWatch change, night. Lugbol's warband is toward the southeastern edge of the camp, not far from the perimeter ditch. The Green Talons sit between them and that ditch.\nBirds in the woods will not shut up. No orc females within a two-week march.\nYoung kors on guard have been told mountain orcs might grab them.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nThe tent flap moves and he is awake at once, the healing arm lighting up when he tries to use it. It is only a young kor, two moons off the white line, calling Grun-kor at the change of the watch. Lugbol sends him back, thinks about the void again, and cannot, not with Snaghak's eyes in his head and the warband still sore about the mage-bitch and the losses. He belts on the scabbard and goes out into the cool night to let the watches see him.\n\nThe south-side lads are alert and he puts the fire at their backs for night eyes. The next pair nearly spear him, which pleases him more than he shows; he puts the scare of Zoth Ommog trolls into them and they laugh. Then he looks south and east, where there should be only the Green Talons between his tents and the ditch, and there are too many fires, and the fires are moving. He does not know what he is looking at. Then the first panicked screams start, and the scene leaves him there.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Night, taut, still in camp voice. Break off when the screams start; do not begin the recon.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The flap at the entrance of his tent rustled and Lugbol woke in an instant. Pain flared in his healing arm as he instinctively tried to use it to push himself up; he cursed under his breath, rolled over on his other side, and used his other arm. It was too dark to see anything and he fumbled about uselessly for his spiked club.\n\n“Grun-kor?” a voice said uncertainly. It was one of the younger kors, who only two moons ago had been a mere skwaak with the white line of the battle virgin painted over his nose.\n\n“I’m awake, little brother. Go back to your tent,” Lugbol ordered.\n\n“Oi, Grun-kor!” The kor slapped his chest and Lugbol heard his footsteps as he withdrew from the tent.\n\nFor a moment, he contemplated lying back down and returning to the dreamless void from whence he’d been summoned. But the thought of the malice in Snaghak’s eyes would allow him no rest, he realized, and it wouldn’t hurt the spirits of the kors on watch to see their shugaba patrolling the perimeter at night. They’d recovered, mostly, from that unlucky assault on the mage-bitch’s house, but being one of the few warbands that had taken heavy losses in an otherwise easy campaign was still a sore spot with many of the more experienced kors. Especially given his bloody burned arm! It was hard to shrug it off as nothing when everyone could see that he could barely hold his cleaver, much less use it.\n\nDamn the little bitch!\n\nHe snorted as he slid his scabbard onto his belt and secured around his waist. It could have been worse. One warband had been caught in the open by a full troop of cavalry after ravaging a small farm and lost more than one hundred of its one hundred twenty kors. And a large pack of wolfriders had simply disappeared, although it was entirely possible that they hadn’t run into an enemy force but simply wandered off of their own accord. Whenever the orcs got careless about keeping their allies in line, the goblins tended to desert. After the wolfriders didn’t return to the camp, Zlatagh damn near chewed the arse off the grun-kor who’d been too lazy to bother paying attention to them.\n\nOutside the tent, the night air was cool. The surrounding woods was loud with the constant cry of birds looking for mates; this time of year the feathered little monsters simply never shut up. Give it up and go to bed, he felt like shouting, but there was little sense in being bitter just because there wasn’t a female orc to be found anywhere within a two-week march. Let them have their fun. Someone ought to.\n\nHe found the first group of guards standing around a fire on the south side of their tents. They were young kors and he was pleased to see they were alert. They’d heard him coming and their weapons were in hand as they challenged him.\n\n“Who is it?”\n\n“It’s Lugbol, your bloody captain!” he snarled back at them.\n\n“Grun-kor!” they said in unison as they put up their studded clubs and stood at attention. “Sir!”\n\n“Seen anything?”\n\n“We saw some kors dragging a gobbo past, but they wasn’t ours.”\n\nLugbol nodded. A late night squag or a late night snack, either way, it wasn’t his concern. “Look sharp, boys. Just because nothing’s happened yet don’t mean it won’t. And sit with the fire to your backs. Save your night eyes.”\n\nThey saluted and he moved on through the trees to the second pair. He could see their fire, but he didn’t see either of the guards until he was nearly on top of them. There was a sudden rush of motion and then the tip of a spear was pointing at his throat.\n\n“Don’t you recognize Lugbol, yez damnable idiots!” he cursed them, although he was secretly pleased they were so keen.\n\n“Sorry, Grun-kor!” The spear was lowered, and in the flickering light of the flames he could see the chagrin on the tusked face of the young orc who was wielding it. “Galvebel said we was to be on careful guard tonight. Said some of them damn mountain orcs would be looking to grab us if we didn’t look sharp.”\n\n“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Lugbol said gravely, stifling a chuckle. Zlatagh aside, there were few of the great orcs from the mountains of Zoth Ommog actually serving in the Maneater’s great army of raiders, but they made for a useful bugaboo. “They got nothing but trolls up there. I imagine a couple of sweet young kors would make a right treat for them if they’re tired of eating gobbo. And yez damn sure don’t want a troll’s vank up yez!”\n\nThe two young kors laughed, as he intended. But then something in the distance caught his attention and he turned away from them. Lugbol’s warband had been assigned a spot towards the southeastern side of the camp, not far from the perimeter. But there seemed to be more campfires to the south and east than could possibly belong to the Green Talons, the single warband that stood between them and the ditch that had been dug to ring the big encampment. And the campfires were moving!\n\n“What the hellfire is that?” he wondered aloud. And then he heard the first panicked screams ring out.\n", "completion": "The flap at the entrance of his tent rustled and Lugbol woke in an instant. Pain flared in his healing arm as he instinctively tried to use it to push himself up; he cursed under his breath, rolled over on his other side, and used his other arm. It was too dark to see anything and he fumbled about uselessly for his spiked club.\n\n“Grun-kor?” a voice said uncertainly. It was one of the younger kors, who only two moons ago had been a mere skwaak with the white line of the battle virgin painted over his nose.\n\n“I’m awake, little brother. Go back to your tent,” Lugbol ordered.\n\n“Oi, Grun-kor!” The kor slapped his chest and Lugbol heard his footsteps as he withdrew from the tent.\n\nFor a moment, he contemplated lying back down and returning to the dreamless void from whence he’d been summoned. But the thought of the malice in Snaghak’s eyes would allow him no rest, he realized, and it wouldn’t hurt the spirits of the kors on watch to see their shugaba patrolling the perimeter at night. They’d recovered, mostly, from that unlucky assault on the mage-bitch’s house, but being one of the few warbands that had taken heavy losses in an otherwise easy campaign was still a sore spot with many of the more experienced kors. Especially given his bloody burned arm! It was hard to shrug it off as nothing when everyone could see that he could barely hold his cleaver, much less use it.\n\nDamn the little bitch!\n\nHe snorted as he slid his scabbard onto his belt and secured around his waist. It could have been worse. One warband had been caught in the open by a full troop of cavalry after ravaging a small farm and lost more than one hundred of its one hundred twenty kors. And a large pack of wolfriders had simply disappeared, although it was entirely possible that they hadn’t run into an enemy force but simply wandered off of their own accord. Whenever the orcs got careless about keeping their allies in line, the goblins tended to desert. After the wolfriders didn’t return to the camp, Zlatagh damn near chewed the arse off the grun-kor who’d been too lazy to bother paying attention to them.\n\nOutside the tent, the night air was cool. The surrounding woods was loud with the constant cry of birds looking for mates; this time of year the feathered little monsters simply never shut up. Give it up and go to bed, he felt like shouting, but there was little sense in being bitter just because there wasn’t a female orc to be found anywhere within a two-week march. Let them have their fun. Someone ought to.\n\nHe found the first group of guards standing around a fire on the south side of their tents. They were young kors and he was pleased to see they were alert. They’d heard him coming and their weapons were in hand as they challenged him.\n\n“Who is it?”\n\n“It’s Lugbol, your bloody captain!” he snarled back at them.\n\n“Grun-kor!” they said in unison as they put up their studded clubs and stood at attention. “Sir!”\n\n“Seen anything?”\n\n“We saw some kors dragging a gobbo past, but they wasn’t ours.”\n\nLugbol nodded. A late night squag or a late night snack, either way, it wasn’t his concern. “Look sharp, boys. Just because nothing’s happened yet don’t mean it won’t. And sit with the fire to your backs. Save your night eyes.”\n\nThey saluted and he moved on through the trees to the second pair. He could see their fire, but he didn’t see either of the guards until he was nearly on top of them. There was a sudden rush of motion and then the tip of a spear was pointing at his throat.\n\n“Don’t you recognize Lugbol, yez damnable idiots!” he cursed them, although he was secretly pleased they were so keen.\n\n“Sorry, Grun-kor!” The spear was lowered, and in the flickering light of the flames he could see the chagrin on the tusked face of the young orc who was wielding it. “Galvebel said we was to be on careful guard tonight. Said some of them damn mountain orcs would be looking to grab us if we didn’t look sharp.”\n\n“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Lugbol said gravely, stifling a chuckle. Zlatagh aside, there were few of the great orcs from the mountains of Zoth Ommog actually serving in the Maneater’s great army of raiders, but they made for a useful bugaboo. “They got nothing but trolls up there. I imagine a couple of sweet young kors would make a right treat for them if they’re tired of eating gobbo. And yez damn sure don’t want a troll’s vank up yez!”\n\nThe two young kors laughed, as he intended. But then something in the distance caught his attention and he turned away from them. Lugbol’s warband had been assigned a spot towards the southeastern side of the camp, not far from the perimeter. But there seemed to be more campfires to the south and east than could possibly belong to the Green Talons, the single warband that stood between them and the ditch that had been dug to ring the big encampment. And the campfires were moving!\n\n“What the hellfire is that?” he wondered aloud. And then he heard the first panicked screams ring out.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 936, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch11_lugbol-P4", "chapter": "ch11_lugbol", "packet": "P4", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nszavon'ugh / szavon — local Man soldiery of this theater; not the iron men.\niron men — night attackers in full metal with torches and fire artillery; Lugbol's eyes, not a proper name.\nGreen Talons — neighboring warband first hit; both words capital.\nGrun-kor — kors' address for Lugbol.\nKorokhurmagh — the woods; keep the spelling.\nElvenwood — other name for these woods.\n\n### STORY\nAt the evening assembly Lugbol reads Snaghak's hatred and sits through Zlatagh's boasts until the shamans' goblin-augury turns into a vision of orc death by fire and iron; Zlatagh decrees the captives for Gor-Gor, and Lugbol leaves still hunted.\n\nBack at his tents Lugbol sets triple guards against Snaghak, refuses to tap the firewater, works the burned arm, and sleeps on the bearskin.\n\nWaked at the watch change he walks the perimeter, finds the south-side guards keen, looks beyond the Green Talons, and sees campfires that move; then the first screams ring out.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nOn his feet in the trees at the southeastern edge, one arm bound, a horn-kor with him. He has just heard screams and seen fires where the Green Talons should be. He does not yet know what is attacking.\n\nGhurash\nAlive, at the warband tents until Lugbol's runner reaches him. Will have the kors up and armed, waiting.\n\nKorpaghu\nAlive, at the tents. Will hold formation with the cleaver.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Who is it?”\n\n“It’s Lugbol, your bloody captain!” he snarled back at them.\n\n“Grun-kor!” they said in unison as they put up their studded clubs and stood at attention. “Sir!”\n\n“Seen anything?”\n\n“We saw some kors dragging a gobbo past, but they wasn’t ours.”\n\nLugbol nodded. A late night squag or a late night snack, either way, it wasn’t his concern. “Look sharp, boys. Just because nothing’s happened yet don’t mean it won’t. And sit with the fire to your backs. Save your night eyes.”\n\nThey saluted and he moved on through the trees to the second pair. He could see their fire, but he didn’t see either of the guards until he was nearly on top of them. There was a sudden rush of motion and then the tip of a spear was pointing at his throat.\n\n“Don’t you recognize Lugbol, yez damnable idiots!” he cursed them, although he was secretly pleased they were so keen.\n\n“Sorry, Grun-kor!” The spear was lowered, and in the flickering light of the flames he could see the chagrin on the tusked face of the young orc who was wielding it. “Galvebel said we was to be on careful guard tonight. Said some of them damn mountain orcs would be looking to grab us if we didn’t look sharp.”\n\n“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Lugbol said gravely, stifling a chuckle. Zlatagh aside, there were few of the great orcs from the mountains of Zoth Ommog actually serving in the Maneater’s great army of raiders, but they made for a useful bugaboo. “They got nothing but trolls up there. I imagine a couple of sweet young kors would make a right treat for them if they’re tired of eating gobbo. And yez damn sure don’t want a troll’s vank up yez!”\n\nThe two young kors laughed, as he intended. But then something in the distance caught his attention and he turned away from them. Lugbol’s warband had been assigned a spot towards the southeastern side of the camp, not far from the perimeter. But there seemed to be more campfires to the south and east than could possibly belong to the Green Talons, the single warband that stood between them and the ditch that had been dug to ring the big encampment. And the campfires were moving!\n\n“What the hellfire is that?” he wondered aloud. And then he heard the first panicked screams ring out.\n\n### NOTES\nThe Green Talons lie between Lugbol's ground and the outer ditch. The szavon'ugh army is about a day's march outside the forest and fears the trees; they send mounted patrols, not a night assault with artillery.\nLugbol's kors are lightly armored and mostly club-armed, about one hundred when formed.\nDue south of the fires is still dark.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nHe sends one guard to wake the galvebels and keep the warband armed until he comes back, takes the horn-kor with him, and runs at the moving fires. He still thinks the shaman was kreara until the treetops blow. It is not dwarves from below and it is not elves. It is artillery in a forest: pitch-spears from some huge crossbow, catapult-fire overhead, Green Talons streaming naked and empty-handed, talking dragons.\n\nThen he sees the attackers — orc-high, too slender, steel from head to toe, torch and a long thick knife, torches lashed at the shoulders. Wings of fire. Iron demons. He has seen enough.\n\nHe comes back hard on one arm to a sight that makes a shugaba proud: Ghurash cursing the drunks into line, Korpaghu promising to split anyone who runs, the gungiyar mostly present and armed. He names it for what it is: not szavon'ugh, iron men, fire-throwers. He sees they made the loudest possible attack on purpose. They are driving the raiders out of the Korokhurmagh onto the army that has been waiting in the open. There is no time to warn Zlatagh, and standing to buy him dawn would only kill the hundred kors Lugbol actually owes.\n\nTo hell with the Maneater. Close enough to bugger the kor in front, no torches, mouths shut, south where there is no fire. Korpaghu the rear, leave stragglers. If Zlatagh stands they will hit from behind; if he runs they fall back toward Azzakhar. Lugbol looks once more at the glint of armor, raises his kors, and lopes into the dark. The scene stops on that movement.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1700 words. Keep the panic in other orcs and the thinking in Lugbol. Break off mid-action; they are running, the run is not finished.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "He shoved one guard back in the direction of their tents. “You, go to the camp and wake Ghurash and Korpaghu! Tell them to wake everyone and get them armed, but wait for my return.” He pointed at the other. “You, with the horn, you come with me!”\n\nHe didn’t wait for any protests, but grabbed the young kor and began running through the trees toward the mysterious, moving fires. Thoughts of the shaman’s disavowed augury filled his mind, but he dismissed them with a snort. Iron demons? Fiery wings? It was nonsense. Or so he thought until a burst of fire filled the night sky and exploded in the treetops about one hundred paces in front of him. He ducked instinctively and the kor with him shrieked in terror.\n\nThe first burst was rapidly followed by a second, then a third, and a fourth. Fiery debris could be seen raining down from the trees, and several of the branches overhead caught fire. The Green Talon camp erupted in screams of terror, and in the light of the flames above, he could see the shadowy figures of orcs fleeing in panic towards him.\n\n“Grun-kor!” shouted the terrified kor, holding up the horn. Lugbol nodded quickly.\n\nThe kor raised the horn to his lips and blew three times, then waited a moment, and blew three times again. The low blasts echoed through the dark forest, over the crackling of the burning trees.\n\nLugbol wanted to retreat and join up with his kors, but first he needed to find out what foe was attacking them. They were coming from the wrong direction to be Men; was it possible that the dwarves were coming up from below the ground using one of their infernal tunnels? Or it might be elves, as they were in what was sometimes called the Elvenwood, after all.\n\nHe saw a burst of light growing brighter and threw himself aside. Unnecessarily, as it turned out, as the huge flaming projectile struck the ground about twenty paces in front of him and ten to his left, bounced once, and then buried itself in the trunk of a tree so hard that Lugbol felt a tremor in the ground under his feet. He stared at it in disbelief. It was a giant spear, bigger than a troll’s spear, coated in some sort of pitch and then set alight. The flames burning in the treetops above them weren’t magic, he realized, but artillery!\n\nAnd who the hell dragged artillery into a forest? The spear must have been hurled by some sort of massive crossbow! As he picked himself up off the dirt and retrieved the club he’d dropped, a second flaming spear came flying towards him and transfixed a retreating orc though the back. Pinned to the ground and mortally wounded, the orc howled in agony as the fire rose up from both his front and back.\n\nCrying, shrieking, cursing, and wailing, orcs rushed past him on every side, babbling nonsensically about dragons and demonfire. As Lugbol worked his way through the trees against the tide of retreating kors, most of them naked and with their hands coward-empty, he began to hear the clash of metal on wood, metal, flesh, and bone. He glanced to his side and was a little surprised to see the guard-kor was still with him. The young orc was shaking, and he was gripping his club with knuckles that were pallid with fear, but he nodded at Lugbol all the same. The moving fires were coming closer to them now, and the flaming balls that he assumed were being flung by catapults were now flying over their heads.\n\nThen he saw caught a glimpse of one of the attackers. It was about the height of an orc, but considerably more slender, and covered from head to toe in metal armor of a sort he’d never seen before. Too short to be an elf, too thin to be a dwarf. A Man, he thought, but different than the sort of men he’d been slaughtering in recent weeks. In one hand it bore a torch, in the other a strange weapon that looked more like a long, thick knife than a proper sword. But the warrior man knew how to use it, as Lugbol saw it stab one orc with the knife, then thrust its torch into the face of a second orc. The orc shrieked, and as it raised its hands to its face, the metal-clad attacker ran the orc through.\n\nBefore long a second iron-covered man joined the first, and then a third. They cut down what little resistance offered itself without taking so much as a scratch. They were wearing their torches affixed to their shoulders.\n\nWings of fire! Iron demons! Lugbol couldn’t prevent the dreadful thought from entering his mind. He turned to the guard.\n\n“I’ve seen enough. Let’s get back to the others.”\n\nThe young kor didn’t need any further encouragement. He fled, and Lugbol, with his one arm bound to his side, found it hard to keep the pace. He was panting hard and his side was burning by the time they reached their camp and found Ghurash haranguing several kors who were too drunk to stand in formation while Korpaghu was waving his cleaver and threatening to split the skull of any kor who joined the growing number of orcs in loud and frightened retreat. It was a sight to make a shugaba proud. The warband was standing fast, it appeared to be mostly present, and every single kor there had his weapon out and at the ready.\n\n“Grun-kor!” The cry went up as soon as he staggered into view. The two galvebels whirled around, their relief plain to see.\n\n“What in the name of Gor-Gor’s giant balls is going on?” Ghurash demanded.\n\n“Man attack. Not szavon’ugh like we’ve seen before. Iron men. They have artillery that throws fire.”\n\n“Didn’t think it was squaggin’ dragons,” Korpaghu rumbled.\n\n“Do we fall back? Or do we try to hold them?”\n\nLugbol thought quickly before answering Ghurash. His kors were too lightly armored to stand before the iron men and the clubs most of them carried were more likely to splinter on those strange metal helms than do any harm. And there was something else, too. The iron men had attacked at night, and yet they hadn’t sought to conceal their assault. They could have infiltrated the Green Talons’ tents and killed dozens of kors before the alarm went up, instead, they attacked in the loudest, most conspicuous manner possible. Were they stupid or was it possible that they were just that overconfident?\n\nComprehension dawned. It was neither.\n\n“They’re trying to drive us,” he hissed, more to himself than to his galvebels. The szavon’ugh army had been camped outside the forest, only a full day’s march away, waiting for Zlatagh to emerge and give them the battle they were seeking. Unlike the iron men, the szavon’ugh feared the forests and seldom did more than send mounted patrols into them to chase down raiding parties. But the iron men did not fear the Korokhurmagh, and with their fire and their metal, they were seeking to drive Zlatagh out of the safety of the trees, where the szavon’ugh would slaughter his lightly armed raiders.\n\nHe needed to warn Zlatagh! But already he could hear that the gungiyar’ugh to the north of them were in retreat. By the time he and his kors reached Zlatagh’s tent, Zlatagh might be long gone. Lugbol could try to stand and buy Zlatagh enough time to stop what appeared to be a rout in the making, but he could not imagine Zlatagh would be able to get the panic-stricken orcs, to say nothing of the easily frightened goblins, under control before dawn. And by dawn, he and every last kor in his warband would be dead.\n\nTo hell with the Maneater, he decided. He didn’t owe Zlatagh a damned thing. And to hell with the rest of the shugaba’ugh. His only concern was to protect his kors, and the best way to do that was to get out of the trap that the iron men had set. He looked to the southeast. In the darkness, it was not hard to see the fiery focus of the iron men’s attack as well as the extent to which their line was spread out. The southeast was blocked, but due south was dark and altogether devoid of fire. He came to a decision and raised his voice as he addressed all one hundred of his kors.\n\n“Stay close! Stay close! And I mean close enough to bugger the kor in front of you if he stops! We’re going to run past them. No torches; use yez nose and ears to follow each other. Keep yez damn mouths shut, keep clear of the fires, and keep yez clubs ready in case we run into trouble!”\n\n“Grun-kor!” they shouted. They didn’t really care what the orders were. All they wanted was for someone was to give them something to do that would keep their minds off the dark and noise and fire and fear.\n\n“Bring up the rear and keep them moving,” he told Korpaghu. “If anyone falls behind, leave them.”\n\n“Oi, grun-kor!”\n\nHe looked at Ghurash. “If Zlatagh stands, we hit them from behind. If he runs, we fall back to rejoin Azzakhar and the main army.”\n\n“We’re right behind you, Lugbol.”\n\n“Good!” Lugbol took a deep breath and took another look at the advancing fires to the southeast. He thought he could see firelight glinting off the armor of the approaching iron men. Before he could second-guess himself, he waved his arm and broke into a loping stride, leading the gungiyar towards the waiting safety of the darkness.\n", "completion": "He shoved one guard back in the direction of their tents. “You, go to the camp and wake Ghurash and Korpaghu! Tell them to wake everyone and get them armed, but wait for my return.” He pointed at the other. “You, with the horn, you come with me!”\n\nHe didn’t wait for any protests, but grabbed the young kor and began running through the trees toward the mysterious, moving fires. Thoughts of the shaman’s disavowed augury filled his mind, but he dismissed them with a snort. Iron demons? Fiery wings? It was nonsense. Or so he thought until a burst of fire filled the night sky and exploded in the treetops about one hundred paces in front of him. He ducked instinctively and the kor with him shrieked in terror.\n\nThe first burst was rapidly followed by a second, then a third, and a fourth. Fiery debris could be seen raining down from the trees, and several of the branches overhead caught fire. The Green Talon camp erupted in screams of terror, and in the light of the flames above, he could see the shadowy figures of orcs fleeing in panic towards him.\n\n“Grun-kor!” shouted the terrified kor, holding up the horn. Lugbol nodded quickly.\n\nThe kor raised the horn to his lips and blew three times, then waited a moment, and blew three times again. The low blasts echoed through the dark forest, over the crackling of the burning trees.\n\nLugbol wanted to retreat and join up with his kors, but first he needed to find out what foe was attacking them. They were coming from the wrong direction to be Men; was it possible that the dwarves were coming up from below the ground using one of their infernal tunnels? Or it might be elves, as they were in what was sometimes called the Elvenwood, after all.\n\nHe saw a burst of light growing brighter and threw himself aside. Unnecessarily, as it turned out, as the huge flaming projectile struck the ground about twenty paces in front of him and ten to his left, bounced once, and then buried itself in the trunk of a tree so hard that Lugbol felt a tremor in the ground under his feet. He stared at it in disbelief. It was a giant spear, bigger than a troll’s spear, coated in some sort of pitch and then set alight. The flames burning in the treetops above them weren’t magic, he realized, but artillery!\n\nAnd who the hell dragged artillery into a forest? The spear must have been hurled by some sort of massive crossbow! As he picked himself up off the dirt and retrieved the club he’d dropped, a second flaming spear came flying towards him and transfixed a retreating orc though the back. Pinned to the ground and mortally wounded, the orc howled in agony as the fire rose up from both his front and back.\n\nCrying, shrieking, cursing, and wailing, orcs rushed past him on every side, babbling nonsensically about dragons and demonfire. As Lugbol worked his way through the trees against the tide of retreating kors, most of them naked and with their hands coward-empty, he began to hear the clash of metal on wood, metal, flesh, and bone. He glanced to his side and was a little surprised to see the guard-kor was still with him. The young orc was shaking, and he was gripping his club with knuckles that were pallid with fear, but he nodded at Lugbol all the same. The moving fires were coming closer to them now, and the flaming balls that he assumed were being flung by catapults were now flying over their heads.\n\nThen he saw caught a glimpse of one of the attackers. It was about the height of an orc, but considerably more slender, and covered from head to toe in metal armor of a sort he’d never seen before. Too short to be an elf, too thin to be a dwarf. A Man, he thought, but different than the sort of men he’d been slaughtering in recent weeks. In one hand it bore a torch, in the other a strange weapon that looked more like a long, thick knife than a proper sword. But the warrior man knew how to use it, as Lugbol saw it stab one orc with the knife, then thrust its torch into the face of a second orc. The orc shrieked, and as it raised its hands to its face, the metal-clad attacker ran the orc through.\n\nBefore long a second iron-covered man joined the first, and then a third. They cut down what little resistance offered itself without taking so much as a scratch. They were wearing their torches affixed to their shoulders.\n\nWings of fire! Iron demons! Lugbol couldn’t prevent the dreadful thought from entering his mind. He turned to the guard.\n\n“I’ve seen enough. Let’s get back to the others.”\n\nThe young kor didn’t need any further encouragement. He fled, and Lugbol, with his one arm bound to his side, found it hard to keep the pace. He was panting hard and his side was burning by the time they reached their camp and found Ghurash haranguing several kors who were too drunk to stand in formation while Korpaghu was waving his cleaver and threatening to split the skull of any kor who joined the growing number of orcs in loud and frightened retreat. It was a sight to make a shugaba proud. The warband was standing fast, it appeared to be mostly present, and every single kor there had his weapon out and at the ready.\n\n“Grun-kor!” The cry went up as soon as he staggered into view. The two galvebels whirled around, their relief plain to see.\n\n“What in the name of Gor-Gor’s giant balls is going on?” Ghurash demanded.\n\n“Man attack. Not szavon’ugh like we’ve seen before. Iron men. They have artillery that throws fire.”\n\n“Didn’t think it was squaggin’ dragons,” Korpaghu rumbled.\n\n“Do we fall back? Or do we try to hold them?”\n\nLugbol thought quickly before answering Ghurash. His kors were too lightly armored to stand before the iron men and the clubs most of them carried were more likely to splinter on those strange metal helms than do any harm. And there was something else, too. The iron men had attacked at night, and yet they hadn’t sought to conceal their assault. They could have infiltrated the Green Talons’ tents and killed dozens of kors before the alarm went up, instead, they attacked in the loudest, most conspicuous manner possible. Were they stupid or was it possible that they were just that overconfident?\n\nComprehension dawned. It was neither.\n\n“They’re trying to drive us,” he hissed, more to himself than to his galvebels. The szavon’ugh army had been camped outside the forest, only a full day’s march away, waiting for Zlatagh to emerge and give them the battle they were seeking. Unlike the iron men, the szavon’ugh feared the forests and seldom did more than send mounted patrols into them to chase down raiding parties. But the iron men did not fear the Korokhurmagh, and with their fire and their metal, they were seeking to drive Zlatagh out of the safety of the trees, where the szavon’ugh would slaughter his lightly armed raiders.\n\nHe needed to warn Zlatagh! But already he could hear that the gungiyar’ugh to the north of them were in retreat. By the time he and his kors reached Zlatagh’s tent, Zlatagh might be long gone. Lugbol could try to stand and buy Zlatagh enough time to stop what appeared to be a rout in the making, but he could not imagine Zlatagh would be able to get the panic-stricken orcs, to say nothing of the easily frightened goblins, under control before dawn. And by dawn, he and every last kor in his warband would be dead.\n\nTo hell with the Maneater, he decided. He didn’t owe Zlatagh a damned thing. And to hell with the rest of the shugaba’ugh. His only concern was to protect his kors, and the best way to do that was to get out of the trap that the iron men had set. He looked to the southeast. In the darkness, it was not hard to see the fiery focus of the iron men’s attack as well as the extent to which their line was spread out. The southeast was blocked, but due south was dark and altogether devoid of fire. He came to a decision and raised his voice as he addressed all one hundred of his kors.\n\n“Stay close! Stay close! And I mean close enough to bugger the kor in front of you if he stops! We’re going to run past them. No torches; use yez nose and ears to follow each other. Keep yez damn mouths shut, keep clear of the fires, and keep yez clubs ready in case we run into trouble!”\n\n“Grun-kor!” they shouted. They didn’t really care what the orders were. All they wanted was for someone was to give them something to do that would keep their minds off the dark and noise and fire and fear.\n\n“Bring up the rear and keep them moving,” he told Korpaghu. “If anyone falls behind, leave them.”\n\n“Oi, grun-kor!”\n\nHe looked at Ghurash. “If Zlatagh stands, we hit them from behind. If he runs, we fall back to rejoin Azzakhar and the main army.”\n\n“We’re right behind you, Lugbol.”\n\n“Good!” Lugbol took a deep breath and took another look at the advancing fires to the southeast. He thought he could see firelight glinting off the armor of the approaching iron men. Before he could second-guess himself, he waved his arm and broke into a loping stride, leading the gungiyar towards the waiting safety of the darkness.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1673, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch12_theuderic-P1", "chapter": "ch12_theuderic", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTheuderic / Seigneur de Merovech — viewpoint mage; de Merovech in address.\nÉtienne-Henri / Duc de Chênevin — prince and heir; accents as written.\nCharles-Phillippe / Red Prince — late brother; hyphenated Phillippe.\nGuilhem Donzeau — second-in-command; keep spelling.\nFrançois du Moulin — chancelier who sent him; not present.\nD’Arseille / de Beaumille — Haut Conseil names; accents as written.\nL’Académie des Sage Arts / Immortels — academy forms; accents and capitals.\nmagiciens du guerre / battlemage / kingsmage — rank terms as written.\nAmorran / Valerius Cavator / Marcus Valerius — allied general forms.\nLegio XV — Roman numeral after Legio.\nAmbroys / Maussart / Sebastien / Talbot — the four young blues.\nHaut Conseil — both words capitalized.\nVallon-sur-Bois — nearby city; hyphens as written.\npillards — French for raiders; keep form when the prince uses it.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nKingsmage and battlemage of l’Académie, lately weeks with the Amorrans. Alive, arriving with four young blue-cloaks at Étienne-Henri’s camp. Served the late Red Prince; sent by du Moulin as counterweight to Donzeau and liaison to Valerius. Appalled by the camp’s disorder; briefly entertains murdering the prince for the crown’s sake. Knows the planted credentials and fake secret orders are already in play. Cold with the heir; will speak military truth if heard.\n\nÉtienne-Henri\nDuc de Chênevin, newly marked heir after Charles-Phillippe’s death. Alive in an expensively furnished command tent. Small, handsome, politically cunning; militarily dubious. Wears the red of the heir. Claims the orc host are pillards set up to make him fail; holds a letter from Valerius Cavator. Needs Theuderic’s read on the Amorran.\n\nGuilhem Donzeau\nOlive-skinned, lethal-looking second who speaks with the prince’s voice. Alive in the tent; does not rise for the mages. No sorcery Theuderic can sense. Leads the four young blues to quarters and leaves Theuderic alone with the prince.\n\nAmbroys, Maussart, Sebastien, and Talbot\nYoung magiciens du guerre under Theuderic. Alive; silent on the ridge; bow properly when named; exit with Donzeau.\n\nMarcus Valerius / Valerius Cavator\nAmorran general allied to the crown. Not present; his letter claims he will kill orcs beginning tomorrow morning and drive them northwest.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nDu Moulin ordered Theuderic to attach himself to Étienne-Henri as trusted advisor and counterweight to Guilhem Donzeau when the king gave the heir the orc war; he left with credentials for four new blues and a thinner scroll of planted “secret” orders meant for the Duc to find.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nPrince’s camp in a valley: no ditch or fortifications, tents without pattern, livestock free in the fields, no drill, no artillery, sewage unmanaged.\nGuards in red livery at the prince’s tent; red ribbon on a spire marks it.\nSun not yet at peak; wine and ale stews and whores thick in the lanes.\nTent interior: divan, chairs, carved occultic desk, dining set for eight—not a marching headquarters.\nAbout seven hundred horse available; Count of Jevey may add fifty.\nOrc host spoken of as roughly twenty-five thousand; Amorrans nearly outnumber crown forces.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nFrom the hill the prince’s camp looks like a fair, not an army—no ditch, no drill, sewage in the lanes—and Theuderic’s four young blues are as stunned as he is. He marks the red-ribboned tent, curses du Moulin in silence, and rides down through whores and drunks who do not know a blue cloak from a rag.\n\nGuards admit them. Inside, furniture from a residence and a smiling Étienne-Henri who praises him past the Immortels, then asks about Valerius Cavator and clears the other mages with Donzeau. Alone, the friendliness drops: eyes and ears for D’Arseille? Theuderic denies it, claims Amorran liaison and the right to be heard on war. The prince laughs at his servility, then slides a letter—Valerius will kill orcs tomorrow morning. Theuderic says the camp cannot meet twenty-five thousand; the prince already knows he was sent to lose, calls the orcs pillards, and wants only whether the Amorran keeps his word. Theuderic says yes, credible effort; Amorran foot is iron, their horse is the weakness. Pursuit, not set-piece: seven hundred fifty horse can murder fleeing orcs. He asks for maps and mounted lists by noon. The scene lands on that offer and his first confidence since the ridge.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2750 words. Court-military register; contempt stays in Theuderic’s head. Land on the noon plan offer; do not cut to night.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "This was supposed to be an army? Upon cresting the hill that overlooked the valley containing the prince’s camp, Theuderic pulled up his horse and stared in disbelief at the view in front of him. What he saw was about as far from the well-disciplined order of the late Red Prince’s camps as was possible to imagine. There were no fortifications, not even a ditch, tents were erected haphazardly without any order or pattern that could be detected, not even from above, and there were horses, cows, sheep, and pigs wandering freely about the fields, grazing and sleeping and relieving themselves wherever they saw fit to do so.\n\nNot a single body of men was at drill anywhere. He saw no sign of any artillery, nor any evidence that any was being built, no sign of any guards or patrols, and worst of all, no indication that any accommodations had been made for keeping the sewage outside of the camp. He glanced at his companions; they might be young and inexperienced, but judging by the bewildered looks on their faces, they were just as surprised by the dreadful state of the prince’s army as he was.\n\nHe was, however, able to identify the prince’s tent, as he could see a bright red ribbon floating from a spire that rose above the largest tent below. After having spent weeks in the company of the Amorrans, and having seen them painstakingly build and tear down their fortifications on a daily basis, he didn’t know if he was more offended or simply embarrassed for his liege lord. Or frightened; if Étienne-Henri was so incompetent that he couldn’t even command a proper encampment, what were the chances he would be able to defeat an army of marauding orcs?\n\nIt occurred to him that the best service he could provide the crown at this point would be to walk into the prince’s tent and murder him outright, openly and without remorse. Unfortunately, it seemed unlikely that the king would be inclined to accept any such intemperate action.\n\n“Come, gentlemen. Let us go and meet our new commander.”\n\nNone of the other mages spoke so much as a word in response. Damn you, du Moulin, he thought, not for the first time.\n\nThey rode down the hill and ignored the blandishments of whores and merchants as well as the curious glances of men-at-arms and brawny young peasants who were gathered around a pair of wrestling men. Few seemed to grasp the significance of their blue cloaks; certainly no one saluted or asked them their business. Although the sun had not yet reached its peak, everyone appeared to be more than a little drunk, no doubt courtesy of the wine and ale stews that were nearly as ubiquitous as the whores. A penny a cup, drunk right there on the spot, and if the quality left something to be desired, few were likely to care after their second or third one.\n\nAt least the prince, or someone close to him, had enough sense to set guards at the entrance to his tent. Theuderic bristled at the sight of them wearing the red livery of the heir, even though he knew it wasn’t meant as an insult to the memory of Charles-Phillippe. But he couldn’t help being a little haughty with them.\n\n“We are magiciens du guerre of L’Académie des Sage Arts. We have been ordered to attend the prince by order of the Grandmagicien. Is His Royal Highness within?”\n\nThe two guards looked at each other. The older one, an obvious veteran, nodded. “I shall tell him of your arrival, Seigneur. May I tell him your name?”\n\n“De Merovech.”\n\nThe guard bowed respectfully and disappeared inside the tent. He reappeared a moment later.\n\n“The prince will see you now, Seigneur de Merovech, Seigneurs.”\n\nThe interior of the tent was not in as much disarray as the camp containing it. It was expensively appointed, and indeed, looked as if Étienne-Henri had simply arranged for the furniture from one of his residences to be transported here. There was a divan and a pair of comfortable chairs arranged around a small table, a large wooden desk with occultic images carved all over the legs, and a proper set of table and chairs at which eight could comfortably dine. It was readily apparent that the prince was not intending any rapid advancements or retreats.\n\nÉtienne-Henri himself was seated behind his desk, and he had the good grace to rise in welcome. He was a small man, a head shorter than his brother, but more handsome than Charles-Phillippe had been. Where his brother had been a two-handed broadsword, Étienne-Henri was a rapier. A razor-sharp rapier, Theuderic reminded himself, and quite likely one that had been dipped in poison. He might be incompetent with regards to military matters, but he appeared to have no dearth of cunning where politics were concerned.\n\nThere was also a second man in the room, wearing the livery of Étienne-Henri, but olive-skinned and more lethal in appearance. He had a lean, predatory look to him, and he reclined in his chair as if he were a snake coiled about himself. This must be the deadly Donzeau of whom he had been warned, Theuderic thought, although he could detect no sign of sorcery about the man. He noticed that Donzeau, if it was indeed Donzeau, did not see fit to take his feet.\n\n“My dear Theuderic!” the prince exclaimed with a smile, as if he was genuinely pleased. “I rejoice that you have come to me upon the very eve of battle! In fact, I find myself more glad to see you than I would be to be visited by all the Immortels of L’Académie!”\n\nThe very eve of battle? In all his years, Theuderic had never seen a less prepared military force, not even when he helped Marcus Valerius take the unsuspecting Legio XV by surprise in its own castra. He bit back his first three instinctive responses and forced a smile. “You praise me too highly, your Highness.”\n\n“It has nothing whatsoever to do with your talents, my dear battlemage. I am more interested in your acquaintances. Are you familiar with an Amorran general by the name of Valerius Cavator, by any chance?”\n\n“I… I am, your Highness.”\n\n“Very good. Then we have much to discuss. But not, I think, in front of your colleagues. What are their names?”\n\nTheuderic introduced his four companions, Ambroys, Maussart, Sebastien, and Talbot. Each mage, well-drilled in the proprieties, stepped forward and bowed as his name was announced. For his part, Étienne-Henri nodded at each man, then glanced at the seated man. “I bid you welcome. This is Guilhem Donzeau. He is, for all intents and purposes, my second-in-command, and he speaks with my voice. He will find you quarters; I shall send Seigneur de Merovech to you when I am done with him.”\n\nDonzeau uncoiled and rose, seemingly as unimpressed with the prince’s announcement of trust in him as with the presence of the five battle-mages. He was of a height with Étienne-Henri, perhaps a little taller, and he moved with the grace of a skilled swordsman. Theuderic would have given much to understand the nature of their attachment, but he knew no more than du Moulin had told him. Donzeau had not been with the Duc de Chênevin on his previous campaign.\n\n“Monseigneurs.” His voice was deeper than Theuderic inspected, and his bow was just deep enough to avoid any hint of insolence. Was there a hint of sarcasm in the man’s voice or was it merely his imagination? “Your presence is most welcome here. If you will accompany me, I will find you suitable accommodations.”\n\nDonzeau bowed again, this time to his prince, and led the four mages from the tent. Étienne-Henri turned his attention to Theuderic and the false friendliness disappeared from his face.\n\n“So.”\n\nTheuderic smiled coldly. “So… your Royal Highness.”\n\n“What am I to do with you, sieur mage? Are you D’Arseille’s eyes and ears?”\n\n“I am not,” he answered truthfully. Du Moulin was not D’Arseille, after all. “I am here for the very reason you mentioned. I was in Amorr last year and I am acquainted with the legion and its commander. Since the Valerian is now an ally of the crown, I expect I may be of some assistance to you with regards to him and his legion. The Amorrans are a haughty and difficult lot, and as they very nearly outnumber the forces of the crown, it is believed some degree of delicacy is desirable. As for what you are to do with me, I suggest that you do what you did not three years ago and listen to me when I advise you on matters military and magical!”\n\nHe was surprised when the prince unexpectedly laughed.\n\n“That’s the problem with you, de Merovech. You’re too damn servile. No wonder my brother valued you.”\n\n“Perhaps you should consider doing likewise, Highness.”\n\n“Perhaps I will. Very well, sieur mage. Advise me concerning the Amorran general. Would you say that he is a man of his word? I don’t mean in terms of loyalty. I just want to know if he is reliable or not. If he says he is going to do something, would you say he is a man one can reasonably expect to follow through?”\n\n“I should say that depends upon the word. What does he say he is going to do?”\n\nThe prince selected a half-unrolled scroll from the various documents on the table and slid it across to Theuderic. “Kill a quantity of orcs, apparently. Beginning tomorrow morning, if I have understood the man correctly.”\n\nTheuderic blinked. “Your Highness, I intend no criticism, but what I saw in your camp here is not an army fit to meet twenty-five thousand orcs in battle!”\n\n“Of course it isn’t,” the prince said dismissively. “Do you take me for a fool, de Merovech? Believe it or not, I have learned considerably since that disaster of a campaign in the south three summers past, and I am perfectly aware that I have been set up to fail here by those who have not gotten over their disappointment that it will be me, and not my brother, who will succeed my father to the throne.”\n\n“No, Highness, but–”\n\n“This so-called army of orcs was never an invasion force! Do you not understand that? Despite their quantities, they are pillards, nothing more. They never had any intention of meeting us in battle, a battle I was not given the means of fighting in the first place. They ran from the border lords every time they managed to get one hundred horse together and they have run from me. The Haut Conseil knows this. Look at you! D’Arseille belatedly sends me five battlemages when twenty would not suffice for a genuine battle of this size. Perhaps you do not take me for a fool, de Merovech, but it seems D’Arseille and de Beaumille do! If they sent me here to fight, which I very much doubt, then you cannot deny they sent me here to lose!”\n\nHe gestured towards the east and shook his head. “And yet, it appears their machinations may come to no avail. Read the scroll.”\n\nTheuderic picked it up and read it. He whistled softly. It was indeed a letter from the young Amorran. His eyes met the prince’s. Now he understood.\n\n“Hence the question. Can he do as he claims?”\n\n“He can certainly make a credible effort.” Theuderic thought back to his short time with the legion. If the orcs were reluctant to meet the lords of the March in battle, they would not even try to stand before the Amorran heavy foot. As to whether the Valerian could frighten the orcs badly enough, and harry them long enough, to drive them a full day’s march northwest with only one-fifth their number, that seemed difficult to believe. But then, Theuderic had seen—had helped—the man take a fortified castra garrisoned by an entire legion without suffering a single casualty. “It would not be madness. He is intelligent and careful. If he says he will do it, I think it considerably more likely that he will succeed than fail. It would be reasonable to plan accordingly.”\n\n“His men-at-arms must be of exceedingly high quality.”\n\n“Without question. Their foot is armored nearly as well as our knights, and they carry great shields that cover them from chin to shin. What they lack in our cavalry’s mobility, they more than make up for in numbers and discipline. When pressed, they can march forty leagues in a day, fully laden. And their artillery is equally well-adapted to field or siege.”\n\n“How superlative of them. Did you observe any weaknesses?”\n\n“Their weakness is their horse. Their mounts are small and slow, their knights are more lightly armored than their foot, and they are not accustomed to the stirrup, so they usually rely upon spears and swords instead of lances.”\n\n“They are not? Strange, that.”\n\n“Perhaps. My sense is that they have little use for cavalry, except as scouts.”\n\n“The more fool them. That is good to know. But, de Merovech, I expect that you will see this Amorran presents us with a problem. While we may safely assume that the orcs will not be arriving in any shape to give battle, assuming that they arrive at all, as you have observed, we are less than entirely prepared to take advantage of the situation.”\n\nTheuderic did not look away as Étienne-Henri stared at him, challenging him to cast the blame where it was due. He merely smiled and shook his head, declining the bait.\n\n“Your Highness, while I will not deny the state of your forces are not what one might wish them to be, the undeniable fact of the matter is that the strategic situation has changed, and it has done so in an unforeseeable manner. You know very well I did not fear to criticize your decisions with regards to such matters in the past, nor will I fear to do so in the future. After all, that is the duty of a kingsmage.”\n\n“You show unexpected promise as a courtier, Monseigneur de Merovech.”\n\nTheuderic shook his head. “I am not flattering you, Highness. The simple fact is that the levies would be all but useless even if they were in good order. Even your men-at-arms are of limited utility here. What we are contemplating here is a pursuit, albeit a pursuit in which the defeated foe is running towards us rather than away.”\n\n“So you believe it is only our cavalry that counts.”\n\n“For the most part. Although I suspect the prince may find our services to be of use as well.”\n\n“But we have only seven hundred horse! The Count of Jevey might be good for another fifty; he has been promising them for the last week. Even if he finally comes through, though, that is only seven hundred fifty in all.”\n\nTheuderic smiled. For the first time since setting his eyes upon the sprawling disorder of the prince’s camp, he felt confident of victory. “Your Highness, men have taken kingdoms with seven hundred fifty horse. I believe it will be more than enough to murder a few orcs. Summon your seigneurs and captains, Highness. If you can provide me with a map and a list of the various mounted levies, my colleagues and I should be able to provide you with a tactical plan by the noon hour.”\n", "completion": "This was supposed to be an army? Upon cresting the hill that overlooked the valley containing the prince’s camp, Theuderic pulled up his horse and stared in disbelief at the view in front of him. What he saw was about as far from the well-disciplined order of the late Red Prince’s camps as was possible to imagine. There were no fortifications, not even a ditch, tents were erected haphazardly without any order or pattern that could be detected, not even from above, and there were horses, cows, sheep, and pigs wandering freely about the fields, grazing and sleeping and relieving themselves wherever they saw fit to do so.\n\nNot a single body of men was at drill anywhere. He saw no sign of any artillery, nor any evidence that any was being built, no sign of any guards or patrols, and worst of all, no indication that any accommodations had been made for keeping the sewage outside of the camp. He glanced at his companions; they might be young and inexperienced, but judging by the bewildered looks on their faces, they were just as surprised by the dreadful state of the prince’s army as he was.\n\nHe was, however, able to identify the prince’s tent, as he could see a bright red ribbon floating from a spire that rose above the largest tent below. After having spent weeks in the company of the Amorrans, and having seen them painstakingly build and tear down their fortifications on a daily basis, he didn’t know if he was more offended or simply embarrassed for his liege lord. Or frightened; if Étienne-Henri was so incompetent that he couldn’t even command a proper encampment, what were the chances he would be able to defeat an army of marauding orcs?\n\nIt occurred to him that the best service he could provide the crown at this point would be to walk into the prince’s tent and murder him outright, openly and without remorse. Unfortunately, it seemed unlikely that the king would be inclined to accept any such intemperate action.\n\n“Come, gentlemen. Let us go and meet our new commander.”\n\nNone of the other mages spoke so much as a word in response. Damn you, du Moulin, he thought, not for the first time.\n\nThey rode down the hill and ignored the blandishments of whores and merchants as well as the curious glances of men-at-arms and brawny young peasants who were gathered around a pair of wrestling men. Few seemed to grasp the significance of their blue cloaks; certainly no one saluted or asked them their business. Although the sun had not yet reached its peak, everyone appeared to be more than a little drunk, no doubt courtesy of the wine and ale stews that were nearly as ubiquitous as the whores. A penny a cup, drunk right there on the spot, and if the quality left something to be desired, few were likely to care after their second or third one.\n\nAt least the prince, or someone close to him, had enough sense to set guards at the entrance to his tent. Theuderic bristled at the sight of them wearing the red livery of the heir, even though he knew it wasn’t meant as an insult to the memory of Charles-Phillippe. But he couldn’t help being a little haughty with them.\n\n“We are magiciens du guerre of L’Académie des Sage Arts. We have been ordered to attend the prince by order of the Grandmagicien. Is His Royal Highness within?”\n\nThe two guards looked at each other. The older one, an obvious veteran, nodded. “I shall tell him of your arrival, Seigneur. May I tell him your name?”\n\n“De Merovech.”\n\nThe guard bowed respectfully and disappeared inside the tent. He reappeared a moment later.\n\n“The prince will see you now, Seigneur de Merovech, Seigneurs.”\n\nThe interior of the tent was not in as much disarray as the camp containing it. It was expensively appointed, and indeed, looked as if Étienne-Henri had simply arranged for the furniture from one of his residences to be transported here. There was a divan and a pair of comfortable chairs arranged around a small table, a large wooden desk with occultic images carved all over the legs, and a proper set of table and chairs at which eight could comfortably dine. It was readily apparent that the prince was not intending any rapid advancements or retreats.\n\nÉtienne-Henri himself was seated behind his desk, and he had the good grace to rise in welcome. He was a small man, a head shorter than his brother, but more handsome than Charles-Phillippe had been. Where his brother had been a two-handed broadsword, Étienne-Henri was a rapier. A razor-sharp rapier, Theuderic reminded himself, and quite likely one that had been dipped in poison. He might be incompetent with regards to military matters, but he appeared to have no dearth of cunning where politics were concerned.\n\nThere was also a second man in the room, wearing the livery of Étienne-Henri, but olive-skinned and more lethal in appearance. He had a lean, predatory look to him, and he reclined in his chair as if he were a snake coiled about himself. This must be the deadly Donzeau of whom he had been warned, Theuderic thought, although he could detect no sign of sorcery about the man. He noticed that Donzeau, if it was indeed Donzeau, did not see fit to take his feet.\n\n“My dear Theuderic!” the prince exclaimed with a smile, as if he was genuinely pleased. “I rejoice that you have come to me upon the very eve of battle! In fact, I find myself more glad to see you than I would be to be visited by all the Immortels of L’Académie!”\n\nThe very eve of battle? In all his years, Theuderic had never seen a less prepared military force, not even when he helped Marcus Valerius take the unsuspecting Legio XV by surprise in its own castra. He bit back his first three instinctive responses and forced a smile. “You praise me too highly, your Highness.”\n\n“It has nothing whatsoever to do with your talents, my dear battlemage. I am more interested in your acquaintances. Are you familiar with an Amorran general by the name of Valerius Cavator, by any chance?”\n\n“I… I am, your Highness.”\n\n“Very good. Then we have much to discuss. But not, I think, in front of your colleagues. What are their names?”\n\nTheuderic introduced his four companions, Ambroys, Maussart, Sebastien, and Talbot. Each mage, well-drilled in the proprieties, stepped forward and bowed as his name was announced. For his part, Étienne-Henri nodded at each man, then glanced at the seated man. “I bid you welcome. This is Guilhem Donzeau. He is, for all intents and purposes, my second-in-command, and he speaks with my voice. He will find you quarters; I shall send Seigneur de Merovech to you when I am done with him.”\n\nDonzeau uncoiled and rose, seemingly as unimpressed with the prince’s announcement of trust in him as with the presence of the five battle-mages. He was of a height with Étienne-Henri, perhaps a little taller, and he moved with the grace of a skilled swordsman. Theuderic would have given much to understand the nature of their attachment, but he knew no more than du Moulin had told him. Donzeau had not been with the Duc de Chênevin on his previous campaign.\n\n“Monseigneurs.” His voice was deeper than Theuderic inspected, and his bow was just deep enough to avoid any hint of insolence. Was there a hint of sarcasm in the man’s voice or was it merely his imagination? “Your presence is most welcome here. If you will accompany me, I will find you suitable accommodations.”\n\nDonzeau bowed again, this time to his prince, and led the four mages from the tent. Étienne-Henri turned his attention to Theuderic and the false friendliness disappeared from his face.\n\n“So.”\n\nTheuderic smiled coldly. “So… your Royal Highness.”\n\n“What am I to do with you, sieur mage? Are you D’Arseille’s eyes and ears?”\n\n“I am not,” he answered truthfully. Du Moulin was not D’Arseille, after all. “I am here for the very reason you mentioned. I was in Amorr last year and I am acquainted with the legion and its commander. Since the Valerian is now an ally of the crown, I expect I may be of some assistance to you with regards to him and his legion. The Amorrans are a haughty and difficult lot, and as they very nearly outnumber the forces of the crown, it is believed some degree of delicacy is desirable. As for what you are to do with me, I suggest that you do what you did not three years ago and listen to me when I advise you on matters military and magical!”\n\nHe was surprised when the prince unexpectedly laughed.\n\n“That’s the problem with you, de Merovech. You’re too damn servile. No wonder my brother valued you.”\n\n“Perhaps you should consider doing likewise, Highness.”\n\n“Perhaps I will. Very well, sieur mage. Advise me concerning the Amorran general. Would you say that he is a man of his word? I don’t mean in terms of loyalty. I just want to know if he is reliable or not. If he says he is going to do something, would you say he is a man one can reasonably expect to follow through?”\n\n“I should say that depends upon the word. What does he say he is going to do?”\n\nThe prince selected a half-unrolled scroll from the various documents on the table and slid it across to Theuderic. “Kill a quantity of orcs, apparently. Beginning tomorrow morning, if I have understood the man correctly.”\n\nTheuderic blinked. “Your Highness, I intend no criticism, but what I saw in your camp here is not an army fit to meet twenty-five thousand orcs in battle!”\n\n“Of course it isn’t,” the prince said dismissively. “Do you take me for a fool, de Merovech? Believe it or not, I have learned considerably since that disaster of a campaign in the south three summers past, and I am perfectly aware that I have been set up to fail here by those who have not gotten over their disappointment that it will be me, and not my brother, who will succeed my father to the throne.”\n\n“No, Highness, but–”\n\n“This so-called army of orcs was never an invasion force! Do you not understand that? Despite their quantities, they are pillards, nothing more. They never had any intention of meeting us in battle, a battle I was not given the means of fighting in the first place. They ran from the border lords every time they managed to get one hundred horse together and they have run from me. The Haut Conseil knows this. Look at you! D’Arseille belatedly sends me five battlemages when twenty would not suffice for a genuine battle of this size. Perhaps you do not take me for a fool, de Merovech, but it seems D’Arseille and de Beaumille do! If they sent me here to fight, which I very much doubt, then you cannot deny they sent me here to lose!”\n\nHe gestured towards the east and shook his head. “And yet, it appears their machinations may come to no avail. Read the scroll.”\n\nTheuderic picked it up and read it. He whistled softly. It was indeed a letter from the young Amorran. His eyes met the prince’s. Now he understood.\n\n“Hence the question. Can he do as he claims?”\n\n“He can certainly make a credible effort.” Theuderic thought back to his short time with the legion. If the orcs were reluctant to meet the lords of the March in battle, they would not even try to stand before the Amorran heavy foot. As to whether the Valerian could frighten the orcs badly enough, and harry them long enough, to drive them a full day’s march northwest with only one-fifth their number, that seemed difficult to believe. But then, Theuderic had seen—had helped—the man take a fortified castra garrisoned by an entire legion without suffering a single casualty. “It would not be madness. He is intelligent and careful. If he says he will do it, I think it considerably more likely that he will succeed than fail. It would be reasonable to plan accordingly.”\n\n“His men-at-arms must be of exceedingly high quality.”\n\n“Without question. Their foot is armored nearly as well as our knights, and they carry great shields that cover them from chin to shin. What they lack in our cavalry’s mobility, they more than make up for in numbers and discipline. When pressed, they can march forty leagues in a day, fully laden. And their artillery is equally well-adapted to field or siege.”\n\n“How superlative of them. Did you observe any weaknesses?”\n\n“Their weakness is their horse. Their mounts are small and slow, their knights are more lightly armored than their foot, and they are not accustomed to the stirrup, so they usually rely upon spears and swords instead of lances.”\n\n“They are not? Strange, that.”\n\n“Perhaps. My sense is that they have little use for cavalry, except as scouts.”\n\n“The more fool them. That is good to know. But, de Merovech, I expect that you will see this Amorran presents us with a problem. While we may safely assume that the orcs will not be arriving in any shape to give battle, assuming that they arrive at all, as you have observed, we are less than entirely prepared to take advantage of the situation.”\n\nTheuderic did not look away as Étienne-Henri stared at him, challenging him to cast the blame where it was due. He merely smiled and shook his head, declining the bait.\n\n“Your Highness, while I will not deny the state of your forces are not what one might wish them to be, the undeniable fact of the matter is that the strategic situation has changed, and it has done so in an unforeseeable manner. You know very well I did not fear to criticize your decisions with regards to such matters in the past, nor will I fear to do so in the future. After all, that is the duty of a kingsmage.”\n\n“You show unexpected promise as a courtier, Monseigneur de Merovech.”\n\nTheuderic shook his head. “I am not flattering you, Highness. The simple fact is that the levies would be all but useless even if they were in good order. Even your men-at-arms are of limited utility here. What we are contemplating here is a pursuit, albeit a pursuit in which the defeated foe is running towards us rather than away.”\n\n“So you believe it is only our cavalry that counts.”\n\n“For the most part. Although I suspect the prince may find our services to be of use as well.”\n\n“But we have only seven hundred horse! The Count of Jevey might be good for another fifty; he has been promising them for the last week. Even if he finally comes through, though, that is only seven hundred fifty in all.”\n\nTheuderic smiled. For the first time since setting his eyes upon the sprawling disorder of the prince’s camp, he felt confident of victory. “Your Highness, men have taken kingdoms with seven hundred fifty horse. I believe it will be more than enough to murder a few orcs. Summon your seigneurs and captains, Highness. If you can provide me with a map and a list of the various mounted levies, my colleagues and I should be able to provide you with a tactical plan by the noon hour.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2653, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch12_theuderic-P2", "chapter": "ch12_theuderic", "packet": "P2", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSeigneur Roche / viscomte of the Val-de-Sirine — marcher lord commanding Theuderic’s eighty; Roche in address.\nSebastien — young battlemage with Hirunel’s group; fire-talk contact.\nSieur Hirunel — captain of another squadron.\nJean de Cervole — defrocked priest-routier whose horn cries for help.\nJoscelin de Courcillon / Michel de Brienne — good lads with de Cervole.\nArbhadis — the higher moon; keep spelling.\nfirestone — singular communication focus; one word lowercase.\nwitchlight — trail-spell; one word lowercase.\nFiat lux — torch-trigger words; keep Latin.\nAmand Estochait — Immortel Roche once rode with; keep spelling.\nAbattre — Immortel who taught the wind-bolt; keep spelling.\nVallon-sur-Bois — city the foot are meant to cover.\nwolfrider / skins / verdards — enemy and cant forms as written.\nGod, King, and Prince — battle-cry capitals as written.\n\n### STORY\nTheuderic rides into Étienne-Henri’s disordered camp with four young blues, meets Donzeau, and in private counsel reads Valerius Cavator’s promise to drive orcs northwest at dawn; he tells the prince the levies are useless for pursuit and that seven hundred fifty horse plus the mages can murder fleeing greenskins if maps and mounted lists come by noon.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nAwakened at third watch after little sleep; thighs sore, one firestone for the five squadrons. Has placed five cavalry groups in the great forest; prince and Donzeau hold a fifty-horse reserve and foot at camp. Enjoys the slaughter more than he admits; will not leave a fellow mage to four-blast horns without a fight, though he is not eager.\n\nSeigneur Roche\nOld viscomte of the Val-de-Sirine; white mustache, belly over belt, best men of a poor lot. Commands Theuderic’s eighty. Hates de Cervole personally but will not abandon Courcillon and Brienne. Remembers riding with Estochait.\n\nSebastien\nYoung battlemage on the far side of a ford; reports ~200 mostly wolfriders and maybe ten orcs on the run. Not present after the fire-talk breaks.\n\nJean de Cervole\nDefrocked priest turned routier; not on stage—only his four-blast cry for help from further east.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“They are not? Strange, that.”\n\n“Perhaps. My sense is that they have little use for cavalry, except as scouts.”\n\n“The more fool them. That is good to know. But, de Merovech, I expect that you will see this Amorran presents us with a problem. While we may safely assume that the orcs will not be arriving in any shape to give battle, assuming that they arrive at all, as you have observed, we are less than entirely prepared to take advantage of the situation.”\n\nTheuderic did not look away as Étienne-Henri stared at him, challenging him to cast the blame where it was due. He merely smiled and shook his head, declining the bait.\n\n“Your Highness, while I will not deny the state of your forces are not what one might wish them to be, the undeniable fact of the matter is that the strategic situation has changed, and it has done so in an unforeseeable manner. You know very well I did not fear to criticize your decisions with regards to such matters in the past, nor will I fear to do so in the future. After all, that is the duty of a kingsmage.”\n\n“You show unexpected promise as a courtier, Monseigneur de Merovech.”\n\nTheuderic shook his head. “I am not flattering you, Highness. The simple fact is that the levies would be all but useless even if they were in good order. Even your men-at-arms are of limited utility here. What we are contemplating here is a pursuit, albeit a pursuit in which the defeated foe is running towards us rather than away.”\n\n“So you believe it is only our cavalry that counts.”\n\n“For the most part. Although I suspect the prince may find our services to be of use as well.”\n\n“But we have only seven hundred horse! The Count of Jevey might be good for another fifty; he has been promising them for the last week. Even if he finally comes through, though, that is only seven hundred fifty in all.”\n\nTheuderic smiled. For the first time since setting his eyes upon the sprawling disorder of the prince’s camp, he felt confident of victory. “Your Highness, men have taken kingdoms with seven hundred fifty horse. I believe it will be more than enough to murder a few orcs. Summon your seigneurs and captains, Highness. If you can provide me with a map and a list of the various mounted levies, my colleagues and I should be able to provide you with a tactical plan by the noon hour.”\n\n### NOTES\nDeep night under Arbhadis; false dawn before contact.\nGreat forest canopy kills the sky; no torches on the approach.\nEighty riders; prepared torches to ignite on a word; witchlight trail for the guide.\nAgreed signals: one attack, two regroup, three retreat, four help.\nGreen burst reserved as mage regroup sign; Roche’s horn does the recall after the first fight.\nPrince’s foot and fifty-horse reserve remain at camp toward Vallon-sur-Bois.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nThird watch: he wakes, greens the fire, and pulls Sebastien through the flames—two hundred mostly wolfriders at a ford, heads down, orcs the real quarry. Spell broken; Roche’s huntsman names the smaller downstream ford; they ride dark on witchlight with torches ready to catch of themselves.\n\nFalse dawn, wolves ahead: Fiat lux, eighty flames, goblins shatter. Theuderic hangs back, blows a lancer’s head off with Abattre’s wind, staffs another through the chest, laughs at a flaming wolf, and lets Roche’s horn gather the spread knights. No dead of theirs; too few kills for a long day. Before he can fire-talk Hirunel, four short blasts roll from further east—de Cervole in trouble.\n\nRoche wants to leave the curé to the orcs; Theuderic names the prince’s cost in mages and horse, and waits while the old man talks himself into duty for Courcillon and Brienne. They will ride. Roche’s speech makes the rescue a chance to hang the priest properly; the green-blooded riders roar; Theuderic kicks into a canter under a branch and wonders why he let the old man win. The scene ends on that ride into the trees, before they reach the next fight.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2950 words. Night-ops concrete; humor dry. Land as they canter toward the four-blast horn; do not reach de Cervole’s fight.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Monseigneur, it’s the third watch.” Theuderic groaned as a hand lightly shook his arm. Waking after so little sleep was sheer agony; his thighs were still sore from several days of riding and his shoulder ached for no reason at all. “It’s the third watch, monseigneur, you ordered us to wake you.”\n\n“I’m awake,” he croaked, opening his eyes and confirming that it was still the deep of the night. Above the clearing he could see Arbhadis was the higher of the two moons in the sky, telling him that they were closer to dawn than midnight. With more than a little regret, he sat up and extricated himself from his blankets. He rolled them up, bound them tightly, and then tied them to his saddlepack. After first rooting around in the wrong pocket, he withdrew a small pouch, then made his way over to the fire around which several men were standing. He was relieved to see one of them was Seigneur Roche, the viscomte of the Val-de-Sirine, who was commanding the makeshift company.\n\n“Heard anything yet?”\n\n“Nothing out of the ordinary,” said the old viscount, whose belly hung well over his belt, but appeared otherwise fit for action. The ends of his long white mustache fell down past his chin, but his men were the best of a not terribly impressive lot, so Theuderic had chosen the viscomte for the most important role to be played in the next hours. “Think we’ll be seeing signs o’ them soon?”\n\n“I would imagine so.” Theuderic shooed the men back from the fire and emptied the contents of the pouch onto the flames. The fire immediately took on an unnatural green tinge, sparking comments that were swiftly hushed by the more experienced men. Theuderic ignored the reaction; this was an old, familiar working for him and he barely needed to concentrate in order to utter the words of the spell.\n\n“Hear me, Sebastien,” he called out softly. “Sebastien, I am here.”\n\nThere was no response. He tried again.\n\n“Sebastien? Sebastien, if you can hear me, answer me!”\n\nThis time, a faint voice came from the flames. “Theuderic?”\n\n“It’s me, Sebastien. Have you seen them?”\n\n“They’re crossing the river en masse. There’s a ford. I’ve counted about two hundred so far. Mostly wolfriders. Maybe ten orcs.”\n\n“Have they seen you? Are they in good order?”\n\n“No, as near as I can tell they’re on the run. We’re keeping our heads down.”\n\n“Good. Stay on the far side of the river. We’ll hunt down the wolves. You watch out for the orcs. They are the main quarry.”\n\n“Understood. But I will have to put the fire out. I think we’ll have to move soon.”\n\n“Never mind that. Use the horns if you need help.”\n\n“Okay, we will. Good hunting!”\n\nTheuderic laughed and whispered the word that broke the spell. The flames abruptly returned to their normal red-and-yellow shades, sparking some suspicious murmuring among the viscomte’s men. It was amusing, Theuderic thought, that very men who were disappointed when the king’s mages didn’t hurl bolts of lightning at the enemy or summon vast winds from the sky were so often alarmed by a simple method of communication. But one of the first things every mage had drilled into his esoterically-talented head at l’Académie was that it was almost always more effective to use magic as a means of enhancing one’s conventional forces and making more effective use of them than as a substitute for them. It was a pity they only had the one firestone, but they were precious and he was fortunate to have the one. He glanced at the viscomte.\n\n“Two hundred goblins are crossing a ford. Do you know where that would be?”\n\nRoche looked over at one of his men, a small man who, unlike the others, wore only a leather jerkin and carried a bow instead of a sword. A huntsman, Theuderic assumed. He’d been careful to ensure at least one marcher lord was in each of the five groups positioned inside the great forest. “The smaller one downstream, don’t you think.”\n\n“Must be. They can’t have reached the bigger one yet.”\n\nThe viscomte nodded to him. “We know where it is. Shall we ride for it, monseigneur mage?”\n\n“Aye, but slowly. No torches! I’ll ride next to your guide and leave a trail of witchlight behind me. But tell them not to tarry; the spell won’t last forever.”\n\n“And when we see the skins?”\n\n“Tell them not to be surprised when their torches light of themselves.” Theuderic had prepared one torch for each of the eighty riders in his group; a single word and all of them would ignite at once. He very much hoped they would encounter this first group of goblins before dawn, as the effect promised to be striking in more ways than one. “Then kill everything they see.”\n\nThe viscomte nodded and walked off to give last instructions to his captains. It wasn’t long before they were all mounted and moving deeper into the dark shadows of the great forest. It reminded Theuderic of the border patrols he’d ridden some fifteen years ago, a frightened young kingsmage with his royal blue cloak resting heavily upon his shoulders. Soon the night sky was gone, obscured by the leafy branches high overhead.\n\nHe would have liked to check with his other three colleagues, but Sebastien’s group had been pushing the most aggressively to the southeast, making it the most likely to encounter the enemy first. There was a certain risk in dividing their force into five parts, but they had all agreed to make contact through the flames at dawn, noon, and sunset, which would hopefully permit them to avoid any one group being isolated and overwhelmed. As long as the orcs failed to rally and regroup, Theuderic was confident that the prince’s men would be able to butcher any enemy they encountered with impunity.\n\nBoth the prince and his man Donzeau remained back at the camp. They retained a fifty-horse reserve and were supposed to be getting the men-at-arms and the peasant levies in some semblance of order in case the regrouped orcs were able to drive off the five cavalry squadrons and threaten the nearby city of Vallon-sur-Bois. Theuderic had his doubts about them managing the task; he was not counting on the prince’s foot being able to do much more than get trampled underfoot in a general rout. But matters shouldn’t come to that, especially since Sebastien’s first report indicated that the goblin cavalry was still disordered.\n\nThe false dawn was just beginning to pierce the darkness of the leafy canopy with faint hints of the new day to come when two of the horses whickered and Theuderic heard movement ahead of them. His horse threw its head up and broke the rhythm of its easy trot, leading him to conclude that the wolfriders were nearby. As the sound of the wolves loping towards them became unmistakable, Theuderic called out softly to the viscomte behind him.\n\n“Now, Seigneur Roche!”\n\nHe heard the marcher lord draw steel behind him. “God, King, and Prince!” he shouted.\n\n“God, King, and Prince!” the greater part of the men echoed the cry.\n\nTheuderic counted to ten, to give the men time to find their torches and raise them clear of horseflesh and anything else that might not take kindly to the kiss of flame. “Fiat lux!” he said, triggering the spell, and the forest erupted before the light of eighty torches blazing into life.\n\nThe roar of the flames was echoed, then drowned out, by the frightened shrieks of the goblins. There were scores of them not more than an easy spear’s throw away, and they pulled up their wolves in sudden terror at the sight of the Savondese knights in front of them. But the wolves were exhausted from a long night of running, their red tongues lolled from their jaws, and eight or nine of them did not pull up, but instead threw their riders before fleeing into the trees. Theuderic could hear a deep-voiced goblin shouting what sounded like orders, but his troops had no time to do whatever he was ordering, because the viscomte’s men, led by Roche himself, rode past Theuderic and crashed into their midst, assailing the goblins with sword and torch alike.\n\nTheuderic stayed behind them, content to observe the skirmishing. The viscomte’s scout had drawn his bow and was loosing arrow after arrow in the direction of the goblins’ shadowy figures; most of them missed, but the man did manage to send one shaft through the throat of a wolfrider, who promptly tumbled from his beast. It was one of the most confusing fights he’d ever seen, and for a moment, he thought one of the knights had gone down, but when he kicked his horse forward to see if he could help the man, he saw that the knight had only thrown down his torch, preferring to fight in the darkness rather than be encumbered by it.\n\nA snarl was the only warning he had as a wolfrider nearly spitted him with a crude lance. He managed to parry it with his staff before pointing it at the goblin and blowing its head off its shoulders with a highly concentrated wind-summoning. It was a useful spell he’d learned from Abattre, an Immortel who unfortunately died in battle ten years ago before figuring out how to scale up the spell for artillery purposes.\n\nFeeling its rider slump in the saddle, the wolf snarled again and leaped away, disappearing into the black trees. The goblins had a modicum of training, Theuderic recognized, but not enough to present the knights with much danger. Neither their poorly constructed weapons nor their wolves’ teeth could pierce the marcher knights’ armor, whereas a single stroke of a blade or mace was usually sufficient to cut them down.\n\n“Ride them down! Ride them down!” he heard the viscomte shouting and rode in his direction. Theuderic swung his now-glowing staff like an axe as another goblin rode by and his arms vibrated as if he was chopping wood when the staff struck the creature right in the chest. There was an audible crack, and for a moment Theuderic thought he’d shattered his staff, but then he saw the goblin was clutching at its chest as it fell to the forest floor and painfully thrashed about in the mud in its agony. He pulled up his horse, leaned over, and shattered its head with a single savage, downward jab of the staff’s iron-shod bottom. He realized he was smiling broadly. War was a terrible thing, there was no question about it, but he would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was enjoying himself.\n\nA flaming wolf shot past him, howling in pain and terror, and he laughed. Someone had obviously managed to set the wretched brute alight with his torch. It would make for a memorable sigil, he thought. The Flaming Wolf! If the viscomte knighted anyone after the battle, he would have to be sure to mention the sight. If that didn’t prove popular with the men, he would eat his bloody boots.\n\nThe goblins were shattered now, fleeing in every direction, and he could see by the bobbing lights of the torches that the knights were beginning to spread out too far. He was just about to send up the green burst of light they had agreed would be the sign to regroup when the viscomte’s hornbearer sounded the recall with two short blasts, a brief pause, and then another two blasts. Almost immediately, the lights began to converge, and Theuderic urged his horse towards the gathering of the flames. The knights moved aside to make way for him, and it was not long before he was at the viscomte’s side.\n\n“We didn’t lose anyone. But we didn’t get as many as the buggers as I would have liked,” the older man complained. “Fucking cowards knew better than to try to put up a proper fight.”\n\n“It’s a start.”\n\n“Long fucking day ahead of us if we’re only going to kill twenty or thirty at a time, Seigneur Mage.”\n\n“True enough. Before we go any further, I’d like to see what’s going on with the other groups. We’re not far from Sebastien and perhaps one of them will have contacted him.”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The mage with Sieur Hirunel.”\n\n“Ah, right.” The marcher lord cleared his throat and spat. “Do your witcheries, then. I’ll tell the men to wet their throats while we wait.”\n\nBut before he could even dismount from his horse, they heard a horn being sounded repeatedly in the distance. Four short blasts, followed by four more.\n\nTheuderic and Lord Roche looked at each other in mutual alarm. The horn came from further east than Sieur Hirunel’s squadron, which meant that it was the one led by the defrocked priest turned routier, Jean de Cervole. The signals had been agreed upon before they separated. One blast meant attack. Two blasts meant regroup. Three signified retreat. And four was a cry for help, indicating that the squadron was outnumbered and in trouble.\n\nThe marcher lord looked away and Theuderic suspected he knew what the older man was thinking. If the orcs had successfully regrouped, they might find themselves facing three or four thousand, perhaps even more. It would be insane to take such a risk on behalf of men who were little better than land-pirates.\n\n“The prince would likely look askance at the loss of one of his mages,” he commented.\n\n“He’d look a damn sight more askance at losing two, to say nothing of the loss of another hundred fifty horse. And I’d look askance at me getting et by them monsters.”\n\n“I can see where it would be tempting to leave de Cervole to their tender mercies.”\n\n“Grey-toothed bastard tried to bugger one of my squires two summers ago. If it was just him, I’d leave him for the damn orcs. And half his men are scum too. But they got Joscelin de Courcillon and Michel de Brienne with them. They’re good lads.”\n\nTheuderic waited. He could hear when a man was trying to talk himself into something he really didn’t want to do. And, to be honest, Theuderic wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the idea of riding to the squadron’s rescue himself. The idea of galloping into the woods and butchering hundreds of defenseless orcs had seemed dangerous, but viable under the mid-day sun in the safety of the camp. Now, with the dawn threatening to break upon the horizon, it struck him as insanely stupid.\n\nThe viscomte sighed. “Ah, well, I never wanted to die in bed and both my sons are grown men. And I expect my wife will sleep better without me snoring. Anyhow, so long as we don’t get ourselves ambushed and surrounded, we can outrun the stump-legged sons of whores. I suppose you can scare up a trick or two to give us a head start, Sieur Mage?”\n\n“Without a doubt.”\n\n“Good man. You remind me of Amand. What was his name? Estochait, I think. I rode the border patrol with him.”\n\nTheuderic blinked. Amand Estochait was an Immortel, and so fat it was hard to imagine him ever sitting a horse. “You knew Estochait?”\n\n“Damn good man with a timely fire spell,” the viscomte declared with a faint smile. “So after all these years, here I am, still riding the woods with a damned bluecloak, hunting orcs. Well, shall we get on with it, Sieur Mage, or shall we leave the verdards to bugger the bloody curé in peace?”\n\nTheuderic glanced back at the men. Most of the riders were covered in varying amounts of green blood. He saw no fear in their eyes, only anticipation. He nodded to the old nobleman.\n\n“Keep it close, lads,” Lord Roche’s voice boomed out through the trees. “You heard the horns. That damned de Cervole has got hisself in trouble and it’s our duty to see that he dies the death he deserves, with a rope around his fat neck! We already had goblin for the starter, so let’s go kill some orcs for the next course!”\n\nThe men roared, more than willing to follow the viscomte into more slaughter and bloodshed. Theuderic laughed, though he wasn’t sure if it was the thought of Amand Estochait on a horse or the world-weary expression on Lord Roche’s white-mustached face that amused him more. He kicked his horse into a canter, ducked under a low-hanging branch, and wondered what on Earth had convinced him to let the old man talk himself into rescuing the others.\n", "completion": "“Monseigneur, it’s the third watch.” Theuderic groaned as a hand lightly shook his arm. Waking after so little sleep was sheer agony; his thighs were still sore from several days of riding and his shoulder ached for no reason at all. “It’s the third watch, monseigneur, you ordered us to wake you.”\n\n“I’m awake,” he croaked, opening his eyes and confirming that it was still the deep of the night. Above the clearing he could see Arbhadis was the higher of the two moons in the sky, telling him that they were closer to dawn than midnight. With more than a little regret, he sat up and extricated himself from his blankets. He rolled them up, bound them tightly, and then tied them to his saddlepack. After first rooting around in the wrong pocket, he withdrew a small pouch, then made his way over to the fire around which several men were standing. He was relieved to see one of them was Seigneur Roche, the viscomte of the Val-de-Sirine, who was commanding the makeshift company.\n\n“Heard anything yet?”\n\n“Nothing out of the ordinary,” said the old viscount, whose belly hung well over his belt, but appeared otherwise fit for action. The ends of his long white mustache fell down past his chin, but his men were the best of a not terribly impressive lot, so Theuderic had chosen the viscomte for the most important role to be played in the next hours. “Think we’ll be seeing signs o’ them soon?”\n\n“I would imagine so.” Theuderic shooed the men back from the fire and emptied the contents of the pouch onto the flames. The fire immediately took on an unnatural green tinge, sparking comments that were swiftly hushed by the more experienced men. Theuderic ignored the reaction; this was an old, familiar working for him and he barely needed to concentrate in order to utter the words of the spell.\n\n“Hear me, Sebastien,” he called out softly. “Sebastien, I am here.”\n\nThere was no response. He tried again.\n\n“Sebastien? Sebastien, if you can hear me, answer me!”\n\nThis time, a faint voice came from the flames. “Theuderic?”\n\n“It’s me, Sebastien. Have you seen them?”\n\n“They’re crossing the river en masse. There’s a ford. I’ve counted about two hundred so far. Mostly wolfriders. Maybe ten orcs.”\n\n“Have they seen you? Are they in good order?”\n\n“No, as near as I can tell they’re on the run. We’re keeping our heads down.”\n\n“Good. Stay on the far side of the river. We’ll hunt down the wolves. You watch out for the orcs. They are the main quarry.”\n\n“Understood. But I will have to put the fire out. I think we’ll have to move soon.”\n\n“Never mind that. Use the horns if you need help.”\n\n“Okay, we will. Good hunting!”\n\nTheuderic laughed and whispered the word that broke the spell. The flames abruptly returned to their normal red-and-yellow shades, sparking some suspicious murmuring among the viscomte’s men. It was amusing, Theuderic thought, that very men who were disappointed when the king’s mages didn’t hurl bolts of lightning at the enemy or summon vast winds from the sky were so often alarmed by a simple method of communication. But one of the first things every mage had drilled into his esoterically-talented head at l’Académie was that it was almost always more effective to use magic as a means of enhancing one’s conventional forces and making more effective use of them than as a substitute for them. It was a pity they only had the one firestone, but they were precious and he was fortunate to have the one. He glanced at the viscomte.\n\n“Two hundred goblins are crossing a ford. Do you know where that would be?”\n\nRoche looked over at one of his men, a small man who, unlike the others, wore only a leather jerkin and carried a bow instead of a sword. A huntsman, Theuderic assumed. He’d been careful to ensure at least one marcher lord was in each of the five groups positioned inside the great forest. “The smaller one downstream, don’t you think.”\n\n“Must be. They can’t have reached the bigger one yet.”\n\nThe viscomte nodded to him. “We know where it is. Shall we ride for it, monseigneur mage?”\n\n“Aye, but slowly. No torches! I’ll ride next to your guide and leave a trail of witchlight behind me. But tell them not to tarry; the spell won’t last forever.”\n\n“And when we see the skins?”\n\n“Tell them not to be surprised when their torches light of themselves.” Theuderic had prepared one torch for each of the eighty riders in his group; a single word and all of them would ignite at once. He very much hoped they would encounter this first group of goblins before dawn, as the effect promised to be striking in more ways than one. “Then kill everything they see.”\n\nThe viscomte nodded and walked off to give last instructions to his captains. It wasn’t long before they were all mounted and moving deeper into the dark shadows of the great forest. It reminded Theuderic of the border patrols he’d ridden some fifteen years ago, a frightened young kingsmage with his royal blue cloak resting heavily upon his shoulders. Soon the night sky was gone, obscured by the leafy branches high overhead.\n\nHe would have liked to check with his other three colleagues, but Sebastien’s group had been pushing the most aggressively to the southeast, making it the most likely to encounter the enemy first. There was a certain risk in dividing their force into five parts, but they had all agreed to make contact through the flames at dawn, noon, and sunset, which would hopefully permit them to avoid any one group being isolated and overwhelmed. As long as the orcs failed to rally and regroup, Theuderic was confident that the prince’s men would be able to butcher any enemy they encountered with impunity.\n\nBoth the prince and his man Donzeau remained back at the camp. They retained a fifty-horse reserve and were supposed to be getting the men-at-arms and the peasant levies in some semblance of order in case the regrouped orcs were able to drive off the five cavalry squadrons and threaten the nearby city of Vallon-sur-Bois. Theuderic had his doubts about them managing the task; he was not counting on the prince’s foot being able to do much more than get trampled underfoot in a general rout. But matters shouldn’t come to that, especially since Sebastien’s first report indicated that the goblin cavalry was still disordered.\n\nThe false dawn was just beginning to pierce the darkness of the leafy canopy with faint hints of the new day to come when two of the horses whickered and Theuderic heard movement ahead of them. His horse threw its head up and broke the rhythm of its easy trot, leading him to conclude that the wolfriders were nearby. As the sound of the wolves loping towards them became unmistakable, Theuderic called out softly to the viscomte behind him.\n\n“Now, Seigneur Roche!”\n\nHe heard the marcher lord draw steel behind him. “God, King, and Prince!” he shouted.\n\n“God, King, and Prince!” the greater part of the men echoed the cry.\n\nTheuderic counted to ten, to give the men time to find their torches and raise them clear of horseflesh and anything else that might not take kindly to the kiss of flame. “Fiat lux!” he said, triggering the spell, and the forest erupted before the light of eighty torches blazing into life.\n\nThe roar of the flames was echoed, then drowned out, by the frightened shrieks of the goblins. There were scores of them not more than an easy spear’s throw away, and they pulled up their wolves in sudden terror at the sight of the Savondese knights in front of them. But the wolves were exhausted from a long night of running, their red tongues lolled from their jaws, and eight or nine of them did not pull up, but instead threw their riders before fleeing into the trees. Theuderic could hear a deep-voiced goblin shouting what sounded like orders, but his troops had no time to do whatever he was ordering, because the viscomte’s men, led by Roche himself, rode past Theuderic and crashed into their midst, assailing the goblins with sword and torch alike.\n\nTheuderic stayed behind them, content to observe the skirmishing. The viscomte’s scout had drawn his bow and was loosing arrow after arrow in the direction of the goblins’ shadowy figures; most of them missed, but the man did manage to send one shaft through the throat of a wolfrider, who promptly tumbled from his beast. It was one of the most confusing fights he’d ever seen, and for a moment, he thought one of the knights had gone down, but when he kicked his horse forward to see if he could help the man, he saw that the knight had only thrown down his torch, preferring to fight in the darkness rather than be encumbered by it.\n\nA snarl was the only warning he had as a wolfrider nearly spitted him with a crude lance. He managed to parry it with his staff before pointing it at the goblin and blowing its head off its shoulders with a highly concentrated wind-summoning. It was a useful spell he’d learned from Abattre, an Immortel who unfortunately died in battle ten years ago before figuring out how to scale up the spell for artillery purposes.\n\nFeeling its rider slump in the saddle, the wolf snarled again and leaped away, disappearing into the black trees. The goblins had a modicum of training, Theuderic recognized, but not enough to present the knights with much danger. Neither their poorly constructed weapons nor their wolves’ teeth could pierce the marcher knights’ armor, whereas a single stroke of a blade or mace was usually sufficient to cut them down.\n\n“Ride them down! Ride them down!” he heard the viscomte shouting and rode in his direction. Theuderic swung his now-glowing staff like an axe as another goblin rode by and his arms vibrated as if he was chopping wood when the staff struck the creature right in the chest. There was an audible crack, and for a moment Theuderic thought he’d shattered his staff, but then he saw the goblin was clutching at its chest as it fell to the forest floor and painfully thrashed about in the mud in its agony. He pulled up his horse, leaned over, and shattered its head with a single savage, downward jab of the staff’s iron-shod bottom. He realized he was smiling broadly. War was a terrible thing, there was no question about it, but he would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was enjoying himself.\n\nA flaming wolf shot past him, howling in pain and terror, and he laughed. Someone had obviously managed to set the wretched brute alight with his torch. It would make for a memorable sigil, he thought. The Flaming Wolf! If the viscomte knighted anyone after the battle, he would have to be sure to mention the sight. If that didn’t prove popular with the men, he would eat his bloody boots.\n\nThe goblins were shattered now, fleeing in every direction, and he could see by the bobbing lights of the torches that the knights were beginning to spread out too far. He was just about to send up the green burst of light they had agreed would be the sign to regroup when the viscomte’s hornbearer sounded the recall with two short blasts, a brief pause, and then another two blasts. Almost immediately, the lights began to converge, and Theuderic urged his horse towards the gathering of the flames. The knights moved aside to make way for him, and it was not long before he was at the viscomte’s side.\n\n“We didn’t lose anyone. But we didn’t get as many as the buggers as I would have liked,” the older man complained. “Fucking cowards knew better than to try to put up a proper fight.”\n\n“It’s a start.”\n\n“Long fucking day ahead of us if we’re only going to kill twenty or thirty at a time, Seigneur Mage.”\n\n“True enough. Before we go any further, I’d like to see what’s going on with the other groups. We’re not far from Sebastien and perhaps one of them will have contacted him.”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The mage with Sieur Hirunel.”\n\n“Ah, right.” The marcher lord cleared his throat and spat. “Do your witcheries, then. I’ll tell the men to wet their throats while we wait.”\n\nBut before he could even dismount from his horse, they heard a horn being sounded repeatedly in the distance. Four short blasts, followed by four more.\n\nTheuderic and Lord Roche looked at each other in mutual alarm. The horn came from further east than Sieur Hirunel’s squadron, which meant that it was the one led by the defrocked priest turned routier, Jean de Cervole. The signals had been agreed upon before they separated. One blast meant attack. Two blasts meant regroup. Three signified retreat. And four was a cry for help, indicating that the squadron was outnumbered and in trouble.\n\nThe marcher lord looked away and Theuderic suspected he knew what the older man was thinking. If the orcs had successfully regrouped, they might find themselves facing three or four thousand, perhaps even more. It would be insane to take such a risk on behalf of men who were little better than land-pirates.\n\n“The prince would likely look askance at the loss of one of his mages,” he commented.\n\n“He’d look a damn sight more askance at losing two, to say nothing of the loss of another hundred fifty horse. And I’d look askance at me getting et by them monsters.”\n\n“I can see where it would be tempting to leave de Cervole to their tender mercies.”\n\n“Grey-toothed bastard tried to bugger one of my squires two summers ago. If it was just him, I’d leave him for the damn orcs. And half his men are scum too. But they got Joscelin de Courcillon and Michel de Brienne with them. They’re good lads.”\n\nTheuderic waited. He could hear when a man was trying to talk himself into something he really didn’t want to do. And, to be honest, Theuderic wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the idea of riding to the squadron’s rescue himself. The idea of galloping into the woods and butchering hundreds of defenseless orcs had seemed dangerous, but viable under the mid-day sun in the safety of the camp. Now, with the dawn threatening to break upon the horizon, it struck him as insanely stupid.\n\nThe viscomte sighed. “Ah, well, I never wanted to die in bed and both my sons are grown men. And I expect my wife will sleep better without me snoring. Anyhow, so long as we don’t get ourselves ambushed and surrounded, we can outrun the stump-legged sons of whores. I suppose you can scare up a trick or two to give us a head start, Sieur Mage?”\n\n“Without a doubt.”\n\n“Good man. You remind me of Amand. What was his name? Estochait, I think. I rode the border patrol with him.”\n\nTheuderic blinked. Amand Estochait was an Immortel, and so fat it was hard to imagine him ever sitting a horse. “You knew Estochait?”\n\n“Damn good man with a timely fire spell,” the viscomte declared with a faint smile. “So after all these years, here I am, still riding the woods with a damned bluecloak, hunting orcs. Well, shall we get on with it, Sieur Mage, or shall we leave the verdards to bugger the bloody curé in peace?”\n\nTheuderic glanced back at the men. Most of the riders were covered in varying amounts of green blood. He saw no fear in their eyes, only anticipation. He nodded to the old nobleman.\n\n“Keep it close, lads,” Lord Roche’s voice boomed out through the trees. “You heard the horns. That damned de Cervole has got hisself in trouble and it’s our duty to see that he dies the death he deserves, with a rope around his fat neck! We already had goblin for the starter, so let’s go kill some orcs for the next course!”\n\nThe men roared, more than willing to follow the viscomte into more slaughter and bloodshed. Theuderic laughed, though he wasn’t sure if it was the thought of Amand Estochait on a horse or the world-weary expression on Lord Roche’s white-mustached face that amused him more. He kicked his horse into a canter, ducked under a low-hanging branch, and wondered what on Earth had convinced him to let the old man talk himself into rescuing the others.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2867, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch13_lodi-P1", "chapter": "ch13_lodi", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nLodi / Lodi, son of Dunmorin — dwarf protagonist; patronymic when he names himself.\nMyf — young Deepling escort; spelling Myf not Myth.\nIron Mountain — destination; both words capitalized.\ntunnel-train — hyphenated; the deep transit system.\nDworris the Digger — legendary engineer; keep spelling.\nglowmoss — light-moss; one word lowercase.\nunsam — dwarven weight/value unit; keep form.\nGrag / gragsnagger — stone gambling game and slick player cant.\nThori / Yori — pickaxe-maker twins.\nRaldri / Raldrizena — young married couple; -zena wife-form.\nOrin Sperrylite — shabby substitute soldier; likely a bought name.\nOverworld / Above — surface world forms.\nKingsguard — Lodi’s office; one word.\nUskiluhk — mountain place-name; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nDwarf of the South Goloi Vein, Kingsguard odd-jobs man, ex-gladiator. Alive on the fourth day of a downward tunnel-train ride escorting Myf. Shoulder and calf still healing; twice daily she changes bandages in glowmoss light and never speaks. Fantasizes about pushing her off the cart; will not. Up twelve unsam at Grag and quietly feeds Raldri a win. Bad feeling when the cart slows.\n\nMyf\nYoung fair Deepling dwarfess under Lodi’s charge. Alive, silent, exquisite to him; whispers only to Raldrizena when he is away. Checks his wounds without conversation. Sitting by the glass when the passenger cart fills.\n\nThori and Yori\nFair-bearded twin pickaxe makers with valuable crates. Alive; Yori greed-bright at war contracts; Thori worried. Play Grag poorly.\n\nRaldri and Raldrizena\nYoung married pair visiting her deep parents. Alive; she keeps the toteboard and cries prettily at departure.\n\nOrin Sperrylite\nShabby black-beard claiming army summons; likely a paid substitute. Alive; slick with Grag stones; turns green at siege stories.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nAfter a wolfrider ambush on the unmarked Amorran–Elfland border, local High Guard pulled wounded Lodi under a sealing skydoor; Mayor Morits and Mulma Bodel-wife asked him to escort silent Myf downward toward her Deepest kin once he could walk, and he bargained three days’ healing as Kingsguard.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nFourth day downward; after three days’ dark freight cart, a lit station adds a proper passenger cart and six sections.\nTunnel-train waits for no dwarf; less than an hour at the stop.\nFood: fried cave-fish, ale, spiced mushrooms, tin of mushroom wine; prior rations dried rat and fungi.\nGrag: sixty-six stones, target thirty-three, jokers, ante levels to gold.\nCart begins gradual slow to a halt without warning.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nFourth day down and Myf’s silence is torture—he smells her, she tends his half-healed wounds in glowmoss light, and she will not talk. A station stop finally adds a passenger cart, lunch, and company: pickaxe twins Thori and Yori, young Raldri and Raldrizena, and shabby Orin who smells like a bought substitute. Stories and mushroom wine pass the miles; only Myf refuses drink and only Orin goes green at the siege. Yori hears the sky doors sealed and smells war contracts. Grag for small stakes—Lodi engineers a bust so Raldri wins gold without charity. Then the cart slows and dies. The scene lands on that unexpected halt, before anyone leaves the compartment to diagnose the rail.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 3000 words. Bored dwarf travel voice; desire under restraint. Land on the cart stopping; do not jump to the cold rail yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It was the fourth day of their journey downward and Lodi found himself beginning to fantasize about pushing his pretty young travel-companion off the cart. He would have thought her mute were it not for their single earlier exchange; she responded to most of his conversational overtures with a flat, uncomprehending stare that would have done credit to an orc being lectured on the gods by an Amorran priest. It was maddening to sit so close to her in the darkness, knowing that she was there, smelling the alluring scent of her body, and not even being able to talk to her. For a dwarf who had been away and above for very nearly a year, it was something akin to torture. Even if she had been an older dwarfess, like the Bodel-wife, he might have found her tempting. But the young Deepling was as exquisite as a newly found gold vein rated at more than 20 unsam per tonne!\n\nHis one saving grace, the one thing that kept him from giving into the temptation to take her in his arms or make a fool of himself by trying to kiss her, was the fact that he was still in a considerable amount of pain. His wounds were healing, but they were far from fully healed, and indeed, twice each day Myf crushed a bit of glowmoss and checked his bandages in the dim green glow it cast, changing them if she deemed it necessary. Her touch was always light and gentle, and if he closed his eyes he could almost imagine she was caressing him. And yet, despite her tenderness, she never said a word nor evinced even the slightest interest in any of his conversational gambits. By the end of the second day, he gave up trying to break through her reserve and contented himself by lying back on his well-beaten leather pack and calculating how much profit his various veins had produced during his absence.\n\nThat was one benefit of being an adventurer in the King’s service. It kept one’s expenses down. On the other hand, it had led him here, where he was lying on his back in the dark, wounded, bored, and frustrated. At times, he actually found himself wishing he was back in the troll-infested mountains of Uskiluhk, clinging to the side of a windswept cliff and hoping that an angry wyrm wouldn’t notice him. At least in Uskiluhk, there was no possibility of feminine companionship, barring an unlikely decision to court an orc. He knew he was only making matters worse for himself, but he couldn’t help it. Each time the pitch dark was sporadically broken by strategically placed glowmoss on the walls, he immediately turned to look at Myf. Even though each flashing, blurry glimpse lasted only seconds, it wasn’t long before he had her every feature burned into his mind.\n\nFortunately, after three days of silently riding in the cart without a single stop, the tunnel-train finally came to a stop in a small, well-lit cavern where the wheels were examined, the pulleys were carefully checked, and another six sections were attached to it, including, much to Lodi’s relief, an actual passenger cart. Its toilet facilities were the same seat-and-hole arrangement that he and Myf had been using the last three days, but it had proper seats, genuine storage space, and a roof. Also, the prospect of company that didn’t leave him feeling alternately infuriated and foolish was a welcome thought.\n\nHe was informed by the station-master that they had less than an hour before the train would automatically resume; the tunnel-train waited for no dwarf. Lodi took the opportunity to visit the cavern’s tavern and purchase a lunch of fried cave-fish and ale, which was particularly delicious after the dried rat and fungi on which he and Myf had been subsisting on the first part of their downward journey.\n\nHe paid and bought a large sack of spiced mushrooms that looked rather more appetizing than the fungi he’d been given by the surface dwellers. He also bought a small tin barrel of mushroom wine, deciding that it would taste better at cave temperature than the ale since the tunnel-train lacked any deep wells in which to keep it cold. When he returned to the train, he saw a pair of fair-bearded dwarves who must have been brothers, so similar were they, overseeing some crates being dwarf-handled onto the train.\n\nFrom the way they were strapped and restrapped onto the cart, Lodi assumed they must contain something valuable. Certainly the two brothers looked prosperous enough, wearing thick wool capes and shiny new leather boots. They stared at him curiously until one of them realized he was a fellow passenger, after which they came over to introduce themselves. They were Thori and Yori, custom pickaxe makers, and they were traveling down to the capital to deliver more than fifty orders they’d fulfilled over the last year.\n\nMyf was already seated in the corner of the passenger cart, looking out the glass window towards the darkness of the tunnel into which they’d be descending soon. Fortunately, the cart had a glow lamp built into the ceiling, so there would be no repetition of the silent journey through the darkness he’d endured earlier. Three more dwarves clambered aboard as well, a young married couple traveling deep to visit the dwarfess’s parents and a rather shady-looking dwarf with a black beard who claimed that he’d been summoned to serve in the army.\n\nLodi, observing the poor state of his clothes and the way his heavy coin purse hung from his belt, guessed that he’d been hired as a substitute for one of his wealthier clansmen. It was a legal dodge, but it went a long way towards explaining why most of the regular Army units weren’t worth a well-mined vein of marcasite. The married couple introduced themselves as Raldri and Raldrizena, while the shabby soldier-to-be announced himself as Orin Sperrylite. Lodi was relatively sure that was actually the name of the dwarf who had paid his new namesake to stand in for him, but he wasn’t inclined to press the dwarf on it.\n\nA small crowd of well-wishers, mostly young dwarfs and dwarfesses, had gathered to see Raldri and Raldrizena off. Raldrizena cried prettily, as befitted a young wife, giving her new husband the opportunity to comfort her. She was sitting between her husband and Myf, who sat next to Lodi, while Orin, Thori, and Yori took up three of the four seats that faced them. The seats slid down to provide makeshift beds, and Lodi was deeply grateful to see that there were bars that would prevent one’s neighbor from inadvertently rolling over atop one while asleep.\n\n“So, how long is this going to take?” asked Orin brightly. His face was a portrait in comic dismay when Thori informed him it would take two weeks before they would reach Iron Mountain.\n\nLodi had no idea how the tunnel-train operated; as near as he had ever understood, it operated by virtue of some form of magic that had something to do with the thermal energy generated deep under the deepest mines, where the rocks themselves were said to glow red, and deeper still, flow like water. All he knew was that it was the fastest way to travel safely under the lands belonging to Men, Elves, and Orcs, and it moved continuously, always maintaining roughly the same speed whether it was sliding down deeper, traversing a flat, or climbing a short rise.\n\nThere were two tracks, and very occasionally they saw a line of carts traveling the other way. These rare incidents were cause for celebration, as they broke the monotony, if only for a few moments, and it became the custom for someone to share with everyone from their stock of alcohol, be it Lodi’s keg of mushroom wine, Yori’s rather more expensive spirits made from fermented moss, or Orin’s eye-watering rotgut that he vowed up and down was made from crushed quartz.\n\nOnly Myf refused to partake on such occasions. At first, her refusal to talk to anyone inspired some annoyance in the others, particularly Orin, but on the third day, when Lodi left the passenger area to use what passed for the facilities, he came back to see that Myf had commandeered his seat and was whispering quietly in Raldrizena’s ear, who was now sitting in Myf’s seat. He shrugged and sat down next to Raldri, for whom he had a fair amount of sympathy, given that the young dwarf’s position was even less enviable in some ways than his own.\n\nThe days passed by slowly, but not as tediously as Lodi had expected. With the exception of Myf, they took turns telling stories about themselves, and both Yori’s tales of business deals gone awry and Orin’s scarcely credible recountings of unlikely get-rich-schemes and risky wildcatting ventures that were inevitably ruined by the peculations of one of his devious partners proved to be reliably entertaining.\n\nHis own recollections of the siege of Iron Mountain, his efforts to free captured dwarves from slavery, and his own subsequent enslavement were also very well-received; Raldrizena, for one, couldn’t seem to get enough of hearing about the bloody sands of the Amorran arena. Yori and Thori didn’t believe him at first, until he lifted his tunic and showed them some of the scars various gladiators had left him as mementos.\n\nOnly Orin didn’t enjoy hearing about the siege of Iron Mountain. As Lodi described the vicious battles in dark tunnels against goblin sappers, or the desperate stand of the Kingsguard on the terrible day when South Gate was breached and one in three dwarves of the Guard fell that day before the Troll King’s forces were beaten back, the black-bearded dwarf’s face gradually turned sickly green.\n\n“Buck up, old fellow,” Yori encouraged him. “It’s not like you’ve anything to fear. There’s hardly a war on!”\n\nEven Myf turned to look at the yellow-bearded dwarf in astonishment. It turned out that he had been so occupied with meeting their manufacturing orders, working day and night for nearly three straight months, that he had no idea the sky doors had been sealed. And it wasn’t until Lodi told the rest of them about his encounter with the tremendous army of orcs, some of which was quite possibly, even now, right over their heads, that the younger dwarf truly began to appreciate the situation.\n\nLodi had to admit, however, that Yori’s reaction was not quite what he would have anticipated.\n\n“Thori, do you know what this means?”\n\nHis twin nodded glumly. “We could have started the crew on making battle axes three weeks ago.”\n\nYori waved him off. “No, it’s perfect! We’re going to be right there at Iron Mountain! While there is a war on! They’re probably handing out production contracts as fast as the king’s scribes can scribble them! Don’t you see? This is like hitting a pure vein of silver! No, it’s like stumbling upon a fountain of gold!”\n\nThori glanced at Lodi, a worried expression on his face. Lodi only chuckled. It was hardly news to him that whether wars were fought above ground or below, the vultures would always take their pound of flesh. He leaned towards Orin.\n\n“You see, lad? We all does our part, right?”\n\nEveryone else in the cart appeared to be unsettled by Yori’s naked greed, so Lodi reached under the seat and pulled out the bag containing Raldri’s Grag stones. Grag was one of the more popular Dwarven gambling games, and the five dwarves had been playing it since the second day. They were playing for small stakes, by general agreement, but by the score on the slate toteboard Raldrizena was keeping for them, Orin already owned a small percentage of Yori and Thori’s business. Lodi himself was up twelve unsam of silver, while Raldri was modestly down.\n\n“Whose turn is it to toss?” Orin asked. The tosser rotated every round, as he was not permitted to bet.\n\n“Mine,” Thori answered, and Orin handed him the leather sack containing the stones with a wink and an expectant grin. Yori was too cautious and Thori was too eager, and the two of them were usually the first two players out. Grag was a simple game; the object was to score as close as one could to thirty-three without going over. There were sixty-six stones in the sack, each with a point value between one and ten carved into each side, which the tosser threw to each player, one at a time. The highest score won; a tie went to whichever player required more stones to make up the total. If the number of stones was the same, both players flipped over the stone of their choice and the lower number won.\n\nSix jokers of varying values complicated matters slightly, and each round required at least a copper to buy in. With each stone tossed after the second round, a player could call “deeper”, which would increase the ante by one level. There were seven levels; the deepest was diamond, but here on the cart they were yet to go beyond three, which was silver.\n\nOrin gave the sack a good shake, long enough to ensure the stones were well mixed, reached into it and expertly flicked four stones onto the floor with his thumb. Each one landed neatly face down in front of the player for whom it was intended, from Yori to Lodi. Lodi’s first stone was marked with a five; his second was also a five. When his third stone came up five, the others groaned. A run of three meant that the player could force the other players to flip over one or more of their stones. In practice, this usually meant that the other players would cave, which gave the round to the player with the run.\n\nYori, on thirty, caved immediately. Thori, on twenty-four, also scooped up his stones; it was considered bad form to turn them over and see what one would have had. Raldri eyed Lodi, then shrugged and tapped the floor with his foot. He was only on fourteen, so he had a fair chance of turning over better stones than he had. When Orin glanced at him, Lodi held up two fingers, so Orin leaned forward and turned over Raldri’s first two stones.\n\nNow the young dwarf was on eleven, three less than Lodi. He smirked and called deeper. Orin flipped two more stones at them. Raldri’s stone showed a crown versus a six for Lodi, making it twenty-one to twenty. Lodi raised his eyebrow at that, then called deeper himself. Two more stones and it was twenty-six to twenty-four. Raldri stared at his five stones, then held up his hand. He was standing pat, so Lodi winked at him, called deeper again, and tapped the floor. Now they were playing for gold and Raldrizena was clutching her new husband’s hand so tight his fingers were bright red. All he needed was anything between a three and a nine.\n\nOrin tossed the last stone. It landed near Lodi’s small toe; an anvil was carved into it. Eleven points. That put him at thirty-five and he was bust!\n\nLodi clapped his hands once and grimaced in mock disappointment as Raldri and his wife whooped triumphantly. Going deeper down to gold had put him down and Raldri up, which had been his intention as soon as he saw the twins withdraw. Now that he was safely returned from the Overworld, a gold coin or two made little difference to him. But it might spare a young couple a fight or two over money; he’d seen how hard Raldrizena took her husband’s petty losses over the course of their journey. They were only four days out now, and if the stones were kind, perhaps the lad would be able to buy his wife a little treat at the next station.\n\nBut you couldn’t simply hand a dwarf charity; that would be an insult to his pride and his dwarfhood. You had to make the lad earn it, and if that meant slapping him down a few times in the process to see if he was dwarf enough to get back up, so much the better.\n\nHe looked up and saw Orin stifling a grin. It didn’t surprise him that the shabby gragsnagger knew what he was doing. The black-bearded dwarf wasn’t just slick with the stones, he was damn good with the odds too. Lodi figured the dwarf would make himself a fortune in the barracks once they arrived at Iron Mountain if he didn’t get himself killed in one way or another.\n\nThen, without warning, the cart began to slow. It was a gradual, gentle reduction in speed, with the train slowing to a speed little faster than a walk, until at last it halted entirely. The seven of them sat there, unsettled but not scared by the unexpected silence, until at last Raldri got to his feet and opened the door, went to the rail, and leaned out over the track.\n", "completion": "It was the fourth day of their journey downward and Lodi found himself beginning to fantasize about pushing his pretty young travel-companion off the cart. He would have thought her mute were it not for their single earlier exchange; she responded to most of his conversational overtures with a flat, uncomprehending stare that would have done credit to an orc being lectured on the gods by an Amorran priest. It was maddening to sit so close to her in the darkness, knowing that she was there, smelling the alluring scent of her body, and not even being able to talk to her. For a dwarf who had been away and above for very nearly a year, it was something akin to torture. Even if she had been an older dwarfess, like the Bodel-wife, he might have found her tempting. But the young Deepling was as exquisite as a newly found gold vein rated at more than 20 unsam per tonne!\n\nHis one saving grace, the one thing that kept him from giving into the temptation to take her in his arms or make a fool of himself by trying to kiss her, was the fact that he was still in a considerable amount of pain. His wounds were healing, but they were far from fully healed, and indeed, twice each day Myf crushed a bit of glowmoss and checked his bandages in the dim green glow it cast, changing them if she deemed it necessary. Her touch was always light and gentle, and if he closed his eyes he could almost imagine she was caressing him. And yet, despite her tenderness, she never said a word nor evinced even the slightest interest in any of his conversational gambits. By the end of the second day, he gave up trying to break through her reserve and contented himself by lying back on his well-beaten leather pack and calculating how much profit his various veins had produced during his absence.\n\nThat was one benefit of being an adventurer in the King’s service. It kept one’s expenses down. On the other hand, it had led him here, where he was lying on his back in the dark, wounded, bored, and frustrated. At times, he actually found himself wishing he was back in the troll-infested mountains of Uskiluhk, clinging to the side of a windswept cliff and hoping that an angry wyrm wouldn’t notice him. At least in Uskiluhk, there was no possibility of feminine companionship, barring an unlikely decision to court an orc. He knew he was only making matters worse for himself, but he couldn’t help it. Each time the pitch dark was sporadically broken by strategically placed glowmoss on the walls, he immediately turned to look at Myf. Even though each flashing, blurry glimpse lasted only seconds, it wasn’t long before he had her every feature burned into his mind.\n\nFortunately, after three days of silently riding in the cart without a single stop, the tunnel-train finally came to a stop in a small, well-lit cavern where the wheels were examined, the pulleys were carefully checked, and another six sections were attached to it, including, much to Lodi’s relief, an actual passenger cart. Its toilet facilities were the same seat-and-hole arrangement that he and Myf had been using the last three days, but it had proper seats, genuine storage space, and a roof. Also, the prospect of company that didn’t leave him feeling alternately infuriated and foolish was a welcome thought.\n\nHe was informed by the station-master that they had less than an hour before the train would automatically resume; the tunnel-train waited for no dwarf. Lodi took the opportunity to visit the cavern’s tavern and purchase a lunch of fried cave-fish and ale, which was particularly delicious after the dried rat and fungi on which he and Myf had been subsisting on the first part of their downward journey.\n\nHe paid and bought a large sack of spiced mushrooms that looked rather more appetizing than the fungi he’d been given by the surface dwellers. He also bought a small tin barrel of mushroom wine, deciding that it would taste better at cave temperature than the ale since the tunnel-train lacked any deep wells in which to keep it cold. When he returned to the train, he saw a pair of fair-bearded dwarves who must have been brothers, so similar were they, overseeing some crates being dwarf-handled onto the train.\n\nFrom the way they were strapped and restrapped onto the cart, Lodi assumed they must contain something valuable. Certainly the two brothers looked prosperous enough, wearing thick wool capes and shiny new leather boots. They stared at him curiously until one of them realized he was a fellow passenger, after which they came over to introduce themselves. They were Thori and Yori, custom pickaxe makers, and they were traveling down to the capital to deliver more than fifty orders they’d fulfilled over the last year.\n\nMyf was already seated in the corner of the passenger cart, looking out the glass window towards the darkness of the tunnel into which they’d be descending soon. Fortunately, the cart had a glow lamp built into the ceiling, so there would be no repetition of the silent journey through the darkness he’d endured earlier. Three more dwarves clambered aboard as well, a young married couple traveling deep to visit the dwarfess’s parents and a rather shady-looking dwarf with a black beard who claimed that he’d been summoned to serve in the army.\n\nLodi, observing the poor state of his clothes and the way his heavy coin purse hung from his belt, guessed that he’d been hired as a substitute for one of his wealthier clansmen. It was a legal dodge, but it went a long way towards explaining why most of the regular Army units weren’t worth a well-mined vein of marcasite. The married couple introduced themselves as Raldri and Raldrizena, while the shabby soldier-to-be announced himself as Orin Sperrylite. Lodi was relatively sure that was actually the name of the dwarf who had paid his new namesake to stand in for him, but he wasn’t inclined to press the dwarf on it.\n\nA small crowd of well-wishers, mostly young dwarfs and dwarfesses, had gathered to see Raldri and Raldrizena off. Raldrizena cried prettily, as befitted a young wife, giving her new husband the opportunity to comfort her. She was sitting between her husband and Myf, who sat next to Lodi, while Orin, Thori, and Yori took up three of the four seats that faced them. The seats slid down to provide makeshift beds, and Lodi was deeply grateful to see that there were bars that would prevent one’s neighbor from inadvertently rolling over atop one while asleep.\n\n“So, how long is this going to take?” asked Orin brightly. His face was a portrait in comic dismay when Thori informed him it would take two weeks before they would reach Iron Mountain.\n\nLodi had no idea how the tunnel-train operated; as near as he had ever understood, it operated by virtue of some form of magic that had something to do with the thermal energy generated deep under the deepest mines, where the rocks themselves were said to glow red, and deeper still, flow like water. All he knew was that it was the fastest way to travel safely under the lands belonging to Men, Elves, and Orcs, and it moved continuously, always maintaining roughly the same speed whether it was sliding down deeper, traversing a flat, or climbing a short rise.\n\nThere were two tracks, and very occasionally they saw a line of carts traveling the other way. These rare incidents were cause for celebration, as they broke the monotony, if only for a few moments, and it became the custom for someone to share with everyone from their stock of alcohol, be it Lodi’s keg of mushroom wine, Yori’s rather more expensive spirits made from fermented moss, or Orin’s eye-watering rotgut that he vowed up and down was made from crushed quartz.\n\nOnly Myf refused to partake on such occasions. At first, her refusal to talk to anyone inspired some annoyance in the others, particularly Orin, but on the third day, when Lodi left the passenger area to use what passed for the facilities, he came back to see that Myf had commandeered his seat and was whispering quietly in Raldrizena’s ear, who was now sitting in Myf’s seat. He shrugged and sat down next to Raldri, for whom he had a fair amount of sympathy, given that the young dwarf’s position was even less enviable in some ways than his own.\n\nThe days passed by slowly, but not as tediously as Lodi had expected. With the exception of Myf, they took turns telling stories about themselves, and both Yori’s tales of business deals gone awry and Orin’s scarcely credible recountings of unlikely get-rich-schemes and risky wildcatting ventures that were inevitably ruined by the peculations of one of his devious partners proved to be reliably entertaining.\n\nHis own recollections of the siege of Iron Mountain, his efforts to free captured dwarves from slavery, and his own subsequent enslavement were also very well-received; Raldrizena, for one, couldn’t seem to get enough of hearing about the bloody sands of the Amorran arena. Yori and Thori didn’t believe him at first, until he lifted his tunic and showed them some of the scars various gladiators had left him as mementos.\n\nOnly Orin didn’t enjoy hearing about the siege of Iron Mountain. As Lodi described the vicious battles in dark tunnels against goblin sappers, or the desperate stand of the Kingsguard on the terrible day when South Gate was breached and one in three dwarves of the Guard fell that day before the Troll King’s forces were beaten back, the black-bearded dwarf’s face gradually turned sickly green.\n\n“Buck up, old fellow,” Yori encouraged him. “It’s not like you’ve anything to fear. There’s hardly a war on!”\n\nEven Myf turned to look at the yellow-bearded dwarf in astonishment. It turned out that he had been so occupied with meeting their manufacturing orders, working day and night for nearly three straight months, that he had no idea the sky doors had been sealed. And it wasn’t until Lodi told the rest of them about his encounter with the tremendous army of orcs, some of which was quite possibly, even now, right over their heads, that the younger dwarf truly began to appreciate the situation.\n\nLodi had to admit, however, that Yori’s reaction was not quite what he would have anticipated.\n\n“Thori, do you know what this means?”\n\nHis twin nodded glumly. “We could have started the crew on making battle axes three weeks ago.”\n\nYori waved him off. “No, it’s perfect! We’re going to be right there at Iron Mountain! While there is a war on! They’re probably handing out production contracts as fast as the king’s scribes can scribble them! Don’t you see? This is like hitting a pure vein of silver! No, it’s like stumbling upon a fountain of gold!”\n\nThori glanced at Lodi, a worried expression on his face. Lodi only chuckled. It was hardly news to him that whether wars were fought above ground or below, the vultures would always take their pound of flesh. He leaned towards Orin.\n\n“You see, lad? We all does our part, right?”\n\nEveryone else in the cart appeared to be unsettled by Yori’s naked greed, so Lodi reached under the seat and pulled out the bag containing Raldri’s Grag stones. Grag was one of the more popular Dwarven gambling games, and the five dwarves had been playing it since the second day. They were playing for small stakes, by general agreement, but by the score on the slate toteboard Raldrizena was keeping for them, Orin already owned a small percentage of Yori and Thori’s business. Lodi himself was up twelve unsam of silver, while Raldri was modestly down.\n\n“Whose turn is it to toss?” Orin asked. The tosser rotated every round, as he was not permitted to bet.\n\n“Mine,” Thori answered, and Orin handed him the leather sack containing the stones with a wink and an expectant grin. Yori was too cautious and Thori was too eager, and the two of them were usually the first two players out. Grag was a simple game; the object was to score as close as one could to thirty-three without going over. There were sixty-six stones in the sack, each with a point value between one and ten carved into each side, which the tosser threw to each player, one at a time. The highest score won; a tie went to whichever player required more stones to make up the total. If the number of stones was the same, both players flipped over the stone of their choice and the lower number won.\n\nSix jokers of varying values complicated matters slightly, and each round required at least a copper to buy in. With each stone tossed after the second round, a player could call “deeper”, which would increase the ante by one level. There were seven levels; the deepest was diamond, but here on the cart they were yet to go beyond three, which was silver.\n\nOrin gave the sack a good shake, long enough to ensure the stones were well mixed, reached into it and expertly flicked four stones onto the floor with his thumb. Each one landed neatly face down in front of the player for whom it was intended, from Yori to Lodi. Lodi’s first stone was marked with a five; his second was also a five. When his third stone came up five, the others groaned. A run of three meant that the player could force the other players to flip over one or more of their stones. In practice, this usually meant that the other players would cave, which gave the round to the player with the run.\n\nYori, on thirty, caved immediately. Thori, on twenty-four, also scooped up his stones; it was considered bad form to turn them over and see what one would have had. Raldri eyed Lodi, then shrugged and tapped the floor with his foot. He was only on fourteen, so he had a fair chance of turning over better stones than he had. When Orin glanced at him, Lodi held up two fingers, so Orin leaned forward and turned over Raldri’s first two stones.\n\nNow the young dwarf was on eleven, three less than Lodi. He smirked and called deeper. Orin flipped two more stones at them. Raldri’s stone showed a crown versus a six for Lodi, making it twenty-one to twenty. Lodi raised his eyebrow at that, then called deeper himself. Two more stones and it was twenty-six to twenty-four. Raldri stared at his five stones, then held up his hand. He was standing pat, so Lodi winked at him, called deeper again, and tapped the floor. Now they were playing for gold and Raldrizena was clutching her new husband’s hand so tight his fingers were bright red. All he needed was anything between a three and a nine.\n\nOrin tossed the last stone. It landed near Lodi’s small toe; an anvil was carved into it. Eleven points. That put him at thirty-five and he was bust!\n\nLodi clapped his hands once and grimaced in mock disappointment as Raldri and his wife whooped triumphantly. Going deeper down to gold had put him down and Raldri up, which had been his intention as soon as he saw the twins withdraw. Now that he was safely returned from the Overworld, a gold coin or two made little difference to him. But it might spare a young couple a fight or two over money; he’d seen how hard Raldrizena took her husband’s petty losses over the course of their journey. They were only four days out now, and if the stones were kind, perhaps the lad would be able to buy his wife a little treat at the next station.\n\nBut you couldn’t simply hand a dwarf charity; that would be an insult to his pride and his dwarfhood. You had to make the lad earn it, and if that meant slapping him down a few times in the process to see if he was dwarf enough to get back up, so much the better.\n\nHe looked up and saw Orin stifling a grin. It didn’t surprise him that the shabby gragsnagger knew what he was doing. The black-bearded dwarf wasn’t just slick with the stones, he was damn good with the odds too. Lodi figured the dwarf would make himself a fortune in the barracks once they arrived at Iron Mountain if he didn’t get himself killed in one way or another.\n\nThen, without warning, the cart began to slow. It was a gradual, gentle reduction in speed, with the train slowing to a speed little faster than a walk, until at last it halted entirely. The seven of them sat there, unsettled but not scared by the unexpected silence, until at last Raldri got to his feet and opened the door, went to the rail, and leaned out over the track.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2949, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch13_lodi-P2", "chapter": "ch13_lodi", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nKhurzo — dwarf whose brother was station-master three stops back.\nSkyburned / Burned — Deepling category for surface-touched; capitals as Myf uses them.\nHublok Otek — oath/name form as Myf speaks it.\ncave goblins — two words lowercase.\npickaxes — twins’ crate goods pressed into weapons.\ncentral ridge — iron tube of the thermal rail; descriptive, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nOn the fourth day downward escorting silent Myf, Lodi shares a passenger cart with pickaxe twins, a young couple, and shabby Orin; stories and Grag pass until, without warning, the tunnel-train slows and stops.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nOff the cart into darkness; finds the central ridge barely warm. Orders food, water, torches, weapons. Will not wait for certainty. Demands Myf speak if trouble comes; something old breaks when her emerald eyes meet his—he will die before he lets her be hurt.\n\nMyf\nPacks without argument. Speaks at last: Deepling rule allows talk to the Skyburned in emergency; she will obey and speak because he is Burned and in charge. Innocent gaze; first true meeting of eyes.\n\nKhurzo\nStranger from three stops back; shocked the rail can be cold; jumps down to feel it.\n\nThori / Yori / Raldri / Raldrizena / Orin\nPresent for the packing argument; twins resist scratching new pickaxes, then yield to cave-goblin sense.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nNow the young dwarf was on eleven, three less than Lodi. He smirked and called deeper. Orin flipped two more stones at them. Raldri’s stone showed a crown versus a six for Lodi, making it twenty-one to twenty. Lodi raised his eyebrow at that, then called deeper himself. Two more stones and it was twenty-six to twenty-four. Raldri stared at his five stones, then held up his hand. He was standing pat, so Lodi winked at him, called deeper again, and tapped the floor. Now they were playing for gold and Raldrizena was clutching her new husband’s hand so tight his fingers were bright red. All he needed was anything between a three and a nine.\n\nOrin tossed the last stone. It landed near Lodi’s small toe; an anvil was carved into it. Eleven points. That put him at thirty-five and he was bust!\n\nLodi clapped his hands once and grimaced in mock disappointment as Raldri and his wife whooped triumphantly. Going deeper down to gold had put him down and Raldri up, which had been his intention as soon as he saw the twins withdraw. Now that he was safely returned from the Overworld, a gold coin or two made little difference to him. But it might spare a young couple a fight or two over money; he’d seen how hard Raldrizena took her husband’s petty losses over the course of their journey. They were only four days out now, and if the stones were kind, perhaps the lad would be able to buy his wife a little treat at the next station.\n\nBut you couldn’t simply hand a dwarf charity; that would be an insult to his pride and his dwarfhood. You had to make the lad earn it, and if that meant slapping him down a few times in the process to see if he was dwarf enough to get back up, so much the better.\n\nHe looked up and saw Orin stifling a grin. It didn’t surprise him that the shabby gragsnagger knew what he was doing. The black-bearded dwarf wasn’t just slick with the stones, he was damn good with the odds too. Lodi figured the dwarf would make himself a fortune in the barracks once they arrived at Iron Mountain if he didn’t get himself killed in one way or another.\n\nThen, without warning, the cart began to slow. It was a gradual, gentle reduction in speed, with the train slowing to a speed little faster than a walk, until at last it halted entirely. The seven of them sat there, unsettled but not scared by the unexpected silence, until at last Raldri got to his feet and opened the door, went to the rail, and leaned out over the track.\n\n### NOTES\nTunnel mouth ahead is lightless void for miles.\nStations this close to Iron Mountain are less than a day apart; supplies enough to walk.\nDworris the Digger’s system has few moving parts; cold rail is unheard-of short of wartime collapse.\nOther compartments stir with confusion; dwarves slow to leave false safety.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nRaldri announces the obvious: they are not moving. Lodi’s gut says too-smooth luck has ended. He checks the fore rail—no heat, no glow—jumps down, kneels on the track, and finds the central ridge only lukewarm. Khurzo confirms the impossible. Lodi orders packing, torches, weapons; the twins argue pickaxe scratches versus cave goblins and lose. Myf packs without a word until he catches her arm and makes silence a luxury she cannot keep if his gut is right. She names him Skyburned, permits speech in emergency, and vows obedience. Their eyes meet; something in him breaks open. He turns his back before he makes a fool of himself and goes to see about pickaxes. The scene ends on that stalk out of the compartment.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1550 words. Practical alarm; the confession intimate without softness. Land as he leaves Myf; do not start the march.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“We’re not moving,” he announced unnecessarily.\n\nLodi pushed himself to his feet. He had a bad feeling about this. Everything had gone smoothly, much too smoothly, if the last two decades of his life were any guide. He looked back at the other carts, and by the flickering of their glowlamps, he could see that their passengers were up and moving about in confusion too.\n\n“Better have a look,” he said.\n\n“You can’t get off!” Yori protested and he reached out to grab Lodi’s tunic. “If it starts up again, you’ll be left behind!”\n\n“Better me than you, friend.” Lodi chuckled as the dwarf released him. “Besides, I got me a feeling that we ain’t going anywhere.”\n\n“Why do you say that?” Raldrizena demanded, but Lodi had already joined her husband outside the compartment.\n\n“What do you make of it?” he asked the younger dwarf, who was leaning over the rail and peering down into the darkness below.\n\n“Not a damn thing. There isn’t enough light to see anything. You’d think they’ve got an engineer along?”\n\n“Easy enough to find out.” Lodi jerked his thumb towards the rear. Go back and see if anyone in the other compartments knows what’s up. I’m going to check something.”\n\n“What’s that?”\n\nLodi followed the rail around to the front of the cart. Without any glowmoss on the tunnel walls nearby, it was like staring into the mouth of the void. He could sense the huge open space extending for miles before him like a demon’s gullet leading down towards its fiery belly, but he could not see it.\n\nHis own gut was telling him something, but he couldn’t think what it was. Then a thought struck him. He didn’t know how the tunnel-train operated, but he knew it operated on heat. Previously, when he’d stood at the fore of the cart, he’d felt a slight heat coming up from the rails on which it ran. Sometimes there was even the faintest of glows in a line that indicated the track. But now, he could see nothing, and he couldn’t feel any warmth radiating upward either. Well, there was only one way to check.\n\nHe took a deep breath, jumped down from the cart, and knelt down in the middle of the track, hoping the train wouldn’t suddenly spring to life and crush him. But there was little chance of that, for as he feared, the central ridge, a rounded iron tube wider than his leg, was barely warm. There was still a lingering remnant of heat there, but whatever magic or thermal energy had powered it already appeared to have vanished.\n\nHe stood up and placed his hands on his hips, looking up at the cart, wondering what under the Earth they were supposed to do. The carts had no form of self-propulsion, and they could hardly drag them along until they reached another downhill section of track. Even if by some miracle they could, unless the track came to life very slowly, they’d run the risk of failing to get on again before the train picked up speed and left them behind.\n\nIt wasn’t as if they were going to starve. They had sufficient supplies to reach the next station; this close to Iron Mountain there were several stations less than a day apart. What concerned him was what might have caused the system failure. Aside from the siege, when the entire tunnel had been collapsed for ten leagues in order to keep the orcs from finding it and exploring it, he had never heard of the tunnel-train going out of order before. It had few moving parts and the technology developed by the legendary Dworris the Digger had been old before Lodi’s great-grandfather was born.\n\n“Better not be damn orcs again,” he muttered as he climbed back aboard the cart. He’d had about enough of the cursed creatures. He saw Raldri and the two twins were talking in low voices with a strange dwarf outside the compartment. As he slipped under the railing, he grunted, and they turned towards him in near unison.\n\n“This is Khurzo,” Yori introduced the stranger. “His brother is the station-master three stops back.”\n\n“The rail is cold,” Lodi said. “That’s why the train ain’t moving.”\n\n“It’s cold?” Khurzo gasped. “That’s not supposed to be possible!”\n\n“Jump off and see for yourself.” To his surprise, the dwarf nodded and did just that. Lodi shrugged and turned to the others. “Get the lasses to packing as much food and water as they can in whatever we can carry. Then have them make torches from whatever they can find. I got my axe and another knife in stowage. Any of you got any weapons? Or armor?”\n\nRaldri had a long knife, but Yori and Thori were unarmed. “We can open one of the crates, take out the pickaxes,” Yori suggested.\n\n“We can’t do that? They’ll lose a third of their value if they’re scratched! How can we say they’re new if they’re all blunted and banged up?” Thori said.\n\n“We can’t sell anything if we get caught unarmed by cave goblins, Thori,” his brother pointed out. “We’ll be dead.”\n\n“You don’t think it’s cave goblins, do you?” Raldri sounded nervous. “Or orcs?”\n\n“I don’t think anything,” he said. “I know we can’t stay here. What we can do is gear up and walk to the next station. It’s been a while since we passed the last one, so it can’t take us more than thirty-six hours, and probably won’t take more’n eighteen. But one thing I learned above is that you don’t go nowhere without being ready for trouble.”\n\nAt first, the twins and Raldrizena resisted the idea of leaving the false safety of the cart. Myf, he was pleased to see, no sooner heard his instructions than she went about the preparations he’d ordered, although she was as silent as ever as she did so. The dwarves on the carts farther back were slow to go about it, judging by the sounds that echoed off the rock walls of the tunnel, but the longer the train sat motionless in the darkness, the more dwarves seemed to decide that they couldn’t simply sit there and wait for it to start moving again.\n\nAs Myf was tying a second skin of water to the backpack he didn’t remember her having, he caught her arm. Her eyes were wide in the yellow glowlight, and for a moment, he almost forgot what he’d intended to tell her. “Look, I know keeping your mouth shut is important to you for Hublok Otek knows what reason. But I promised those folk that I’d bring you back to your kin and I aim to do that. Now we don’t know what’s out there in the dark, but if we run into something, and my gut tells me we’re going to, you need to listen to me. And that means you’ve got to talk to me. Can you do that?”\n\nShe looked down at the floor. He wasn’t certain in the light, but he thought perhaps her cheeks might have reddened somewhat. “We can… it is permitted to speak to the Skyburned in cases of emergency, and I have been placed in your charge. I am correct in thinking this may be one?”\n\nSkyburned? That was a new one on him. He pursed his lips. “An emergency? I don’t truly know, lass. But I seen a fair amount o’ brouhahas in my day, and one thing I know is if you wait until you’re sure, you’ll wait too long.”\n\n“I have seen–” she stopped herself. “I know you are a great warrior, Lodi, son of Dunmorin. And you are a good dwarf, though you are Burned. I will obey you. And I will speak to you since you tell me I must.”\n\nHe stared at her, and for the first time her innocent emerald eyes met his. Something twisted inside him, something broke, as if a very old scar had finally given way. And he decided, as he looked into her unblinking gaze, that he would die before he would permit anything to happen to her.\n\n“All right, you do that,” he said gruffly. Then he turned his back on her and stalked out of the compartment to see what the twins were doing with their damned pickaxes.\n", "completion": "“We’re not moving,” he announced unnecessarily.\n\nLodi pushed himself to his feet. He had a bad feeling about this. Everything had gone smoothly, much too smoothly, if the last two decades of his life were any guide. He looked back at the other carts, and by the flickering of their glowlamps, he could see that their passengers were up and moving about in confusion too.\n\n“Better have a look,” he said.\n\n“You can’t get off!” Yori protested and he reached out to grab Lodi’s tunic. “If it starts up again, you’ll be left behind!”\n\n“Better me than you, friend.” Lodi chuckled as the dwarf released him. “Besides, I got me a feeling that we ain’t going anywhere.”\n\n“Why do you say that?” Raldrizena demanded, but Lodi had already joined her husband outside the compartment.\n\n“What do you make of it?” he asked the younger dwarf, who was leaning over the rail and peering down into the darkness below.\n\n“Not a damn thing. There isn’t enough light to see anything. You’d think they’ve got an engineer along?”\n\n“Easy enough to find out.” Lodi jerked his thumb towards the rear. Go back and see if anyone in the other compartments knows what’s up. I’m going to check something.”\n\n“What’s that?”\n\nLodi followed the rail around to the front of the cart. Without any glowmoss on the tunnel walls nearby, it was like staring into the mouth of the void. He could sense the huge open space extending for miles before him like a demon’s gullet leading down towards its fiery belly, but he could not see it.\n\nHis own gut was telling him something, but he couldn’t think what it was. Then a thought struck him. He didn’t know how the tunnel-train operated, but he knew it operated on heat. Previously, when he’d stood at the fore of the cart, he’d felt a slight heat coming up from the rails on which it ran. Sometimes there was even the faintest of glows in a line that indicated the track. But now, he could see nothing, and he couldn’t feel any warmth radiating upward either. Well, there was only one way to check.\n\nHe took a deep breath, jumped down from the cart, and knelt down in the middle of the track, hoping the train wouldn’t suddenly spring to life and crush him. But there was little chance of that, for as he feared, the central ridge, a rounded iron tube wider than his leg, was barely warm. There was still a lingering remnant of heat there, but whatever magic or thermal energy had powered it already appeared to have vanished.\n\nHe stood up and placed his hands on his hips, looking up at the cart, wondering what under the Earth they were supposed to do. The carts had no form of self-propulsion, and they could hardly drag them along until they reached another downhill section of track. Even if by some miracle they could, unless the track came to life very slowly, they’d run the risk of failing to get on again before the train picked up speed and left them behind.\n\nIt wasn’t as if they were going to starve. They had sufficient supplies to reach the next station; this close to Iron Mountain there were several stations less than a day apart. What concerned him was what might have caused the system failure. Aside from the siege, when the entire tunnel had been collapsed for ten leagues in order to keep the orcs from finding it and exploring it, he had never heard of the tunnel-train going out of order before. It had few moving parts and the technology developed by the legendary Dworris the Digger had been old before Lodi’s great-grandfather was born.\n\n“Better not be damn orcs again,” he muttered as he climbed back aboard the cart. He’d had about enough of the cursed creatures. He saw Raldri and the two twins were talking in low voices with a strange dwarf outside the compartment. As he slipped under the railing, he grunted, and they turned towards him in near unison.\n\n“This is Khurzo,” Yori introduced the stranger. “His brother is the station-master three stops back.”\n\n“The rail is cold,” Lodi said. “That’s why the train ain’t moving.”\n\n“It’s cold?” Khurzo gasped. “That’s not supposed to be possible!”\n\n“Jump off and see for yourself.” To his surprise, the dwarf nodded and did just that. Lodi shrugged and turned to the others. “Get the lasses to packing as much food and water as they can in whatever we can carry. Then have them make torches from whatever they can find. I got my axe and another knife in stowage. Any of you got any weapons? Or armor?”\n\nRaldri had a long knife, but Yori and Thori were unarmed. “We can open one of the crates, take out the pickaxes,” Yori suggested.\n\n“We can’t do that? They’ll lose a third of their value if they’re scratched! How can we say they’re new if they’re all blunted and banged up?” Thori said.\n\n“We can’t sell anything if we get caught unarmed by cave goblins, Thori,” his brother pointed out. “We’ll be dead.”\n\n“You don’t think it’s cave goblins, do you?” Raldri sounded nervous. “Or orcs?”\n\n“I don’t think anything,” he said. “I know we can’t stay here. What we can do is gear up and walk to the next station. It’s been a while since we passed the last one, so it can’t take us more than thirty-six hours, and probably won’t take more’n eighteen. But one thing I learned above is that you don’t go nowhere without being ready for trouble.”\n\nAt first, the twins and Raldrizena resisted the idea of leaving the false safety of the cart. Myf, he was pleased to see, no sooner heard his instructions than she went about the preparations he’d ordered, although she was as silent as ever as she did so. The dwarves on the carts farther back were slow to go about it, judging by the sounds that echoed off the rock walls of the tunnel, but the longer the train sat motionless in the darkness, the more dwarves seemed to decide that they couldn’t simply sit there and wait for it to start moving again.\n\nAs Myf was tying a second skin of water to the backpack he didn’t remember her having, he caught her arm. Her eyes were wide in the yellow glowlight, and for a moment, he almost forgot what he’d intended to tell her. “Look, I know keeping your mouth shut is important to you for Hublok Otek knows what reason. But I promised those folk that I’d bring you back to your kin and I aim to do that. Now we don’t know what’s out there in the dark, but if we run into something, and my gut tells me we’re going to, you need to listen to me. And that means you’ve got to talk to me. Can you do that?”\n\nShe looked down at the floor. He wasn’t certain in the light, but he thought perhaps her cheeks might have reddened somewhat. “We can… it is permitted to speak to the Skyburned in cases of emergency, and I have been placed in your charge. I am correct in thinking this may be one?”\n\nSkyburned? That was a new one on him. He pursed his lips. “An emergency? I don’t truly know, lass. But I seen a fair amount o’ brouhahas in my day, and one thing I know is if you wait until you’re sure, you’ll wait too long.”\n\n“I have seen–” she stopped herself. “I know you are a great warrior, Lodi, son of Dunmorin. And you are a good dwarf, though you are Burned. I will obey you. And I will speak to you since you tell me I must.”\n\nHe stared at her, and for the first time her innocent emerald eyes met his. Something twisted inside him, something broke, as if a very old scar had finally given way. And he decided, as he looked into her unblinking gaze, that he would die before he would permit anything to happen to her.\n\n“All right, you do that,” he said gruffly. Then he turned his back on her and stalked out of the compartment to see what the twins were doing with their damned pickaxes.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1453, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch13_lodi-P3", "chapter": "ch13_lodi", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nBoru — older siege veteran in full plate with great-axe.\npaslhas / paslidhas / paslido — dwarf children/women forms as written.\nKingsguard — battle-cry and office; one word, capital K.\nUnderdeep — deeper threat-place; one word, capital U when the abyss is meant.\npyrite — dwarven insult-metal; lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nOn the fourth day downward with silent Myf, Lodi’s tunnel-train passenger cart halts without warning after days of stories and Grag.\n\nHe finds the thermal rail cold, orders the compartments to pack food, water, torches, and weapons, and forces Myf to speak—Deepling law allows talk to the Skyburned in emergency; she will obey—then turns away before her eyes unmake him.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nLeading thirty-six armed dwarves plus ten paslhas; chain preferred to Boru’s plate on the incline. Posts guards, checks Myf’s dagger, leaves noncombatants with Raldri when fire and steel sound ahead. First into the station fight; bisects a scaled yellow-eyed dwarf-thing and roars Kingsguard.\n\nBoru\nForty years older; plate and helm; shares the lead; winded on the uphill; forms four rows of six.\n\nOrin\nFear-wild in the second row; sticks with Lodi on a joke that breaks nervous laughter.\n\nMyf\nArmed with Lodi’s dagger; left with Raldri’s rear guard when the fighting party goes forward.\n\nRaldri\nTrusted to hold the noncombatants three hundred steps back for one hour, then retreat to the train.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAt first, the twins and Raldrizena resisted the idea of leaving the false safety of the cart. Myf, he was pleased to see, no sooner heard his instructions than she went about the preparations he’d ordered, although she was as silent as ever as she did so. The dwarves on the carts farther back were slow to go about it, judging by the sounds that echoed off the rock walls of the tunnel, but the longer the train sat motionless in the darkness, the more dwarves seemed to decide that they couldn’t simply sit there and wait for it to start moving again.\n\nAs Myf was tying a second skin of water to the backpack he didn’t remember her having, he caught her arm. Her eyes were wide in the yellow glowlight, and for a moment, he almost forgot what he’d intended to tell her. “Look, I know keeping your mouth shut is important to you for Hublok Otek knows what reason. But I promised those folk that I’d bring you back to your kin and I aim to do that. Now we don’t know what’s out there in the dark, but if we run into something, and my gut tells me we’re going to, you need to listen to me. And that means you’ve got to talk to me. Can you do that?”\n\nShe looked down at the floor. He wasn’t certain in the light, but he thought perhaps her cheeks might have reddened somewhat. “We can… it is permitted to speak to the Skyburned in cases of emergency, and I have been placed in your charge. I am correct in thinking this may be one?”\n\nSkyburned? That was a new one on him. He pursed his lips. “An emergency? I don’t truly know, lass. But I seen a fair amount o’ brouhahas in my day, and one thing I know is if you wait until you’re sure, you’ll wait too long.”\n\n“I have seen–” she stopped herself. “I know you are a great warrior, Lodi, son of Dunmorin. And you are a good dwarf, though you are Burned. I will obey you. And I will speak to you since you tell me I must.”\n\nHe stared at her, and for the first time her innocent emerald eyes met his. Something twisted inside him, something broke, as if a very old scar had finally given way. And he decided, as he looked into her unblinking gaze, that he would die before he would permit anything to happen to her.\n\n“All right, you do that,” he said gruffly. Then he turned his back on her and stalked out of the compartment to see what the twins were doing with their damned pickaxes.\n\n### NOTES\nHour-plus to ready; thirty-six males armed, many with named new pickaxes; ten paslhas with the women in the middle.\nWalk: uphill, then flat, then gentle decline; tunnel arcs left.\nSmoke and flicker ahead; fire is dwarf-lethal underground.\nStation town under attack; two buildings alight; defenders already sanding one fire.\nEnemy first seen: dwarf-shaped, metallic scales, yellow eyes, iron bar.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nAn hour later every male is armed and the column walks the dead track—Lodi, Orin, and plated Boru on point, Raldri and the twins at the rear, Myf with a dagger and a shy remark that he looks fierce. Crest, post watches, move again. Mining noises that should not be; then glow, smoke, fire, and steel. Noncombatants fall back under Raldri; twenty-four green pickaxe hands get one lesson—poke and bash—and follow into the station.\n\nPlatform, formation, and a scaled yellow-eyed dwarf-thing smashes the local line and comes for him. He kneels under the bar and shears it in half; red blood; Kingsguard roared from a throat that did not plan the word. The scene ends as he leads them into the fray.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2000 words. March tense, fight concrete. Land on the Kingsguard charge; do not resolve the battle.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "By the time the other compartments were packed and ready to leave, more than an hour had passed, and even Raldrizena was now convinced that the train wasn’t going anywhere. Every male dwarf was armed, many of them with the shiny new pickaxes that Yori had mournfully distributed, muttering darkly under his breath each time he ran his fingers over the runes inscribed with the prospective owner’s name. They were thirty-six strong, plus another ten paslhas who joined Raldri’s wife and Myf in the middle of their loose formation.\n\nLodi, Orin, and another veteran of the great siege took the lead; Boru was forty years older than him, and he had been traveling to Iron Mountain with his great-axe and a full suit of plate armor, complete with helm. They both slung their axes around their backs and carried torches, as did every fifth dwarf behind them. Raldri and the twins brought up the rear; Lodi didn’t know them well, but he had enough sense of their character that he trusted them to keep the others moving.\n\n“Is this what soldiering is like?” Orin asked after they’d been walking for a while. He was panting a little, as they were laboring up an incline that seemed considerably steeper than any they’d climbed on the train.\n\n“You bored?” Boru asked.\n\n“I don’t know, I suppose. I mean, we’re just going from nowhere to nowhere in the dark.”\n\n“Yeah, that’s pretty much what it is,” Lodi growled. “Except it ain’t so boring when a bunch o’ screaming orcs is trying to chop you to bits.”\n\n“I suppose boring ain’t so bad,” Orin said after a moment’s reflection.\n\n“No, it ain’t,” Boru agreed, huffing and puffing in his heavy armor. “Dammit, Lodi, I may have to take this off if we got to keep going up instead of down!”\n\nFortunately, they crested the rise before too much longer, at which point Lodi called for a halt. He posted one pair of guards ahead and another behind the party; one thing he’d learned about tunnel wars was that the enemy could appear from anywhere, including above or below. After reassuring the grumbling guards that a rotating schedule would be established, he went to find Myf and see how she was doing. She was sharing her water with a young dwarf who seemed to be regarding their unexpected jaunt as an adventure and a lark.\n\n“Are you holding up all right?” he asked.\n\nShe looked up at him and smiled shyly. “You look very fierce in that armor.”\n\n“It beats plate for hiking. I daresay Boru started wishing he was wearing chain before we even hit that hill.” He kneeled down and ruffled the hair of the paslido. “You take good care of the lady, now.”\n\n“My mama is scared, but I’m not,” the young dwarf declared. “I wanted a pick, but they said they was too heavy.”\n\nLodi laughed. “Give it time, little one.” He glanced at Myf. “Got that dagger I gave you?”\n\n“Right here.” She pulled back her cloak and showed how she’d slipped it into an impromptu rope belt.\n\n“Good,” he said. “Things get confusing in the dark. Remember, stay low and strike low, and always slash up, not down.”\n\nHe nodded to the paslido again and walked back to the front, exchanging words and answering questions without stopping until he’d reached Boru and the two guards.\n\n“Hear anything?”\n\n“Nothing, sir,” one of the guards said. He was even older than Boru, but something about the easy way he leaned upon his pickaxe told Lodi he’d seen war.\n\n“Good. Boru, you catch your breath yet? No sense wearing that gear if you’re too tired to fight if we get jumped.”\n\n“Shut your filthy pyrite mouth,” Boru shot back. “Sooner we get going, sooner we get there.”\n\n“All right.” Lodi took a torch from the old guard and sent the two of them to spread the word that they were about to start moving again. “Tell everyone to stay close, I don’t want anyone getting left behind.”\n\nThey waited and watched the bobbing torch make its way back, then Lodi nodded at Boru and they began their long march anew. The track was entirely cold now and devoid of any hint of life. It was flat for a while, then almost imperceptibly began declining, although not so steeply that it was necessary to lean backward to fight it. The tunnel seemed to be arcing to the left, and for a moment, Lodi could have sworn that he heard mining sounds coming from somewhere overhead. But that made no sense, they were too deep for surface dwellers to be digging down, and too close to the tunnel for it to be a mining operation.\n\n“I can’t hear it, but my ears are older’n yourn,” Boru said after Lodi drew it to his attention. “This deep, the rocks are alive, and sometimes they talk.”\n\nLodi shrugged. Sometimes the earth really did move, and obviously, that was bound to make some noise. Although there were no visible signs of the next station, he began to feel they were getting close. A faint glow appeared ahead.\n\n“Do you see that?”\n\n“Probably just a waymarker. And not necessarily the last one.”\n\nBut as they walked on, it gradually became apparent that the glow was too bright to be a mere waymarker. Lodi soon saw that the light was flickering, even as it seemed to be growing in intensity. And then he scented smoke, a more pungent, more powerful scent than the one given off by the torch he was holding.\n\n“That’s fire!” he blurted.\n\n“What should we do?”\n\n“I don’t know, but we can’t go back! Let’s go see if we can help put it out. If it gets too big, it could smother us all!” Fire was one of the great fears of the dwarves, it was both their most vital friend and their most lethal foe. More dwarves died every year of smoke inhalation than of mining accidents, getting lost, and cave goblin attacks combined.\n\nHe barked word back to the rest and they picked up the pace. But as they drew nearer, the sounds of conflict could be heard. Lodi couldn’t tell if it was goblins, orcs, or simple dwarf-on-dwarf violence, but whatever it was, it was definitely no place for paslhas and paslidhas. He called Raldri forward.\n\n“Pick out ten to stay and guard the others. Fall back about 300 steps and wait one hour, but no more! If one of us doesn’t get word back to you then, lead them back to the train and wait there. We’ll all leave our food and water here for you; someone will have to come eventually.”\n\n“What’s going on up there?” Raldri said, trying, and not entirely succeeding, to avoid sounding relieved that he wouldn’t be finding out soon. The clash of metal on metal was more apparent now that they knew what they were hearing.\n\n“Somebody’s trying to kill somebody else. We’re either going to help them or stop them.”\n\n“Okay.” Raldri put his hand on Lodi’s armored shoulder. “You can count on me, Lodi.”\n\n“I am,” Lodi said. “Keep an eye on Myf, you’ll have to see her deep if I can’t.”\n\nThe younger dwarf nodded; Lodi swatted him on the back and jogged forward to join the makeshift company that Boru had organized into four rows of six. Even in the dim, flickering torchlight he could see that their faces were strained and the knuckles that gripped their shiny new pickaxes were white. Poor lads. It was a hell of a way to go into battle for the first time, untrained, unarmored, and completely uninformed about the enemy.\n\nThere wasn’t much time for instructions or encouragement, so he kept it simple. “Follow Boru and me and keep it tight, lads. We don’t know what we’ll find, so be ready for anything. Watch the sides of the dwarf next to you and poke with the flat head, don’t swing it and get it stuck. Bash, don’t stab!”\n\nHe spotted Orin in the second row, his eyes wild with fear in his black-bearded face. “Oi, Orin, you’re all right, lad. Stick with me and we’ll see it through.”\n\n“Just a little sooner than I was expecting, Lodi.”\n\nLodi frowned as half the dwarves burst out laughing even though they couldn’t have possibly known what Orin meant. It was nervous laughter, bordering on hysteria. “Keep it tight, lads,” he repeated. “Poke and bash, don’t swing and stab. Now, follow me!”\n\nHe hurled the torch aside and slipped his two-handed axe over his head. Boru was already holding his double-bladed great axe in both hands. Without further ado, he began jogging forward, not looking back to see if the others were following. The sound of battle grew louder as they approached the light, and Lodi could feel a slight warmth on his face from the burning fires.\n\nAs they rounded the final curve, he realized that the station, indeed, the town, was under attack. The situation wasn’t as quite as bad as he feared, as two buildings at the station were alight, but there was a team of dwarves already busily engaged in putting one of them out with sand, gravel, and water that was being pumped from a reservoir he couldn’t see.\n\nHe couldn’t quite see who their fellows were fighting, as being down on the level of the track, all he could see was the backs of the rearmost dwarves. When they reached the platform, he slid his axe onto it, clambered up, then turned around and extended a hand to help the dwarves following him, pulling them up one after the other while Boru got them back into formation.\n\nHe had just gotten back to the front when as something smashed its way through the thin defensive line set up by the station dwarves, felling one dwarf before shoving the dwarf next to him aside. It locked eyes with Lodi as he brandished his axe and then it bared its teeth as it gave an angry, unintelligible war cry.\n\nLodi nearly dropped his axe. Not because he was frightened, but because he had never, ever seen anything like the creature that stood in front of him, holding a crude iron bar in one hand. It looked like a dwarf, but a dwarf that was encased in some sort of metallic scales instead of skin and its eyes were yellow like an orc or a goblin. Was it armor? Or was it some sort of unholy abomination from the Underdeep?\n\nWhatever it was, it leaped at him, swinging its weapon horizontally at his head. Lodi dropped to one knee and the bar passed over him even as he swung his axe in a vicious plane about two arms-lengths below it. He saw that the creature bled just as red as any other dwarf as the upper half of its body abruptly parted company with the lower half, showering him with its blood.\n\nHe rose quickly to his feet, gore dripping from his axe. “Kingsguard!” he roared without even realizing what he was shouting. “Kingsguard!” the dwarves behind him echoed. And then he led them forward into the fray.\n", "completion": "By the time the other compartments were packed and ready to leave, more than an hour had passed, and even Raldrizena was now convinced that the train wasn’t going anywhere. Every male dwarf was armed, many of them with the shiny new pickaxes that Yori had mournfully distributed, muttering darkly under his breath each time he ran his fingers over the runes inscribed with the prospective owner’s name. They were thirty-six strong, plus another ten paslhas who joined Raldri’s wife and Myf in the middle of their loose formation.\n\nLodi, Orin, and another veteran of the great siege took the lead; Boru was forty years older than him, and he had been traveling to Iron Mountain with his great-axe and a full suit of plate armor, complete with helm. They both slung their axes around their backs and carried torches, as did every fifth dwarf behind them. Raldri and the twins brought up the rear; Lodi didn’t know them well, but he had enough sense of their character that he trusted them to keep the others moving.\n\n“Is this what soldiering is like?” Orin asked after they’d been walking for a while. He was panting a little, as they were laboring up an incline that seemed considerably steeper than any they’d climbed on the train.\n\n“You bored?” Boru asked.\n\n“I don’t know, I suppose. I mean, we’re just going from nowhere to nowhere in the dark.”\n\n“Yeah, that’s pretty much what it is,” Lodi growled. “Except it ain’t so boring when a bunch o’ screaming orcs is trying to chop you to bits.”\n\n“I suppose boring ain’t so bad,” Orin said after a moment’s reflection.\n\n“No, it ain’t,” Boru agreed, huffing and puffing in his heavy armor. “Dammit, Lodi, I may have to take this off if we got to keep going up instead of down!”\n\nFortunately, they crested the rise before too much longer, at which point Lodi called for a halt. He posted one pair of guards ahead and another behind the party; one thing he’d learned about tunnel wars was that the enemy could appear from anywhere, including above or below. After reassuring the grumbling guards that a rotating schedule would be established, he went to find Myf and see how she was doing. She was sharing her water with a young dwarf who seemed to be regarding their unexpected jaunt as an adventure and a lark.\n\n“Are you holding up all right?” he asked.\n\nShe looked up at him and smiled shyly. “You look very fierce in that armor.”\n\n“It beats plate for hiking. I daresay Boru started wishing he was wearing chain before we even hit that hill.” He kneeled down and ruffled the hair of the paslido. “You take good care of the lady, now.”\n\n“My mama is scared, but I’m not,” the young dwarf declared. “I wanted a pick, but they said they was too heavy.”\n\nLodi laughed. “Give it time, little one.” He glanced at Myf. “Got that dagger I gave you?”\n\n“Right here.” She pulled back her cloak and showed how she’d slipped it into an impromptu rope belt.\n\n“Good,” he said. “Things get confusing in the dark. Remember, stay low and strike low, and always slash up, not down.”\n\nHe nodded to the paslido again and walked back to the front, exchanging words and answering questions without stopping until he’d reached Boru and the two guards.\n\n“Hear anything?”\n\n“Nothing, sir,” one of the guards said. He was even older than Boru, but something about the easy way he leaned upon his pickaxe told Lodi he’d seen war.\n\n“Good. Boru, you catch your breath yet? No sense wearing that gear if you’re too tired to fight if we get jumped.”\n\n“Shut your filthy pyrite mouth,” Boru shot back. “Sooner we get going, sooner we get there.”\n\n“All right.” Lodi took a torch from the old guard and sent the two of them to spread the word that they were about to start moving again. “Tell everyone to stay close, I don’t want anyone getting left behind.”\n\nThey waited and watched the bobbing torch make its way back, then Lodi nodded at Boru and they began their long march anew. The track was entirely cold now and devoid of any hint of life. It was flat for a while, then almost imperceptibly began declining, although not so steeply that it was necessary to lean backward to fight it. The tunnel seemed to be arcing to the left, and for a moment, Lodi could have sworn that he heard mining sounds coming from somewhere overhead. But that made no sense, they were too deep for surface dwellers to be digging down, and too close to the tunnel for it to be a mining operation.\n\n“I can’t hear it, but my ears are older’n yourn,” Boru said after Lodi drew it to his attention. “This deep, the rocks are alive, and sometimes they talk.”\n\nLodi shrugged. Sometimes the earth really did move, and obviously, that was bound to make some noise. Although there were no visible signs of the next station, he began to feel they were getting close. A faint glow appeared ahead.\n\n“Do you see that?”\n\n“Probably just a waymarker. And not necessarily the last one.”\n\nBut as they walked on, it gradually became apparent that the glow was too bright to be a mere waymarker. Lodi soon saw that the light was flickering, even as it seemed to be growing in intensity. And then he scented smoke, a more pungent, more powerful scent than the one given off by the torch he was holding.\n\n“That’s fire!” he blurted.\n\n“What should we do?”\n\n“I don’t know, but we can’t go back! Let’s go see if we can help put it out. If it gets too big, it could smother us all!” Fire was one of the great fears of the dwarves, it was both their most vital friend and their most lethal foe. More dwarves died every year of smoke inhalation than of mining accidents, getting lost, and cave goblin attacks combined.\n\nHe barked word back to the rest and they picked up the pace. But as they drew nearer, the sounds of conflict could be heard. Lodi couldn’t tell if it was goblins, orcs, or simple dwarf-on-dwarf violence, but whatever it was, it was definitely no place for paslhas and paslidhas. He called Raldri forward.\n\n“Pick out ten to stay and guard the others. Fall back about 300 steps and wait one hour, but no more! If one of us doesn’t get word back to you then, lead them back to the train and wait there. We’ll all leave our food and water here for you; someone will have to come eventually.”\n\n“What’s going on up there?” Raldri said, trying, and not entirely succeeding, to avoid sounding relieved that he wouldn’t be finding out soon. The clash of metal on metal was more apparent now that they knew what they were hearing.\n\n“Somebody’s trying to kill somebody else. We’re either going to help them or stop them.”\n\n“Okay.” Raldri put his hand on Lodi’s armored shoulder. “You can count on me, Lodi.”\n\n“I am,” Lodi said. “Keep an eye on Myf, you’ll have to see her deep if I can’t.”\n\nThe younger dwarf nodded; Lodi swatted him on the back and jogged forward to join the makeshift company that Boru had organized into four rows of six. Even in the dim, flickering torchlight he could see that their faces were strained and the knuckles that gripped their shiny new pickaxes were white. Poor lads. It was a hell of a way to go into battle for the first time, untrained, unarmored, and completely uninformed about the enemy.\n\nThere wasn’t much time for instructions or encouragement, so he kept it simple. “Follow Boru and me and keep it tight, lads. We don’t know what we’ll find, so be ready for anything. Watch the sides of the dwarf next to you and poke with the flat head, don’t swing it and get it stuck. Bash, don’t stab!”\n\nHe spotted Orin in the second row, his eyes wild with fear in his black-bearded face. “Oi, Orin, you’re all right, lad. Stick with me and we’ll see it through.”\n\n“Just a little sooner than I was expecting, Lodi.”\n\nLodi frowned as half the dwarves burst out laughing even though they couldn’t have possibly known what Orin meant. It was nervous laughter, bordering on hysteria. “Keep it tight, lads,” he repeated. “Poke and bash, don’t swing and stab. Now, follow me!”\n\nHe hurled the torch aside and slipped his two-handed axe over his head. Boru was already holding his double-bladed great axe in both hands. Without further ado, he began jogging forward, not looking back to see if the others were following. The sound of battle grew louder as they approached the light, and Lodi could feel a slight warmth on his face from the burning fires.\n\nAs they rounded the final curve, he realized that the station, indeed, the town, was under attack. The situation wasn’t as quite as bad as he feared, as two buildings at the station were alight, but there was a team of dwarves already busily engaged in putting one of them out with sand, gravel, and water that was being pumped from a reservoir he couldn’t see.\n\nHe couldn’t quite see who their fellows were fighting, as being down on the level of the track, all he could see was the backs of the rearmost dwarves. When they reached the platform, he slid his axe onto it, clambered up, then turned around and extended a hand to help the dwarves following him, pulling them up one after the other while Boru got them back into formation.\n\nHe had just gotten back to the front when as something smashed its way through the thin defensive line set up by the station dwarves, felling one dwarf before shoving the dwarf next to him aside. It locked eyes with Lodi as he brandished his axe and then it bared its teeth as it gave an angry, unintelligible war cry.\n\nLodi nearly dropped his axe. Not because he was frightened, but because he had never, ever seen anything like the creature that stood in front of him, holding a crude iron bar in one hand. It looked like a dwarf, but a dwarf that was encased in some sort of metallic scales instead of skin and its eyes were yellow like an orc or a goblin. Was it armor? Or was it some sort of unholy abomination from the Underdeep?\n\nWhatever it was, it leaped at him, swinging its weapon horizontally at his head. Lodi dropped to one knee and the bar passed over him even as he swung his axe in a vicious plane about two arms-lengths below it. He saw that the creature bled just as red as any other dwarf as the upper half of its body abruptly parted company with the lower half, showering him with its blood.\n\nHe rose quickly to his feet, gore dripping from his axe. “Kingsguard!” he roared without even realizing what he was shouting. “Kingsguard!” the dwarves behind him echoed. And then he led them forward into the fray.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1930, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch14_steinthor-P1", "chapter": "ch14_steinthor", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSteinthor / Strongbow — viewpoint captain; both names as written.\nRaknarborg — fortress name; keep spelling.\nSkullbreaker / Skuli — absent warleader; forms as written.\nMord Redcheek / Redcheek — sails with Skullbreaker on Ulvdræber.\nUlvdræber — longship name; keep spelling.\nHorse-Bjorn — one-armed captain; hyphenated.\nOttar the Grævling / the Grævling — last-resort captain; æ as written.\nHrafnkel Half-Giant / Half-Giant — huge wounded captain.\nAalvarg — wolf-demon foe; keep spelling.\nIngoberg — jarl’s daughter / Skullbreaker’s wife in the song.\nGlaðsheimr / Hjaldrgoð / Knokkelmanden / Loptrbørn / Hel — northern myth names; keep forms.\nFordømme — curse; keep spelling.\nBosi — one-armed messenger cousin of Horse-Bjorn.\nFifteen Clans — capitalized as written.\nChoosers — valkyrie-sense; capital C as used.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSteinthor Strongbow\nDalarn captain holding Raknarborg’s last night after sending Skullbreaker and Redcheek out on Ulvdræber. Alive, limping, wounded, secretly still holding Ingoberg in his heart—and about to sing it. Commands for one night only; promises certain death. Not afraid to die; impatient for the wolf.\n\nHorse-Bjorn\nShield arm bound; mead in hand; knew the Ingoberg secret; will hold the North Tower line drunk and grinning.\n\nHrafnkel Half-Giant\nOne eye gone, thigh speared, clumsy, prodigiously strong; will stay and die with twenty-five on the tower.\n\nOttar the Grævling\nIron-fever flush; grey head; holds the weapon of last resort in the keep; calm when Steinthor leaves.\n\nBosi\nHorse-Bjorn’s cousin; sword arm gone at the elbow, stump infected; messenger who brings the word they come.\n\nSkullbreaker / Mord Redcheek\nNot present; Ulvdræber already lost in the dark under black sails—Steinthor’s first secret shared with the defenders.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nFinal night at Raknarborg; starless dark; east wind; sea to the south.\nCentral keep staging room strewn with arms; mead flowing.\nNorth Tower is the habitual Aalvarg focus; East and West get skeleton watches.\nUlvdræber already six leagues gone if the wind holds; no pursuit seen.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Steinthor.\n\nFrom the sea tower he watches Ulvdræber’s black sails vanish with Skullbreaker and Redcheek—ruse worked, no pursuit—then descends to the keep where Horse-Bjorn, the Grævling, and Half-Giant wait wounded among the last bodyguard. He claims command for the night and nothing but a warrior’s death, then sings his death-song aloud: Ingoberg, cowardice of silence, wolves and crows, Glaðsheimr. Mead and tears; Horse-Bjorn already knew the secret and thumps him for it; Half-Giant vows to stand. Bosi stumps down the stairs: the wolves are coming. Men arm; Steinthor straps Horse-Bjorn’s shield to a dead arm; the Grævling stays for the last resort and tells him to go. The scene ends as Steinthor leaves the keep for the North Tower, before the howls take the rampart.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2000 words. Northern war-band register; song unbroken. Land as he goes to the tower; do not start the climb-fight.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Steinthor Strongbow was privy to two secrets. The first belonged to several of the others numbered among Raknarborg’s final defenders. The other was his alone. In the meantime, he was greatly relieved to see that the Redcheek’s ruse had worked, and he watched as the black sails of the last longship grew smaller as Ulvdræber sailed forth under a dark, starless sky. Soon the longship disappeared into the deepening gloom no eyes, however keen, could penetrate. Even if there were wolves on the shore who had seen Ulvdræber depart, the longship was now safe from any pursuit.\n\n“Fare you well, Skullbreaker,” he said aloud. “Fare you well, Redcheek.”\n\nHe turned back from the arrow-slit from which he was peering and descended down the wooden stairs of the sea tower into the room in the central keep that was now serving as their final staging ground. Armor, shields, axes, and spears were scattered throughout the room, leaned against walls and tables or simply piled haphazardly on the floor. The other four captains were waiting for him there, along with twelve or fifteen other men who were acting as his bodyguard for this, the final battle. All of them were wounded, some worse than others. Horse-Bjorn was drinking from a large mug of mead with his shield arm bound closely to his breast. Ottar the Grævling stood at his side, his face flushed with the iron-fever that would not kill him now. Hrafnkel Half-Giant towered over the rest of them, his head nearly touching the giant beams of the ceiling.\n\nUpon hearing his approach, they turned to him, waiting for his news.\n\n“The Skullbreaker took some persuading, but he went with the Redcheek in the end. Ulvdræber is safely away. I saw no sign of pursuit.”\n\nA cheer went up, with two exceptions. The Grævling was lost in his thoughts. The Half-Giant, as was customary, looked vaguely confused.\n\n“Who commands tonight, if the Skullbreaker be gone?”\n\nNot for the first time, Steinthor found himself marveling that despite the man’s prodigious strength, he hadn’t managed to get himself killed in nearly three weeks of near-constant battle. The Aalvarg aside, it was a miracle that Hrafnkel hadn’t broken his massive neck tumbling down a stairwell or falling from a tower. He was clumsy and he was slow-witted, but he could literally rip a wolf-thing in half with his bare hands. Steinthor had seen him do it.\n\nAnd like the rest of those who remained behind, the giant was badly wounded. He had lost an eye early in the siege, and two nights ago an Aalvarg spear penetrated his thigh. Now he limped worse than Steinthor did, and he needed two men, two strong men, to help him navigate the stairs. The Half-Giant would be among the those who were certain to fall tonight. Knowing he could not retreat, the big man had agreed to meet the final assault on the tower with his twenty-five men. They would hold the line and stay behind while the others fell back to the keep.\n\nSteinthor had no doubt that Hrafnkel would slaughter many wolves before he fell. But the grey tide was simply too great, and whoever was commanding the wolves seemed to value Aalvarg lives as little as he did those of their enemies.\n\n“I, Steinthor, the Strongbow, command, Hrafnkel,” he declared loudly. “I promise nothing but death, certain death, a warrior’s death. Our plan is simple. Tonight we fight, and tonight we die. Are there any here who object?”\n\n“Strongbow, the Strongbow!” Horse-Bjorn shouted and others were soon to pick up the cry. “Strongbow!”\n\nSteinthor nodded. For years he had followed the Skullbreaker. For one night, and one night only, he would lead the clans. But first, there was something that must be done. He limped into the center of the room, all eyes upon him.\n\n“Hear now the death-song of Steinthor, by some called the Strongbow,” he called out to them.\n\nThe Wolf lies waiting.\n\nThe Moon covers her silver eyes\n\nIn fear and sorrow.\n\nNo more shall I sing.\n\nSilence will rule over ruins\n\nCome the dawn morrow\n\nNever shall they learn,\n\nFair ladies I have known in love,\n\nFrom enemies’ blows\n\nI backward turned me.\n\nHere shall my body, fallen, lie\n\nDevoured by demons, wolves, and crows.\n\nNor shall she taunt me,\n\nFair Ingoberg, across the sea,\n\nThat from swords I fled\n\nOr from wolves I ran.\n\nAt Raknarborg I stood among my friends,\n\nThe valiant dead.\n\nOnce my courage failed\n\nBefore the white-browed jarl’s daughter.\n\nTo a better man\n\nIt was I lost her.\n\nIn fear I held my tongue and so\n\nDared not ask her hand.\n\nA lasting sorrow comes\n\nThis night to the fair Ingoberg.\n\nNo more shall Steinthor\n\nHold her in his secret heart.\n\nWounded and lame, I stand here, doomed,\n\nOn this Aalvarg-stinking shore.\n\nWill it wring the heart\n\nOf the jarl’s proud, white-browed daughter,\n\nAnd the Skullbreaker’s wife,\n\nWhen comes the crow to tell\n\nOf the red end of Raknarborg\n\nAnd the Strongbow’s life?\n\nKnokkelmanden rides\n\nThe Loptrbørn bear him hither\n\nWhat man here will flee?\n\nWho will run in fear?\n\nI, the Strongbow, will fight the Wolf.\n\nWho here stands with me?\n\nThey come from the North\n\nMighty flocks of famished ravens\n\nWhom I have fed well.\n\nOnce more I feed them.\n\nOn my corpse they’ll gorge and fatten.\n\nBut my spirit,\n\nIn Glaðsheimr,\n\nShall henceforth ever dwell!\n\nAs the last words echoed off the stone walls of the chamber, there was a moment of respectful silence. Then came much whooping and hollering, wooden mugs of mead were raised, and many a surreptitious tear was brushed away.\n\n“Aye, we’ll stand with you, you cowardly bastard,” Horse-Bjorn blustered as he embraced Steinthor and thumped his back. “Did you really think none here knew you were still besotted with the Skullbreaker’s wife after all these years? Fordømme, man! Skuli never forgot how you got there first, but he loved you too far too well to hold it against you.”\n\nSteinthor stared at the big warleader, too surprised to speak.\n\n“You knew?” he finally said.\n\n“Who didn’t?” Horse-Bjorn laughed loudly. “I suppose there might be a few wolves out there from the outer islands that are still in the dark, but there wasn’t a maiden in one of the Fifteen Clans who didn’t envy—what did you call her? Ah yes, ‘the white-browed jarl’s daughter’, the woman who held the hearts of the two greatest warriors left to us in the palm of her pretty hands. Could have been a proper saga in the making there, if only you and the Skullbreaker would have fallen out over her.”\n\n“Never once did we speak of it!”\n\n“Sure, and it would have been damned stupid, considering how we were all fighting for our lives. But men are stupid when it comes to harboring their longships, especially in so sweet a harbor. Believe me, Strongbow, there were women counting their fingers when Brynjolf was born.”\n\n“I never touched her, not after–”\n\n“Oh, I know. I know.” Horse-Bjorn thumped him on the back again. “But it was a bloody good thing you were away reaving at the time or many a wicked tongue would have been set to wagging!”\n\nHrafnkel Half-Giant dragged his huge frame over and lightly placed a massive hand on Steinthor’s shoulder. A dark tear-track ran through his dark brown beard under his remaining eye. “It is my honor to stand with the Strongbow, tonight. We die well, Captain.”\n\nSteinthor placed his own hand over the giant’s. The sight made him smile; it looked like a child reaching out to his father.\n\n“The honor is mine, Half-Giant,” he assured Hrafnkel. “We will kill many wolves. Better than dying in bed like a woman or an old man, eh?”\n\nIn light of the grim night before them, the mood in the room was surprisingly jocular. The mead helped, of course. This was no time to go into battle sober. He accepted a mug from the Grævling, raised to salute the men nearby, and drained it. If the laughter was a little louder than the jests might otherwise have provoked, and if the protestations of indifference towards death sometimes sounded a little forced, it didn’t matter. It was only the way men who lacked true courage found it in the company of their doughtier fellows.\n\nPerhaps they were the bravest of all, Steinthor mused as he quaffed another mug, albeit in a more measured manner. Those who feared death, but feared the contempt of their brothers-in-arms more. He frowned. That didn’t make much sense, come to think of it. Well, it probably wasn’t worth dwelling on. He wasn’t afraid to die, anyhow. He might not be a berserker, biting at his shield and lusting for battle, but he was beginning to feel a little impatient waiting for the wolf to come.\n\nHe was just mulling the wisdom of a third mug when he heard someone’s boots thumping their way down the stairs from the northern tower. It was young Bosi, he saw, Horse-Bjorn’s cousin, who’d been left behind as a result of losing his sword arm at the elbow four days ago. The stump was infected and inflamed, but didn’t prevent him from serving as a messenger for the warriors who remained.\n\n“They come,” he shouted. “The wolves are coming!”\n\nThe men reacted without hesitation, reaching for their spears and shields. Some of the men whose arms were bandaged or missing clamored for help with their armor, and Steinthor helped Horse-Bjorn strap his shield on tightly to his useless arm. The old veteran grinned at him, exposing a line of black and rotted teeth on the left side of his mouth.\n\n“You’re a lucky one, lad. A man can’t lose a battle that’s already lost. If the Choosers turn up their noses at us, I’ll see you in the high hall of Hel.”\n\nSteinthor nodded, suddenly unable to speak. Horse-Bjorn laughed and stepped to the side as four men, their eyes bright and fey, rushed past them up the stairs.\n\n“Never you mind, Steinthor Strongbow. The Skullbreaker would be proud of you. Not every man could turn a collection of half-dead old men and dying boys into a proper fighting force.” He waved to his men. “Come on, lads! With just one arm, I can’t hold them off by myself!”\n\nSteinthor nodded at him and looked to Ottar the Grævling and his five men. They alone were still sitting, knowing that there was no need for them to hurry. The Grævling was the most intelligent of the four captains, so Steinthor had put him in charge of their weapon of last resort. Ottar was of an age with Steinthor, approaching his fourth decade, although his grey head made him look older. Steinthor knew Skuli had considered putting the Ulvdræber expedition in the Grævling’s capable hands, but a sword-thrust through his thigh had made Mord Redcheek the obvious choice.\n\n“Go,” the Grævling said calmly. “Have no fear. If you don’t make it back to the keep, I’ll see it’s done.”\n", "completion": "Steinthor Strongbow was privy to two secrets. The first belonged to several of the others numbered among Raknarborg’s final defenders. The other was his alone. In the meantime, he was greatly relieved to see that the Redcheek’s ruse had worked, and he watched as the black sails of the last longship grew smaller as Ulvdræber sailed forth under a dark, starless sky. Soon the longship disappeared into the deepening gloom no eyes, however keen, could penetrate. Even if there were wolves on the shore who had seen Ulvdræber depart, the longship was now safe from any pursuit.\n\n“Fare you well, Skullbreaker,” he said aloud. “Fare you well, Redcheek.”\n\nHe turned back from the arrow-slit from which he was peering and descended down the wooden stairs of the sea tower into the room in the central keep that was now serving as their final staging ground. Armor, shields, axes, and spears were scattered throughout the room, leaned against walls and tables or simply piled haphazardly on the floor. The other four captains were waiting for him there, along with twelve or fifteen other men who were acting as his bodyguard for this, the final battle. All of them were wounded, some worse than others. Horse-Bjorn was drinking from a large mug of mead with his shield arm bound closely to his breast. Ottar the Grævling stood at his side, his face flushed with the iron-fever that would not kill him now. Hrafnkel Half-Giant towered over the rest of them, his head nearly touching the giant beams of the ceiling.\n\nUpon hearing his approach, they turned to him, waiting for his news.\n\n“The Skullbreaker took some persuading, but he went with the Redcheek in the end. Ulvdræber is safely away. I saw no sign of pursuit.”\n\nA cheer went up, with two exceptions. The Grævling was lost in his thoughts. The Half-Giant, as was customary, looked vaguely confused.\n\n“Who commands tonight, if the Skullbreaker be gone?”\n\nNot for the first time, Steinthor found himself marveling that despite the man’s prodigious strength, he hadn’t managed to get himself killed in nearly three weeks of near-constant battle. The Aalvarg aside, it was a miracle that Hrafnkel hadn’t broken his massive neck tumbling down a stairwell or falling from a tower. He was clumsy and he was slow-witted, but he could literally rip a wolf-thing in half with his bare hands. Steinthor had seen him do it.\n\nAnd like the rest of those who remained behind, the giant was badly wounded. He had lost an eye early in the siege, and two nights ago an Aalvarg spear penetrated his thigh. Now he limped worse than Steinthor did, and he needed two men, two strong men, to help him navigate the stairs. The Half-Giant would be among the those who were certain to fall tonight. Knowing he could not retreat, the big man had agreed to meet the final assault on the tower with his twenty-five men. They would hold the line and stay behind while the others fell back to the keep.\n\nSteinthor had no doubt that Hrafnkel would slaughter many wolves before he fell. But the grey tide was simply too great, and whoever was commanding the wolves seemed to value Aalvarg lives as little as he did those of their enemies.\n\n“I, Steinthor, the Strongbow, command, Hrafnkel,” he declared loudly. “I promise nothing but death, certain death, a warrior’s death. Our plan is simple. Tonight we fight, and tonight we die. Are there any here who object?”\n\n“Strongbow, the Strongbow!” Horse-Bjorn shouted and others were soon to pick up the cry. “Strongbow!”\n\nSteinthor nodded. For years he had followed the Skullbreaker. For one night, and one night only, he would lead the clans. But first, there was something that must be done. He limped into the center of the room, all eyes upon him.\n\n“Hear now the death-song of Steinthor, by some called the Strongbow,” he called out to them.\n\nThe Wolf lies waiting.\n\nThe Moon covers her silver eyes\n\nIn fear and sorrow.\n\nNo more shall I sing.\n\nSilence will rule over ruins\n\nCome the dawn morrow\n\nNever shall they learn,\n\nFair ladies I have known in love,\n\nFrom enemies’ blows\n\nI backward turned me.\n\nHere shall my body, fallen, lie\n\nDevoured by demons, wolves, and crows.\n\nNor shall she taunt me,\n\nFair Ingoberg, across the sea,\n\nThat from swords I fled\n\nOr from wolves I ran.\n\nAt Raknarborg I stood among my friends,\n\nThe valiant dead.\n\nOnce my courage failed\n\nBefore the white-browed jarl’s daughter.\n\nTo a better man\n\nIt was I lost her.\n\nIn fear I held my tongue and so\n\nDared not ask her hand.\n\nA lasting sorrow comes\n\nThis night to the fair Ingoberg.\n\nNo more shall Steinthor\n\nHold her in his secret heart.\n\nWounded and lame, I stand here, doomed,\n\nOn this Aalvarg-stinking shore.\n\nWill it wring the heart\n\nOf the jarl’s proud, white-browed daughter,\n\nAnd the Skullbreaker’s wife,\n\nWhen comes the crow to tell\n\nOf the red end of Raknarborg\n\nAnd the Strongbow’s life?\n\nKnokkelmanden rides\n\nThe Loptrbørn bear him hither\n\nWhat man here will flee?\n\nWho will run in fear?\n\nI, the Strongbow, will fight the Wolf.\n\nWho here stands with me?\n\nThey come from the North\n\nMighty flocks of famished ravens\n\nWhom I have fed well.\n\nOnce more I feed them.\n\nOn my corpse they’ll gorge and fatten.\n\nBut my spirit,\n\nIn Glaðsheimr,\n\nShall henceforth ever dwell!\n\nAs the last words echoed off the stone walls of the chamber, there was a moment of respectful silence. Then came much whooping and hollering, wooden mugs of mead were raised, and many a surreptitious tear was brushed away.\n\n“Aye, we’ll stand with you, you cowardly bastard,” Horse-Bjorn blustered as he embraced Steinthor and thumped his back. “Did you really think none here knew you were still besotted with the Skullbreaker’s wife after all these years? Fordømme, man! Skuli never forgot how you got there first, but he loved you too far too well to hold it against you.”\n\nSteinthor stared at the big warleader, too surprised to speak.\n\n“You knew?” he finally said.\n\n“Who didn’t?” Horse-Bjorn laughed loudly. “I suppose there might be a few wolves out there from the outer islands that are still in the dark, but there wasn’t a maiden in one of the Fifteen Clans who didn’t envy—what did you call her? Ah yes, ‘the white-browed jarl’s daughter’, the woman who held the hearts of the two greatest warriors left to us in the palm of her pretty hands. Could have been a proper saga in the making there, if only you and the Skullbreaker would have fallen out over her.”\n\n“Never once did we speak of it!”\n\n“Sure, and it would have been damned stupid, considering how we were all fighting for our lives. But men are stupid when it comes to harboring their longships, especially in so sweet a harbor. Believe me, Strongbow, there were women counting their fingers when Brynjolf was born.”\n\n“I never touched her, not after–”\n\n“Oh, I know. I know.” Horse-Bjorn thumped him on the back again. “But it was a bloody good thing you were away reaving at the time or many a wicked tongue would have been set to wagging!”\n\nHrafnkel Half-Giant dragged his huge frame over and lightly placed a massive hand on Steinthor’s shoulder. A dark tear-track ran through his dark brown beard under his remaining eye. “It is my honor to stand with the Strongbow, tonight. We die well, Captain.”\n\nSteinthor placed his own hand over the giant’s. The sight made him smile; it looked like a child reaching out to his father.\n\n“The honor is mine, Half-Giant,” he assured Hrafnkel. “We will kill many wolves. Better than dying in bed like a woman or an old man, eh?”\n\nIn light of the grim night before them, the mood in the room was surprisingly jocular. The mead helped, of course. This was no time to go into battle sober. He accepted a mug from the Grævling, raised to salute the men nearby, and drained it. If the laughter was a little louder than the jests might otherwise have provoked, and if the protestations of indifference towards death sometimes sounded a little forced, it didn’t matter. It was only the way men who lacked true courage found it in the company of their doughtier fellows.\n\nPerhaps they were the bravest of all, Steinthor mused as he quaffed another mug, albeit in a more measured manner. Those who feared death, but feared the contempt of their brothers-in-arms more. He frowned. That didn’t make much sense, come to think of it. Well, it probably wasn’t worth dwelling on. He wasn’t afraid to die, anyhow. He might not be a berserker, biting at his shield and lusting for battle, but he was beginning to feel a little impatient waiting for the wolf to come.\n\nHe was just mulling the wisdom of a third mug when he heard someone’s boots thumping their way down the stairs from the northern tower. It was young Bosi, he saw, Horse-Bjorn’s cousin, who’d been left behind as a result of losing his sword arm at the elbow four days ago. The stump was infected and inflamed, but didn’t prevent him from serving as a messenger for the warriors who remained.\n\n“They come,” he shouted. “The wolves are coming!”\n\nThe men reacted without hesitation, reaching for their spears and shields. Some of the men whose arms were bandaged or missing clamored for help with their armor, and Steinthor helped Horse-Bjorn strap his shield on tightly to his useless arm. The old veteran grinned at him, exposing a line of black and rotted teeth on the left side of his mouth.\n\n“You’re a lucky one, lad. A man can’t lose a battle that’s already lost. If the Choosers turn up their noses at us, I’ll see you in the high hall of Hel.”\n\nSteinthor nodded, suddenly unable to speak. Horse-Bjorn laughed and stepped to the side as four men, their eyes bright and fey, rushed past them up the stairs.\n\n“Never you mind, Steinthor Strongbow. The Skullbreaker would be proud of you. Not every man could turn a collection of half-dead old men and dying boys into a proper fighting force.” He waved to his men. “Come on, lads! With just one arm, I can’t hold them off by myself!”\n\nSteinthor nodded at him and looked to Ottar the Grævling and his five men. They alone were still sitting, knowing that there was no need for them to hurry. The Grævling was the most intelligent of the four captains, so Steinthor had put him in charge of their weapon of last resort. Ottar was of an age with Steinthor, approaching his fourth decade, although his grey head made him look older. Steinthor knew Skuli had considered putting the Ulvdræber expedition in the Grævling’s capable hands, but a sword-thrust through his thigh had made Mord Redcheek the obvious choice.\n\n“Go,” the Grævling said calmly. “Have no fear. If you don’t make it back to the keep, I’ll see it’s done.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1913, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch14_steinthor-P2", "chapter": "ch14_steinthor", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNorth Tower / East Tower / West Tower — fortress points; capitalize Tower.\nAalvarg — wolf-demons; keep spelling.\nHjaldrgoð — war-god address in prayer; keep spelling.\nRennir — bowman who holds Steinthor’s bow when named later; may appear in this span.\nSlagtetid — slaughter-time cry; appears at edge if included—keep spelling.\nBlood and Bone — moons’ epithets when named; capitals as written.\n\n### STORY\nAt Raknarborg on the final night, Steinthor watches Ulvdræber escape with Skullbreaker and Redcheek, sings his death-song naming Ingoberg before the wounded captains, and when Bosi cries that the wolves come he leaves the Grævling on the last resort and goes to command the North Tower.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSteinthor Strongbow\nOn the North Tower ramparts under cool dry wind; reviews spears, hammers, rock-baskets, archers; prays only for strength enough for the Choosers. Lights the base fire, calls rocks, joins the bow line, then leads a torch party when cloud kills the moons.\n\nHorse-Bjorn\nFront line with his half-drunk men; hits the crest on Steinthor’s five-man-length call.\n\nHrafnkel Half-Giant\nBehind the line with his twenty-five; still the plan’s rearguard for the hold.\n\nRennir\nAmong the archers; takes Steinthor’s bow when he goes to the torch work.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nPerhaps they were the bravest of all, Steinthor mused as he quaffed another mug, albeit in a more measured manner. Those who feared death, but feared the contempt of their brothers-in-arms more. He frowned. That didn’t make much sense, come to think of it. Well, it probably wasn’t worth dwelling on. He wasn’t afraid to die, anyhow. He might not be a berserker, biting at his shield and lusting for battle, but he was beginning to feel a little impatient waiting for the wolf to come.\n\nHe was just mulling the wisdom of a third mug when he heard someone’s boots thumping their way down the stairs from the northern tower. It was young Bosi, he saw, Horse-Bjorn’s cousin, who’d been left behind as a result of losing his sword arm at the elbow four days ago. The stump was infected and inflamed, but didn’t prevent him from serving as a messenger for the warriors who remained.\n\n“They come,” he shouted. “The wolves are coming!”\n\nThe men reacted without hesitation, reaching for their spears and shields. Some of the men whose arms were bandaged or missing clamored for help with their armor, and Steinthor helped Horse-Bjorn strap his shield on tightly to his useless arm. The old veteran grinned at him, exposing a line of black and rotted teeth on the left side of his mouth.\n\n“You’re a lucky one, lad. A man can’t lose a battle that’s already lost. If the Choosers turn up their noses at us, I’ll see you in the high hall of Hel.”\n\nSteinthor nodded, suddenly unable to speak. Horse-Bjorn laughed and stepped to the side as four men, their eyes bright and fey, rushed past them up the stairs.\n\n“Never you mind, Steinthor Strongbow. The Skullbreaker would be proud of you. Not every man could turn a collection of half-dead old men and dying boys into a proper fighting force.” He waved to his men. “Come on, lads! With just one arm, I can’t hold them off by myself!”\n\nSteinthor nodded at him and looked to Ottar the Grævling and his five men. They alone were still sitting, knowing that there was no need for them to hurry. The Grævling was the most intelligent of the four captains, so Steinthor had put him in charge of their weapon of last resort. Ottar was of an age with Steinthor, approaching his fourth decade, although his grey head made him look older. Steinthor knew Skuli had considered putting the Ulvdræber expedition in the Grævling’s capable hands, but a sword-thrust through his thigh had made Mord Redcheek the obvious choice.\n\n“Go,” the Grævling said calmly. “Have no fear. If you don’t make it back to the keep, I’ll see it’s done.”\n\n### NOTES\nNight assault; Aalvarg climb in darkness trailing ropes; foul musk.\nBase of tower seeded with oil-drizzled firewood.\nRocks and bricks in paired baskets; little oil left; boiling water proved weak before.\nFourteen of seventeen prior assaults hit North Tower.\nClouds will hide Blood and Bone mid-fight; torchlight becomes critical.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Steinthor.\n\nHowls from every landward point; skeleton watches east and west; North Tower holds the real line—Horse-Bjorn’s spears and hammers, rock baskets, fifteen archers, Half-Giant behind. Watchers cry they climb. Fire at the base, torches on the wall, grey spiders on the stone; rocks scour dozens and the wave still rises. At five man-lengths Horse-Bjorn’s line meets the crest; Steinthor kills from the bow, sees a rope cut, then loses the moons to cloud. He takes five for light, rams flame into open jaws in the press, and the line answers with slaughter-noise as torches pass from fallen hands. The scene lands in that torch-lit melee, before he is borne down.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2750 words. Siege fight concrete and unsentimental. Land in the torch melee; do not fall or retreat yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Steinthor nodded. He paused for a moment, until he realized he had nothing to say to the man. In a different time, Ottar the Grævling would have likely been his enemy. Now they were brothers-in-arms, to the bitter end. But that didn’t mean they had to love each other.\n\nHe could hear the familiar howls as soon as he walked out upon the ramparts of the North Tower. The night air was cool and dry. Most of their meager forces were arrayed there; a man could hardly miss the Half-Giant in his position well behind Horse-Bjorn and his rambunctious, half-drunk men. The wind was cold and still blew from the east; the Skullbreaker and Mord Redcheek would be at least six leagues away already. The cries of the wolf-demons filled the night, seeming to come from the north, the east, and the west, everywhere but the vast dark ocean to the south. He could see the enemy fires dotting the land below, although there were far fewer of them than one would expect from a similarly sized army of men.\n\nThe Aalvarg had little use for fire, as they neither forged their weapons nor cooked their meat. And unlike a human army, they devoured their dead, which made them particularly deadly opponents in a siege. Even when the nights of the heaviest battles finally gave way to dawn, the only corpses in sight, human or wolven, were on the battlements of Raknarborg. Blood on the ground below and a few scattered remnants of weapons and armor too damaged to be worth scavenging were the only signs there had even been any activity the night before.\n\nThe wolf-demons’ grasp of tactics was rudimentary at best, which was why Steinthor only stationed a skeleton force on the East and West Towers to alert him in the unlikely event either of them turned out to be the focus of the enemy attack. In fourteen of their seventeen previous assaults, the wolves had stormed the North Tower; one young warrior, dead these last ten or eleven days, had told Steinthor that the bricks on the North Tower protruded more and were therefore easier for the creatures to climb.\n\nHe walked over to the ramparts, chipped, blood-stained, and worn down from the repeated attempts to storm them. Four spotters were spread out standing watch across the curve of the tower, all of them young men with sharp eyes. The howls below were rapidly growing louder and closer. He couldn’t see the Aalvarg yet, as they were comfortable attacking in darkness and the few torches that were already flickering on the ramparts ruined his night vision. But no matter. They all knew. The wolf-storm was coming.\n\nHe turned around and reviewed his front line. The Horse-Bjorn’s men were mostly armed with spears and axes, the better to deal with wolves climbing over the walls. He counted six, no seven, big warhammers, as well as two or three makeshift wooden ones made to simply sweep the attackers from the heights. Four men bore torches, ready to light the unlit ones set in the brass fixings as soon as he gave the command. Another twenty stood beside large baskets, in pairs. The baskets were full of rocks and bricks, as what little oil remained was reserved for other purposes and boiling water had proved to be of limited utility against the thick-furred foe. Behind them, on a knee-high platform, were fifteen of the best remaining archers.\n\nThe night considerably limited the utility of the bowmen, but the torches let them pick off the occasional wolf, and more than once they had proven themselves useful in turning the tide when the Aalvarg briefly established a hold on a section of the ramparts. One of them now held Steinthor’s own bow and quiver; he would join them when the battle was joined.\n\nThe men were quiet now, their faces white against the night and set with determination. Even Horse-Bjorn was silent, although he cleared his throat and stepped forward to spit off the ramparts more than once.\n\nSteinthor said nothing. There was nothing more to say. He simply walked along the front of the line and nodded to each man. He knew they would stand, even to the end. The howling continued to grow louder, and now the lower-pitched snarls could be heard as well. The moment was nigh.\n\nOne of the young watchmen cleared his throat. “Captain, ah, I think–”\n\n“They climb, Captain, they climb!” A second watcher was less hesitant. “They climb!”\n\nSteinthor sighed. To think that his whole life had been aimed at this night, this very moment. He said a silent prayer to the Hjaldrgoð, asking only for strength enough to prove himself worthy of the Choosers he knew were circling invisibly overhead even now. Then he took a deep breath.\n\n“Watchers, join the line!” he roared with a voice that drowned out the howls. “Fire! Light the fires! Light the torches!”\n\nTwo torches tumbled end over end through the air, hurled at the firewood spread out across the entire base of the tower this afternoon. It had been drizzled with the last remnants of their precious oil, so that it would catch easily. And catch it did, as the two torches set the wood alight and quickly spread from one end to another. Several wolves were caught up in the rapidly spreading flames and as their fur blazed, they added their agonized screams to the demonic chorus that filled the night air.\n\nThe fire did no harm to most of the wolves, but that was not his object. Between the fire below and the fixed torches that were now blazing, the creatures climbing the tower were no longer cloaked by darkness. Steinthor leaned over the ramparts and looked down. What he saw resembled a mass of huge, gray, hairy spiders as they clambered up the stones, their long, clawed hands reaching out and pulling them rapidly upwards with the help of the purchase provided by their clawed feet. Despite the clamoring of their fellows, they climbed in silence, and several of them trailed long ropes behind them.\n\n“Rocks!” he shouted, urging the men with the baskets forward. They rushed towards him as fast as they could, weighed down by the heavy burden of the baskets they carried between them. By the time they were in position, the lead climbers were more than halfway up the tower, and he could clearly see their bared fangs in their long, wolf-like muzzles. A foul odor rose before them, so musky and so acrid that it nearly made him retch. The smell wasn’t unfamiliar to him, but it hit him hard nevertheless.\n\nThen a large boulder bounced off the wall and struck one of the wolves at front of the assault just under its chin. The force of the blow flipped the creature backward and it howled in dismay, its arms and legs flailing wildly in the air. A second stone, aimed more carefully, smashed into a wolf’s head and caused it to lose its grip. It fell crashing into the wolf below it; three in all were swept from the side of the tower and sent plunging towards the surging masses.\n\nMore projectiles rained down on the climbers. Steinthor saw one wince as it was struck in the shoulder by a brick. It stubbornly pressed itself against the rocks and turned its head just in time to evade a second one, but when third brick smashed into its hand and a fourth crashed into its face, it slowly fell away from the wall, flailing its limbs and screaming in helpless fury all the while.\n\nThe hail of stones was brutal. Dozens of Aalvarg were scoured from the tower, and yet for every climber fallen, there were twenty eager to take its place. The foul-scented wave of grey continued to surge higher, as if the ocean was sweeping in over the fortress from the north.\n\nThe rocks slowed the attackers down and thinned their numbers a little, but Steinthor knew the Aalvarg would not be dissuaded so easily. He stepped back from the ramparts and found Horse-Bjorn.\n\n“Another five man-lengths,” he told the old warrior. “Hit them as soon as they crest.”\n\nThen he made his way through the four-deep lines to the archers, where Rennir Longeye was waiting for him with his bow. It was his favorite and his best, its beautiful ash limbs having been artfully carved by his grandfather long before he was born. He picked up a quiver filled with more than twenty shafts and tied it to his belt, then took the bow from Longeye, who had been stringing it. After withdrawing a shaft and attaching it to the string, he took his place in the center of them.\n\n“Remember, lads, it’s the hairy ones we’re aiming at,” he said, provoking an amount of laughter among the men on either side.\n\nThen Horse-Bjorn shouted a battle cry. “Raknarborg!”\n\nIn response, the line surged forward to attack the Aalvarg that were finally reaching the top of the battlements. A battlehammer arced high above the press of men before flashing down fast and hard, followed by a second, and a third. They were striking at the hands of the wolves attempting to pull themselves up over the merlons, crushing them between stone and iron. Despite their efforts, a first wolf managed to pull itself atop the stones, where it was instantly transfixed by two spears.\n\nIt fell backwards, as did the next wolf to surmount the parapet, nearly cut in half by the Horse-Bjorn’s axe. But the third one launched itself forward even as it was impaled, and by entangling the men in front of it, bought just enough time for three more monsters to climb over the wall and throw themselves on the front lines. All three were quickly killed, but they were rapidly replaced as the grey wave smashed into the Horse-Bjorn’s suddenly hard-pressed men.\n\nSteinthor pulled the string to his chest and loosed. The shaft flew true and hammered into the throat of a howling wolf standing on the edge of the ramparts. The rest of the archers loosed as well, and nearly ten wolves dropped or staggered backwards, wounded, as at such short range, the arrows slammed into them with enough force for some of the arrowheads to pierce their backs. The moment’s respite gave the men at the front just enough time to slaughter the wolves in their midst and reform their shield wall.\n\nIn the brief pause, Steinthor saw one man step forward and slash away the rope that one cunning monster had slipped over a merlon before he was killed; with a single blow he likely killed as many attackers as all the archers combined.\n\nThe wolves came on, but they seemed vaguely disheartened that their initial attempt to storm the tower had failed. The attack was almost desultory in comparison with the earlier rush, and the Horse-Bjorn and his men fell into a murderous rhythm, smashing the clawing hands, and running through or cutting down any monsters that somehow managed to clamber over the wall. It was hard to tell in the shadows of the flickering torchlight, but as near as Steinthor could tell, only three or four men had fallen, compared to more than one hundred wolves.\n\nThe men waited, scratched, bitten, panting, and bleeding.\n\n“Water,” he heard someone cry.\n\n“Damn water, bring me beer!” Steinthor recognized the Horse-Bjorn’s voice. “Strongbow, looks like they’re giving us a breather.”\n\nHe unstrung his bow, handed it to Rennir, and went to have a look at the situation for himself. At the Horse-Bjorn’s command, his men were dragging the dead to the ramparts and hurling them down below, while three of the torches that had been knocked out of their holders were replaced. But the glow from below was gradually fading, and when Steinthor looked down, he discovered why. Not only had a considerable quantity of the wood already burned, but the wolves were methodically extinguishing it by pulling the piles apart and urinating on the flames.\n\n“Pity they’re not quite as stupid as they look,” Horse-Bjorn said. He had somehow magically transformed his dripping axe into a flagon of ale, which he offered to Steinthor.\n\nSteinthor took a long draught, savoring the cool bitterness in his too-dry mouth. With some reluctance, he returned it to Horse-Bjorn, who drained the remainder, burped long and low, then hurled the empty vessel from the tower.\n\n“Maybe it will brain one of the bastards,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Think that’s too much to hope for?”\n\n“They’ll be coming again soon.”\n\n“At least they had the decency to let a man get a drink. Give them that.”\n\n“Wish the moons were out to tonight.”\n\nBut the untimely clouds hid Blood and Bone away. It was as if the gods had turned their faces away, unable to bear watching the carnage to come.\n\nThe demonspawn attacked again, snarling and growling in the darkness. The young men with the baskets had replenished their supplies of bricks and stones, but it was harder for them to see the climbers approaching without the fires burning below. They hurled the missiles down blindly, knocking dozens of Aalvarg off the tower and prompting scream after terrified scream from the darkness below. Even so, in less than half the time it had taken first wave, the first clawed hands began to appear above the merlons and the Horse-Bjorn’s men moved into action. Hammers once more splintered bones and axe blades flashed red in the torchlight.\n\nBut these wolves were wearing armor and more of them were carrying swords and daggers. Some of the weapons were of the crude Aalvarg construction, but more were of Dalarn make, captured over the years. They fought more intelligently too; the men holding the torches were their first targets and the front line rapidly disappeared into the shadows of the night.\n\nSteinthor cursed. They needed more light! He and the other archers were rendered useless without the torches and they couldn’t simply loose into the mass of screaming, snarling, struggling combatants. They would hit three or more men for every wolf. The wolves could see better in the dark and judging by the sound of the battle raging in front of him, Horse-Bjorn desperately needed the archers to sweep the walls as they come over. He handed his bow to Rennir and ran over to the Half-Giant.\n\n“We need light! I need five men.”\n\nThe big man nodded and pointed out the men he was to take.\n\n“Follow me,” Steinthor ordered them. He led the five to where the spare torches were piled, then lit them and handed two to each man. “Push forward to the front. Leave your swords sheathed. We fight with fire!”\n\nHe charged forward into the chaotic mass, thrusting one flaming torch into the open jaws of the first wolf-demon he encountered. The fire set its fur ablaze, and the howling, panic-stricken beast reeled back just in time to be disemboweled by an upthrusting backswing from an axeman. Two more wolves, their red muzzles dripping with the blood of their victim, retreated before him as he swung his pair of torches in a rhythm that didn’t give them an opportunity to attack. One was impaled by a spear jabbed from behind him, the other crumpled as an arrow pierced its eye.\n\nOne of the torchbearers had fallen, but his torches were picked up by two of the Horse-Bjorn’s men. Between the ten torches, there was now enough light for the archers to see and their deadly shafts flashed past Steinthor’s helm and once more swept the parapets clear of the wolves. Seeing this, the Horse-Bjorn shouted his battle cry.\n", "completion": "Steinthor nodded. He paused for a moment, until he realized he had nothing to say to the man. In a different time, Ottar the Grævling would have likely been his enemy. Now they were brothers-in-arms, to the bitter end. But that didn’t mean they had to love each other.\n\nHe could hear the familiar howls as soon as he walked out upon the ramparts of the North Tower. The night air was cool and dry. Most of their meager forces were arrayed there; a man could hardly miss the Half-Giant in his position well behind Horse-Bjorn and his rambunctious, half-drunk men. The wind was cold and still blew from the east; the Skullbreaker and Mord Redcheek would be at least six leagues away already. The cries of the wolf-demons filled the night, seeming to come from the north, the east, and the west, everywhere but the vast dark ocean to the south. He could see the enemy fires dotting the land below, although there were far fewer of them than one would expect from a similarly sized army of men.\n\nThe Aalvarg had little use for fire, as they neither forged their weapons nor cooked their meat. And unlike a human army, they devoured their dead, which made them particularly deadly opponents in a siege. Even when the nights of the heaviest battles finally gave way to dawn, the only corpses in sight, human or wolven, were on the battlements of Raknarborg. Blood on the ground below and a few scattered remnants of weapons and armor too damaged to be worth scavenging were the only signs there had even been any activity the night before.\n\nThe wolf-demons’ grasp of tactics was rudimentary at best, which was why Steinthor only stationed a skeleton force on the East and West Towers to alert him in the unlikely event either of them turned out to be the focus of the enemy attack. In fourteen of their seventeen previous assaults, the wolves had stormed the North Tower; one young warrior, dead these last ten or eleven days, had told Steinthor that the bricks on the North Tower protruded more and were therefore easier for the creatures to climb.\n\nHe walked over to the ramparts, chipped, blood-stained, and worn down from the repeated attempts to storm them. Four spotters were spread out standing watch across the curve of the tower, all of them young men with sharp eyes. The howls below were rapidly growing louder and closer. He couldn’t see the Aalvarg yet, as they were comfortable attacking in darkness and the few torches that were already flickering on the ramparts ruined his night vision. But no matter. They all knew. The wolf-storm was coming.\n\nHe turned around and reviewed his front line. The Horse-Bjorn’s men were mostly armed with spears and axes, the better to deal with wolves climbing over the walls. He counted six, no seven, big warhammers, as well as two or three makeshift wooden ones made to simply sweep the attackers from the heights. Four men bore torches, ready to light the unlit ones set in the brass fixings as soon as he gave the command. Another twenty stood beside large baskets, in pairs. The baskets were full of rocks and bricks, as what little oil remained was reserved for other purposes and boiling water had proved to be of limited utility against the thick-furred foe. Behind them, on a knee-high platform, were fifteen of the best remaining archers.\n\nThe night considerably limited the utility of the bowmen, but the torches let them pick off the occasional wolf, and more than once they had proven themselves useful in turning the tide when the Aalvarg briefly established a hold on a section of the ramparts. One of them now held Steinthor’s own bow and quiver; he would join them when the battle was joined.\n\nThe men were quiet now, their faces white against the night and set with determination. Even Horse-Bjorn was silent, although he cleared his throat and stepped forward to spit off the ramparts more than once.\n\nSteinthor said nothing. There was nothing more to say. He simply walked along the front of the line and nodded to each man. He knew they would stand, even to the end. The howling continued to grow louder, and now the lower-pitched snarls could be heard as well. The moment was nigh.\n\nOne of the young watchmen cleared his throat. “Captain, ah, I think–”\n\n“They climb, Captain, they climb!” A second watcher was less hesitant. “They climb!”\n\nSteinthor sighed. To think that his whole life had been aimed at this night, this very moment. He said a silent prayer to the Hjaldrgoð, asking only for strength enough to prove himself worthy of the Choosers he knew were circling invisibly overhead even now. Then he took a deep breath.\n\n“Watchers, join the line!” he roared with a voice that drowned out the howls. “Fire! Light the fires! Light the torches!”\n\nTwo torches tumbled end over end through the air, hurled at the firewood spread out across the entire base of the tower this afternoon. It had been drizzled with the last remnants of their precious oil, so that it would catch easily. And catch it did, as the two torches set the wood alight and quickly spread from one end to another. Several wolves were caught up in the rapidly spreading flames and as their fur blazed, they added their agonized screams to the demonic chorus that filled the night air.\n\nThe fire did no harm to most of the wolves, but that was not his object. Between the fire below and the fixed torches that were now blazing, the creatures climbing the tower were no longer cloaked by darkness. Steinthor leaned over the ramparts and looked down. What he saw resembled a mass of huge, gray, hairy spiders as they clambered up the stones, their long, clawed hands reaching out and pulling them rapidly upwards with the help of the purchase provided by their clawed feet. Despite the clamoring of their fellows, they climbed in silence, and several of them trailed long ropes behind them.\n\n“Rocks!” he shouted, urging the men with the baskets forward. They rushed towards him as fast as they could, weighed down by the heavy burden of the baskets they carried between them. By the time they were in position, the lead climbers were more than halfway up the tower, and he could clearly see their bared fangs in their long, wolf-like muzzles. A foul odor rose before them, so musky and so acrid that it nearly made him retch. The smell wasn’t unfamiliar to him, but it hit him hard nevertheless.\n\nThen a large boulder bounced off the wall and struck one of the wolves at front of the assault just under its chin. The force of the blow flipped the creature backward and it howled in dismay, its arms and legs flailing wildly in the air. A second stone, aimed more carefully, smashed into a wolf’s head and caused it to lose its grip. It fell crashing into the wolf below it; three in all were swept from the side of the tower and sent plunging towards the surging masses.\n\nMore projectiles rained down on the climbers. Steinthor saw one wince as it was struck in the shoulder by a brick. It stubbornly pressed itself against the rocks and turned its head just in time to evade a second one, but when third brick smashed into its hand and a fourth crashed into its face, it slowly fell away from the wall, flailing its limbs and screaming in helpless fury all the while.\n\nThe hail of stones was brutal. Dozens of Aalvarg were scoured from the tower, and yet for every climber fallen, there were twenty eager to take its place. The foul-scented wave of grey continued to surge higher, as if the ocean was sweeping in over the fortress from the north.\n\nThe rocks slowed the attackers down and thinned their numbers a little, but Steinthor knew the Aalvarg would not be dissuaded so easily. He stepped back from the ramparts and found Horse-Bjorn.\n\n“Another five man-lengths,” he told the old warrior. “Hit them as soon as they crest.”\n\nThen he made his way through the four-deep lines to the archers, where Rennir Longeye was waiting for him with his bow. It was his favorite and his best, its beautiful ash limbs having been artfully carved by his grandfather long before he was born. He picked up a quiver filled with more than twenty shafts and tied it to his belt, then took the bow from Longeye, who had been stringing it. After withdrawing a shaft and attaching it to the string, he took his place in the center of them.\n\n“Remember, lads, it’s the hairy ones we’re aiming at,” he said, provoking an amount of laughter among the men on either side.\n\nThen Horse-Bjorn shouted a battle cry. “Raknarborg!”\n\nIn response, the line surged forward to attack the Aalvarg that were finally reaching the top of the battlements. A battlehammer arced high above the press of men before flashing down fast and hard, followed by a second, and a third. They were striking at the hands of the wolves attempting to pull themselves up over the merlons, crushing them between stone and iron. Despite their efforts, a first wolf managed to pull itself atop the stones, where it was instantly transfixed by two spears.\n\nIt fell backwards, as did the next wolf to surmount the parapet, nearly cut in half by the Horse-Bjorn’s axe. But the third one launched itself forward even as it was impaled, and by entangling the men in front of it, bought just enough time for three more monsters to climb over the wall and throw themselves on the front lines. All three were quickly killed, but they were rapidly replaced as the grey wave smashed into the Horse-Bjorn’s suddenly hard-pressed men.\n\nSteinthor pulled the string to his chest and loosed. The shaft flew true and hammered into the throat of a howling wolf standing on the edge of the ramparts. The rest of the archers loosed as well, and nearly ten wolves dropped or staggered backwards, wounded, as at such short range, the arrows slammed into them with enough force for some of the arrowheads to pierce their backs. The moment’s respite gave the men at the front just enough time to slaughter the wolves in their midst and reform their shield wall.\n\nIn the brief pause, Steinthor saw one man step forward and slash away the rope that one cunning monster had slipped over a merlon before he was killed; with a single blow he likely killed as many attackers as all the archers combined.\n\nThe wolves came on, but they seemed vaguely disheartened that their initial attempt to storm the tower had failed. The attack was almost desultory in comparison with the earlier rush, and the Horse-Bjorn and his men fell into a murderous rhythm, smashing the clawing hands, and running through or cutting down any monsters that somehow managed to clamber over the wall. It was hard to tell in the shadows of the flickering torchlight, but as near as Steinthor could tell, only three or four men had fallen, compared to more than one hundred wolves.\n\nThe men waited, scratched, bitten, panting, and bleeding.\n\n“Water,” he heard someone cry.\n\n“Damn water, bring me beer!” Steinthor recognized the Horse-Bjorn’s voice. “Strongbow, looks like they’re giving us a breather.”\n\nHe unstrung his bow, handed it to Rennir, and went to have a look at the situation for himself. At the Horse-Bjorn’s command, his men were dragging the dead to the ramparts and hurling them down below, while three of the torches that had been knocked out of their holders were replaced. But the glow from below was gradually fading, and when Steinthor looked down, he discovered why. Not only had a considerable quantity of the wood already burned, but the wolves were methodically extinguishing it by pulling the piles apart and urinating on the flames.\n\n“Pity they’re not quite as stupid as they look,” Horse-Bjorn said. He had somehow magically transformed his dripping axe into a flagon of ale, which he offered to Steinthor.\n\nSteinthor took a long draught, savoring the cool bitterness in his too-dry mouth. With some reluctance, he returned it to Horse-Bjorn, who drained the remainder, burped long and low, then hurled the empty vessel from the tower.\n\n“Maybe it will brain one of the bastards,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Think that’s too much to hope for?”\n\n“They’ll be coming again soon.”\n\n“At least they had the decency to let a man get a drink. Give them that.”\n\n“Wish the moons were out to tonight.”\n\nBut the untimely clouds hid Blood and Bone away. It was as if the gods had turned their faces away, unable to bear watching the carnage to come.\n\nThe demonspawn attacked again, snarling and growling in the darkness. The young men with the baskets had replenished their supplies of bricks and stones, but it was harder for them to see the climbers approaching without the fires burning below. They hurled the missiles down blindly, knocking dozens of Aalvarg off the tower and prompting scream after terrified scream from the darkness below. Even so, in less than half the time it had taken first wave, the first clawed hands began to appear above the merlons and the Horse-Bjorn’s men moved into action. Hammers once more splintered bones and axe blades flashed red in the torchlight.\n\nBut these wolves were wearing armor and more of them were carrying swords and daggers. Some of the weapons were of the crude Aalvarg construction, but more were of Dalarn make, captured over the years. They fought more intelligently too; the men holding the torches were their first targets and the front line rapidly disappeared into the shadows of the night.\n\nSteinthor cursed. They needed more light! He and the other archers were rendered useless without the torches and they couldn’t simply loose into the mass of screaming, snarling, struggling combatants. They would hit three or more men for every wolf. The wolves could see better in the dark and judging by the sound of the battle raging in front of him, Horse-Bjorn desperately needed the archers to sweep the walls as they come over. He handed his bow to Rennir and ran over to the Half-Giant.\n\n“We need light! I need five men.”\n\nThe big man nodded and pointed out the men he was to take.\n\n“Follow me,” Steinthor ordered them. He led the five to where the spare torches were piled, then lit them and handed two to each man. “Push forward to the front. Leave your swords sheathed. We fight with fire!”\n\nHe charged forward into the chaotic mass, thrusting one flaming torch into the open jaws of the first wolf-demon he encountered. The fire set its fur ablaze, and the howling, panic-stricken beast reeled back just in time to be disemboweled by an upthrusting backswing from an axeman. Two more wolves, their red muzzles dripping with the blood of their victim, retreated before him as he swung his pair of torches in a rhythm that didn’t give them an opportunity to attack. One was impaled by a spear jabbed from behind him, the other crumpled as an arrow pierced its eye.\n\nOne of the torchbearers had fallen, but his torches were picked up by two of the Horse-Bjorn’s men. Between the ten torches, there was now enough light for the archers to see and their deadly shafts flashed past Steinthor’s helm and once more swept the parapets clear of the wolves. Seeing this, the Horse-Bjorn shouted his battle cry.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2686, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch14_steinthor-P3", "chapter": "ch14_steinthor", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSlagtetid — slaughter-time cry; keep spelling.\nHorse-Bjorn — dies defending him.\nHrafnkel Half-Giant — blows the retreat horn on order.\nRennir — helps him down the stair.\nChoosers — still overhead in thought.\n\n### STORY\nOn Raknarborg’s last night Steinthor sends the longship away, sings his death-song, and takes the North Tower when the Aalvarg climb.\n\nFire, rocks, and crest-fighting hold for a time; when cloud kills the moons he leads a torch rush into the press to give the line light again.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSteinthor Strongbow\nPinned under a wolf, sword stuck, leg wrong; crawls free after Horse-Bjorn falls buying him breath. Orders Half-Giant’s horn—two volleys, then stairs to the keep. Cannot truly run; leans on Rennir down into stone. Knows the night’s plan has become a fighting withdrawal.\n\nHorse-Bjorn\nDeceased mid-scene; dies on his feet over Steinthor.\n\nHrafnkel Half-Giant\nSounds the horn; covers the pullback with his weight of men.\n\nRennir\nBowman; asks if he can make the stair; bears him toward the keep.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe demonspawn attacked again, snarling and growling in the darkness. The young men with the baskets had replenished their supplies of bricks and stones, but it was harder for them to see the climbers approaching without the fires burning below. They hurled the missiles down blindly, knocking dozens of Aalvarg off the tower and prompting scream after terrified scream from the darkness below. Even so, in less than half the time it had taken first wave, the first clawed hands began to appear above the merlons and the Horse-Bjorn’s men moved into action. Hammers once more splintered bones and axe blades flashed red in the torchlight.\n\nBut these wolves were wearing armor and more of them were carrying swords and daggers. Some of the weapons were of the crude Aalvarg construction, but more were of Dalarn make, captured over the years. They fought more intelligently too; the men holding the torches were their first targets and the front line rapidly disappeared into the shadows of the night.\n\nSteinthor cursed. They needed more light! He and the other archers were rendered useless without the torches and they couldn’t simply loose into the mass of screaming, snarling, struggling combatants. They would hit three or more men for every wolf. The wolves could see better in the dark and judging by the sound of the battle raging in front of him, Horse-Bjorn desperately needed the archers to sweep the walls as they come over. He handed his bow to Rennir and ran over to the Half-Giant.\n\n“We need light! I need five men.”\n\nThe big man nodded and pointed out the men he was to take.\n\n“Follow me,” Steinthor ordered them. He led the five to where the spare torches were piled, then lit them and handed two to each man. “Push forward to the front. Leave your swords sheathed. We fight with fire!”\n\nHe charged forward into the chaotic mass, thrusting one flaming torch into the open jaws of the first wolf-demon he encountered. The fire set its fur ablaze, and the howling, panic-stricken beast reeled back just in time to be disemboweled by an upthrusting backswing from an axeman. Two more wolves, their red muzzles dripping with the blood of their victim, retreated before him as he swung his pair of torches in a rhythm that didn’t give them an opportunity to attack. One was impaled by a spear jabbed from behind him, the other crumpled as an arrow pierced its eye.\n\nOne of the torchbearers had fallen, but his torches were picked up by two of the Horse-Bjorn’s men. Between the ten torches, there was now enough light for the archers to see and their deadly shafts flashed past Steinthor’s helm and once more swept the parapets clear of the wolves. Seeing this, the Horse-Bjorn shouted his battle cry.\n\n### NOTES\nTorch melee on the North Tower ramparts; numbers failing.\nRetreat path: stairwell into the keep; door to be pulled.\nTwo arrow volleys before the run.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Steinthor.\n\nSlagtetid—and a wolf puts him on his back. Horse-Bjorn stands over him until the old captain goes down from the parapet; Steinthor kills the dark wolf and loses his sword in another’s maw. Too few left; he fights to Half-Giant and orders the horn—two volleys, then the stairs. Last through, door barred, Rennir under his arm: West Tower already gone, North only as long as Half-Giant lasts. Nothing left to defend; now it is time to attack. The scene ends on that descent toward the keep’s last work.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1400 words. Death without sentimentality; command voice through pain. Land on the descent to attack; do not open the last-resort device.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Slagtetid!”\n\nTheir hearts emboldened, his weary men echoed his cry and pushed forward again. They slew, and slew, and slew in a seemingly endless morass of blood and fire.\n\nSteinthor ducked under a slashing dagger and smashed a torch over the wolf-thing’s head. But the beast’s skull was too thick to crack. Instead, the torch broke in two, and the flaming end slid through a crenel to fall useless downward. Steinthor stared at the broken end for a moment, swung his other torch at the wolf’s face to keep its snapping jaws away from him, then stepped in and jammed the jagged wood into the creature’s unarmored chest as if it were a blade.\n\nIt screamed, fell back and was immediately placed by a large black Aalvarg that roared as it leaped at him with its claws outstretched. He tried to block it with his remaining torch, but the big beast collided with him and sent him sprawling on his back. The torch flew out of his hand, leaving him defenseless. His armor protected his insides from scrabbling claws that tried to rip them out, and he jammed his chin down towards his chest just as the wolf tried to bite his face off. Despite the noise of the raging chaos surrounding them, he could hear its teeth break on the metal of his helmet, followed by a howl of infuriated pain.\n\nThen the beast suddenly spasmed and slumped motionless on top of him. His arms were pinned, he was trapped under its dead weight and the horrific wolf stench made him fear that he might soon drown in his own vomit. Then a boot came down and kicked the dead wolf just far enough off his chest that he could free his arms and wrestle the limp corpse off him before another of the demonspawn tore his throat out.\n\nA pair of legs was standing over him; it was Horse-Bjorn, he realized, defending him while he was down. He scrambled backwards on his elbows and pushed himself to his feet. Then he drew his sword. The veteran warrior killed another wolf with his axe, bringing it down so heavily that it split the creature’s bear-like skull. The man was prodigiously strong, even with just one arm, Steinthor marveled.\n\nBut even with the shield strapped to his useless left arm, Horse-Bjorn was vulnerable. Each swing left him slightly off-balance, and a mistimed swipe that missed his target clean caused him to stumble forward. He was only a few steps from the parapet already, and an alert dark-furred wolf that had just climbed over the merlons caught his shield in its claws, twisted, and hurled him high over the merlons. Steinthor heard Horse-Bjorn curse, more in anger than in fear, and then he was gone into the darkness below.\n\nA terrible wail went up from the men close enough to have seen their captain fall from the tower. Steinthor himself killed the dark-furred Aalvarg by punching his sword twice into its chest. He followed that with half-severing its head for good measure. He fended off a rusty, thrusting dagger with his left arm, then chopped off the beast’s hand at the wrist. For a moment both he and the wolf stood there and stared at each other. The wolf was stunned by the loss of its hand and Steinthor was astonished that his sword still retained enough of an edge to do such damage.\n\nThen the wounded creature snarled and lunged at him. Without thinking, Steinthor raised his arm and thrust the blade deep into the gaping maw. He found himself gasping as the dead weight of the wolf suddenly dragged his arm down. The sword was too deeply lodged into the beast’s skull to withdraw it, so he drew his dagger and fell back into the furiously fighting ranks of the Horse-Bjorn’s remaining men.\n\nThere were too few of them left to throw back this wave, he saw. The relentless pressure from the Aalvarg was wearing them down and the loss of the Horse-Bjorn had caused more than a few to give into fey despair. Their discipline was all but gone, and he saw two more men pulled forward and hurled from the ramparts by the powerful grey-furred arms of the demonspawn. When the signal flames went up from the West Tower, indicating the wolves were attacking it now as well, he knew the time had come to fall back.\n\n“Half-Giant! Half-Giant!” he shouted as he fought his way back towards the huge man and his men. “Half-Giant!”\n\n“It is time?” Hrafnkel asked him, peering down uncertainly at him. “Do I blow the horn?”\n\n“Blow the horn,” Steinthor said. He gripped the big man’s thick forearm and squeezed it, wishing he could give the man a more worthy farewell. “Don’t let them pull you forward and throw you off the tower.”\n\nThe big man nodded seriously, as if there was any advice that mattered now. “Go, Steinthor Strongbow, and the gods go with you.”\n\nSteinthor squeezed Hrafnkel’s arm again. He felt he hadn’t properly appreciated the Half-Giant’s courage until this moment. And yet, this was not the first or the fiftieth time he had felt Death’s cold hands clutching at him, what made him so womanish and sentimental now? Cursing himself, cursing his luck, cursing the wolves, and most of all, cursing whatever evil god had birthed the damnable creatures, he limped over to Rennir and reclaimed his bow, which was already strung.\n\n“Two volleys and then we run for the stairs and down into the keep.” He nocked an arrow.\n\n“Can you run?”\n\n“Not really.”\n\n“What happened to your sword?”\n\n“Got stuck.” He shrugged. “I’ll get another one inside.”\n\nA horn blew. It was a mighty blast worthy of a true jotun. “Half-Giant!” the men roared as they charged towards the ferocious struggle. The wolves were caught by surprise as the thirty-odd men with whom they were engaged suddenly fell back, giving the archers the space they required. Rennir was the first to loose, but Steinthor and the others quickly followed suit. They sent a second flight of shafts hammering into the foe before the gap was closed by Hrafnkel’s screaming men.\n\nHe felt Rennir grab his arm as they joined the bleeding, battered remnants of the Horse-Bjorn’s men and rushed towards the doorway, as fast as his injured leg would permit him to go. But they needn’t have hurried. He looked back and saw, silhouetted against the flames, the great figure of the Half-Giant holding an Aalvarg aloft in his massive hands before snapping the creature’s neck and swinging it like a limp, but heavy club. He’d have caught a Chooser’s eye with that one, thought Steinthor in astonishment and admiration.\n\nHe waited until the last man was through, then stepped down into the stairwell and pulled the door shut behind him. Rennir slid the metal slab into place, barring it, and the two of them began to follow the others down the stone stairs.\n\n“Can you make it down?” the bowman asked him.\n\nSteinthor suddenly realized that his wounded leg hurt and he was very, very tired. It won’t be long now, he promised himself. He only needed enough strength for one last task. The West Tower was already taken and the North Tower would only last as long as the Half-Giant and the door they had just barred. Their long defense of Raknarborg was over.\n\n“I can make it,” he said.\n\nHe leaned on Rennir’s arm and together they descended towards the keep. There was nothing left to defend. Now it was time to attack.\n", "completion": "“Slagtetid!”\n\nTheir hearts emboldened, his weary men echoed his cry and pushed forward again. They slew, and slew, and slew in a seemingly endless morass of blood and fire.\n\nSteinthor ducked under a slashing dagger and smashed a torch over the wolf-thing’s head. But the beast’s skull was too thick to crack. Instead, the torch broke in two, and the flaming end slid through a crenel to fall useless downward. Steinthor stared at the broken end for a moment, swung his other torch at the wolf’s face to keep its snapping jaws away from him, then stepped in and jammed the jagged wood into the creature’s unarmored chest as if it were a blade.\n\nIt screamed, fell back and was immediately placed by a large black Aalvarg that roared as it leaped at him with its claws outstretched. He tried to block it with his remaining torch, but the big beast collided with him and sent him sprawling on his back. The torch flew out of his hand, leaving him defenseless. His armor protected his insides from scrabbling claws that tried to rip them out, and he jammed his chin down towards his chest just as the wolf tried to bite his face off. Despite the noise of the raging chaos surrounding them, he could hear its teeth break on the metal of his helmet, followed by a howl of infuriated pain.\n\nThen the beast suddenly spasmed and slumped motionless on top of him. His arms were pinned, he was trapped under its dead weight and the horrific wolf stench made him fear that he might soon drown in his own vomit. Then a boot came down and kicked the dead wolf just far enough off his chest that he could free his arms and wrestle the limp corpse off him before another of the demonspawn tore his throat out.\n\nA pair of legs was standing over him; it was Horse-Bjorn, he realized, defending him while he was down. He scrambled backwards on his elbows and pushed himself to his feet. Then he drew his sword. The veteran warrior killed another wolf with his axe, bringing it down so heavily that it split the creature’s bear-like skull. The man was prodigiously strong, even with just one arm, Steinthor marveled.\n\nBut even with the shield strapped to his useless left arm, Horse-Bjorn was vulnerable. Each swing left him slightly off-balance, and a mistimed swipe that missed his target clean caused him to stumble forward. He was only a few steps from the parapet already, and an alert dark-furred wolf that had just climbed over the merlons caught his shield in its claws, twisted, and hurled him high over the merlons. Steinthor heard Horse-Bjorn curse, more in anger than in fear, and then he was gone into the darkness below.\n\nA terrible wail went up from the men close enough to have seen their captain fall from the tower. Steinthor himself killed the dark-furred Aalvarg by punching his sword twice into its chest. He followed that with half-severing its head for good measure. He fended off a rusty, thrusting dagger with his left arm, then chopped off the beast’s hand at the wrist. For a moment both he and the wolf stood there and stared at each other. The wolf was stunned by the loss of its hand and Steinthor was astonished that his sword still retained enough of an edge to do such damage.\n\nThen the wounded creature snarled and lunged at him. Without thinking, Steinthor raised his arm and thrust the blade deep into the gaping maw. He found himself gasping as the dead weight of the wolf suddenly dragged his arm down. The sword was too deeply lodged into the beast’s skull to withdraw it, so he drew his dagger and fell back into the furiously fighting ranks of the Horse-Bjorn’s remaining men.\n\nThere were too few of them left to throw back this wave, he saw. The relentless pressure from the Aalvarg was wearing them down and the loss of the Horse-Bjorn had caused more than a few to give into fey despair. Their discipline was all but gone, and he saw two more men pulled forward and hurled from the ramparts by the powerful grey-furred arms of the demonspawn. When the signal flames went up from the West Tower, indicating the wolves were attacking it now as well, he knew the time had come to fall back.\n\n“Half-Giant! Half-Giant!” he shouted as he fought his way back towards the huge man and his men. “Half-Giant!”\n\n“It is time?” Hrafnkel asked him, peering down uncertainly at him. “Do I blow the horn?”\n\n“Blow the horn,” Steinthor said. He gripped the big man’s thick forearm and squeezed it, wishing he could give the man a more worthy farewell. “Don’t let them pull you forward and throw you off the tower.”\n\nThe big man nodded seriously, as if there was any advice that mattered now. “Go, Steinthor Strongbow, and the gods go with you.”\n\nSteinthor squeezed Hrafnkel’s arm again. He felt he hadn’t properly appreciated the Half-Giant’s courage until this moment. And yet, this was not the first or the fiftieth time he had felt Death’s cold hands clutching at him, what made him so womanish and sentimental now? Cursing himself, cursing his luck, cursing the wolves, and most of all, cursing whatever evil god had birthed the damnable creatures, he limped over to Rennir and reclaimed his bow, which was already strung.\n\n“Two volleys and then we run for the stairs and down into the keep.” He nocked an arrow.\n\n“Can you run?”\n\n“Not really.”\n\n“What happened to your sword?”\n\n“Got stuck.” He shrugged. “I’ll get another one inside.”\n\nA horn blew. It was a mighty blast worthy of a true jotun. “Half-Giant!” the men roared as they charged towards the ferocious struggle. The wolves were caught by surprise as the thirty-odd men with whom they were engaged suddenly fell back, giving the archers the space they required. Rennir was the first to loose, but Steinthor and the others quickly followed suit. They sent a second flight of shafts hammering into the foe before the gap was closed by Hrafnkel’s screaming men.\n\nHe felt Rennir grab his arm as they joined the bleeding, battered remnants of the Horse-Bjorn’s men and rushed towards the doorway, as fast as his injured leg would permit him to go. But they needn’t have hurried. He looked back and saw, silhouetted against the flames, the great figure of the Half-Giant holding an Aalvarg aloft in his massive hands before snapping the creature’s neck and swinging it like a limp, but heavy club. He’d have caught a Chooser’s eye with that one, thought Steinthor in astonishment and admiration.\n\nHe waited until the last man was through, then stepped down into the stairwell and pulled the door shut behind him. Rennir slid the metal slab into place, barring it, and the two of them began to follow the others down the stone stairs.\n\n“Can you make it down?” the bowman asked him.\n\nSteinthor suddenly realized that his wounded leg hurt and he was very, very tired. It won’t be long now, he promised himself. He only needed enough strength for one last task. The West Tower was already taken and the North Tower would only last as long as the Half-Giant and the door they had just barred. Their long defense of Raknarborg was over.\n\n“I can make it,” he said.\n\nHe leaned on Rennir’s arm and together they descended towards the keep. There was nothing left to defend. Now it was time to attack.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1313, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch15_theuderic-P1", "chapter": "ch15_theuderic", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nJean de Cervole / Captain Jean / the curé — defrocked routier captain; forms as used.\nSeigneur Roche / Lord Roche / viscomte — marcher ally from the night ride.\nSebastien — drained young battlemage holding the captive rear.\nTheuderic / Seigneur de Merovech / senior kingsmage — viewpoint.\nLegio XVII — Amorran pressure behind the orcs; Roman numeral.\ncoupe de compassion — mercy-throat phrase; keep French.\nbreeds / skins — cant for orcs as used.\nMontrove — ruined city in later memory; may not appear in this packet.\n\n### STORY\nTheuderic finds Étienne-Henri’s camp a shambles, counsels the prince that Valerius Cavator’s dawn push makes cavalry pursuit the only useful blow, and promises a mounted plan by noon.\n\nAt third watch he fire-talks Sebastien’s report of fleeing wolfriders, ambushes them with Roche’s eighty under Fiat lux, then rides toward four-blast horns from Jean de Cervole’s squadron deeper in the forest.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nRiding into de Cervole’s fight at sunup with Roche. Sees five hundred-plus naked battered captives behind a brush barricade and wants to run; Sebastien will not. Shifts to assassination of the organizing warleader and his shamans. Duty framed as keeping a kingsmage alive, not saving peasants.\n\nSeigneur Roche\nPuzzled by a cavalry stand; charges the orc flank hard; disgusted by de Cervole but will not flee the villagers.\n\nSebastien\nExhausted, nearly spell-empty after burning a swathe of forest; ordered by Captain Jean to stay with the captives; refuses retreat with contempt.\n\nJean de Cervole\nFilthy, smashed-face ex-priest; demands fifty men if Roche rides; baits the viscomte with courage talk; agrees the warleader must die.\n\nWarleader (orc)\nLarge orc with two shamans; not yet faced; has begun ordering the formerly broken host.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nTheuderic waited. He could hear when a man was trying to talk himself into something he really didn’t want to do. And, to be honest, Theuderic wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the idea of riding to the squadron’s rescue himself. The idea of galloping into the woods and butchering hundreds of defenseless orcs had seemed dangerous, but viable under the mid-day sun in the safety of the camp. Now, with the dawn threatening to break upon the horizon, it struck him as insanely stupid.\n\nThe viscomte sighed. “Ah, well, I never wanted to die in bed and both my sons are grown men. And I expect my wife will sleep better without me snoring. Anyhow, so long as we don’t get ourselves ambushed and surrounded, we can outrun the stump-legged sons of whores. I suppose you can scare up a trick or two to give us a head start, Sieur Mage?”\n\n“Without a doubt.”\n\n“Good man. You remind me of Amand. What was his name? Estochait, I think. I rode the border patrol with him.”\n\nTheuderic blinked. Amand Estochait was an Immortel, and so fat it was hard to imagine him ever sitting a horse. “You knew Estochait?”\n\n“Damn good man with a timely fire spell,” the viscomte declared with a faint smile. “So after all these years, here I am, still riding the woods with a damned bluecloak, hunting orcs. Well, shall we get on with it, Sieur Mage, or shall we leave the verdards to bugger the bloody curé in peace?”\n\nTheuderic glanced back at the men. Most of the riders were covered in varying amounts of green blood. He saw no fear in their eyes, only anticipation. He nodded to the old nobleman.\n\n“Keep it close, lads,” Lord Roche’s voice boomed out through the trees. “You heard the horns. That damned de Cervole has got hisself in trouble and it’s our duty to see that he dies the death he deserves, with a rope around his fat neck! We already had goblin for the starter, so let’s go kill some orcs for the next course!”\n\nThe men roared, more than willing to follow the viscomte into more slaughter and bloodshed. Theuderic laughed, though he wasn’t sure if it was the thought of Amand Estochait on a horse or the world-weary expression on Lord Roche’s white-mustached face that amused him more. He kicked his horse into a canter, ducked under a low-hanging branch, and wondered what on Earth had convinced him to let the old man talk himself into rescuing the others.\n\n### NOTES\nSun up; forest canopy dapples sight; smoke and women’s screams guide them.\nBrush barricade; scorched trees and charred orc corpses from Sebastien’s fire.\nCaptives from at least six villages; many women and children; used as mobile supplies.\nOrcs returning in growing numbers—hundreds per wave, thousands gathering.\nAmorran pressure from behind is the strategic vice; plan assumed mobile butchery, not a static defense.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nBattle-noise and then women’s screams pull Roche’s riders into de Cervole’s stand: dismounted men, a brush wall, and a mass of stripped captives. They smash an orc wave in the flank. Sebastien is spent and refuses to leave five hundred villagers; Theuderic’s mind runs abandonment math and the king’s interest, then hits Sebastien’s contempt and shifts—if they cannot run, kill the big bastard and the shamans who knit the mob. He finds Roche with grotesque Jean de Cervole already mid-quarrel over flight versus throat-cutting mercy; he intercedes with the warleader plan until both nod. The scene lands on that agreement to stand and strike the head, before the detailed dispositions.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2600 words. Battle arrival brutal; moral coldness frank. Land on the warleader decision; do not stage the next assault yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "He heard the sounds of battle before he saw anything. The sun was up and the men’s torches had been extinguished and returned to their saddlebags, but the leafy filter overhead created a dappled effect that played tricks on the eyes. As near as he could tell by the bestial roars that echoed through the trees, the orcs were attacking the curé’s forces, which puzzled Theuderic considering that all of de Cervole’s men were mounted. Even in a forest such as this, his cavalry shouldn’t have had too much trouble disentangling themselves from orcs on foot, unless they’d somehow managed to get themselves encircled.\n\nLord Roche reined in his horse next to him. “What do you think?” He sounded as if he was similarly puzzled.\n\n“I have no idea. It sounds like they’re making a stand.”\n\n“That makes no sense!”\n\n“I know.” Theuderic shrugged. “Perhaps their captain is fallen and they’re trying to defend him.”\n\nThe viscomte laughed. “Ah, my dear magus, you know nothing of Jean de Cervole or his men. If he’s down, they would only delay long enough to cut his throat, steal his purse, and loot his saddlebags. And I can’t imagine the old deviant would risk himself or his men for any of the knights.”\n\n“Do you smell smoke?” Theuderic sniffed at the air. The wind was at their backs, but even so, he thought he scented the smell of a fire nearby.\n\n“I don’t smell anything.”\n\nThen they heard a scream. It was followed by another. The two men looked at each other.\n\n“Was that what I think it was?” Lord Roche said, confusion on his face.\n\n“Those were women’s voices!” Theuderic declared.\n\nWithout another word, they spurred their horses forward, in the direction of the screams. Theuderic dropped back a little, to let the more heavily armored knights take the lead. They raced through the forest, winding their way through as fast as the trees would allow, and both the sound of battle and the smell of smoke grew stronger.\n\nThe first thing they saw were the orcs. Dozens of them, big creatures with powerful shoulders and short, but thick, bowed legs. They were hurling themselves at a thin wall of dismounted men who were fighting ferociously in defense of a hastily erected pile of brush that served as an ineffective barricade. Neither the viscomte nor his men slowed down as they charged into the attacking orcs and hit them in their undefended left flank. Theuderic saw Lord Roche behead one screaming orc and trample another; one of his knights drove his lance all the way through the neck of one orc to spit a second one just below his right shoulder blade. The oaken lance snapped, and the knight swung the broken handle down on the bare head of a third orc like a mace, crushing its heavy skull.\n\nThen Theuderic himself was in among the shrieking, dying, and panicking orcs, lashing out with his sword whenever his horse brought him within range of anything with a green skin. They were barely capable of resistance and were trying to flee, but the press of onrushing horses left most of them to be slashed in passing when they weren’t run through or trampled. A few were clever enough to stand still behind large trees, then dash for safety when no riders were approaching, but there were not many of them.\n\nThe viscomte and his men were already coming back towards him, having turned around after riding through the orcs. Seeing that the wretched monsters were fleeing, Theuderic was finally able to pull up his horse and turn his attention to the men, and, as he saw to his surprise, women and children behind the barrier.\n\n“What are they doing here?” he shouted at one dismounted man-at-arms.\n\nThe man, whose weary face was stained with blood both red and green, raised his free hand in a gesture indicating his ignorance. “We came across a band of about fifty orcs shepherding them along. We killed about half of them and drove off the rest, but then we ran into this lot.”\n\n“How many?”\n\n“Hard to say. At least six, seven hundred. You interrupted the third crack they took at us. Damn good thing you came along when you did.”\n\n“Where are your horses?”\n\nThe man jerked his thumb towards the rear. “Behind the women and children. Captain Jean had most of us dismount and kept a reserve of thirty to hit them when they were pressing us hard. I thought that’s who you were at first.”\n\n“Where are they? Is de Cervole with them?”\n\n“I think so,” the man said. But just then, Theuderic heard a familiar voice crying out to him. “Theuderic!”\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted back. “Over here, at the barricade!”\n\nIt was hard to see where his fellow battlemage was amidst the confusion of horses blowing, men shouting, women crying, and the wounded shrieking in pain. Unsurprisingly, the women and children outnumbered the men by about four to one. Most of them were naked, or were wearing tattered rags. They were bruised, scratched, and half-starved by the look of it. Many of the women and not a few of the men had dried blood staining their legs. The children had a vacant, dull-eyed stare he had seen before; it was the same stunned look he’d seen on the faces of soldiers when they had witnessed too much horror for their minds to accept. And there were scores of them milling aimlessly about, getting in the way of the warriors who were trying to shore up their paltry defenses and arm the male prisoners with sticks that might serve as spears or clubs before the orcs returned to come at them again.\n\nTo one side of the barrier, flames still crackled and the sides of the trees facing it were scorched black up to the height of a mounted man’s head. There were several dozen charred corpses of orcs, most with their arms upraised before them, scattered between the barrier and the trees. They had learned the hard way that a Savondese battlemage was no easy prey.\n\nFinally, he spotted Sebastien’s royal blue cape as his fellow mage made his way past a pair of men-at-arms bandaging their wounded and trying to catch their breath.\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted again, and this time the younger mage saw him.\n\n“Theuderic! Thank God you arrived! Things were looking desperate there for a moment.” He was looking exhausted and on the verge of collapse. Theuderic could tell he had all but drained himself dry.\n\n“Where is your horse? What are you doing?”\n\n“Captain Jean told me to stay with the captives and help defend them in case the orcs broke through the men he had stationed there. They nearly got through once, not the last time, but the time before. I managed to keep them at bay, but I had to burn down nearly half the forest to do it!”\n\n“I saw that. You need to rest, Sebastien. You should ride out now, while you can.”\n\n“No! Captain Jean said no one leaves. There are more than five hundred villagers here, Theuderic, and most of them are women and children.”\n\n“I saw. What are they doing here in the middle of the forest? You said they were captives?”\n\n“Some of them were taken weeks ago. Others more recently. They’re from at least six different villages.” He paused for a moment and made a face. “Theuderic, I think they were being brought along as supplies.”\n\nTheuderic nodded. He wasn’t surprised. No army that didn’t hesitate to live off its own light infantry would shirk at devouring captives. Mobile food supplies were a logistical advantage. “If we can drive the breeds off, we can escort them out of the forest safely.”\n\nSebastien smiled grimly. “More and more of the monsters kept showing up, Theuderic. Thousands of them. We had no idea where they were all coming from. At first they were almost completely unorganized, but then a big bastard showed up with a pair of shamans and kicked them into order. The last two waves, they hit us from two sides. That’s why I was helping hold the rear.”\n\nMore and more of them kept coming. That was the problem. More and more of them would continue to come because that was precisely what he and the prince had anticipated, what they’d expected to be able to use to their advantage. The Amorran pressure on their rear would only increase with time; Theuderic knew enough of Legio XVII and its officers to know that once the attack began, they would keep pushing steadily forward, neither dashing rapidly ahead nor slacking off in order to rest. He had seen the Amorrans practicing their revolutions over and over again on the parade grounds of their castras, one century rotating smoothly after the other, like a slow-moving iron mill that ground flesh into blood instead of grain into flour.\n\nTheuderic’s original plan had called for the four squadrons of horse to use their superior mobility to methodically reduce the fleeing bands of orcs, striking, retreating, then striking again. But now, their mobility would be rendered useless by the need to protect the captive villagers. It occurred to him they might abandon the adults, and each take up a child, or perhaps a young woman, and ride out with them. That would require leaving the rest to their doom, but surely saving scores of the youngest ones would be better than sacrificing over one hundred riders in a futile effort to save a few villages’ worth of peasants. To say nothing of two royal mages.\n\nHe had no doubt whatsoever that the king would not countenance the risk. If nothing else, he must convince Sebastien that it was their duty to retreat even if the prince’s cavalry captains would not. Courage and honor were for knights, not kingsmages.\n\n“We have to leave, Sebastien. If the orcs are gathering, even with Lord Roche’s men there won’t be enough to hold them off. We can’t force them back, not with the Amorrans driving them in this direction.”\n\nThe younger mage stared at him, momentarily struck dumb. Then his eyes flashed with contempt and anger. “You run away if you’re afraid to stand, Theuderic. I’m not going anywhere. None of us are! Captain Jean said he’d ride down and kill the first man who fled and left these poor people behind!”\n\nTheuderic sighed. An uncharitable thought about the bugger-priest’s distaste for leaving children behind crossed his mind, but apparently even the worst of men had their moments. And the fury on Sebastien’s dirt-stained face seemed to suggest that it might be counterproductive to speak his mind aloud.\n\n“All right. If we can’t run, then we have to disrupt them, break them up and keep them from building up enough strength to overrun us.”\n\n“How do you suggest we do that?” Sebastien’s tone was still hostile, but there was an underlying note of hope in his voice too.\n\n“We kill the big bastard. If they don’t have anyone to gather around, there won’t be a group large enough to challenge us. Find your horse and come with me. We need to find de Cervole and the viscomte.”\n\n“I’m staying here. They will need me when the orcs come again.”\n\n“Go get your damn horse, Sebastien!” he snapped. “If you want to save them, then come with me! I’m going to need someone to distract those bloody shamans and you’re the only other mage in sight! I’ll meet you back here.”\n\nHis colleague stared at him for a moment in dismay, then nodded and ran in search of his mount. Theuderic turned his own horse around to see if he could get a better view of the situation now that the orcs had fallen back and most of their wounded had been methodically dispatched.\n\nThe trees obscured his view, but he could see that de Cervole had managed to find a slight rise which gave the defenders a modicum of advantage, one that was enhanced by the brush and fallen trees piled up behind him. From the movement in the distance and the flicker of shadows, he could tell that the orcs had not retreated far, which indicated that it would not be long before they would be gathering for yet another assault. He saw no sign of the big orc that Sebastien identified as their leader, nor the two shamans, but presumably they would be further back, either attempting to rally fleeing orcs or collecting stragglers from the night before.\n\nHe went in search of Lord Roche and found him in the company of a filthy fat man with a ring of long, stringy, blood-matted hair hanging down from an otherwise bald head. The fat man’s face was uneven, as if he’d been smashed on its left side by a shield as an infant; it gave him a freakish, even frightening appearance. But his green eyes were bright with a keen intelligence that belied his otherwise grotesque persona.\n\n“Seigneur de Merovech, Jean de Cervole. Jean, you will recall the senior kingsmage.” The ex-priest nodded at him, unimpressed, and jabbed his finger into the viscomte’s breastplate.\n\n“You ride away if you must, Seigneur. I will not stop you. But leave me at least fifty men. I have lost twenty, maybe a few more in that last assault. We can stop them! They have no armor, their weapons are poor. But they are so many, and in the trees, we have no room to maneuver.”\n\n“That’s why you dismounted your men,” Theuderic said.\n\n“I did! And we were better able to defend the poor unfortunates on foot. We cannot simply leave them, ne pas? Better we should cut their throats before we flee like thieves and cowards. At least have the courage to show them the coupe de compassion, monseigneur le viscomte. Have you the courage to cut the throats of the mothers, the little ones?”\n\n“I’ve got the courage to cut yours, you filthy excuse for a pig!” The viscomte curled his lip in disgust. “I said nothing about riding anywhere! As if any true knight of the realm would even think to flee and leave those wretched folk to the defense of scum like you and your men!”\n\n“I rejoice to hear it, monseigneur. Then we shall stand together against these beasts, and we shall slaughter these monsters seeking to feed upon the flesh of the innocent.” The twisted face seemed to leer, and Theuderic wondered if the defrocked mercenary was actually trying to bait the nobleman.\n", "completion": "He heard the sounds of battle before he saw anything. The sun was up and the men’s torches had been extinguished and returned to their saddlebags, but the leafy filter overhead created a dappled effect that played tricks on the eyes. As near as he could tell by the bestial roars that echoed through the trees, the orcs were attacking the curé’s forces, which puzzled Theuderic considering that all of de Cervole’s men were mounted. Even in a forest such as this, his cavalry shouldn’t have had too much trouble disentangling themselves from orcs on foot, unless they’d somehow managed to get themselves encircled.\n\nLord Roche reined in his horse next to him. “What do you think?” He sounded as if he was similarly puzzled.\n\n“I have no idea. It sounds like they’re making a stand.”\n\n“That makes no sense!”\n\n“I know.” Theuderic shrugged. “Perhaps their captain is fallen and they’re trying to defend him.”\n\nThe viscomte laughed. “Ah, my dear magus, you know nothing of Jean de Cervole or his men. If he’s down, they would only delay long enough to cut his throat, steal his purse, and loot his saddlebags. And I can’t imagine the old deviant would risk himself or his men for any of the knights.”\n\n“Do you smell smoke?” Theuderic sniffed at the air. The wind was at their backs, but even so, he thought he scented the smell of a fire nearby.\n\n“I don’t smell anything.”\n\nThen they heard a scream. It was followed by another. The two men looked at each other.\n\n“Was that what I think it was?” Lord Roche said, confusion on his face.\n\n“Those were women’s voices!” Theuderic declared.\n\nWithout another word, they spurred their horses forward, in the direction of the screams. Theuderic dropped back a little, to let the more heavily armored knights take the lead. They raced through the forest, winding their way through as fast as the trees would allow, and both the sound of battle and the smell of smoke grew stronger.\n\nThe first thing they saw were the orcs. Dozens of them, big creatures with powerful shoulders and short, but thick, bowed legs. They were hurling themselves at a thin wall of dismounted men who were fighting ferociously in defense of a hastily erected pile of brush that served as an ineffective barricade. Neither the viscomte nor his men slowed down as they charged into the attacking orcs and hit them in their undefended left flank. Theuderic saw Lord Roche behead one screaming orc and trample another; one of his knights drove his lance all the way through the neck of one orc to spit a second one just below his right shoulder blade. The oaken lance snapped, and the knight swung the broken handle down on the bare head of a third orc like a mace, crushing its heavy skull.\n\nThen Theuderic himself was in among the shrieking, dying, and panicking orcs, lashing out with his sword whenever his horse brought him within range of anything with a green skin. They were barely capable of resistance and were trying to flee, but the press of onrushing horses left most of them to be slashed in passing when they weren’t run through or trampled. A few were clever enough to stand still behind large trees, then dash for safety when no riders were approaching, but there were not many of them.\n\nThe viscomte and his men were already coming back towards him, having turned around after riding through the orcs. Seeing that the wretched monsters were fleeing, Theuderic was finally able to pull up his horse and turn his attention to the men, and, as he saw to his surprise, women and children behind the barrier.\n\n“What are they doing here?” he shouted at one dismounted man-at-arms.\n\nThe man, whose weary face was stained with blood both red and green, raised his free hand in a gesture indicating his ignorance. “We came across a band of about fifty orcs shepherding them along. We killed about half of them and drove off the rest, but then we ran into this lot.”\n\n“How many?”\n\n“Hard to say. At least six, seven hundred. You interrupted the third crack they took at us. Damn good thing you came along when you did.”\n\n“Where are your horses?”\n\nThe man jerked his thumb towards the rear. “Behind the women and children. Captain Jean had most of us dismount and kept a reserve of thirty to hit them when they were pressing us hard. I thought that’s who you were at first.”\n\n“Where are they? Is de Cervole with them?”\n\n“I think so,” the man said. But just then, Theuderic heard a familiar voice crying out to him. “Theuderic!”\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted back. “Over here, at the barricade!”\n\nIt was hard to see where his fellow battlemage was amidst the confusion of horses blowing, men shouting, women crying, and the wounded shrieking in pain. Unsurprisingly, the women and children outnumbered the men by about four to one. Most of them were naked, or were wearing tattered rags. They were bruised, scratched, and half-starved by the look of it. Many of the women and not a few of the men had dried blood staining their legs. The children had a vacant, dull-eyed stare he had seen before; it was the same stunned look he’d seen on the faces of soldiers when they had witnessed too much horror for their minds to accept. And there were scores of them milling aimlessly about, getting in the way of the warriors who were trying to shore up their paltry defenses and arm the male prisoners with sticks that might serve as spears or clubs before the orcs returned to come at them again.\n\nTo one side of the barrier, flames still crackled and the sides of the trees facing it were scorched black up to the height of a mounted man’s head. There were several dozen charred corpses of orcs, most with their arms upraised before them, scattered between the barrier and the trees. They had learned the hard way that a Savondese battlemage was no easy prey.\n\nFinally, he spotted Sebastien’s royal blue cape as his fellow mage made his way past a pair of men-at-arms bandaging their wounded and trying to catch their breath.\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted again, and this time the younger mage saw him.\n\n“Theuderic! Thank God you arrived! Things were looking desperate there for a moment.” He was looking exhausted and on the verge of collapse. Theuderic could tell he had all but drained himself dry.\n\n“Where is your horse? What are you doing?”\n\n“Captain Jean told me to stay with the captives and help defend them in case the orcs broke through the men he had stationed there. They nearly got through once, not the last time, but the time before. I managed to keep them at bay, but I had to burn down nearly half the forest to do it!”\n\n“I saw that. You need to rest, Sebastien. You should ride out now, while you can.”\n\n“No! Captain Jean said no one leaves. There are more than five hundred villagers here, Theuderic, and most of them are women and children.”\n\n“I saw. What are they doing here in the middle of the forest? You said they were captives?”\n\n“Some of them were taken weeks ago. Others more recently. They’re from at least six different villages.” He paused for a moment and made a face. “Theuderic, I think they were being brought along as supplies.”\n\nTheuderic nodded. He wasn’t surprised. No army that didn’t hesitate to live off its own light infantry would shirk at devouring captives. Mobile food supplies were a logistical advantage. “If we can drive the breeds off, we can escort them out of the forest safely.”\n\nSebastien smiled grimly. “More and more of the monsters kept showing up, Theuderic. Thousands of them. We had no idea where they were all coming from. At first they were almost completely unorganized, but then a big bastard showed up with a pair of shamans and kicked them into order. The last two waves, they hit us from two sides. That’s why I was helping hold the rear.”\n\nMore and more of them kept coming. That was the problem. More and more of them would continue to come because that was precisely what he and the prince had anticipated, what they’d expected to be able to use to their advantage. The Amorran pressure on their rear would only increase with time; Theuderic knew enough of Legio XVII and its officers to know that once the attack began, they would keep pushing steadily forward, neither dashing rapidly ahead nor slacking off in order to rest. He had seen the Amorrans practicing their revolutions over and over again on the parade grounds of their castras, one century rotating smoothly after the other, like a slow-moving iron mill that ground flesh into blood instead of grain into flour.\n\nTheuderic’s original plan had called for the four squadrons of horse to use their superior mobility to methodically reduce the fleeing bands of orcs, striking, retreating, then striking again. But now, their mobility would be rendered useless by the need to protect the captive villagers. It occurred to him they might abandon the adults, and each take up a child, or perhaps a young woman, and ride out with them. That would require leaving the rest to their doom, but surely saving scores of the youngest ones would be better than sacrificing over one hundred riders in a futile effort to save a few villages’ worth of peasants. To say nothing of two royal mages.\n\nHe had no doubt whatsoever that the king would not countenance the risk. If nothing else, he must convince Sebastien that it was their duty to retreat even if the prince’s cavalry captains would not. Courage and honor were for knights, not kingsmages.\n\n“We have to leave, Sebastien. If the orcs are gathering, even with Lord Roche’s men there won’t be enough to hold them off. We can’t force them back, not with the Amorrans driving them in this direction.”\n\nThe younger mage stared at him, momentarily struck dumb. Then his eyes flashed with contempt and anger. “You run away if you’re afraid to stand, Theuderic. I’m not going anywhere. None of us are! Captain Jean said he’d ride down and kill the first man who fled and left these poor people behind!”\n\nTheuderic sighed. An uncharitable thought about the bugger-priest’s distaste for leaving children behind crossed his mind, but apparently even the worst of men had their moments. And the fury on Sebastien’s dirt-stained face seemed to suggest that it might be counterproductive to speak his mind aloud.\n\n“All right. If we can’t run, then we have to disrupt them, break them up and keep them from building up enough strength to overrun us.”\n\n“How do you suggest we do that?” Sebastien’s tone was still hostile, but there was an underlying note of hope in his voice too.\n\n“We kill the big bastard. If they don’t have anyone to gather around, there won’t be a group large enough to challenge us. Find your horse and come with me. We need to find de Cervole and the viscomte.”\n\n“I’m staying here. They will need me when the orcs come again.”\n\n“Go get your damn horse, Sebastien!” he snapped. “If you want to save them, then come with me! I’m going to need someone to distract those bloody shamans and you’re the only other mage in sight! I’ll meet you back here.”\n\nHis colleague stared at him for a moment in dismay, then nodded and ran in search of his mount. Theuderic turned his own horse around to see if he could get a better view of the situation now that the orcs had fallen back and most of their wounded had been methodically dispatched.\n\nThe trees obscured his view, but he could see that de Cervole had managed to find a slight rise which gave the defenders a modicum of advantage, one that was enhanced by the brush and fallen trees piled up behind him. From the movement in the distance and the flicker of shadows, he could tell that the orcs had not retreated far, which indicated that it would not be long before they would be gathering for yet another assault. He saw no sign of the big orc that Sebastien identified as their leader, nor the two shamans, but presumably they would be further back, either attempting to rally fleeing orcs or collecting stragglers from the night before.\n\nHe went in search of Lord Roche and found him in the company of a filthy fat man with a ring of long, stringy, blood-matted hair hanging down from an otherwise bald head. The fat man’s face was uneven, as if he’d been smashed on its left side by a shield as an infant; it gave him a freakish, even frightening appearance. But his green eyes were bright with a keen intelligence that belied his otherwise grotesque persona.\n\n“Seigneur de Merovech, Jean de Cervole. Jean, you will recall the senior kingsmage.” The ex-priest nodded at him, unimpressed, and jabbed his finger into the viscomte’s breastplate.\n\n“You ride away if you must, Seigneur. I will not stop you. But leave me at least fifty men. I have lost twenty, maybe a few more in that last assault. We can stop them! They have no armor, their weapons are poor. But they are so many, and in the trees, we have no room to maneuver.”\n\n“That’s why you dismounted your men,” Theuderic said.\n\n“I did! And we were better able to defend the poor unfortunates on foot. We cannot simply leave them, ne pas? Better we should cut their throats before we flee like thieves and cowards. At least have the courage to show them the coupe de compassion, monseigneur le viscomte. Have you the courage to cut the throats of the mothers, the little ones?”\n\n“I’ve got the courage to cut yours, you filthy excuse for a pig!” The viscomte curled his lip in disgust. “I said nothing about riding anywhere! As if any true knight of the realm would even think to flee and leave those wretched folk to the defense of scum like you and your men!”\n\n“I rejoice to hear it, monseigneur. Then we shall stand together against these beasts, and we shall slaughter these monsters seeking to feed upon the flesh of the innocent.” The twisted face seemed to leer, and Theuderic wondered if the defrocked mercenary was actually trying to bait the nobleman.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2494, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch15_theuderic-P2", "chapter": "ch15_theuderic", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFalardeau’s Récurer de la Flamme Funeste — balefire standby; accents as written.\nL’êtrangleuse Subreptice / Le Cœur Dilater de Vermouton / Micheloud’s Marteau du Ciel — alternate spells; keep forms.\nLithriel — elf woman in Theuderic’s guilt; keep spelling.\nNotre Dames — rosary murmur as de Cervole recalls; keep form.\njongleurs — keep French plural.\n\n### STORY\nRiding to four-blast horns, Theuderic and Roche smash into de Cervole’s defense of five hundred captive villagers; Sebastien will not retreat, and Theuderic sells both captains on killing the orc warleader and his shamans to shatter the gathering host.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nReviews spells; knows balefire needs proximity. Tells Roche he stays only to keep Sebastien alive—claims indifference to peasants and children—yet cannot ride away. Remembers Lithriel’s three betrayals when de Cervole speaks of irrevocable falls. Threatens balefire if the ex-priest touches his face again.\n\nSeigneur Roche\nScowls through agreement; offers Theuderic leave for the king’s sake; grins at the cold bastard answer; gives ten knights and food-discipline orders for the captives.\n\nJean de Cervole\nOrders no food or water to captives; takes the waiting strike himself with hard-bitten leather men; confesses damnation and the thrill of stepping out of the mire; once handsome in the Church.\n\nSebastien\nGave his sword to the villagers; staff ready to occupy shamans; waiting at the barricade.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe trees obscured his view, but he could see that de Cervole had managed to find a slight rise which gave the defenders a modicum of advantage, one that was enhanced by the brush and fallen trees piled up behind him. From the movement in the distance and the flicker of shadows, he could tell that the orcs had not retreated far, which indicated that it would not be long before they would be gathering for yet another assault. He saw no sign of the big orc that Sebastien identified as their leader, nor the two shamans, but presumably they would be further back, either attempting to rally fleeing orcs or collecting stragglers from the night before.\n\nHe went in search of Lord Roche and found him in the company of a filthy fat man with a ring of long, stringy, blood-matted hair hanging down from an otherwise bald head. The fat man’s face was uneven, as if he’d been smashed on its left side by a shield as an infant; it gave him a freakish, even frightening appearance. But his green eyes were bright with a keen intelligence that belied his otherwise grotesque persona.\n\n“Seigneur de Merovech, Jean de Cervole. Jean, you will recall the senior kingsmage.” The ex-priest nodded at him, unimpressed, and jabbed his finger into the viscomte’s breastplate.\n\n“You ride away if you must, Seigneur. I will not stop you. But leave me at least fifty men. I have lost twenty, maybe a few more in that last assault. We can stop them! They have no armor, their weapons are poor. But they are so many, and in the trees, we have no room to maneuver.”\n\n“That’s why you dismounted your men,” Theuderic said.\n\n“I did! And we were better able to defend the poor unfortunates on foot. We cannot simply leave them, ne pas? Better we should cut their throats before we flee like thieves and cowards. At least have the courage to show them the coupe de compassion, monseigneur le viscomte. Have you the courage to cut the throats of the mothers, the little ones?”\n\n“I’ve got the courage to cut yours, you filthy excuse for a pig!” The viscomte curled his lip in disgust. “I said nothing about riding anywhere! As if any true knight of the realm would even think to flee and leave those wretched folk to the defense of scum like you and your men!”\n\n“I rejoice to hear it, monseigneur. Then we shall stand together against these beasts, and we shall slaughter these monsters seeking to feed upon the flesh of the innocent.” The twisted face seemed to leer, and Theuderic wondered if the defrocked mercenary was actually trying to bait the nobleman.\n\n### NOTES\nAmorrans attacked last night; soonest noon tomorrow by Theuderic’s read of their customs.\nThree days’ rations per man; captives half-starved.\nTen knights allocated to the warleader strike; other squadrons to be horned in.\nVillagers arming with clubs, stakes, borrowed steel.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nThey flesh out the strike: Sebastien on shamans, Theuderic on the warleader, cavalry reserve to cut once the assault commits; Amorrans will not come today. Roche sounds for the other horse and forbids feeding captives. Alone, Roche offers him leave; Theuderic says he would take it but for Sebastien, denies shame or pity, and still cannot go. He rides back through armed peasants to a swordless Sebastien; Roche’s men stiffen the barricade; de Cervole claims the escort because his knees are done and Theuderic’s men are fresher. A drum and roar build in the trees. Waiting, de Cervole talks sin and sensation until he caresses Theuderic’s face and earns a balefire threat; he laughs and says it is time. The scene ends on that ready wait, before they charge.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2900 words. Cold counsel and ugly confession; no softening. Land on de Cervole’s ‘it is time’; do not start the charge.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Lord Roche’s face tightened, and for a moment Theuderic thought he was actually going to strike the man. He quickly interceded before it could come to blows.\n\n“My colleague tells me that he has seen what he thinks may be their leader, a large orc accompanied by a pair of shamans. We know from their general disarray that its hold on them must be tenuous. Perhaps their numbers are too great for us to withstand for long, but if we kill the leader, there is every chance their resolve will fail and they will cease to present a danger to us. We must break them apart and prevent them from coming at us in strength. The only way I can think to do that is to remove their warleader.”\n\nDe Cervole nodded. The viscomte scowled, as if to even agree with the man was distasteful to him, but a moment later, he, too, nodded.\n\n“The first attack was hasty and disorganized,” the mercenary said. “We would have driven it off easily had we not been taken by surprise. The second two involved multiple groups, attacking in concert, in two different places. I think the mage is right, although who can say if simply murdering the brute will be enough to dismay his fellows. They may be blood-maddened, or by now, they may simply be hungry enough to persist.”\n\n“I daresay we’ve left them sufficient carrion to chew on and assuage their hunger,” Lord Roche said dismissively. “They may not find the flesh so sweet, but they’ll find it bloody well easier to come by. You’ve the right idea, de Merovech. Cut the head off the snake and it dies. A mob is always more easily turned than a directed force.”\n\n“How do you propose to do it, monseigneur le mage? Can you magic the creature to death?”\n\n“I’ll try,” he answered de Cervole. “But it would be best not to trust to spells. It’s got a pair of shamans, and it may have more at its disposal that Sebastien didn’t see. My plan is for Sebastien to keep the shamans occupied and I’ll try to kill the warleader. But we will be more likely to succeed if we allocate part of the cavalry reserve to wait until it shows itself, then strike out after it once its orcs have been committed to the attack.”\n\n“Damned risky,” Lord Roche observed, staring off into the trees. “I doubt they’ll be expecting anything like that, not when we didn’t try anything similar the first three times, but even so, the chances are that it’ll have a second wave of attackers waiting and if it sees us coming, it’ll just put them in the way of our riders. If it’s smart enough to divide his attackers, it’s probably keeping a reserve on hand.”\n\n“Perhaps not. From what Sebastien told me, it sounds like it’s been rounding up whatever it can find and throwing them at us. It knows the Amorrans will be advancing behind them and it needs the captives if it’s going to feed what’s left of its army long enough to break free of the trap and retreat back to the east.”\n\n“When do you think they will get here?” de Cervole asked him. “The Amorrans. I think we can hold until nightfall. But if we haven’t driven them off by then….”\n\n“The Amorrans won’t be coming today. They attacked last night. I know their customs. They’ll have built their defenses and be resting behind them now. The soonest we can expect them is probably around noon tomorrow.”\n\nThe viscomte glowered. “We’d better kill that bloody warleader, then. I’ll have the horn sounded. If we can bring in the other two squadrons, we might have enough men to hold them off. De Merovech, I’ll give you ten knights to attack with you. De Cervole, assuming it hasn’t occurred to you yet, order your men not to give any of their food or water to the captives. The men need to keep their strength up if they’re going to be fighting all night.”\n\nTheuderic nodded grimly. The old warrior knew whereof he spoke. Each man carried three days’ supply of food, and several skins of water, and it was cruel to deny sustenance to the hapless villagers, many of whom probably had not eaten in days. But it would be wiser to lose a handful of them to starvation than get them all killed because their defenders were weak with hunger. Fighting was thirsty work, and if anyone was going to get out of this cursed forest alive, they were going to have to give themselves every opportunity of success.\n\nHe mentally reviewed his available spells. In the confusion of battle, L’êtrangleuse Subreptice would be the most likely to pass unnoticed, but it took a little more time than some of his other options. Le Cœur Dilater de Vermouton was the most certain to cause speedy death, as it would cause the subject’s heart to rapidly expand until it burst, but it was a wordy spell and would require that he lay hands upon the orc, which struck him as an unlikely and highly risky feat. Micheloud’s Marteau du Ciel was devastating, but difficult to aim precisely and was best used against large troop units, not individuals. He sighed. As usual, his best option would be the old standby, Falardeau’s Récurer de la Flamme Funeste, for which the sigils had long ago been carved into his staff.\n\nIt would certainly suffice to flambé the orc. The problem was that he would need to be close enough to his target for the magical flames to engulf it. That meant he would need to ride with those seeking to kill the warleader in less esoteric ways, which would make it impossible to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Being light infantry, the orcs would likely have archers and other missileers, although the trees would make it difficult to find a clear shot even if the orcs saw them coming.\n\nHe saw the defrocked priest ride off, presumably to gather his men, and Lord Roche approached him. The old viscomte had a rueful expression on his face, and Theuderic surmised that he was beginning to regret his hasty decision to stay and fight in what might well turn out to be his last battle. So he was surprised when the nobleman asked him a question.\n\n“Do you wish for me to give the order to leave, sieur mage?”\n\n“With all due respect, monseigneur, I don’t take orders from mere viscomtes.”\n\nThe older man laughed. “Well I know it! But there is many a man who in your position would find it hard to face himself were he to turn his back on these people, and I am aware that your duty to the king indicates that you and your fellow should save yourselves. So go, if you must.”\n\n“I would. My fellow is a romantic young fool and will not leave.”\n\n“And so he shames you into following suit?”\n\nTheuderic smiled thinly. “Not in the slightest. I don’t care about those wretched folk. It makes no difference whatsoever if we are able to save illiterates and farmhands or not. I’ve seen a thousand such innocents dead before, no few by my own hand. And for all we knew an hour past, they were already dead.”\n\n“What about the children?”\n\n“What of them? A third of them will be dead in ten years even if we rescue them all.” He shook his head. “I’m here to keep Sebastien alive, monseigneur viscomte. If I can. He may be a fool, but he is a kingsmage, and so here I will remain.”\n\n“Cold-hearted bastard, are you?” The viscomte grinned, unconcerned. “Best get back to your fellow, then. They’ll be coming before long, and I’m going to send out a pair of knights to escort the wounded.”\n\n“You might have them each carry a child,” Theuderic suggested. “The older ones might even help with those too badly hurt to hold the reins.”\n\n“Just a bastard, then.” Lord Roche nodded and urged his horse in the direction of where his men had gathered. “You kill that bloody warleader, de Merovech, and I’ll see to it that the jongleurs sing of your noble heart from here to the White Sea. Or drown you in whores, as you prefer.”\n\nI’ll take the latter, Theuderic thought, wondering if he would ever have the pleasure of pillaging a woman’s body again. Not that the bodies here were in any shape to stir a man’s desires, for all that half of them were naked. He was foolish to remain, and yet, for all his lies to the viscomte, he knew he could not ride away. As he rode back to where he expected to meet Sebastien, the sight of the people behind the barricade reminded him of the stripped corpses that had been piled up outside the broken walls of Montrove. It was piteous, but it was also revolting.\n\nStill, they were going to fight. Every male villager and most of the women were now armed with clubs and crudely sharpened stakes; one man was even carrying a longsword that looked suspiciously familiar. Others were carrying knives, maces, or other weapons some knight or man-at-arms had given them. Inept and untrained as they might be, they were not short on courage. He nodded, more in reflection than approval, thinking that a man need not be ashamed to die fighting at their side.\n\n“There you are!” Sebastien was already there waiting for him. As his horse stopped and emitted a steaming stream of urine, he noticed that the younger mage wasn’t wearing his sword.\n\n“Did you give your sword to them?” he asked suspiciously.\n\n“They need it more than I do,” Sebastien answered. He twirled his staff in his left hand. “Besides, I thought the idea was for me to occupy their shamans. Unless you’ve made considerable progress on that flying spell, I don’t see what good a sword is likely to do me.”\n\nA large group of horses trotted past them; Theuderic saw it was Lord Roche’s men. About twenty of them dismounted to take up positions behind the barricade, other knights took the reins of the riderless horses and rode off with them. Then a smaller group arrived, led by Jean de Cervole.\n\n“Come, monseigneur mages. Your escort has arrived! Follow me to where we shall wait for our oversized green-skinned friend to show itself.”\n\n“I thought one of the knights would be leading the charge,” Theuderic said, eyeing the former priest with skepticism.\n\nThe stringy-haired man smiled wearily, revealing yellowed, crooked teeth. “As did they. But your men are more fresh than mine; we have withstood two serious assaults while you have twice routed foes you caught by surprise. I’m getting old, my knees and back are aching, and I need more of a rest than these damned orcs are going to give us. If they break through quickly, there is no point to any of this.”\n\nTheuderic glanced skeptically at de Cervole’s men. They were hard-bitten men, mercenaries with years more experience than most of the young knights, but their armor was boiled leather and poor-quality chain mail. Their captain was the only man among them wearing a proper steel cuirass, and half of them didn’t even have proper helms.\n\nSome of his skepticism must have shown on his face, because de Cervole snorted dismissively and shook his head. “Never you mind, monseigneur mage. The boys will get to that bastard and cut it down to size for you. We may not be pretty, but by God, our swords are as sharp as any man’s.”\n\nA drum began beating, followed by an ominous, guttural roaring that sounded as if it was coming from the trees nearby. Theuderic sat bolt upright in his saddle. A horn blew, and he knew that the battle was about to begin again.\n\nDe Cervole reached out and patted his arm. “Relax. We have to wait, let them launch their attack. If we move too soon, we won’t catch them off their guard.”\n\nTheuderic nodded. It made sense. “Why are you doing this? It seems… uncharacteristic.”\n\nThe defrocked priest nodded and rubbed the top of his balding head where once there had been a tonsure. A man might leave the Church, but he would never fully escape its mark. “Have you ever done something that you knew was wrong? Something for which there can be no forgiveness, no return? Yes? Then you know that feeling, the impression that you are on the edge of a ravine, and the moment you decide to act, a part of you will plunge into those wicked depths, never to be the same again. You are no more virgin, no more innocent, or your hands will never again be unstained. I have known many such moments myself, and speaking only for myself, I will confess that it was at those very moments that I have always felt most alive.”\n\nMuch to his regret, Theuderic almost found he understood. Sometimes he wondered which of his three deeds had been the greatest betrayal of Lithriel, the hunt, the affair, or the silence. Each could, taken by itself, be explained, perhaps even justified. But all three, in sum, rendered him a monster, little better than this ghastly ex-clerical with the teeth and hair of an animated corpse. No, there would be no forgiveness. Not for him, not if she learned the truth. Elves lived a long, long time, and they did not forget.\n\nThere were shouts, screams, and the clash of metal on metal not far away. De Cervole didn’t even seem to hear the sounds of the erupting battle, his deeply tanned, deeply lined face was rapt with distant memories. “It is the moment of no return, when doubts become regrets and regrets become pointless. All that is left is to take whatever pleasure is to be had from the deed and then wait to discover what the consequences will be. Perhaps there will be a child. Perhaps there will be a trial. Or, perhaps, nothing will come of it except one more black mark against your soul when it comes time for you to burn in Hell.”\n\n“Do you think to expiate your sins by saving these people?”\n\n“He who loses his life shall gain it?” De Cervole laughed, exposing his rotted teeth. “If I saved all these people and a hundred times more, it would not be enough to balance my accounts, monseigneur le mage. No, you mistake me very much indeed if you think I am under any illusions concerning my damnation. My one hope is that the God at whom I have thumbed my nose for so long does not, in the end, exist. I hope, indeed, I pray, if that makes any sense at all, that He does not.”\n\n“Then why are you doing this?” Theuderic gestured towards the sounds of the battle. It was impossible to know whether Lord Roche and his men were throwing back the orcs or not. Surely the orc leader must have shown himself by now! “I don’t understand.”\n\n“I crave that sensation of falling, it seems. Much to my surprise, when one is as thoroughly steeped in degradation as I am, the feeling of taking a step out of the mire is disturbingly similar to the way one feels after taking that first step into it. It is madness, it is lunacy, it is exhilarating! Perhaps it is only the thoroughly degraded who can truly find pleasure in doing good.” He reached out and caressed Theuderic’s face. “How I once hungered for such beauty. Such a silly, short-lived thing for which to sell one’s soul. You would not credit it now, I am sure, but once I was handsome too. I remember the brothers clutching at their rosaries, and mumbling their Notre Dames as I walked by, virgin, but no innocent.”\n\nTheuderic’s lip curled. “Touch me again, and you’ll feel the flames of my bale-fire right before you feel the flames of Hell, priest.”\n\nDe Cervole laughed. “Peace, monseigneur le mage. You know I am no priest these days. You asked a question. I answered. Ah, the waiting, it is always difficult, is it not? It preys upon the mind, makes one irritable. Never you mind. It is time, I think. Stay close, and if you see the big one, sear its ugly arse with your hellish flames.”\n", "completion": "Lord Roche’s face tightened, and for a moment Theuderic thought he was actually going to strike the man. He quickly interceded before it could come to blows.\n\n“My colleague tells me that he has seen what he thinks may be their leader, a large orc accompanied by a pair of shamans. We know from their general disarray that its hold on them must be tenuous. Perhaps their numbers are too great for us to withstand for long, but if we kill the leader, there is every chance their resolve will fail and they will cease to present a danger to us. We must break them apart and prevent them from coming at us in strength. The only way I can think to do that is to remove their warleader.”\n\nDe Cervole nodded. The viscomte scowled, as if to even agree with the man was distasteful to him, but a moment later, he, too, nodded.\n\n“The first attack was hasty and disorganized,” the mercenary said. “We would have driven it off easily had we not been taken by surprise. The second two involved multiple groups, attacking in concert, in two different places. I think the mage is right, although who can say if simply murdering the brute will be enough to dismay his fellows. They may be blood-maddened, or by now, they may simply be hungry enough to persist.”\n\n“I daresay we’ve left them sufficient carrion to chew on and assuage their hunger,” Lord Roche said dismissively. “They may not find the flesh so sweet, but they’ll find it bloody well easier to come by. You’ve the right idea, de Merovech. Cut the head off the snake and it dies. A mob is always more easily turned than a directed force.”\n\n“How do you propose to do it, monseigneur le mage? Can you magic the creature to death?”\n\n“I’ll try,” he answered de Cervole. “But it would be best not to trust to spells. It’s got a pair of shamans, and it may have more at its disposal that Sebastien didn’t see. My plan is for Sebastien to keep the shamans occupied and I’ll try to kill the warleader. But we will be more likely to succeed if we allocate part of the cavalry reserve to wait until it shows itself, then strike out after it once its orcs have been committed to the attack.”\n\n“Damned risky,” Lord Roche observed, staring off into the trees. “I doubt they’ll be expecting anything like that, not when we didn’t try anything similar the first three times, but even so, the chances are that it’ll have a second wave of attackers waiting and if it sees us coming, it’ll just put them in the way of our riders. If it’s smart enough to divide his attackers, it’s probably keeping a reserve on hand.”\n\n“Perhaps not. From what Sebastien told me, it sounds like it’s been rounding up whatever it can find and throwing them at us. It knows the Amorrans will be advancing behind them and it needs the captives if it’s going to feed what’s left of its army long enough to break free of the trap and retreat back to the east.”\n\n“When do you think they will get here?” de Cervole asked him. “The Amorrans. I think we can hold until nightfall. But if we haven’t driven them off by then….”\n\n“The Amorrans won’t be coming today. They attacked last night. I know their customs. They’ll have built their defenses and be resting behind them now. The soonest we can expect them is probably around noon tomorrow.”\n\nThe viscomte glowered. “We’d better kill that bloody warleader, then. I’ll have the horn sounded. If we can bring in the other two squadrons, we might have enough men to hold them off. De Merovech, I’ll give you ten knights to attack with you. De Cervole, assuming it hasn’t occurred to you yet, order your men not to give any of their food or water to the captives. The men need to keep their strength up if they’re going to be fighting all night.”\n\nTheuderic nodded grimly. The old warrior knew whereof he spoke. Each man carried three days’ supply of food, and several skins of water, and it was cruel to deny sustenance to the hapless villagers, many of whom probably had not eaten in days. But it would be wiser to lose a handful of them to starvation than get them all killed because their defenders were weak with hunger. Fighting was thirsty work, and if anyone was going to get out of this cursed forest alive, they were going to have to give themselves every opportunity of success.\n\nHe mentally reviewed his available spells. In the confusion of battle, L’êtrangleuse Subreptice would be the most likely to pass unnoticed, but it took a little more time than some of his other options. Le Cœur Dilater de Vermouton was the most certain to cause speedy death, as it would cause the subject’s heart to rapidly expand until it burst, but it was a wordy spell and would require that he lay hands upon the orc, which struck him as an unlikely and highly risky feat. Micheloud’s Marteau du Ciel was devastating, but difficult to aim precisely and was best used against large troop units, not individuals. He sighed. As usual, his best option would be the old standby, Falardeau’s Récurer de la Flamme Funeste, for which the sigils had long ago been carved into his staff.\n\nIt would certainly suffice to flambé the orc. The problem was that he would need to be close enough to his target for the magical flames to engulf it. That meant he would need to ride with those seeking to kill the warleader in less esoteric ways, which would make it impossible to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Being light infantry, the orcs would likely have archers and other missileers, although the trees would make it difficult to find a clear shot even if the orcs saw them coming.\n\nHe saw the defrocked priest ride off, presumably to gather his men, and Lord Roche approached him. The old viscomte had a rueful expression on his face, and Theuderic surmised that he was beginning to regret his hasty decision to stay and fight in what might well turn out to be his last battle. So he was surprised when the nobleman asked him a question.\n\n“Do you wish for me to give the order to leave, sieur mage?”\n\n“With all due respect, monseigneur, I don’t take orders from mere viscomtes.”\n\nThe older man laughed. “Well I know it! But there is many a man who in your position would find it hard to face himself were he to turn his back on these people, and I am aware that your duty to the king indicates that you and your fellow should save yourselves. So go, if you must.”\n\n“I would. My fellow is a romantic young fool and will not leave.”\n\n“And so he shames you into following suit?”\n\nTheuderic smiled thinly. “Not in the slightest. I don’t care about those wretched folk. It makes no difference whatsoever if we are able to save illiterates and farmhands or not. I’ve seen a thousand such innocents dead before, no few by my own hand. And for all we knew an hour past, they were already dead.”\n\n“What about the children?”\n\n“What of them? A third of them will be dead in ten years even if we rescue them all.” He shook his head. “I’m here to keep Sebastien alive, monseigneur viscomte. If I can. He may be a fool, but he is a kingsmage, and so here I will remain.”\n\n“Cold-hearted bastard, are you?” The viscomte grinned, unconcerned. “Best get back to your fellow, then. They’ll be coming before long, and I’m going to send out a pair of knights to escort the wounded.”\n\n“You might have them each carry a child,” Theuderic suggested. “The older ones might even help with those too badly hurt to hold the reins.”\n\n“Just a bastard, then.” Lord Roche nodded and urged his horse in the direction of where his men had gathered. “You kill that bloody warleader, de Merovech, and I’ll see to it that the jongleurs sing of your noble heart from here to the White Sea. Or drown you in whores, as you prefer.”\n\nI’ll take the latter, Theuderic thought, wondering if he would ever have the pleasure of pillaging a woman’s body again. Not that the bodies here were in any shape to stir a man’s desires, for all that half of them were naked. He was foolish to remain, and yet, for all his lies to the viscomte, he knew he could not ride away. As he rode back to where he expected to meet Sebastien, the sight of the people behind the barricade reminded him of the stripped corpses that had been piled up outside the broken walls of Montrove. It was piteous, but it was also revolting.\n\nStill, they were going to fight. Every male villager and most of the women were now armed with clubs and crudely sharpened stakes; one man was even carrying a longsword that looked suspiciously familiar. Others were carrying knives, maces, or other weapons some knight or man-at-arms had given them. Inept and untrained as they might be, they were not short on courage. He nodded, more in reflection than approval, thinking that a man need not be ashamed to die fighting at their side.\n\n“There you are!” Sebastien was already there waiting for him. As his horse stopped and emitted a steaming stream of urine, he noticed that the younger mage wasn’t wearing his sword.\n\n“Did you give your sword to them?” he asked suspiciously.\n\n“They need it more than I do,” Sebastien answered. He twirled his staff in his left hand. “Besides, I thought the idea was for me to occupy their shamans. Unless you’ve made considerable progress on that flying spell, I don’t see what good a sword is likely to do me.”\n\nA large group of horses trotted past them; Theuderic saw it was Lord Roche’s men. About twenty of them dismounted to take up positions behind the barricade, other knights took the reins of the riderless horses and rode off with them. Then a smaller group arrived, led by Jean de Cervole.\n\n“Come, monseigneur mages. Your escort has arrived! Follow me to where we shall wait for our oversized green-skinned friend to show itself.”\n\n“I thought one of the knights would be leading the charge,” Theuderic said, eyeing the former priest with skepticism.\n\nThe stringy-haired man smiled wearily, revealing yellowed, crooked teeth. “As did they. But your men are more fresh than mine; we have withstood two serious assaults while you have twice routed foes you caught by surprise. I’m getting old, my knees and back are aching, and I need more of a rest than these damned orcs are going to give us. If they break through quickly, there is no point to any of this.”\n\nTheuderic glanced skeptically at de Cervole’s men. They were hard-bitten men, mercenaries with years more experience than most of the young knights, but their armor was boiled leather and poor-quality chain mail. Their captain was the only man among them wearing a proper steel cuirass, and half of them didn’t even have proper helms.\n\nSome of his skepticism must have shown on his face, because de Cervole snorted dismissively and shook his head. “Never you mind, monseigneur mage. The boys will get to that bastard and cut it down to size for you. We may not be pretty, but by God, our swords are as sharp as any man’s.”\n\nA drum began beating, followed by an ominous, guttural roaring that sounded as if it was coming from the trees nearby. Theuderic sat bolt upright in his saddle. A horn blew, and he knew that the battle was about to begin again.\n\nDe Cervole reached out and patted his arm. “Relax. We have to wait, let them launch their attack. If we move too soon, we won’t catch them off their guard.”\n\nTheuderic nodded. It made sense. “Why are you doing this? It seems… uncharacteristic.”\n\nThe defrocked priest nodded and rubbed the top of his balding head where once there had been a tonsure. A man might leave the Church, but he would never fully escape its mark. “Have you ever done something that you knew was wrong? Something for which there can be no forgiveness, no return? Yes? Then you know that feeling, the impression that you are on the edge of a ravine, and the moment you decide to act, a part of you will plunge into those wicked depths, never to be the same again. You are no more virgin, no more innocent, or your hands will never again be unstained. I have known many such moments myself, and speaking only for myself, I will confess that it was at those very moments that I have always felt most alive.”\n\nMuch to his regret, Theuderic almost found he understood. Sometimes he wondered which of his three deeds had been the greatest betrayal of Lithriel, the hunt, the affair, or the silence. Each could, taken by itself, be explained, perhaps even justified. But all three, in sum, rendered him a monster, little better than this ghastly ex-clerical with the teeth and hair of an animated corpse. No, there would be no forgiveness. Not for him, not if she learned the truth. Elves lived a long, long time, and they did not forget.\n\nThere were shouts, screams, and the clash of metal on metal not far away. De Cervole didn’t even seem to hear the sounds of the erupting battle, his deeply tanned, deeply lined face was rapt with distant memories. “It is the moment of no return, when doubts become regrets and regrets become pointless. All that is left is to take whatever pleasure is to be had from the deed and then wait to discover what the consequences will be. Perhaps there will be a child. Perhaps there will be a trial. Or, perhaps, nothing will come of it except one more black mark against your soul when it comes time for you to burn in Hell.”\n\n“Do you think to expiate your sins by saving these people?”\n\n“He who loses his life shall gain it?” De Cervole laughed, exposing his rotted teeth. “If I saved all these people and a hundred times more, it would not be enough to balance my accounts, monseigneur le mage. No, you mistake me very much indeed if you think I am under any illusions concerning my damnation. My one hope is that the God at whom I have thumbed my nose for so long does not, in the end, exist. I hope, indeed, I pray, if that makes any sense at all, that He does not.”\n\n“Then why are you doing this?” Theuderic gestured towards the sounds of the battle. It was impossible to know whether Lord Roche and his men were throwing back the orcs or not. Surely the orc leader must have shown himself by now! “I don’t understand.”\n\n“I crave that sensation of falling, it seems. Much to my surprise, when one is as thoroughly steeped in degradation as I am, the feeling of taking a step out of the mire is disturbingly similar to the way one feels after taking that first step into it. It is madness, it is lunacy, it is exhilarating! Perhaps it is only the thoroughly degraded who can truly find pleasure in doing good.” He reached out and caressed Theuderic’s face. “How I once hungered for such beauty. Such a silly, short-lived thing for which to sell one’s soul. You would not credit it now, I am sure, but once I was handsome too. I remember the brothers clutching at their rosaries, and mumbling their Notre Dames as I walked by, virgin, but no innocent.”\n\nTheuderic’s lip curled. “Touch me again, and you’ll feel the flames of my bale-fire right before you feel the flames of Hell, priest.”\n\nDe Cervole laughed. “Peace, monseigneur le mage. You know I am no priest these days. You asked a question. I answered. Ah, the waiting, it is always difficult, is it not? It preys upon the mind, makes one irritable. Never you mind. It is time, I think. Stay close, and if you see the big one, sear its ugly arse with your hellish flames.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2816, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch15_theuderic-P3", "chapter": "ch15_theuderic", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nGor-Gor / Gor-Gor u shaggat — orc war-god chant; hyphen and cant as written.\nbalefire / bale-fire — Theuderic’s flame; forms as written.\ndiablerie — judgment on the summoning; keep spelling.\nL’êtrangleuse — strangulation spell short form as thought; keep accent.\ninhumanités — academy term for nonhuman powers; keep form.\nles démons et les élémentaux — Immortel class title; accents as written.\nVermouton — arranger of the heart-burst mercy words; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nAt de Cervole’s brush barricade Theuderic commits to killing the orc warleader rather than abandon five hundred captives; Sebastien will pin the shamans.\n\nDispositions set, he refuses Roche’s offer of leave, waits through de Cervole’s damnation talk, threatens balefire when the ex-priest caresses his face, and holds for the cue as drums roll in the trees.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nTheuderic de Merovech\nCharges with de Cervole on the warleader cut. Sees Sebastien crushed by a summoned black fist; shifts to kill the summoner first, burns two shamans, then balefires the warleader pile knowing it may cook friend and foe. Speaks Vermouton’s heart-burst over mortally burned de Cervole and calls it what had to be done. Spits on the dying orc and turns away.\n\nSebastien\nAlive at the open of the charge; counters the first shaman pair; crushed with his horse by Gor-Gor’s fist mid-scene—dead.\n\nJean de Cervole\nLeads the silent cut; leaps onto the warleader; calls for the mage; burned by Theuderic’s balefire among the orcs; mortally wounded, receives the heart-burst.\n\nWarleader (orc)\nRoars, points out the charge, dies under balefire and steel; yellow eyes of hate at the end.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThere were shouts, screams, and the clash of metal on metal not far away. De Cervole didn’t even seem to hear the sounds of the erupting battle, his deeply tanned, deeply lined face was rapt with distant memories. “It is the moment of no return, when doubts become regrets and regrets become pointless. All that is left is to take whatever pleasure is to be had from the deed and then wait to discover what the consequences will be. Perhaps there will be a child. Perhaps there will be a trial. Or, perhaps, nothing will come of it except one more black mark against your soul when it comes time for you to burn in Hell.”\n\n“Do you think to expiate your sins by saving these people?”\n\n“He who loses his life shall gain it?” De Cervole laughed, exposing his rotted teeth. “If I saved all these people and a hundred times more, it would not be enough to balance my accounts, monseigneur le mage. No, you mistake me very much indeed if you think I am under any illusions concerning my damnation. My one hope is that the God at whom I have thumbed my nose for so long does not, in the end, exist. I hope, indeed, I pray, if that makes any sense at all, that He does not.”\n\n“Then why are you doing this?” Theuderic gestured towards the sounds of the battle. It was impossible to know whether Lord Roche and his men were throwing back the orcs or not. Surely the orc leader must have shown himself by now! “I don’t understand.”\n\n“I crave that sensation of falling, it seems. Much to my surprise, when one is as thoroughly steeped in degradation as I am, the feeling of taking a step out of the mire is disturbingly similar to the way one feels after taking that first step into it. It is madness, it is lunacy, it is exhilarating! Perhaps it is only the thoroughly degraded who can truly find pleasure in doing good.” He reached out and caressed Theuderic’s face. “How I once hungered for such beauty. Such a silly, short-lived thing for which to sell one’s soul. You would not credit it now, I am sure, but once I was handsome too. I remember the brothers clutching at their rosaries, and mumbling their Notre Dames as I walked by, virgin, but no innocent.”\n\nTheuderic’s lip curled. “Touch me again, and you’ll feel the flames of my bale-fire right before you feel the flames of Hell, priest.”\n\nDe Cervole laughed. “Peace, monseigneur le mage. You know I am no priest these days. You asked a question. I answered. Ah, the waiting, it is always difficult, is it not? It preys upon the mind, makes one irritable. Never you mind. It is time, I think. Stay close, and if you see the big one, sear its ugly arse with your hellish flames.”\n\n### NOTES\nCue is battle joined at the barricade, not necessarily the agreed two-blast horn.\nThree shamans with the warleader; third obscured until the fist.\nBalefire from lesser hells via staff sigils; close range required.\nMercy working is Vermouton’s heart-burst words, nearly eighty years old.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Theuderic.\n\nDe Cervole moves without the horn Theuderic expected; they cut behind the assault toward the warleader. Sebastien breaks two shamans; Theuderic starts a strangle on one, then a third shaman calls a black fist out of nowhere that flattens Sebastien and his horse. Gor-Gor’s cheer goes up. Kill the summoner: balefire takes the bleeding shaman and the fist fails; the last shaman flees in smoke. De Cervole leaps the bodyguard onto the warleader and shouts for the mage; Theuderic’s second balefire clears the pile and cooks friend and greenskin alike. The warleader dies. De Cervole, melted and bitten, hears that the rest ran and the villagers are saved; Theuderic speaks the heart-burst and answers the men—what had to be done—then spits on the dying orc’s hate and turns away. The scene ends on that turn.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2000 words. Kill concrete; no triumph speech. Land on the spit and turn from the orc; do not return to the barricade.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Theuderic frowned. He had heard neither the two short horn blasts that were to summon them, nor the high-pitched screams of women that would indicate the barricade had fallen. But de Cervole must have had a better sense of the shape of battle, for no sooner had Theuderic opened his mouth to point out that the other man was wrong than he heard a horn sound. Twice.\n\nThe mercenary captain smiled as if he knew what Theuderic had been thinking. Then he rose in his stirrups to see that his men had heard the horn, drew his sword, and waved it in a circle around his head. He did not shout, nor order a horn sounded; it had been agreed that they should fall upon the orc in silence, insofar as twenty-two horses could move in silence.\n\nThey trotted through the trees as fast as they dared, with one of the de Cervole’s ragged mercenaries leading them in a direction that should bring them behind the orcs. They emerged into a scene even more loud and violent and confusing than the two previous skirmishes in which Theuderic had engaged previously today. There seemed to be at least four times more orcs attacking than when they had been driven off before; their ranks ran four- and even five-deep as they swarmed the men-at-arms defending the barricades on foot.\n\nTheuderic didn’t have time to see how well the men were holding their ground. A few images impressed themselves on his mind as he glanced to his right. A large green arm, pierced through the muscle by the tip of a sword. A grimace on the face of a helmed man, although whether it was borne of pain or effort, Theuderic could not tell. The downward swing of a studded club. Bared tusks and a gaping maw.\n\nAnd then he was looking for the shamans. There were two of them, both standing near the big orc who was roaring out encouragement to his warriors. Even in the mass of movement amidst the trees, they were not hard to identify, as they had bones tied into their thick manes of dark green hair and tattoos covering their faces. Both were narrow-eyed and tense, as if exerting themselves; Theuderic guessed that they were maintaining a spell of some sort.\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted.\n\n“I see them!”\n\nThe two orcs reacted as if they’d been burned when Sebastien unleashed his counterspell. They leaped backwards in unison, crying out and looking wildly about. Were the circumstances not so grim, Theuderic might have laughed, for he knew the feeling well. Having a spell forcibly broken, especially without warning, was rather like having a tightly stretched rope snap free to rebound in your face.\n\nInstead, he decided to take advantage of their discomfiture. He justified the change in plans by observing that the warleader was not yet in range anyhow. L’êtrangleuse could not be triggered by a single word, but he chanted the three stanzas as rapidly as he dared, then extended his hand at the shaman whose upper body was not obscured by the trees. To his relief, the shaman immediately jerked back and raised his hands to his throat, trying to remove the iron grip of the invisible strangler.\n\nTheir charge had been noticed now, and he saw the warleader turn and point at them, his eyes wide with enraged surprise. Theuderic raised his staff, but they were still too far away. And then he saw a third shaman step forward from where he’d been obscured by the warleader, his eyes white and rolled back in his head, and green blood leaking from his glowing tattoos. His hands were raised in either exultation or invocation, and blood dripped from his elbows. Red blood.\n\nThat wasn’t mere blood magic, it was diablerie. Dammit, that wasn’t good. “Sebastien!” he shouted. “There’s another one!”\n\nBut whether Sebastien was too exhausted to counter the spell or simply didn’t see the third shaman, Theuderic would never know. Without warning, the ground shuddered as a huge black disembodied fist as wide as three horses appeared in mid-air out of nowhere and crushed both Sebastien and his mount under it. Six of the mercenaries on either side of the luckless mage were thrown from their horses, as either the force of the blow or the sheer terror it inspired caused their horses to stumble or go down. For the briefest of moments, Theuderic had the impression of a giant figure crouching over them, drawing back a horny fist. It was translucent, more sensation than sight. But it was terrifyingly real all the same.\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted in despair.\n\n“Gor-Gor!” a guttural cheer went up from the orcs. “Gor-Gor u shaggat!”\n\nTheuderic had heard of the orc wargod before, every royal battlemage had, but he had never truly believed in the power of the inhumanités to actually summon it. How did one dispel a god? Even if it was only a demon, as he suspected, the only priest in the vicinity was about as unfit as a man could be for an impromptu battlefield exorcism.\n\nIf you can’t kill the summoned, kill the summoner. He could almost hear the voice of the hoary-bearded Immortel instructing the class on les démons et les élémentaux. It brought another maxim to his mind. No plan survives contact with the enemy. So, change the plan. Kill the summoner first. He raised his staff.\n\nA sparking word and the balefire, called forth from one of the higher levels of the lesser hells, roared forth from the sigils at the end of his staff. It leaped out to engulf the bleeding shaman, which was too caught up in its demonic summoning to see it or even to scream. Caught up in its blood-addled reverie, it burned in silence, without struggle or protest. Its flesh was black by the time its hands dropped to its sides; only then did it take a single step forward before collapsing into the unnatural flames that were consuming its body.\n\nThere was a hollow cry, as if from very far away, and Theuderic glanced up towards the treetops, looking for any sign that the terrible fist might be descending upon him. He pulled up his horse and circled around, holding his staff before him warily. There was no sign of the war god, so he was forced to conclude the immolation of the shaman who had summoned it was sufficient to break its link to this dimension. He kicked his horse after the charging survivors. He did not look back at the crushed remains of his colleague; there was no chance Sebastien had survived the blow from that terrible demonic fist.\n\nOne sorcerous threat was averted, but it was not the only one. One shaman still remained but it was well aware of the danger Theuderic posed. Having seen what he had done to its two companions, it was not inclined to stand and fight. Instead, it disappeared behind a cloud of magical smoke and vanished.\n\nDe Cervole and his men were already furiously battling the big orcs around the warleader. They were more muscular and better armed than most of those Theuderic had encountered earlier in the day, but they were no better armored. The mercenaries rode down the first bodyguards with relative ease, but then a dozen, a score, and even a few more surged forward and managed to slow their momentum. The cavalry charge slowed, then came to a complete halt as it was transformed from a unitary assault into a melee of mercenary islands held motionless in a boiling sea of orcs.\n\nSomehow, one man-at-arms managed to duck a thrusting pike, then slash his way past two more orcs until only a pair of bodyguards stood between him and the warleader. But one of the orcs he’d ridden past gutted his horse, and the beast collapsed without warning, sending its rider crashing face first to the ground. The man somehow managed to roll sideways and avoid a club that would have crushed his skull, then, instead of trying to retrieve his sword, he pulled at the stabbing arm of one bodyguard and used it to simultaneously get to his feet and throw the orc behind him. As he did so, the other bodyguard swept his legs out from under him, then bent over and bashed out the man’s brains with repeated blows of the metal-studded club.\n\nAnd for a moment, nothing stood between de Cervole and the warleader except the three orcs grabbing at his rein and slashing at his shield. To Theuderic’s surprise, the defrocked priest pulled himself up upon his horse’s back, then leaped from it over the heads of all three orcs. As he fell towards the ground, de Cervole swung his sword down as well and buried it deeply into the big orc’s unarmored neck. The monster screamed, its collarbone shattered, as green blood gouted messily from the mortal wound. De Cervole was immediately swarmed by the three orcs over whom he’d jumped, in addition to four or five surviving bodyguards.\n\n“Mage!” Theuderic heard de Cervole shout in a voice that rang with command, not fear or desperation.\n\nTheuderic didn’t hesitate. He channeled another burst of balefire, and it swept over the pile of struggling figures, man and orc alike. The orcs staggered away, shrieking in pain as the hungry nether-flames devoured their green flesh. They fled screaming, six or seven living torches, into the depths of the forest. And after them fled the remaining orcs of the warleader’s bodyguard. The warleader itself lay dull-eyed and dying barely a hand’s reach from the badly injured man who had dealt it its death wound.\n\nTwo of the former priest’s men rushed to their captain and were already beating out the flames from his clothes and his red, blistered, half-melted skin. De Cervole had been bludgeoned, stabbed, and bitten, as well as burned, but he was still conscious, if only just. But he, too, was mortally wounded. Theuderic could see a question in the dying priest’s agonized eyes. His lips, bleeding and partially burned off, moved almost imperceptibly. But Theuderic understood.\n\n“You killed it. The rest ran. You’ll have saved them all, I think.”\n\nDe Cervole’s eyes closed and he seemed to relax. If he was destined for hotter flames than those that had just burned him, he was ready. Theuderic kneeled down, placed his hand gently on the man’s shoulder, and quietly spoke the words that Vermouton had first arranged nearly eighty years ago. De Cervole’s burned hands involuntarily reached for his throat, his upper body jerked once, violently, and then he slumped back onto the ground again.\n\n“What did you do?” one of the men asked.\n\n“What had to be done,” he replied. Was it mercy to send a man to Hell? He wouldn’t have thought so. And yet it felt like a kindness all the same. He looked at the dying orc, which gazed back at him with yellow eyes of impotent hate. Theuderic smiled coldly, then spat and turned away. Let the creature find its own way to the Devil.\n", "completion": "Theuderic frowned. He had heard neither the two short horn blasts that were to summon them, nor the high-pitched screams of women that would indicate the barricade had fallen. But de Cervole must have had a better sense of the shape of battle, for no sooner had Theuderic opened his mouth to point out that the other man was wrong than he heard a horn sound. Twice.\n\nThe mercenary captain smiled as if he knew what Theuderic had been thinking. Then he rose in his stirrups to see that his men had heard the horn, drew his sword, and waved it in a circle around his head. He did not shout, nor order a horn sounded; it had been agreed that they should fall upon the orc in silence, insofar as twenty-two horses could move in silence.\n\nThey trotted through the trees as fast as they dared, with one of the de Cervole’s ragged mercenaries leading them in a direction that should bring them behind the orcs. They emerged into a scene even more loud and violent and confusing than the two previous skirmishes in which Theuderic had engaged previously today. There seemed to be at least four times more orcs attacking than when they had been driven off before; their ranks ran four- and even five-deep as they swarmed the men-at-arms defending the barricades on foot.\n\nTheuderic didn’t have time to see how well the men were holding their ground. A few images impressed themselves on his mind as he glanced to his right. A large green arm, pierced through the muscle by the tip of a sword. A grimace on the face of a helmed man, although whether it was borne of pain or effort, Theuderic could not tell. The downward swing of a studded club. Bared tusks and a gaping maw.\n\nAnd then he was looking for the shamans. There were two of them, both standing near the big orc who was roaring out encouragement to his warriors. Even in the mass of movement amidst the trees, they were not hard to identify, as they had bones tied into their thick manes of dark green hair and tattoos covering their faces. Both were narrow-eyed and tense, as if exerting themselves; Theuderic guessed that they were maintaining a spell of some sort.\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted.\n\n“I see them!”\n\nThe two orcs reacted as if they’d been burned when Sebastien unleashed his counterspell. They leaped backwards in unison, crying out and looking wildly about. Were the circumstances not so grim, Theuderic might have laughed, for he knew the feeling well. Having a spell forcibly broken, especially without warning, was rather like having a tightly stretched rope snap free to rebound in your face.\n\nInstead, he decided to take advantage of their discomfiture. He justified the change in plans by observing that the warleader was not yet in range anyhow. L’êtrangleuse could not be triggered by a single word, but he chanted the three stanzas as rapidly as he dared, then extended his hand at the shaman whose upper body was not obscured by the trees. To his relief, the shaman immediately jerked back and raised his hands to his throat, trying to remove the iron grip of the invisible strangler.\n\nTheir charge had been noticed now, and he saw the warleader turn and point at them, his eyes wide with enraged surprise. Theuderic raised his staff, but they were still too far away. And then he saw a third shaman step forward from where he’d been obscured by the warleader, his eyes white and rolled back in his head, and green blood leaking from his glowing tattoos. His hands were raised in either exultation or invocation, and blood dripped from his elbows. Red blood.\n\nThat wasn’t mere blood magic, it was diablerie. Dammit, that wasn’t good. “Sebastien!” he shouted. “There’s another one!”\n\nBut whether Sebastien was too exhausted to counter the spell or simply didn’t see the third shaman, Theuderic would never know. Without warning, the ground shuddered as a huge black disembodied fist as wide as three horses appeared in mid-air out of nowhere and crushed both Sebastien and his mount under it. Six of the mercenaries on either side of the luckless mage were thrown from their horses, as either the force of the blow or the sheer terror it inspired caused their horses to stumble or go down. For the briefest of moments, Theuderic had the impression of a giant figure crouching over them, drawing back a horny fist. It was translucent, more sensation than sight. But it was terrifyingly real all the same.\n\n“Sebastien!” he shouted in despair.\n\n“Gor-Gor!” a guttural cheer went up from the orcs. “Gor-Gor u shaggat!”\n\nTheuderic had heard of the orc wargod before, every royal battlemage had, but he had never truly believed in the power of the inhumanités to actually summon it. How did one dispel a god? Even if it was only a demon, as he suspected, the only priest in the vicinity was about as unfit as a man could be for an impromptu battlefield exorcism.\n\nIf you can’t kill the summoned, kill the summoner. He could almost hear the voice of the hoary-bearded Immortel instructing the class on les démons et les élémentaux. It brought another maxim to his mind. No plan survives contact with the enemy. So, change the plan. Kill the summoner first. He raised his staff.\n\nA sparking word and the balefire, called forth from one of the higher levels of the lesser hells, roared forth from the sigils at the end of his staff. It leaped out to engulf the bleeding shaman, which was too caught up in its demonic summoning to see it or even to scream. Caught up in its blood-addled reverie, it burned in silence, without struggle or protest. Its flesh was black by the time its hands dropped to its sides; only then did it take a single step forward before collapsing into the unnatural flames that were consuming its body.\n\nThere was a hollow cry, as if from very far away, and Theuderic glanced up towards the treetops, looking for any sign that the terrible fist might be descending upon him. He pulled up his horse and circled around, holding his staff before him warily. There was no sign of the war god, so he was forced to conclude the immolation of the shaman who had summoned it was sufficient to break its link to this dimension. He kicked his horse after the charging survivors. He did not look back at the crushed remains of his colleague; there was no chance Sebastien had survived the blow from that terrible demonic fist.\n\nOne sorcerous threat was averted, but it was not the only one. One shaman still remained but it was well aware of the danger Theuderic posed. Having seen what he had done to its two companions, it was not inclined to stand and fight. Instead, it disappeared behind a cloud of magical smoke and vanished.\n\nDe Cervole and his men were already furiously battling the big orcs around the warleader. They were more muscular and better armed than most of those Theuderic had encountered earlier in the day, but they were no better armored. The mercenaries rode down the first bodyguards with relative ease, but then a dozen, a score, and even a few more surged forward and managed to slow their momentum. The cavalry charge slowed, then came to a complete halt as it was transformed from a unitary assault into a melee of mercenary islands held motionless in a boiling sea of orcs.\n\nSomehow, one man-at-arms managed to duck a thrusting pike, then slash his way past two more orcs until only a pair of bodyguards stood between him and the warleader. But one of the orcs he’d ridden past gutted his horse, and the beast collapsed without warning, sending its rider crashing face first to the ground. The man somehow managed to roll sideways and avoid a club that would have crushed his skull, then, instead of trying to retrieve his sword, he pulled at the stabbing arm of one bodyguard and used it to simultaneously get to his feet and throw the orc behind him. As he did so, the other bodyguard swept his legs out from under him, then bent over and bashed out the man’s brains with repeated blows of the metal-studded club.\n\nAnd for a moment, nothing stood between de Cervole and the warleader except the three orcs grabbing at his rein and slashing at his shield. To Theuderic’s surprise, the defrocked priest pulled himself up upon his horse’s back, then leaped from it over the heads of all three orcs. As he fell towards the ground, de Cervole swung his sword down as well and buried it deeply into the big orc’s unarmored neck. The monster screamed, its collarbone shattered, as green blood gouted messily from the mortal wound. De Cervole was immediately swarmed by the three orcs over whom he’d jumped, in addition to four or five surviving bodyguards.\n\n“Mage!” Theuderic heard de Cervole shout in a voice that rang with command, not fear or desperation.\n\nTheuderic didn’t hesitate. He channeled another burst of balefire, and it swept over the pile of struggling figures, man and orc alike. The orcs staggered away, shrieking in pain as the hungry nether-flames devoured their green flesh. They fled screaming, six or seven living torches, into the depths of the forest. And after them fled the remaining orcs of the warleader’s bodyguard. The warleader itself lay dull-eyed and dying barely a hand’s reach from the badly injured man who had dealt it its death wound.\n\nTwo of the former priest’s men rushed to their captain and were already beating out the flames from his clothes and his red, blistered, half-melted skin. De Cervole had been bludgeoned, stabbed, and bitten, as well as burned, but he was still conscious, if only just. But he, too, was mortally wounded. Theuderic could see a question in the dying priest’s agonized eyes. His lips, bleeding and partially burned off, moved almost imperceptibly. But Theuderic understood.\n\n“You killed it. The rest ran. You’ll have saved them all, I think.”\n\nDe Cervole’s eyes closed and he seemed to relax. If he was destined for hotter flames than those that had just burned him, he was ready. Theuderic kneeled down, placed his hand gently on the man’s shoulder, and quietly spoke the words that Vermouton had first arranged nearly eighty years ago. De Cervole’s burned hands involuntarily reached for his throat, his upper body jerked once, violently, and then he slumped back onto the ground again.\n\n“What did you do?” one of the men asked.\n\n“What had to be done,” he replied. Was it mercy to send a man to Hell? He wouldn’t have thought so. And yet it felt like a kindness all the same. He looked at the dying orc, which gazed back at him with yellow eyes of impotent hate. Theuderic smiled coldly, then spat and turned away. Let the creature find its own way to the Devil.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1896, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch16_marcus-P1", "chapter": "ch16_marcus", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ncontubernium / contubernia — eight-man tent-unit; keep Latin form.\noptio — junior under a centurion; do not translate.\near-catchers — legion slang for the detail cutting orc ears; hyphenated.\narmicustos — supply officer title; keep form.\ncastellum — overnight fortified camp; keep spelling.\nwolfrider — goblin wolf-cavalry; one word.\nElvenwood — Man name for these woods; capital E.\nSavonners / Savondese — Amorran cant and adjective for the northern allies.\nsilvers — ear-bounty coin; lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nOn a morning ride Marcus is recalled for an Iron Law breach: two legionaries caught in an unnatural act; he returns to camp at a gallop.\nIn tribunal he condemns Fuscus and Annius, flogs the enabling optio Avso after commuting the pair to the axe, addresses the legion on discipline, and orders the march inside the hour.\nOn the road de Forbonnais needles him about Amorran discipline and offers Michelard knowledge of orc magic; Marcus forbids any use of spells and admits he wants none of the principles.\nAt a night fire Capitaine Renier schools the staff on orc sand-magic and pillard habits; Marcus hires him to reach the prince by morning, cue an anvil the night after next, and promise Lutèce ears despite de Forbonnais’s protest.\nAfter hiring Renier to cue the prince as anvil, Marcus briefs Titus Cassabus at the forest-edge castra to take five centuries into the orc camp by night, fall back rather than die on the machines, and drive the pillards toward Savondese blades and payable ears.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nLegate of Legio XVII, agnomen Cavator. Alive, riding through thick forest two mornings after Cassabus’s night assault shattered the orc camp. Weight of command lifted; fighting not to smile before the men the way Corvus never did. Hunting ears for the crown’s silver bounty; three centuries and two squadrons under Julianus escort the supply train separately.\n\nArvandus\nAlive beside him on the path; estimating kills and silvers; unsentimental about how many ears they will actually find.\n\nProculus\nPrimus Pilus. Alive ahead with the vanguard; has sent for Marcus about a clearing battle-site.\n\nObsidius Montanus\nArmicustos. Alive; was reviewing supplies with Marcus when victory riders arrived.\n\nVitius Sintas\nAlive; warned Marcus that battle news was imminent before the riders came.\n\nTitus Cassabus\nAlive after the night attack; reported no losses and thirteen wounded; already collecting ears when the legion linked up.\n\nJulianus\nAlive, detached with three centuries and two squadrons on the supply train.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHe felt like finding Father Gennadius and confessing himself; being purified and blessed might lift some of the terrible burden he was now feeling descend upon him. But the priest would already be occupied with the men of Cassabus’s detachment, at least those who were too troubled by sin or fear to sleep. He could wait. He would have to wait.\n\nThat should be one of the Iron Laws of the Legion, he thought. Thou shalt wait. Thou shalt wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, until finally, at long last, thou shalt know terror sufficient to turn thy bowels to water.\n\nNow that was enough, he told himself. There was too much to be done before tomorrow morning to permit himself the indulgence of useless worry. Cassabus was right to call himself Aleator. The die was cast, or at least the decision to cast it had been made.\n\nWhat would you do, father? Not for the first time, he desperately wished he was still simply one of the legion’s tribunes, carrying out orders rather than issuing them as its commander. What a perfect fool he had been to harbor ambitions of command! Had he known two years ago what he knew now, nothing, not even Corvus’s deepest disapproval, would have convinced him to abandon his studies and place his name before the assembled tribes.\n\nBut that die, too, had been cast. Then, to his surprise, he laughed. Why should failure hold any fears for him? He would do well to fear for Cassabus, to fear for the men of the legion, to fear for House Valerius and for the fate of Amorr itself, but what was it to him if the legion would not serve him as they served his father, and his father’s father, before him? It was simple vanity that was haunting his thoughts, he realized, and little more than vanity. He came to a decision. If God willed that he failed in yet another battle, then he would take it as a clear sign that he had made a mistake in abandoning the priesthood. He would resign as legate, turn the legion over to Trebonius Lecerus and the senior centurions if they would permit him to do so, and return to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Where and how, he did not know; moreover, he did not care.\n\nIt was with a lighter heart and a clearer mind that he strode towards the half-built Porta Decumana. Already the sun was low in the sky and soon the night would fall. Then steel and flame would shed blood in the dark heart of the forest, and by the time the sun rose again, he would know in which direction his true vocation lay.\n\n### NOTES\nThick Elvenwood canopy; afternoon sun-dappled march in skirmish order.\nOrc and goblin dead litter the route; green blood; ear-bounty at one silver each.\nCassabus’s night assault two mornings past routed the raiding host; survivors fled east and north.\nA clearing ahead holds stacked green corpses and a brush fort of human spears; river not far beyond.\nScorpios on wagons; onagers preferred in heavy timber; five days’ provisions on the men’s backs.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nThe legion pushes the forest in high spirits, ear-catchers joking over missed corpses while Marcus and Arvandus price the harvest and Marcus forces Corvus’s unsmiling face. He relives the sleepless night before Cassabus marched, the dawn riders’ report of utter rout, and why he drove the whole legion through the trees instead of around them—to crush fleeing orcs between Amorrans and Savonners and collect the silver.\n\nA decurion brings him to Proculus at a stinking clearing: ordered orc attack piles, human spear-shafts in a brush fort, red blood and crisped greens, small footprints inside that may be woman or child. Marcus routes the column around, assigns ear detail, orders a ditchless castellum beyond the river, and tastes victory cold as profit. The scene lands on First Cohort blades and the thousand silvers still on the ground.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2100 words. Exultant command register without softening the corpse-count; land on the harvest thought, before the Savonner camp.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The forest was much thicker than any the Amorrans had seen before. In certain places where the tree trunks were exceptionally thick, the leaves and branches overhead formed a canopy that concealed the afternoon sky entirely from the view of those marching underneath. But despite the darkness, the mood of the legionaries was exhilarated, and it was with some difficulty that the centurions kept their men in order as they marched in skirmish order through the sun-dappled ground. Each century had a single contubernium designated as ear-catchers; they roamed ahead of the line of march carrying daggers with which to remove the ears of the dead orcs they found and sacks in which to carry them. At intervals, a call went up, as the legionaries marched past, or sometimes over, a corpse that had not yet been deprived of its appendages.\n\n“Oy, Audens! You missed one!”\n\n“Move it along, Opis,” an optio barked. “Where is it?”\n\n“Back here, to the right, by that big tree there!”\n\nA tired legionary, his forearm greaves splattered with dark green gore, trudged wearily back towards the marching century, a half-full burlap sack slung over his shoulders. He sighed as the men marched past him, and nodded as one man pointed towards a wide-trunked oak with a large knot on the side. After they passed by, he walked over to the dead orc, kneeled down, and with two expert strokes, removed the green ears. After slipping them into the sack, he stood up and rubbed at the small of his back, then began half-jogging at a pace that would let him overtake the century again.\n\n“How many do you think were killed?” Marcus asked Arvandus as they rode along the path through the forest made by the men’s iron-soled sandals.\n\n“A few hundred. Ten percent at most.”\n\n“That would be nearly twenty-five hundred silvers.”\n\n“If we find them all. Which we won’t. We’ll be lucky to collect five hundred.”\n\n“Even so.”\n\nThink the king will pay up?”\n\nMarcus snorted. “We just saved his eastern provinces from being overrun. More importantly, we have five thousand swords. He’ll pay.”\n\nCollecting from the king of Savondir was the last of Marcus’s concerns. At the moment, his main difficulty was keeping a smile from his face and his own overheated emotions in check. Corvus had never smiled in front of the men, not even in the aftermath of battle when victory was assured, and Marcus was doing his level best to follow his father’s example.\n\nIt was harder than it had looked, though, as every corpse past which he rode reminded him of the massive weight that had been lifted from his shoulders two mornings ago.\n\nSomehow, he’d managed to force himself to sleep after Cassabus and his men marched forth to launch the risky night assault. The thought of spending the night in prayer and fasting had occurred to him, but the knowledge that the legion might find itself surrounded by ten thousand or more orcs if the attack failed made him decide to snatch some rest while he could. If he was going to be leading his men into battle at dawn, he owed it to them to be at his best and sharpest.\n\nThe centurions had their men ready to march before the sun rose, and a bright golden gleam was just beginning to appear on the horizon when the two riders were spotted. He’d been going over their current state of supplies with the legion’s armicustos, Obsidius Montanus, when Vitius Sintas strode over and warned him that news of the battle was imminent. He’d steeled himself to be prepared for anything, a disorderly retreat, a rout, or a desperate call for reinforcements; the one thing he had not expected was complete and utter victory.\n\nHe savored the knight’s words in his mind. He could still see the man’s face, sweat dripping down from his helmet into eyes that were filled with an exultant pride. “General, the enemy is no more. They did not stand, but fled in complete disorder. Titus Cassabus reports no losses and only thirteen wounded, none seriously. He also requests that you bring him several dozen sacks, as he has nowhere to store the ears he has been collecting.”\n\nThe promise of an ear-harvest was why he’d determined to march the entire legion, less three centuries and two squadrons under the command of Julianus to escort the supply train, through the forest rather than around it. They would have linked up with the Savondese army more easily by going around it, but if the enemy was routed, he had wanted to crush as many of them between him and the northerners as he could before they escaped to the east. His plan had not been without risk, given how many orcs and goblins still survived Cassabus’s attack, but the silver bounty made it worth taking.\n\nThey’d reached the tribune and his exhausted centuries before the sun reached its height. Although several of the senior centurions had wanted to press on and further harry the orcs, Marcus demurred and they’d made their camp early yesterday. If the orcs were going to gather themselves and strike back in force, he wanted them to find the legion whole, behind fortifications, and armed with its war machines. The scorpios were disassembled and being transported on the wagons, but the onagers were more useful in the heavily wooded forest anyhow.\n\nBut he’d ordered an early start this morning to compensate for the slow pace the forest imposed on them even without the mules and wagons. The men were carrying five days’ provisions too, and the additional weight combined with the uneven terrain further slowed them down.\n\nA decurion on horseback made his way through the trees to avoid the infantrymen and approached him. “General, the Primus Pilus says there is something you should see ahead.”\n\nMarcus frowned. The scouts had spotted a few scattered orcs roaming about, but they’d fled upon catching sight of the Amorrans, and with the exception of a single wolfrider brought down by a slinger, they hadn’t engaged in any combat. “Is there any sign of the enemy regrouping?”\n\n“No, General. It looks like there was a battle of sorts. Yesterday, most like.”\n\nHe followed the man forward, and at the barked commands of their optios, the centuries parted, one after the other in succession, to let him pass through their ranks. The two of them rode some way in advance of the First of the First, with the way marked by pairs of knights and Savondese guides who were serving as the vanguard and picking out the legion’s path through the forest. One of the knights, Marcus saw, had a green-stained sack hanging down from the saddlehorn to which it was tied; he was pleased to know that the knights did not disdain to do their part for the legionary coffers.\n\nHe could see from the brighter light that some sort of clearing was ahead, presumably one of a reasonable size, but before they reached it, they began to encounter the bodies. Orcs mostly, but there were also horses, goblins, and wolves, as well as splashes of red blood that suggested men had fallen here as well. There were dozens of corpses scattered about, with more than a few missing limbs, and not infrequently, heads. In the clearing, which was considerably larger than he’d expected, Proculus was standing with a pair of knights whose horses were tied to a tree well away from the various heaps of dead orcs and goblins that had been piled up by parties unknown; the pungent scent of death that filled the air already had his own horse skittish and tossing its head. He reined it in and looked around, more than a little confused by what he saw. Unlike the scattered bodies they’d previously passed, here it looked as if the orcs had not been running away in a panic, but attacking in what passed for good order. On the other side of the clearing, there were three large piles of green bodies stacked up in front of what appeared to be a hastily constructed fort.\n\n“There must be five hundred dead here!” the decurion who’d accompanied him exclaimed. Marcus nodded and dismounted, then silently handed the reins to the other man.\n\nProculus and the two cavalry officers saluted as he approached. Their faces were grim. “Ave, General.”\n\n“What is this?”\n\n“The Savonners must have ridden into the forest rather than waiting for them to come out,” the centurion said. He reached out and tapped a wooden shaft that was holding up part of the makeshift barrier. “That’s a spear with the spearhead snapped off, and based on the size of it, I’d say it’s a human spear. See how the wood is polished? And the way the bodies are piled up, ain’t no orcs did that. I seen some with arrows in them too, and they didn’t look like they was no elf arrows.”\n\n“They must have been gathering their own dead. Otherwise, they would have left the bodies where they were.”\n\n“If it was the Savonners, they lost more than a few,” Proculus agreed. “I’d guess thirty, maybe forty all told. Lots of red blood around the barricade, on all three sides too. There’s about eighty dead orcs around the back, most of them crisped; looks like they rushed the side too. Didn’t get through, though, because there ain’t much blood, red or green, inside the barriers.”\n\nMarcus looked around, worried by the implications of the unexpected battle. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would the king’s knights have ridden into the forest? They couldn’t have made use of their heavy cavalry in here. It would have made considerably more sense for them to wait beyond the treeline and hit the orcs once they emerged from the trees.”\n\n“I know. Maybe that prince of theirs ain’t got no sense.”\n\n“I don’t like this. If the orcs have got a chieftain able to get them back in order so quickly, they’re more disciplined than we’d thought. It’s not likely, but we could find ourselves walking into an ambush. They still outnumber us four-to-one.”\n\n“Be a good place to camp if it weren’t for the stink and the flies,” the big centurion commented idly. “Scouts say there’s a river not too far ahead.”\n\n“Route the men around this place. And assign thirty men from your century to ear-collection; choose those who won’t let their imaginations get carried away. We’ll cross the river and set up march fortifications on the far bank.”\n\n“No ditch?”\n\n“Too many roots, I should think. Tell Cassabus to have the men clear a site for the overnight castellum. However many managed to regroup here, it wasn’t enough to attack us. I don’t see the risk as being too great, not with the Savonners within a day’s march.”\n\n“Ave,” Proculus saluted and mounted his horse, signaling for the two knights to accompany him.\n\nCurious as to what the Savonners could have been protecting, Marcus pushed his way past the makeshift barrier of brush and branches, and examined the ground behind it. What he saw there made him frown. In amongst the well-trodden ground and the crushed grass, there were footprints in the moss and dirt that were too small to belong to any soldier. He kneeled down to examine one of the more cleanly demarcated ones more closely, and saw it lacked the long toes and claws that would indicate a goblin.\n\nHad it been left by a woman? Or perhaps even a large child. Well, they would learn soon enough. He peered towards the West. They might reasonably hope to exit the forest on the morrow and make the acquaintance of their royal allies the day after that.\n\nHe glanced around the remains of the forest battlefield again, feeling the violence and desperation that were still palpable here on the stinking, bloodstained earth, written in every rictus and twisted limb. How terrible it was, and yet how glorious to be the victor at last!\n\nAnd, he thought more coldly, how profitable. There were nearly a thousand silvers to be harvested here. The men of the First Cohort would need to strop their blades well once their work was done.\n", "completion": "The forest was much thicker than any the Amorrans had seen before. In certain places where the tree trunks were exceptionally thick, the leaves and branches overhead formed a canopy that concealed the afternoon sky entirely from the view of those marching underneath. But despite the darkness, the mood of the legionaries was exhilarated, and it was with some difficulty that the centurions kept their men in order as they marched in skirmish order through the sun-dappled ground. Each century had a single contubernium designated as ear-catchers; they roamed ahead of the line of march carrying daggers with which to remove the ears of the dead orcs they found and sacks in which to carry them. At intervals, a call went up, as the legionaries marched past, or sometimes over, a corpse that had not yet been deprived of its appendages.\n\n“Oy, Audens! You missed one!”\n\n“Move it along, Opis,” an optio barked. “Where is it?”\n\n“Back here, to the right, by that big tree there!”\n\nA tired legionary, his forearm greaves splattered with dark green gore, trudged wearily back towards the marching century, a half-full burlap sack slung over his shoulders. He sighed as the men marched past him, and nodded as one man pointed towards a wide-trunked oak with a large knot on the side. After they passed by, he walked over to the dead orc, kneeled down, and with two expert strokes, removed the green ears. After slipping them into the sack, he stood up and rubbed at the small of his back, then began half-jogging at a pace that would let him overtake the century again.\n\n“How many do you think were killed?” Marcus asked Arvandus as they rode along the path through the forest made by the men’s iron-soled sandals.\n\n“A few hundred. Ten percent at most.”\n\n“That would be nearly twenty-five hundred silvers.”\n\n“If we find them all. Which we won’t. We’ll be lucky to collect five hundred.”\n\n“Even so.”\n\nThink the king will pay up?”\n\nMarcus snorted. “We just saved his eastern provinces from being overrun. More importantly, we have five thousand swords. He’ll pay.”\n\nCollecting from the king of Savondir was the last of Marcus’s concerns. At the moment, his main difficulty was keeping a smile from his face and his own overheated emotions in check. Corvus had never smiled in front of the men, not even in the aftermath of battle when victory was assured, and Marcus was doing his level best to follow his father’s example.\n\nIt was harder than it had looked, though, as every corpse past which he rode reminded him of the massive weight that had been lifted from his shoulders two mornings ago.\n\nSomehow, he’d managed to force himself to sleep after Cassabus and his men marched forth to launch the risky night assault. The thought of spending the night in prayer and fasting had occurred to him, but the knowledge that the legion might find itself surrounded by ten thousand or more orcs if the attack failed made him decide to snatch some rest while he could. If he was going to be leading his men into battle at dawn, he owed it to them to be at his best and sharpest.\n\nThe centurions had their men ready to march before the sun rose, and a bright golden gleam was just beginning to appear on the horizon when the two riders were spotted. He’d been going over their current state of supplies with the legion’s armicustos, Obsidius Montanus, when Vitius Sintas strode over and warned him that news of the battle was imminent. He’d steeled himself to be prepared for anything, a disorderly retreat, a rout, or a desperate call for reinforcements; the one thing he had not expected was complete and utter victory.\n\nHe savored the knight’s words in his mind. He could still see the man’s face, sweat dripping down from his helmet into eyes that were filled with an exultant pride. “General, the enemy is no more. They did not stand, but fled in complete disorder. Titus Cassabus reports no losses and only thirteen wounded, none seriously. He also requests that you bring him several dozen sacks, as he has nowhere to store the ears he has been collecting.”\n\nThe promise of an ear-harvest was why he’d determined to march the entire legion, less three centuries and two squadrons under the command of Julianus to escort the supply train, through the forest rather than around it. They would have linked up with the Savondese army more easily by going around it, but if the enemy was routed, he had wanted to crush as many of them between him and the northerners as he could before they escaped to the east. His plan had not been without risk, given how many orcs and goblins still survived Cassabus’s attack, but the silver bounty made it worth taking.\n\nThey’d reached the tribune and his exhausted centuries before the sun reached its height. Although several of the senior centurions had wanted to press on and further harry the orcs, Marcus demurred and they’d made their camp early yesterday. If the orcs were going to gather themselves and strike back in force, he wanted them to find the legion whole, behind fortifications, and armed with its war machines. The scorpios were disassembled and being transported on the wagons, but the onagers were more useful in the heavily wooded forest anyhow.\n\nBut he’d ordered an early start this morning to compensate for the slow pace the forest imposed on them even without the mules and wagons. The men were carrying five days’ provisions too, and the additional weight combined with the uneven terrain further slowed them down.\n\nA decurion on horseback made his way through the trees to avoid the infantrymen and approached him. “General, the Primus Pilus says there is something you should see ahead.”\n\nMarcus frowned. The scouts had spotted a few scattered orcs roaming about, but they’d fled upon catching sight of the Amorrans, and with the exception of a single wolfrider brought down by a slinger, they hadn’t engaged in any combat. “Is there any sign of the enemy regrouping?”\n\n“No, General. It looks like there was a battle of sorts. Yesterday, most like.”\n\nHe followed the man forward, and at the barked commands of their optios, the centuries parted, one after the other in succession, to let him pass through their ranks. The two of them rode some way in advance of the First of the First, with the way marked by pairs of knights and Savondese guides who were serving as the vanguard and picking out the legion’s path through the forest. One of the knights, Marcus saw, had a green-stained sack hanging down from the saddlehorn to which it was tied; he was pleased to know that the knights did not disdain to do their part for the legionary coffers.\n\nHe could see from the brighter light that some sort of clearing was ahead, presumably one of a reasonable size, but before they reached it, they began to encounter the bodies. Orcs mostly, but there were also horses, goblins, and wolves, as well as splashes of red blood that suggested men had fallen here as well. There were dozens of corpses scattered about, with more than a few missing limbs, and not infrequently, heads. In the clearing, which was considerably larger than he’d expected, Proculus was standing with a pair of knights whose horses were tied to a tree well away from the various heaps of dead orcs and goblins that had been piled up by parties unknown; the pungent scent of death that filled the air already had his own horse skittish and tossing its head. He reined it in and looked around, more than a little confused by what he saw. Unlike the scattered bodies they’d previously passed, here it looked as if the orcs had not been running away in a panic, but attacking in what passed for good order. On the other side of the clearing, there were three large piles of green bodies stacked up in front of what appeared to be a hastily constructed fort.\n\n“There must be five hundred dead here!” the decurion who’d accompanied him exclaimed. Marcus nodded and dismounted, then silently handed the reins to the other man.\n\nProculus and the two cavalry officers saluted as he approached. Their faces were grim. “Ave, General.”\n\n“What is this?”\n\n“The Savonners must have ridden into the forest rather than waiting for them to come out,” the centurion said. He reached out and tapped a wooden shaft that was holding up part of the makeshift barrier. “That’s a spear with the spearhead snapped off, and based on the size of it, I’d say it’s a human spear. See how the wood is polished? And the way the bodies are piled up, ain’t no orcs did that. I seen some with arrows in them too, and they didn’t look like they was no elf arrows.”\n\n“They must have been gathering their own dead. Otherwise, they would have left the bodies where they were.”\n\n“If it was the Savonners, they lost more than a few,” Proculus agreed. “I’d guess thirty, maybe forty all told. Lots of red blood around the barricade, on all three sides too. There’s about eighty dead orcs around the back, most of them crisped; looks like they rushed the side too. Didn’t get through, though, because there ain’t much blood, red or green, inside the barriers.”\n\nMarcus looked around, worried by the implications of the unexpected battle. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would the king’s knights have ridden into the forest? They couldn’t have made use of their heavy cavalry in here. It would have made considerably more sense for them to wait beyond the treeline and hit the orcs once they emerged from the trees.”\n\n“I know. Maybe that prince of theirs ain’t got no sense.”\n\n“I don’t like this. If the orcs have got a chieftain able to get them back in order so quickly, they’re more disciplined than we’d thought. It’s not likely, but we could find ourselves walking into an ambush. They still outnumber us four-to-one.”\n\n“Be a good place to camp if it weren’t for the stink and the flies,” the big centurion commented idly. “Scouts say there’s a river not too far ahead.”\n\n“Route the men around this place. And assign thirty men from your century to ear-collection; choose those who won’t let their imaginations get carried away. We’ll cross the river and set up march fortifications on the far bank.”\n\n“No ditch?”\n\n“Too many roots, I should think. Tell Cassabus to have the men clear a site for the overnight castellum. However many managed to regroup here, it wasn’t enough to attack us. I don’t see the risk as being too great, not with the Savonners within a day’s march.”\n\n“Ave,” Proculus saluted and mounted his horse, signaling for the two knights to accompany him.\n\nCurious as to what the Savonners could have been protecting, Marcus pushed his way past the makeshift barrier of brush and branches, and examined the ground behind it. What he saw there made him frown. In amongst the well-trodden ground and the crushed grass, there were footprints in the moss and dirt that were too small to belong to any soldier. He kneeled down to examine one of the more cleanly demarcated ones more closely, and saw it lacked the long toes and claws that would indicate a goblin.\n\nHad it been left by a woman? Or perhaps even a large child. Well, they would learn soon enough. He peered towards the West. They might reasonably hope to exit the forest on the morrow and make the acquaintance of their royal allies the day after that.\n\nHe glanced around the remains of the forest battlefield again, feeling the violence and desperation that were still palpable here on the stinking, bloodstained earth, written in every rictus and twisted limb. How terrible it was, and yet how glorious to be the victor at last!\n\nAnd, he thought more coldly, how profitable. There were nearly a thousand silvers to be harvested here. The men of the First Cohort would need to strop their blades well once their work was done.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2106, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch16_marcus-P2", "chapter": "ch16_marcus", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nLegio XVII — Marcus’s legion; Roman numeral as written.\nSieur Damase de Bruissac — escorting knight; keep Sieur and spelling.\nViscomte de Lechaire / Viscomte Trebonius — Trebonius’s Savondese styling.\nÉtienne-Henri de Mirid / Red Prince / Crown Prince of Savondir — forms as used.\nDuc de Chênevin — princely title; accents as written.\nSacré Royaume — keep accents and capitals.\nLégat / légat — French address for Marcus; accent as written.\nTheuderic / Theuderic de Merovech — royal battlemage; keep spelling.\nLutèce — capital; accent as written.\nHaut Conseil — keep French form.\npillards — Savondese cant for raiding orcs; lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nOn a morning ride Marcus is recalled for an Iron Law breach; in tribunal he condemns the pair, flogs Avso, and orders the march.\nDe Forbonnais offers orc-magic intelligence on the road; Marcus forbids spells.\nAt a night fire he hires Renier to cue the prince as anvil and promise Lutèce ears; he briefs Cassabus for a five-century night assault on the orc camp.\nAlone at the Porta Decumana he refuses spies, wagers his vocation on the night’s steel, and walks into gathering dark.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAlive, summoned from the new march castra outside the Elvenwood to the Red Prince’s pavilion. Wary of fairground disorder in the Savondese camp; leaves Proculus and Cassabus in command. Recognizes Theuderic among the blue-cloaks and hates the sorcery. Will not bow as a vassal; expects hidden archers.\n\nTrebonius Lecerus / Viscomte de Lechaire\nAlive in the escort; Amorran tribune wearing a Savondese title; present for language and court.\n\nArvandus\nAlive in the honor party.\n\nCyriacus\nCenturion of the Second of the Second; alive in the escort.\n\nVitalis\nInterpreter; alive to prevent language misunderstandings.\n\nSieur Damase de Bruissac\nSenior escort knight; bland and prattling until the pavilion, then hard; conveys the prince’s archer precaution.\n\nÉtienne-Henri de Mirid\nCrown Prince, Red Prince; alive on a gilded outdoor throne. Small, predatory, uncalloused hands; flanked by combat-bruised knights and blue-cloaks. Orc heads on spears behind him.\n\nTheuderic de Merovech\nRoyal battlemage; alive at the prince’s left. Amused at Marcus’s recognition; will whisper titles and counsel.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nMarcus looked around, worried by the implications of the unexpected battle. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would the king’s knights have ridden into the forest? They couldn’t have made use of their heavy cavalry in here. It would have made considerably more sense for them to wait beyond the treeline and hit the orcs once they emerged from the trees.”\n\n“I know. Maybe that prince of theirs ain’t got no sense.”\n\n“I don’t like this. If the orcs have got a chieftain able to get them back in order so quickly, they’re more disciplined than we’d thought. It’s not likely, but we could find ourselves walking into an ambush. They still outnumber us four-to-one.”\n\n“Be a good place to camp if it weren’t for the stink and the flies,” the big centurion commented idly. “Scouts say there’s a river not too far ahead.”\n\n“Route the men around this place. And assign thirty men from your century to ear-collection; choose those who won’t let their imaginations get carried away. We’ll cross the river and set up march fortifications on the far bank.”\n\n“No ditch?”\n\n“Too many roots, I should think. Tell Cassabus to have the men clear a site for the overnight castellum. However many managed to regroup here, it wasn’t enough to attack us. I don’t see the risk as being too great, not with the Savonners within a day’s march.”\n\n“Ave,” Proculus saluted and mounted his horse, signaling for the two knights to accompany him.\n\nCurious as to what the Savonners could have been protecting, Marcus pushed his way past the makeshift barrier of brush and branches, and examined the ground behind it. What he saw there made him frown. In amongst the well-trodden ground and the crushed grass, there were footprints in the moss and dirt that were too small to belong to any soldier. He kneeled down to examine one of the more cleanly demarcated ones more closely, and saw it lacked the long toes and claws that would indicate a goblin.\n\nHad it been left by a woman? Or perhaps even a large child. Well, they would learn soon enough. He peered towards the West. They might reasonably hope to exit the forest on the morrow and make the acquaintance of their royal allies the day after that.\n\nHe glanced around the remains of the forest battlefield again, feeling the violence and desperation that were still palpable here on the stinking, bloodstained earth, written in every rictus and twisted limb. How terrible it was, and yet how glorious to be the victor at last!\n\nAnd, he thought more coldly, how profitable. There were nearly a thousand silvers to be harvested here. The men of the First Cohort would need to strop their blades well once their work was done.\n\n### NOTES\nSavonner camp: open tents, goats, banners, refugees and merchants before a grass court.\nLegio XVII exited the Elvenwood the previous afternoon; lines of a march castra still being laid when the summons arrived.\nArchers nocked and aimed per prince’s order since his brother’s death; Amorrans may keep swords.\nTwo orc heads on spears flank the throne—one nearly twice the other’s size.\nAfternoon audience; crowd of three or four hundred held by men-at-arms.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nThe Savonner camp strikes him as a fair, not a castra. Sieur Damase prattles them to the Red Prince’s outdoor throne, then drops the mask: address, archers, no offense. Marcus leads the Amorrans down a gauntlet past a slapped refugee woman, clocking bruised knights, young blue-cloaks, and Theuderic—elf-friend and abomination—whose eyes glitter recognition.\n\nPresentation of titles; Marcus nods instead of bows. The slight prince plays ally and “assistance,” needles Amorran kinglessness, and hears why Marcus refused land and title. Talk turns to faithless suppliers; the prince laughs bitter truth, then lifts a hand and calls the responsible parties forward. The scene breaks as the summons goes out—before the crowd gasps at magic.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2500 words. Court tension concrete; contempt for sorcery held in check until the reveal. Land on the prince’s summons of the merchants; do not stage the strangling yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The Savonner camp was a bewildering array of sights and sounds, to say nothing of a brilliant rainbow of colors. It reminded Marcus more of a fair than a military encampment, let alone a proper castra. Open tents were erected haphazardly as far as the eye could see, small herds of goats grazed and gamboled freely about, while men, women, and even children went about their business as if there were not still thousands of orcs lurking somewhere inside the nearby forest. And there were banners and pennants flapping everywhere in the breeze, as red pigs, white horses, green lions, blue griffins, and nearly every possible combination of color and animal, real or imaginary, were used to mark the owner.\n\nLegio XVII had finally existed the massive, and to Marcus’s mind, misnamed, Elvenwood the previous afternoon. The lines for the march castra were still being laid out when a Savondese detachment arrived consisting of four knights and six mounted men-at-arms bearing an imperious invitation, which amounted to a summons, from the Red Prince. Thus it was that Marcus Gaius Trebonius, Arvandus, and the Second of the Second’s centurion, Cyriacus, were being escorted by an honor guard in the direction of the Savondese army. Vitalis accompanied them as well, to prevent any language-related misunderstandings. In their absence, Proculus and Cassabus had been left in command of the legion. The Savondese knights rode well on their slow, but powerful steeds thanks to the device they called a stirrup, and the burnished plate armor they wore was a considerable improvement over the black steel breastplates worn by the Amorrans as well, but otherwise, their footrests and steel armor were the only martial elements of note that Marcus had observed thus far.\n\nThe senior knight, Sieur Damase de Bruissac, had told them nothing about the battle they’d discovered, about the orcs, or the arrival of the legion’s supply train. His round face was bland and his incurious eyes were seemingly innocent as he professed complete ignorance of anything but the prince’s orders to bring the Amorran general and the Viscomte de Lechaire to his pavilion. Judging by the pristine state of his armor, the tightness of the leather thong attaching his sword hilt to its scabbard, and his tendency to prattle on about complete inconsequentialities, Marcus was inclined to believe him.\n\n“So I was telling Sieur Pons, he was the son of the baron at the time, before his father was given the west county by the King hisself, I was telling him that what we needed wasn’t more footmen, what we needed was more wine! Ha! Oh, he laughed, he did! He was allus one for a good jest, Sieur Pons. What do you think o’ that?”\n\nMarcus smiled, a little tightly, and nodded. Other than the king, and what may have been an oblique reference to one of the members of the king’s high council, he had never heard of any of the people that Sieur Damase was describing in such enthusiastic detail.\n\nFortunately, it was not long before they came within site of the prince’s pavilion. He had elected to receive them in front of it, as there was an impromptu court setting arranged outside on the grass, complete with a gilded throne upon which a young man was sitting, flanked by men on either side, engaged in conversation with one of the blue-cloaked men to his left. A considerable audience had gathered, petitioners, it appeared, considering the unexpectedly large number of unkempt women and dirty-faced children in the mob of three or four hundred being kept at bay by armed men.\n\nThe families would be those unfortunates who had lost their homes and villages in the orc raids, he surmised, who were now desperately seeking support, if not redress, from the crown. But the crowd didn’t consist only of refugees, as towards the front, he could see fatter, more prosperous men, presumably merchants or perhaps influential townsmen who had petitions of their own to present to the prince.\n\nTo the right and left of the throne, and slightly behind it, Marcus was surprised to see a pair of heads displayed on spears. Both belonged to orcs, although the one on the left was nearly twice the size of the other. It was an unexpectedly savage demonstration, and for the first time since they’d arrived in Savondir, Marcus felt a momentary flicker of concern.\n\nSieur Damase pulled up his horse and raised a hand. “Stop here, monseigneurs.” His voice was firmer, more commanding now, and when Marcus, surprised, looked at him, he saw the bland mask was gone, replaced by a harder, more calculating expression. “You will address the prince as Your Royal Highness. You may keep your swords, but please understand that there will be archers with arrows nocked and aimed at you.”\n\n“This is how you treat an ally?” Marcus spat angrily, but in a low voice so as not to permit the curious onlookers, most of whom were now staring at the Amorrans, to hear.\n\n“Prince’s orders,” Sieur Damase replied, unapologetic. “Take no offense, monseigneurs. He has learned to take precautions since the death of his brother. This is how he treats everyone.”\n\nThe Amorrans looked at each other, but it was clear that they had little choice in the matter. Given the excessively wary nature of the welcome, Marcus wasn’t even certain that they would be permitted to ride away safely should they decline to see the prince now. Well, better an arrow in the chest than one in the back, he decided.\n\nNodding to the others, he dismounted. He threw the heavy red officer’s cloak he was wearing behind his shoulders and decided to leave his helmet tied to the saddle. Even without the reported archers, there would be no escaping the Savondese if their prince had treachery in mind.\n\nNevertheless, he quickly surveyed the audience as well as the men with whom the prince had surrounded himself. There were about forty guards, men-at-arms wearing leather or chain mail, but they appeared to be there mostly to keep the large crowd of refugees, merchants and other supplicants seeking the prince’s attention at bay. Ten formed a semicircle on either side of an alley that the other twenty had created that was just wide enough for ten men; the men-at-arms were shoving back those who tried to enter it.\n\nAt Sieur Damase’s gesture, the Amorrans began to walk down the gauntlet towards the throne, with Marcus leading the way. He winced as he saw one woman holding a young child by the hand foolishly try to push past a guard again after being denied; the big bearded man barely glanced at her before knocking her to her knees with a back-handed slap across her face.\n\nAs they drew closer, Marcus saw that four of the men flanking the heir to the throne of Savondir were knights, apparently of some rank, and three of the four were bruised or scratched about the face. They’d seen recent combat, then, they might have even been responsible for slaying some of those orcs his men had found in the forest. A fifth man, shorter than the others, was dressed simply in a black tunic and leggings. Three of the four blue-cloaks struck him as being remarkably young, nearly as young as the prince himself.\n\nBut the tallest of the four, and the one to whom the prince had been speaking, looked familiar. Marcus stifled a curse as he recognized Theuderic, royal battlemage, elf-friend, and abomination before God. Theuderic’s eyes glittered with amusement at Marcus’s reaction, but otherwise the arrogant battlemage gave no outward sign of recognition.\n\nSieur Damase cleared his throat and startled Marcus by fairly shouting in his ear. “Your Highness, I present to you the Viscomte Trebonius de Lechaire, the Légat Valerius d’Amorr, and various officers of the legion. Viscomte, Légat, you stand before His Royal Highness Étienne-Henri de Mirid, Crown Prince of Savondir and the Seven Seats, Duc de Chênevin and Red Prince of the Sacré Royaume.”\n\nUnimpressed by the recitation of titles, Marcus had the feeling he was expected to bow, but instead he smartly nodded his head, once. As his companions followed his example, he saw the prince’s lip twitch in a sneer that might have been amusement, or scorn, or perhaps a combination of the two. But the young man didn’t seem prone to take offense, as he languidly lifted two fingers of his left hand to acknowledge their presence before him.\n\nHis Royal Highness Étienne-Henri was not a tall man. Marcus guessed the prince would barely come to his nose if he stood up. The prince was also slim and small-boned, but despite his stature he had a certain presence to him would have made Marcus feel wary even without the hidden archers. He was a good-looking youth, although his clean-shaven face was chiefly distinguishable for a prominent nose and small, deep-set eyes of an uncertain color. His fingers were long and slender, and although he sprawled carelessly on the throne, leaning upon one elbow, Marcus had the impression that he was more striking a public pose than demonstrating true aristocratic decadence.\n\nHe did not wear a sword, or even a dagger, and his uncalloused hands looked more accustomed to holding a harp or flute than a weapon. And yet, his expression was confident and calmly predatory; Marcus had the impression that this was not a man who did his own killing, but did not hesitate to order others to do it for him. Others such as Theuderic de Merovech.\n\n“It is good to finally meet our brave allies at last,” the prince said. He was a tenor, but his voice was not unpleasant and he spoke with an air of confidence. “Monseigneur le viscomte, I am neither unaware nor unappreciative of the assistance you provided the realm in defeating these noxious foes.”\n\n“Assistance?” Marcus asked, astonished. Theuderic closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “That is to say, your Royal Highness.”\n\n“Forgive me, monseigneur, but I fear I do not know how one is to address one of your rank. General? Sieur? I am given to understand you may be a knight of sorts.”\n\nMarcus recovered himself and smiled. “I am no equestrian, your Royal Highness. Legatus will suffice.” He saw Theuderic lean over and whisper in the prince’s ear.\n\n“Légat? Nothing more? Is that not a humble title for a man with so many swords at his disposal.”\n\n“It is not humble in the least, your Royal Highness. Five hundred senators jointly rule Amorr, whereas there are fewer than 30 legati in all the Empire.”\n\n“And only one without.”\n\n“Only one. As you say.”\n\n“They say there are no kings in Amorr.” The prince stared at him speculatively.\n\n“Oh, kings we have in plenty.” Marcus smiled coldly. “Some are brought there and exhibited in the arena before they are beheaded. Others come of their own free will, to beg for men and gold. There are kings in Amorr. But they do not rule. Your Royal Highness.”\n\nThe prince, he was not at all surprised to see, frowned at that. He clearly did not like Marcus’s refusal to play vassal, but his voice remained calm. “I am told my father offered you a title, and yet you rejected it. Why?”\n\n“I do not expect my men and I to remain here long. God willing, we will return in the spring. My duty is to the legion and to Amorr. I dare not accept the responsibilities that come with such an honor.”\n\n“Seeing as how the greater part of the nobles of this realm appear to consider the occasional rebellion against the crown to be one of their responsibilities, I suspect the Haut Conseil would prefer if most of them would imitate your future absence.”\n\nMarcus smiled at the prince’s dour expression. “I fear I know little about how things stand here in Savondir, but if they are as unsettled as they are presently in the Empire, I have no doubt you are correct, your Royal Highness. That being said, it seems to me that the orcs are our most pressing concern.”\n\n“Oh, I rather doubt they will return soon, not after the licking we gave them.” The prince met his eyes, as if daring Marcus to contradict him. “As I was telling Count Trebonius, we very much appreciate the assistance provided by you and your men. I should like to reward you, Légat, but if you will not accept lands and title, I understand there is something else I may give you.”\n\nHe gestured towards the crowd behind the Amorrans.\n\n“I have been informed that you had an amount of trouble with certain parties failing to follow through on various contracts. Is that true?”\n\nMarcus raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t surprised that the prince knew about their logistical situation, only that the matter interested him enough to mention it.\n\n“I believe that is the case, your Royal Highness.”\n\n“It is to be lamented, but I fear this is an all-too-common occurrence here in the north.” The prince laughed, a little bitterly, and for the first time, Marcus felt as if the young man was expressing his true feelings. “Allow me a surmise, you paid up front?”\n\n“Only half.”\n\n“I am glad to know you’re not a complete fool, Légat. I rather expect they were hoping you’d be wiped out by the orcs, so they could then sell the goods to me. I imagine they must have found your survival a disappointment of sorts. How would you have dealt with such faithless providers in your empire?”\n\n“Failing to fulfill a legionary contract is a capital offense, your Royal Highness. Those who fail to deliver are hanged, while those who think to cheat us are excruciated. So perhaps you will understand that I am unaccustomed to anticipating such behavior on the part of our suppliers.”\n\n“I’m astonished you have anyone willing to supply you at all.”\n\n“I am given to understand that it’s only necessary to hang a few of them to convince the rest of the importance of living up to their obligations.”\n\n“A sound enough principle, I suppose. As it happens, we have a few of the responsible parties here.” The prince lifted his hand. “Don’t be shy, do come forward, my dear men. Monseigneurs, if you don’t mind?”\n", "completion": "The Savonner camp was a bewildering array of sights and sounds, to say nothing of a brilliant rainbow of colors. It reminded Marcus more of a fair than a military encampment, let alone a proper castra. Open tents were erected haphazardly as far as the eye could see, small herds of goats grazed and gamboled freely about, while men, women, and even children went about their business as if there were not still thousands of orcs lurking somewhere inside the nearby forest. And there were banners and pennants flapping everywhere in the breeze, as red pigs, white horses, green lions, blue griffins, and nearly every possible combination of color and animal, real or imaginary, were used to mark the owner.\n\nLegio XVII had finally existed the massive, and to Marcus’s mind, misnamed, Elvenwood the previous afternoon. The lines for the march castra were still being laid out when a Savondese detachment arrived consisting of four knights and six mounted men-at-arms bearing an imperious invitation, which amounted to a summons, from the Red Prince. Thus it was that Marcus Gaius Trebonius, Arvandus, and the Second of the Second’s centurion, Cyriacus, were being escorted by an honor guard in the direction of the Savondese army. Vitalis accompanied them as well, to prevent any language-related misunderstandings. In their absence, Proculus and Cassabus had been left in command of the legion. The Savondese knights rode well on their slow, but powerful steeds thanks to the device they called a stirrup, and the burnished plate armor they wore was a considerable improvement over the black steel breastplates worn by the Amorrans as well, but otherwise, their footrests and steel armor were the only martial elements of note that Marcus had observed thus far.\n\nThe senior knight, Sieur Damase de Bruissac, had told them nothing about the battle they’d discovered, about the orcs, or the arrival of the legion’s supply train. His round face was bland and his incurious eyes were seemingly innocent as he professed complete ignorance of anything but the prince’s orders to bring the Amorran general and the Viscomte de Lechaire to his pavilion. Judging by the pristine state of his armor, the tightness of the leather thong attaching his sword hilt to its scabbard, and his tendency to prattle on about complete inconsequentialities, Marcus was inclined to believe him.\n\n“So I was telling Sieur Pons, he was the son of the baron at the time, before his father was given the west county by the King hisself, I was telling him that what we needed wasn’t more footmen, what we needed was more wine! Ha! Oh, he laughed, he did! He was allus one for a good jest, Sieur Pons. What do you think o’ that?”\n\nMarcus smiled, a little tightly, and nodded. Other than the king, and what may have been an oblique reference to one of the members of the king’s high council, he had never heard of any of the people that Sieur Damase was describing in such enthusiastic detail.\n\nFortunately, it was not long before they came within site of the prince’s pavilion. He had elected to receive them in front of it, as there was an impromptu court setting arranged outside on the grass, complete with a gilded throne upon which a young man was sitting, flanked by men on either side, engaged in conversation with one of the blue-cloaked men to his left. A considerable audience had gathered, petitioners, it appeared, considering the unexpectedly large number of unkempt women and dirty-faced children in the mob of three or four hundred being kept at bay by armed men.\n\nThe families would be those unfortunates who had lost their homes and villages in the orc raids, he surmised, who were now desperately seeking support, if not redress, from the crown. But the crowd didn’t consist only of refugees, as towards the front, he could see fatter, more prosperous men, presumably merchants or perhaps influential townsmen who had petitions of their own to present to the prince.\n\nTo the right and left of the throne, and slightly behind it, Marcus was surprised to see a pair of heads displayed on spears. Both belonged to orcs, although the one on the left was nearly twice the size of the other. It was an unexpectedly savage demonstration, and for the first time since they’d arrived in Savondir, Marcus felt a momentary flicker of concern.\n\nSieur Damase pulled up his horse and raised a hand. “Stop here, monseigneurs.” His voice was firmer, more commanding now, and when Marcus, surprised, looked at him, he saw the bland mask was gone, replaced by a harder, more calculating expression. “You will address the prince as Your Royal Highness. You may keep your swords, but please understand that there will be archers with arrows nocked and aimed at you.”\n\n“This is how you treat an ally?” Marcus spat angrily, but in a low voice so as not to permit the curious onlookers, most of whom were now staring at the Amorrans, to hear.\n\n“Prince’s orders,” Sieur Damase replied, unapologetic. “Take no offense, monseigneurs. He has learned to take precautions since the death of his brother. This is how he treats everyone.”\n\nThe Amorrans looked at each other, but it was clear that they had little choice in the matter. Given the excessively wary nature of the welcome, Marcus wasn’t even certain that they would be permitted to ride away safely should they decline to see the prince now. Well, better an arrow in the chest than one in the back, he decided.\n\nNodding to the others, he dismounted. He threw the heavy red officer’s cloak he was wearing behind his shoulders and decided to leave his helmet tied to the saddle. Even without the reported archers, there would be no escaping the Savondese if their prince had treachery in mind.\n\nNevertheless, he quickly surveyed the audience as well as the men with whom the prince had surrounded himself. There were about forty guards, men-at-arms wearing leather or chain mail, but they appeared to be there mostly to keep the large crowd of refugees, merchants and other supplicants seeking the prince’s attention at bay. Ten formed a semicircle on either side of an alley that the other twenty had created that was just wide enough for ten men; the men-at-arms were shoving back those who tried to enter it.\n\nAt Sieur Damase’s gesture, the Amorrans began to walk down the gauntlet towards the throne, with Marcus leading the way. He winced as he saw one woman holding a young child by the hand foolishly try to push past a guard again after being denied; the big bearded man barely glanced at her before knocking her to her knees with a back-handed slap across her face.\n\nAs they drew closer, Marcus saw that four of the men flanking the heir to the throne of Savondir were knights, apparently of some rank, and three of the four were bruised or scratched about the face. They’d seen recent combat, then, they might have even been responsible for slaying some of those orcs his men had found in the forest. A fifth man, shorter than the others, was dressed simply in a black tunic and leggings. Three of the four blue-cloaks struck him as being remarkably young, nearly as young as the prince himself.\n\nBut the tallest of the four, and the one to whom the prince had been speaking, looked familiar. Marcus stifled a curse as he recognized Theuderic, royal battlemage, elf-friend, and abomination before God. Theuderic’s eyes glittered with amusement at Marcus’s reaction, but otherwise the arrogant battlemage gave no outward sign of recognition.\n\nSieur Damase cleared his throat and startled Marcus by fairly shouting in his ear. “Your Highness, I present to you the Viscomte Trebonius de Lechaire, the Légat Valerius d’Amorr, and various officers of the legion. Viscomte, Légat, you stand before His Royal Highness Étienne-Henri de Mirid, Crown Prince of Savondir and the Seven Seats, Duc de Chênevin and Red Prince of the Sacré Royaume.”\n\nUnimpressed by the recitation of titles, Marcus had the feeling he was expected to bow, but instead he smartly nodded his head, once. As his companions followed his example, he saw the prince’s lip twitch in a sneer that might have been amusement, or scorn, or perhaps a combination of the two. But the young man didn’t seem prone to take offense, as he languidly lifted two fingers of his left hand to acknowledge their presence before him.\n\nHis Royal Highness Étienne-Henri was not a tall man. Marcus guessed the prince would barely come to his nose if he stood up. The prince was also slim and small-boned, but despite his stature he had a certain presence to him would have made Marcus feel wary even without the hidden archers. He was a good-looking youth, although his clean-shaven face was chiefly distinguishable for a prominent nose and small, deep-set eyes of an uncertain color. His fingers were long and slender, and although he sprawled carelessly on the throne, leaning upon one elbow, Marcus had the impression that he was more striking a public pose than demonstrating true aristocratic decadence.\n\nHe did not wear a sword, or even a dagger, and his uncalloused hands looked more accustomed to holding a harp or flute than a weapon. And yet, his expression was confident and calmly predatory; Marcus had the impression that this was not a man who did his own killing, but did not hesitate to order others to do it for him. Others such as Theuderic de Merovech.\n\n“It is good to finally meet our brave allies at last,” the prince said. He was a tenor, but his voice was not unpleasant and he spoke with an air of confidence. “Monseigneur le viscomte, I am neither unaware nor unappreciative of the assistance you provided the realm in defeating these noxious foes.”\n\n“Assistance?” Marcus asked, astonished. Theuderic closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “That is to say, your Royal Highness.”\n\n“Forgive me, monseigneur, but I fear I do not know how one is to address one of your rank. General? Sieur? I am given to understand you may be a knight of sorts.”\n\nMarcus recovered himself and smiled. “I am no equestrian, your Royal Highness. Legatus will suffice.” He saw Theuderic lean over and whisper in the prince’s ear.\n\n“Légat? Nothing more? Is that not a humble title for a man with so many swords at his disposal.”\n\n“It is not humble in the least, your Royal Highness. Five hundred senators jointly rule Amorr, whereas there are fewer than 30 legati in all the Empire.”\n\n“And only one without.”\n\n“Only one. As you say.”\n\n“They say there are no kings in Amorr.” The prince stared at him speculatively.\n\n“Oh, kings we have in plenty.” Marcus smiled coldly. “Some are brought there and exhibited in the arena before they are beheaded. Others come of their own free will, to beg for men and gold. There are kings in Amorr. But they do not rule. Your Royal Highness.”\n\nThe prince, he was not at all surprised to see, frowned at that. He clearly did not like Marcus’s refusal to play vassal, but his voice remained calm. “I am told my father offered you a title, and yet you rejected it. Why?”\n\n“I do not expect my men and I to remain here long. God willing, we will return in the spring. My duty is to the legion and to Amorr. I dare not accept the responsibilities that come with such an honor.”\n\n“Seeing as how the greater part of the nobles of this realm appear to consider the occasional rebellion against the crown to be one of their responsibilities, I suspect the Haut Conseil would prefer if most of them would imitate your future absence.”\n\nMarcus smiled at the prince’s dour expression. “I fear I know little about how things stand here in Savondir, but if they are as unsettled as they are presently in the Empire, I have no doubt you are correct, your Royal Highness. That being said, it seems to me that the orcs are our most pressing concern.”\n\n“Oh, I rather doubt they will return soon, not after the licking we gave them.” The prince met his eyes, as if daring Marcus to contradict him. “As I was telling Count Trebonius, we very much appreciate the assistance provided by you and your men. I should like to reward you, Légat, but if you will not accept lands and title, I understand there is something else I may give you.”\n\nHe gestured towards the crowd behind the Amorrans.\n\n“I have been informed that you had an amount of trouble with certain parties failing to follow through on various contracts. Is that true?”\n\nMarcus raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t surprised that the prince knew about their logistical situation, only that the matter interested him enough to mention it.\n\n“I believe that is the case, your Royal Highness.”\n\n“It is to be lamented, but I fear this is an all-too-common occurrence here in the north.” The prince laughed, a little bitterly, and for the first time, Marcus felt as if the young man was expressing his true feelings. “Allow me a surmise, you paid up front?”\n\n“Only half.”\n\n“I am glad to know you’re not a complete fool, Légat. I rather expect they were hoping you’d be wiped out by the orcs, so they could then sell the goods to me. I imagine they must have found your survival a disappointment of sorts. How would you have dealt with such faithless providers in your empire?”\n\n“Failing to fulfill a legionary contract is a capital offense, your Royal Highness. Those who fail to deliver are hanged, while those who think to cheat us are excruciated. So perhaps you will understand that I am unaccustomed to anticipating such behavior on the part of our suppliers.”\n\n“I’m astonished you have anyone willing to supply you at all.”\n\n“I am given to understand that it’s only necessary to hang a few of them to convince the rest of the importance of living up to their obligations.”\n\n“A sound enough principle, I suppose. As it happens, we have a few of the responsible parties here.” The prince lifted his hand. “Don’t be shy, do come forward, my dear men. Monseigneurs, if you don’t mind?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2448, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch16_marcus-P3", "chapter": "ch16_marcus", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nthe Strangler — invisible-noose sorcery; capital S as the prince styles it.\nCount Marsazan — tasked with distributing refugee relief; keep spelling.\nEast March / Eastmarch — border theater; forms as written.\narchitectus — tribune who will oversee stone castra; keep Latin.\nfête — prince’s promised capital celebration; accent as written.\nLutèce — capital; accent as written.\nwarboars — orc heavy mounts; one word.\npillards — Savondese cant; lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nAlone at the Porta Decumana Marcus refuses spies, wagers his vocation on the night’s steel, and walks into gathering dark.\nTwo mornings after Cassabus’s night rout, he marches the legion through the Elvenwood collecting ears, finds a Savonner brush-fort among stacked orc dead, and orders a river-bank castellum while tasting victory as profit.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAlive before the throne as rosy coronas bloom on five merchants. Sees open murder dressed as justice; will spare them on citizenship and shriving grounds, then take Trebonius’s delivery-and-discount, refuse to gift the savings, and bargain a stone castra plus a Lutèce journey he would rather avoid. Reads the prince as subtle and dangerous—to be won, not ignored.\n\nTrebonius Lecerus\nAlive at Marcus’s shoulder; hisses warning; answers immediately with delivery and twenty percent off.\n\nÉtienne-Henri de Mirid\nTesting Marcus with Theuderic’s magic; releases the merchants when shriving is named; turns the penance into crowd theater and saddles Marsazan with petitioners; grants the castra if Marcus returns by noon for Lutèce—with ears.\n\nTheuderic de Merovech\nAlive; denies with a headshake that the halo display was his initiative when Marcus glares.\n\nCount Marsazan\nAlive among the knights; unmarked by combat; dismayed at the distribution duty.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Seeing as how the greater part of the nobles of this realm appear to consider the occasional rebellion against the crown to be one of their responsibilities, I suspect the Haut Conseil would prefer if most of them would imitate your future absence.”\n\nMarcus smiled at the prince’s dour expression. “I fear I know little about how things stand here in Savondir, but if they are as unsettled as they are presently in the Empire, I have no doubt you are correct, your Royal Highness. That being said, it seems to me that the orcs are our most pressing concern.”\n\n“Oh, I rather doubt they will return soon, not after the licking we gave them.” The prince met his eyes, as if daring Marcus to contradict him. “As I was telling Count Trebonius, we very much appreciate the assistance provided by you and your men. I should like to reward you, Légat, but if you will not accept lands and title, I understand there is something else I may give you.”\n\nHe gestured towards the crowd behind the Amorrans.\n\n“I have been informed that you had an amount of trouble with certain parties failing to follow through on various contracts. Is that true?”\n\nMarcus raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t surprised that the prince knew about their logistical situation, only that the matter interested him enough to mention it.\n\n“I believe that is the case, your Royal Highness.”\n\n“It is to be lamented, but I fear this is an all-too-common occurrence here in the north.” The prince laughed, a little bitterly, and for the first time, Marcus felt as if the young man was expressing his true feelings. “Allow me a surmise, you paid up front?”\n\n“Only half.”\n\n“I am glad to know you’re not a complete fool, Légat. I rather expect they were hoping you’d be wiped out by the orcs, so they could then sell the goods to me. I imagine they must have found your survival a disappointment of sorts. How would you have dealt with such faithless providers in your empire?”\n\n“Failing to fulfill a legionary contract is a capital offense, your Royal Highness. Those who fail to deliver are hanged, while those who think to cheat us are excruciated. So perhaps you will understand that I am unaccustomed to anticipating such behavior on the part of our suppliers.”\n\n“I’m astonished you have anyone willing to supply you at all.”\n\n“I am given to understand that it’s only necessary to hang a few of them to convince the rest of the importance of living up to their obligations.”\n\n“A sound enough principle, I suppose. As it happens, we have a few of the responsible parties here.” The prince lifted his hand. “Don’t be shy, do come forward, my dear men. Monseigneurs, if you don’t mind?”\n\n### NOTES\nSame outdoor pavilion court; crowd roaring after the prince’s sentence.\nFive defaulting merchants: three babblers, one impassive fat man, one silent shaker.\nHalos are sorcerous marks; the Strangler is an invisible noose.\nMarcus’s proposed castra: stone march-fort style, no claim of sovereignty, begun in his absence by an architectus tribune.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nHalos bloom; Marcus whirls on Theuderic and gets only a slight headshake—the prince is flaunting sorcery on purpose. Five merchants choke under the Strangler until Marcus names citizenship and unshriven souls; the prince frees them, invites Amorran penance, and Trebonius takes delivery at twenty percent off. Étienne-Henri betters it into half owed plus refugee silver through Marsazan, wins the crowd, and draws Marcus into accepting Lutèce.\n\nMarcus bargains a permanent stone castra against the next heavy invasion, refuses the castle-sovereign slur, and takes the grant with a noon return and an ear-collection jest he cannot enjoy. The scene lands on the prince’s grin and the bounty reminder.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1600 words. Sorcery and politics unsentimental; land on the Lutèce caveat and the ears.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The crowd gasped. Marcus glanced to see what had drawn their attention, and did a double-take. He turned around, feeling his eyes widen with disbelief at the sight of the rosy coronas that had mysteriously appeared around the heads of five men towards the front of the audience. No, the appearance of the halos was no mystery, he corrected himself. It was magic.\n\nHe whirled around and glared accusingly at Theuderic, but the normally supercilious mage maintained an even expression as he shook his head slightly. So. If the prince knew about their procurement problems, there was no chance he wasn’t well-informed about the Amorran’s view towards the corrupting evil of sorcery. And that suggested he was knowingly flaunting it before them, although Marcus couldn’t see what he hoped to gain from it.\n\nThe five men came forward at the prince’s command. Three of them were babbling, almost incoherently, as they alternately pleaded their innocence and begged for mercy. One man, a fat, bearded man in a white, freshly laundered tunic stood there as impassively as a pig waiting patiently for the butcher, while the smaller man next to him also said nothing, but shook in fearful silence.\n\n“Enough,” snapped the prince. “Silence their lying tongues!”\n\nA mage gestured. Almost as one, the five merchants jerked and clutched at their throats, eyes bulging and mouths gaping open as an invisible noose seemed to pull itself tight around their necks.\n\n“Hanging, the Strangler, it all amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”\n\n“General!” Trebonius hissed. Marcus could feel his heart beat faster. The prince was looking at the merchants, a cold, contemptuous smile on his face, but then he turned his gaze to the Amorrans and raised an eyebrow.\n\n“It’s rather easier this way, wouldn’t you say?”\n\nThe wordless choking sounds the dying men were making was horrifying. There was something foul in it that went far beyond the mere use of sorcery; Marcus had witnessed both executions and deaths in battle, but this struck him as open murder. And worse, murder in the false cloak of justice.\n\n“Spare them, your Royal Highness,” he said, even as one man dropped to his knees. “They are not Amorran citizens, and as such they cannot be held accountable to imperial law.”\n\nThe prince’s dark eyes sparkled triumphantly. Marcus had the impression that he had just been tested, and failed.\n\n“And, more importantly, they have neither been confessed by a priest nor shriven,” he added.\n\nThe unseemly sparkle abruptly vanished, replaced by momentary chagrin. “Of course, Légat. You do well to remind me.”\n\nThe prince raised his hand, his palm open, and all five merchants gasped loudly for air. Three of them were on the ground now, and one, already doubled-over, fell to one knee.\n\n“Forgive us, Highness!” one of the men on the ground managed to cry out, his chest still heaving.\n\n“It is not for me to forgive,” the prince said. “You have not sinned against me. Perhaps our Amorran friends, whom you have wronged, would be able to tell us how you wretched thieves might best express the extent of your repentance?”\n\n“Delivery,” Trebonius responded immediately. “With a twenty percent reduction in the outstanding amount owed.” Marcus approved. Vengeance bought neither grain nor wine, and with no access to House Valerius’s treasury or credit, the legion would have to husband every king-stamped coin until it returned to the Empire.\n\n“Is that all? Very well.” Étienne-Henri addressed the five merchants, but his eyes were on Marcus. “Is this penance acceptable to you?”\n\nAs the merchants practically fell over each other in their haste to assure the prince that it was indeed acceptable, and more than acceptable to them, Marcus nodded. And he was not surprised when the prince raised his hand and rose easily to his feet; he did not know what the young royal intended, but he was certain that a reduced price transaction would not content a man so casual about ordering five men strangled right in front of him.\n\n“Monseigneurs, monsieurs, honored allies, and my good people of the East March, I know there are many here who have suffered. It is neither meet nor just that dishonest men such as these should grow fat by cheating the brave men-at-arms who defend those who have lost homes and fields and loved ones. Here is my sentence: in return for sparing their lives, the Amorrans shall pay only half their outstanding debt upon delivery, and of the amount saved, they shall pay half to the good Count Marsazan, who shall distribute it equally among the common petitioners here.”\n\nThere was a moment’s astonished silence, and then a cheer went up from the crowd. The prince acknowledged it with a graceful bow, then said something unintelligible to one of the knights, who laughed out loud. One knight, presumably the count referenced, looked dismayed; in a single gesture, his liege lord had adroitly saddled him with the burden of hearing the petitioners. He was the only one who showed no signs of recent combat, and Marcus had a suspicion this was not a coincidence.\n\n“Should we offer up the amount we’re saving too?” Trebonius had no need to whisper with all the excited shouting behind them.\n\n“Good Lord, no!” Marcus, startled, shook his head. “What do we care for their good will? We’ve saved their lives, I should think we’ve done enough for them.”\n\nHe looked at the prince, who was acknowledging the plaudits of his grateful subjects-to-be with a self-amused smile. The Savondese royal was smarter than Marcus had assumed, which meant that he might make for a dangerous enemy if he was handled improperly. And worse, he was subtle. Which, Marcus reluctantly concluded, meant that the young man would have to be won over, even if that meant coddling his insecurities.\n\nAnd that was why Marcus found himself, just a few moments later, obliged to accept the prince’s invitation to join him in traveling to Lutèce, for what he was assured would be the fête of the century. Viscomte Trebonius, of course, was included in the invitation.\n\n“Your Royal Highness, I am, of course, most curious to accompany you and your entourage, and to see the royal capital, as is my colleague, but I would request of you one additional indulgence prior to our departure.”\n\nAt the prince’s gesture, he continued. “I should like to prepare a permanent castra, one that is capable of serving as a stronghold, not only for the legion, but for your forces as well. When the orcs come again, and your Royal Highness, they will come again, they will come in greater numbers and they will not be wolfriders and, what do you call them?”\n\n“Pillards,” Trebonius prompted.\n\n“Yes, Pillards. They will not be pillards. They will come with their heavy infantry, their warboars and their trolls. You have won a great victory, your Royal Highness, but all it has given you is time. I wish to use that time to improve the kingdom’s defenses here.”\n\n“You want to build a castle?”\n\n“No, a castra. A fortification in the style of our march forts, only in a more secure fashion, with stone walls rather than wood. We require it as a base to anchor the defense of the Eastmarch against the next army to invade.”\n\n“Ah, those sort of walled wooden villages you’ve built. Yes, I saw one on my way here. Damned impressive, they are, although I don’t suppose they can be held more than a few days given how many mouths you have to feed.”\n\n“Exactly, your Royal Highness. It would pose no threat to you after we are gone, and it might save your army in the event of a reversal.”\n\n“This can be done in your absence?”\n\n“Begun, at any rate. I am not skilled in the arts of fortification. One of the other tribunes is the architectus who will oversee the construction.”\n\n“Then again, what is to prevent you from building a castle, then breaking faith with the crown and declaring yourself sovereign?”\n\n“What prevents me now?” Aside, Marcus belatedly thought, from your archers. “Your Royal Highness, may I not remind you that I refused the king’s gracious offer of land and title? I do not wish for a castle, nor will I break faith with those who do not break faith with me. I am honor-bound, no, I am duty-bound, to defend your lands. I ask for nothing more than your permission to permit me and my men to do so in the way we know best.”\n\nÉtienne-Henri glanced at the shorter man and grinned wryly. “It seems to me I would have to be a fool to deny you, Légat. As I hope I am not a fool, I will grant your request, with the caveat that you return here before noon tomorrow and join me in my triumphant procession to Lutèce. And seeing as my father awaits us there, I should encourage you to bring along what I hear is your astonishing collection of ears.”\n\nThe prince grinned openly at Marcus’s discomfiture. “Have no fear, Légat. My father promised me no similar bounty. You may as well collect on them.”\n", "completion": "The crowd gasped. Marcus glanced to see what had drawn their attention, and did a double-take. He turned around, feeling his eyes widen with disbelief at the sight of the rosy coronas that had mysteriously appeared around the heads of five men towards the front of the audience. No, the appearance of the halos was no mystery, he corrected himself. It was magic.\n\nHe whirled around and glared accusingly at Theuderic, but the normally supercilious mage maintained an even expression as he shook his head slightly. So. If the prince knew about their procurement problems, there was no chance he wasn’t well-informed about the Amorran’s view towards the corrupting evil of sorcery. And that suggested he was knowingly flaunting it before them, although Marcus couldn’t see what he hoped to gain from it.\n\nThe five men came forward at the prince’s command. Three of them were babbling, almost incoherently, as they alternately pleaded their innocence and begged for mercy. One man, a fat, bearded man in a white, freshly laundered tunic stood there as impassively as a pig waiting patiently for the butcher, while the smaller man next to him also said nothing, but shook in fearful silence.\n\n“Enough,” snapped the prince. “Silence their lying tongues!”\n\nA mage gestured. Almost as one, the five merchants jerked and clutched at their throats, eyes bulging and mouths gaping open as an invisible noose seemed to pull itself tight around their necks.\n\n“Hanging, the Strangler, it all amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”\n\n“General!” Trebonius hissed. Marcus could feel his heart beat faster. The prince was looking at the merchants, a cold, contemptuous smile on his face, but then he turned his gaze to the Amorrans and raised an eyebrow.\n\n“It’s rather easier this way, wouldn’t you say?”\n\nThe wordless choking sounds the dying men were making was horrifying. There was something foul in it that went far beyond the mere use of sorcery; Marcus had witnessed both executions and deaths in battle, but this struck him as open murder. And worse, murder in the false cloak of justice.\n\n“Spare them, your Royal Highness,” he said, even as one man dropped to his knees. “They are not Amorran citizens, and as such they cannot be held accountable to imperial law.”\n\nThe prince’s dark eyes sparkled triumphantly. Marcus had the impression that he had just been tested, and failed.\n\n“And, more importantly, they have neither been confessed by a priest nor shriven,” he added.\n\nThe unseemly sparkle abruptly vanished, replaced by momentary chagrin. “Of course, Légat. You do well to remind me.”\n\nThe prince raised his hand, his palm open, and all five merchants gasped loudly for air. Three of them were on the ground now, and one, already doubled-over, fell to one knee.\n\n“Forgive us, Highness!” one of the men on the ground managed to cry out, his chest still heaving.\n\n“It is not for me to forgive,” the prince said. “You have not sinned against me. Perhaps our Amorran friends, whom you have wronged, would be able to tell us how you wretched thieves might best express the extent of your repentance?”\n\n“Delivery,” Trebonius responded immediately. “With a twenty percent reduction in the outstanding amount owed.” Marcus approved. Vengeance bought neither grain nor wine, and with no access to House Valerius’s treasury or credit, the legion would have to husband every king-stamped coin until it returned to the Empire.\n\n“Is that all? Very well.” Étienne-Henri addressed the five merchants, but his eyes were on Marcus. “Is this penance acceptable to you?”\n\nAs the merchants practically fell over each other in their haste to assure the prince that it was indeed acceptable, and more than acceptable to them, Marcus nodded. And he was not surprised when the prince raised his hand and rose easily to his feet; he did not know what the young royal intended, but he was certain that a reduced price transaction would not content a man so casual about ordering five men strangled right in front of him.\n\n“Monseigneurs, monsieurs, honored allies, and my good people of the East March, I know there are many here who have suffered. It is neither meet nor just that dishonest men such as these should grow fat by cheating the brave men-at-arms who defend those who have lost homes and fields and loved ones. Here is my sentence: in return for sparing their lives, the Amorrans shall pay only half their outstanding debt upon delivery, and of the amount saved, they shall pay half to the good Count Marsazan, who shall distribute it equally among the common petitioners here.”\n\nThere was a moment’s astonished silence, and then a cheer went up from the crowd. The prince acknowledged it with a graceful bow, then said something unintelligible to one of the knights, who laughed out loud. One knight, presumably the count referenced, looked dismayed; in a single gesture, his liege lord had adroitly saddled him with the burden of hearing the petitioners. He was the only one who showed no signs of recent combat, and Marcus had a suspicion this was not a coincidence.\n\n“Should we offer up the amount we’re saving too?” Trebonius had no need to whisper with all the excited shouting behind them.\n\n“Good Lord, no!” Marcus, startled, shook his head. “What do we care for their good will? We’ve saved their lives, I should think we’ve done enough for them.”\n\nHe looked at the prince, who was acknowledging the plaudits of his grateful subjects-to-be with a self-amused smile. The Savondese royal was smarter than Marcus had assumed, which meant that he might make for a dangerous enemy if he was handled improperly. And worse, he was subtle. Which, Marcus reluctantly concluded, meant that the young man would have to be won over, even if that meant coddling his insecurities.\n\nAnd that was why Marcus found himself, just a few moments later, obliged to accept the prince’s invitation to join him in traveling to Lutèce, for what he was assured would be the fête of the century. Viscomte Trebonius, of course, was included in the invitation.\n\n“Your Royal Highness, I am, of course, most curious to accompany you and your entourage, and to see the royal capital, as is my colleague, but I would request of you one additional indulgence prior to our departure.”\n\nAt the prince’s gesture, he continued. “I should like to prepare a permanent castra, one that is capable of serving as a stronghold, not only for the legion, but for your forces as well. When the orcs come again, and your Royal Highness, they will come again, they will come in greater numbers and they will not be wolfriders and, what do you call them?”\n\n“Pillards,” Trebonius prompted.\n\n“Yes, Pillards. They will not be pillards. They will come with their heavy infantry, their warboars and their trolls. You have won a great victory, your Royal Highness, but all it has given you is time. I wish to use that time to improve the kingdom’s defenses here.”\n\n“You want to build a castle?”\n\n“No, a castra. A fortification in the style of our march forts, only in a more secure fashion, with stone walls rather than wood. We require it as a base to anchor the defense of the Eastmarch against the next army to invade.”\n\n“Ah, those sort of walled wooden villages you’ve built. Yes, I saw one on my way here. Damned impressive, they are, although I don’t suppose they can be held more than a few days given how many mouths you have to feed.”\n\n“Exactly, your Royal Highness. It would pose no threat to you after we are gone, and it might save your army in the event of a reversal.”\n\n“This can be done in your absence?”\n\n“Begun, at any rate. I am not skilled in the arts of fortification. One of the other tribunes is the architectus who will oversee the construction.”\n\n“Then again, what is to prevent you from building a castle, then breaking faith with the crown and declaring yourself sovereign?”\n\n“What prevents me now?” Aside, Marcus belatedly thought, from your archers. “Your Royal Highness, may I not remind you that I refused the king’s gracious offer of land and title? I do not wish for a castle, nor will I break faith with those who do not break faith with me. I am honor-bound, no, I am duty-bound, to defend your lands. I ask for nothing more than your permission to permit me and my men to do so in the way we know best.”\n\nÉtienne-Henri glanced at the shorter man and grinned wryly. “It seems to me I would have to be a fool to deny you, Légat. As I hope I am not a fool, I will grant your request, with the caveat that you return here before noon tomorrow and join me in my triumphant procession to Lutèce. And seeing as my father awaits us there, I should encourage you to bring along what I hear is your astonishing collection of ears.”\n\nThe prince grinned openly at Marcus’s discomfiture. “Have no fear, Légat. My father promised me no similar bounty. You may as well collect on them.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1566, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch17_lugbol-P1", "chapter": "ch17_lugbol", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nshugaba / shugaba'ugh — warband captain(s); plural -'ugh.\ngungiyar / gungiyar'ugh — warband(s); plural often -'ugh.\nkai hari Shugaba-Gungiyar — Lugbol’s self-announced slot; keep the form.\nkor / kors — rank-and-file orc warrior(s).\ngalvebel — senior NCO; Korpaghu’s rank.\nGrun-kor — kors’ address for Lugbol; hyphenated.\nGor-Gor — hyphenated war god.\nZlatagh / Maneater — fallen raiding warleader; forms as used.\nBlack Fist / Black Fists / Black Fist Infantry — Lugbol’s warband name; capitals as written.\nRed Claw Slayers — elite formation; capitals as written.\nsqwaaks / skwaaks — unblooded juniors; white clay stripe.\nszavon'ugh / szavon — local Man soldiery.\nZoth Ommog / Zoth Ommoghu — mountain-orc homeland and its officers.\nskullkick — camp game; one word.\nElvenwood / Korokhurmagh — woods names; keep spellings.\nsquag / squagging — vulgar orc sex/cant.\n\n### STORY\nAt the evening assembly Lugbol reads Snaghak’s hatred and sits through Zlatagh’s boasts until the shamans’ goblin-augury turns into a vision of orc death by fire and iron; Zlatagh decrees the captives for Gor-Gor, and Lugbol leaves still hunted.\nBack at his tents Lugbol sets triple guards against Snaghak, refuses to tap the firewater, works the burned arm, and sleeps on the bearskin.\nWaked at the watch change he walks the perimeter, finds the south-side guards keen, looks beyond the Green Talons, and sees campfires that move; then the first screams ring out.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nShugaba of the Black Fists. Alive after fifteen days leading a swollen remnant to the main army. Lost Ghurash and half of twelve who stood with him when iron men caught his flank; sixty-five of his original hundred survived, then scavenged dead and stragglers until nearly five hundred march behind him. Burned arm still bad. Proud of the Black Fist song; wary of Zoth Ommoghu blame for Zlatagh’s ruin. About to be taken to the Great Orc.\n\nKorpaghu\nGalvebel. Alive; urged Lugbol not to flay runners too soon; split a kor’s skull for murder; taciturn on the march; will find quarters when Lugbol is summoned.\n\nGhurash\nDeceased; pierced through the eye by iron men in the night fight; present only in Lugbol’s accounting of the rout.\n\nZlatagh\nCalled Maneater. Presumed dead or ruined after failing to stand; related thinly to the king’s line; his failure stains Zoth Ommoghu commanders.\n\nSlayer galvebel\nRed Claw Slayer NCO with six kors; alive; sent to bring Lugbol to the Great Orc; offers blunt advice not to claim too much credit.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“They’re trying to drive us,” he hissed, more to himself than to his galvebels. The szavon’ugh army had been camped outside the forest, only a full day’s march away, waiting for Zlatagh to emerge and give them the battle they were seeking. Unlike the iron men, the szavon’ugh feared the forests and seldom did more than send mounted patrols into them to chase down raiding parties. But the iron men did not fear the Korokhurmagh, and with their fire and their metal, they were seeking to drive Zlatagh out of the safety of the trees, where the szavon’ugh would slaughter his lightly armed raiders.\n\nHe needed to warn Zlatagh! But already he could hear that the gungiyar’ugh to the north of them were in retreat. By the time he and his kors reached Zlatagh’s tent, Zlatagh might be long gone. Lugbol could try to stand and buy Zlatagh enough time to stop what appeared to be a rout in the making, but he could not imagine Zlatagh would be able to get the panic-stricken orcs, to say nothing of the easily frightened goblins, under control before dawn. And by dawn, he and every last kor in his warband would be dead.\n\nTo hell with the Maneater, he decided. He didn’t owe Zlatagh a damned thing. And to hell with the rest of the shugaba’ugh. His only concern was to protect his kors, and the best way to do that was to get out of the trap that the iron men had set. He looked to the southeast. In the darkness, it was not hard to see the fiery focus of the iron men’s attack as well as the extent to which their line was spread out. The southeast was blocked, but due south was dark and altogether devoid of fire. He came to a decision and raised his voice as he addressed all one hundred of his kors.\n\n“Stay close! Stay close! And I mean close enough to bugger the kor in front of you if he stops! We’re going to run past them. No torches; use yez nose and ears to follow each other. Keep yez damn mouths shut, keep clear of the fires, and keep yez clubs ready in case we run into trouble!”\n\n“Grun-kor!” they shouted. They didn’t really care what the orders were. All they wanted was for someone was to give them something to do that would keep their minds off the dark and noise and fire and fear.\n\n“Bring up the rear and keep them moving,” he told Korpaghu. “If anyone falls behind, leave them.”\n\n“Oi, grun-kor!”\n\nHe looked at Ghurash. “If Zlatagh stands, we hit them from behind. If he runs, we fall back to rejoin Azzakhar and the main army.”\n\n“We’re right behind you, Lugbol.”\n\n“Good!” Lugbol took a deep breath and took another look at the advancing fires to the southeast. He thought he could see firelight glinting off the armor of the approaching iron men. Before he could second-guess himself, he waved his arm and broke into a loping stride, leading the gungiyar towards the waiting safety of the darkness.\n\n### NOTES\nFifteen-day march from the Elvenwood fight to the main army’s open encampment.\nIron men: rectangular shields, short stabbing swords, full metal—“iron turtles.”\nDead orcs near the old night field fed the column; iron men had moved on.\nMain camp: war machines, felled timber, sqwaaks with white clay, skullkick with goblin heads.\nBanner approaching: black with a red claw—Red Claw Slayers.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nFifteen days out of the trees, Lugbol’s swollen gungiyar reaches the main army. He still tastes the night the iron turtles broke Zlatagh’s host: Ghurash dead, runners flayed only in wish, Korpaghu’s counsel, scavenged dead instead of eating kors, Black Fist song rolling under the canopy as four hundred fifty-odd march in something like pride.\n\nCamp smells like safety. Sqwaaks gawk; skullkick spouts green blood; Lugbol and Korpaghu pick a commander least likely to blame them for Zlatagh. A Red Claw banner comes fast. Seven Slayers stop five hundred; the galvebel knows Lugbol from the First Raiding Expedition, orders him to the Great Orc, and on the walk admits the raiding army is said lost—and that Lugbol’s is the first gungiyar back intact. He warns Lugbol not to claim too much. Lugbol thanks him. The scene lands on that uneasy gratitude before they reach the claw-branded guards.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2100 words. Coarse orc-camp register; pride and calculation both concrete. Land on the Slayer’s advice received; do not enter the Great Orc’s tent yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It took the exhausted gungiyar, swollen to nearly five times its original size, fifteen days to make its way through the great forest and reach the main army. Lugbol scented it well before the shadowed and leafy prison of the trees gave way to the smoke and open spaces of the grand encampment. Despite all his boasting, Zlatagh had not stood fast, in fact, he ran like a sniveling goblin before the winged demons of the night. Lugbol, on the other hand, nearly managed to lead his orcs around the right flank of the winged demons. They turned out to be nothing more than well-disciplined men who were armored like iron turtles and bore shields large enough to cook a large goblin. But somehow, Lugbol’s kors found themselves caught between the enemy flank and a small force of reinforcements, causing most of them, already unsettled by the rout of the gungiyar’ugh, to flee madly into the night.\n\nHad they stood, his kors would have easily driven back the iron men, despite their great rectangular shields and small stabbing swords, but as it was, Lugbol lost half of the twelve kors who remained with him, including Ghurash. It took him two days to gather together the tattered remnants of his gungiyar; of the one hundred kors he’d led prior to the night attack, only sixty-five remained. Their cowardice made him furious, and he was greatly tempted to flay four or five of them as an example to the others, but to his surprise, the dour Korpaghu encouraged him to let it pass.\n\n“Too soon,” the veteran warrior growled. “And they held up a damn sight better than any of Zlatagh’s water-boweled leg-pissers. Give them that, by Gor-Gor’s left bollock!”\n\n“They still ran in the end!”\n\n“So did we, in the end.”\n\nSo we did, Lugbol had to admit. When Ghurash fell before the iron men, pierced through the eye, both he and Korpaghu took to their heels, running from the terrible swords that licked out suddenly from behind the giant metal shields like deadly dragon’s teeth. Perhaps they had stood longer than the others, perhaps they had been a little more brave, but in the end, they had run. That was why they were still alive.\n\nAnd so Lugbol not only let it pass, but instead praised his kors for showing the wit to remain in the relative vicinity rather than continuing to flee in all directions throughout the Elvenwood. Afterwards, his first thought was to lead them back through the woods to the main army, until he realized that they simply didn’t have the supplies to make it there. Or at least for all of them to make it there. Korpaghu estimated that they would need to eat two of their number each day, which would mean returning with less than half the kors in the gungiyar.\n\n“We could draw sticks, if you didn’t want to let them fight it out.”\n\n“It might work once; after that, anyone that thought they might be next to draw the short one would run off. What was the point of gathering them up if we’re just going to scare them away?”\n\n“We could kill all of them that we need first.”\n\n“There are lots of dead orcs less than a half-day’s march away. We don’t need to make more.”\n\n“You’re thinking we should go back?” Korpaghu looked as him as if he’d gone berserk. “To where the iron men are?”\n\n“To where they were. They’ll have moved on, I’m sure. We’ll send a pair of scouts first.”\n\n“Send five. Send ten. If you’re wrong, we’ll have that many fewer mouths to feed.”\n\nHowever, in the day that it took for the scouts to return, twenty-five more kors from six different gungiyar’ugh entered their makeshift camp. And the scouts came back with nineteen more, as well as the welcome news that the bodies they would require to sustain themselves were freely accessible, with no sign of the iron men except for the violent evidence of their passing. By the time they had retraced their steps and returned to the scene of the night slaughter, Lugbol found himself the unexpected warleader of more than two hundred kors. And by the time they had finished butchering the dead, cooking the meat, and stripping the camp of everything of value, they were more than four hundred fifty strong.\n\nThey gathered another sixty-eight along the way, although five died of their wounds and four more died in squabbles that turned lethal. Actually, only three of them died as a result of fighting, the fourth one had his skull split by Korpaghu when the galvebel found him standing over the body of his victim.\n\nThe fact that they were no longer fleeing from a terrifying foe, but returning in good order lifted their spirits, and they marched back proudly to rejoin the main army, defeated but not beaten, their voices lifted in a song that Lugbol’s kors taught the others.\n\nWe are the eyes of the infantry\n\nWe walk first and we walk free\n\nDon’t mess with us\n\nDon’t cry or cuss\n\nWe’re the best in the damn army!\n\nWe’ll beat you hard\n\nDefeat you hard\n\nWe’re Black Fist Infantry\n\nWe’ll break your head\n\nThen squag you dead\n\nWe’re the best in the damn army!\n\nLugbol couldn’t help feeling a surge of fierce pride as the voices of the kors echoed off the trunks of the trees. They might not be the terrible Red Claw Slayers, and they might march on their bare feet rather than sit astride the wide backs of the mighty warboars, but of all the gungiyars that had marched out under Zlatagh’s piss-yellow banner, his Black Fists were very likely the only warband returning in good order. More than good order, as it happened, but considerably stronger than before.\n\nThe strangely soft mossy carpet of the forest floor gradually gave way to hard-packed dirt, and the tall trees on either side to war machines, huge piles of felled trees, haphazard stacks of the branches that had been stripped from them, tents, and big leather tarps under which various bands of goblins and orcs were sleeping. The familiar stench of the camp came as a relief; it was a sure sign that they were safe once more.\n\nA few scores of younger orcs scurried over to watch them pass, and he could tell they were sqwaaks even without the tell-tale stripe of white clay over their noses. They gawked at the weary, blood-stained kors; this was probably the first they’d seen of the war into which they had been drafted. Their innocence drew snorts and sneers from the kors, but for the most part, their passage went unremarked by the camp dwellers.\n\nA violent game of skullkick was drawing considerably more onlookers, as two groups of powerful orcs, mountain orcs from western Zoth Ommog by the look of them, were battling over a much-abused goblin head. When a big kick sent the skull sailing out of bounds high over the crowd, one of the players simply reached out with two powerful hands and ripped the head off the shoulders of a young goblin standing at the front of the crowd, drawing angry shrieks from the nearby goblins and hearty laughter from players on both sides.\n\nLugbol chuckled himself, although he noticed that as the orc punted the head far across the field to the other team, sending it arcing through the air trailed by a spray of dark green blood, the goblins were not laughing.\n\n“Who we going to report to?” Korpaghu grunted. The taciturn galvebel didn’t appear to have even noticed the game.\n\n“Whatever general is least likely to blame us for Zlatagh getting hisself good and squagged.”\n\n“Best stay away from any of the Zoth Ommoghu commanders, then.”\n\nLugbol nodded. Zlatagh was, or by this point, more likely, had been, a son of the cousin of one of the king’s younger brothers. That was why he’d been given the command of the raiders, and his failure was bound to make the Zoth Ommoghu look bad.\n\n“Uh oh,” he said, seeing a banner ahead that appeared to be moving rapidly in their direction. It was a black pennant, but thanks to the breeze, an outstretched clawed hand could be seen sewn in red upon it. “Don’t like that. Looks like Slayers.”\n\nThe various orcs and goblins that stood in between them and the approaching orcs seemed to vanish, and a moment later, a patrol of the much-feared mountain orcs were seen marching toward them. The Red Claw Slayers were one of the elite heavy infantry units of Zoth Ommog and they were famed throughout the septs for their gloves and boots made from the skin of trolls they’d slain, but ever since the Great Orc Azzakhar summoned the gungiyar’ugh and announced the invasion of the Man and Elf lands, they had served as Azzakhar’s personal enforcers.\n\nThere were only seven of them to Lugbol’s five hundred, but even so, he felt outnumbered. The galvebel who led the patrol was a good head taller than him, and looked as if he weighed half again as much. Even if Lugbol’s arm was mostly healed now, he knew wouldn’t last much longer against the massive orc than the average goblin sqwaak. And two of the galvebel’s kors were even bigger; marked with more white scars than tattoos, they were the survivors of inter-tribal wars far more vicious than anything Lugbol or his Black Fists had ever seen.\n\nThe big Slayer stopped and stared at him. Lugbol stopped as well, and raised his hand. The five columns of kors behind him came to a shuffling halt.\n\n“You, Shugaba, you were with the First Raiding Expedition, weren’t you?”\n\n“Damn straight, Galvebel!” Lugbol saluted. “Black Fist Infantry, Lugbol, kai hari Shugaba-Gungiyar. Zlatagh Maneater, Gran-kor.”\n\nThe Slayer ignored his salute. “The Great Orc wants to see you immediately. Have your second find quarters for your kors. You’ll come with me.”\n\nLugbol glanced at Korpaghu, who nodded. “Am I under arrest?”\n\n“I don’t know jack, Shugaba. I got orders to bring you to the Great Orc, so do you walk or do I have my kors beat you down and carry you?”\n\n“No, I’ll walk!”\n\n“Good.” Without further ado, the Slayer turned around and began stalking back in the direction he’d come. The bannerkor and the other Slayers waited until both the galvebel and Lugbol walked past them, then fell in behind them. Lugbol was relieved to see they were acting more like an honor guard than captors.\n\nThey attracted stares as they walked toward the center of the camp, past large piles of well-gnawed bones and smaller piles of refuse, but it was only the dread banner of the Slayers that attracted them, Lugbol soon realized. Gradually, he relaxed, as he concluded that if the Great Orc wanted him dead, he would be dead already. No, most likely Azzakhar simply wanted to know where his twenty-five thousand orcs and goblins were.\n\n“Is it true?” the galvebel said unexpectedly.\n\n“Is what true?”\n\n“Zlatagh, the raiding army. It’s said he lost a battle, a big one.”\n\n“You could say that.” Lugbol grimaced. “Has anyone from any other units come back?”\n\n“Dribs and drabs. Yours was the first gungiyar to return intact.”\n\nIntact? Lugbol snorted. “If you can call it that.”\n\n“How many did you lose?”\n\n“Thirty-four. We got ourselves caught between two enemy units during a night attack.”\n\n“Heavy?”\n\n“Very. They was like iron turtles.”\n\n“Not szavon’ugh, then.”\n\n“Don’t think so.”\n\nThe bigger orc growled thoughtfully. “You could have done a damned sight worse, Lugbol-shuga. Most shugaba, especially the sort commanding the light infantry, would have lost the lot. So listen. Keep your chin up when you talk to the Great Orc. He don’t like no cowards. He don’t take no lip neither, but he hates cowards.”\n\nLugbol glanced at the big galvebel, who was staring resolutely forward. He hadn’t expected such helpful advice from a Red Claw Slayer. “Thanks, Galvebel.”\n", "completion": "It took the exhausted gungiyar, swollen to nearly five times its original size, fifteen days to make its way through the great forest and reach the main army. Lugbol scented it well before the shadowed and leafy prison of the trees gave way to the smoke and open spaces of the grand encampment. Despite all his boasting, Zlatagh had not stood fast, in fact, he ran like a sniveling goblin before the winged demons of the night. Lugbol, on the other hand, nearly managed to lead his orcs around the right flank of the winged demons. They turned out to be nothing more than well-disciplined men who were armored like iron turtles and bore shields large enough to cook a large goblin. But somehow, Lugbol’s kors found themselves caught between the enemy flank and a small force of reinforcements, causing most of them, already unsettled by the rout of the gungiyar’ugh, to flee madly into the night.\n\nHad they stood, his kors would have easily driven back the iron men, despite their great rectangular shields and small stabbing swords, but as it was, Lugbol lost half of the twelve kors who remained with him, including Ghurash. It took him two days to gather together the tattered remnants of his gungiyar; of the one hundred kors he’d led prior to the night attack, only sixty-five remained. Their cowardice made him furious, and he was greatly tempted to flay four or five of them as an example to the others, but to his surprise, the dour Korpaghu encouraged him to let it pass.\n\n“Too soon,” the veteran warrior growled. “And they held up a damn sight better than any of Zlatagh’s water-boweled leg-pissers. Give them that, by Gor-Gor’s left bollock!”\n\n“They still ran in the end!”\n\n“So did we, in the end.”\n\nSo we did, Lugbol had to admit. When Ghurash fell before the iron men, pierced through the eye, both he and Korpaghu took to their heels, running from the terrible swords that licked out suddenly from behind the giant metal shields like deadly dragon’s teeth. Perhaps they had stood longer than the others, perhaps they had been a little more brave, but in the end, they had run. That was why they were still alive.\n\nAnd so Lugbol not only let it pass, but instead praised his kors for showing the wit to remain in the relative vicinity rather than continuing to flee in all directions throughout the Elvenwood. Afterwards, his first thought was to lead them back through the woods to the main army, until he realized that they simply didn’t have the supplies to make it there. Or at least for all of them to make it there. Korpaghu estimated that they would need to eat two of their number each day, which would mean returning with less than half the kors in the gungiyar.\n\n“We could draw sticks, if you didn’t want to let them fight it out.”\n\n“It might work once; after that, anyone that thought they might be next to draw the short one would run off. What was the point of gathering them up if we’re just going to scare them away?”\n\n“We could kill all of them that we need first.”\n\n“There are lots of dead orcs less than a half-day’s march away. We don’t need to make more.”\n\n“You’re thinking we should go back?” Korpaghu looked as him as if he’d gone berserk. “To where the iron men are?”\n\n“To where they were. They’ll have moved on, I’m sure. We’ll send a pair of scouts first.”\n\n“Send five. Send ten. If you’re wrong, we’ll have that many fewer mouths to feed.”\n\nHowever, in the day that it took for the scouts to return, twenty-five more kors from six different gungiyar’ugh entered their makeshift camp. And the scouts came back with nineteen more, as well as the welcome news that the bodies they would require to sustain themselves were freely accessible, with no sign of the iron men except for the violent evidence of their passing. By the time they had retraced their steps and returned to the scene of the night slaughter, Lugbol found himself the unexpected warleader of more than two hundred kors. And by the time they had finished butchering the dead, cooking the meat, and stripping the camp of everything of value, they were more than four hundred fifty strong.\n\nThey gathered another sixty-eight along the way, although five died of their wounds and four more died in squabbles that turned lethal. Actually, only three of them died as a result of fighting, the fourth one had his skull split by Korpaghu when the galvebel found him standing over the body of his victim.\n\nThe fact that they were no longer fleeing from a terrifying foe, but returning in good order lifted their spirits, and they marched back proudly to rejoin the main army, defeated but not beaten, their voices lifted in a song that Lugbol’s kors taught the others.\n\nWe are the eyes of the infantry\n\nWe walk first and we walk free\n\nDon’t mess with us\n\nDon’t cry or cuss\n\nWe’re the best in the damn army!\n\nWe’ll beat you hard\n\nDefeat you hard\n\nWe’re Black Fist Infantry\n\nWe’ll break your head\n\nThen squag you dead\n\nWe’re the best in the damn army!\n\nLugbol couldn’t help feeling a surge of fierce pride as the voices of the kors echoed off the trunks of the trees. They might not be the terrible Red Claw Slayers, and they might march on their bare feet rather than sit astride the wide backs of the mighty warboars, but of all the gungiyars that had marched out under Zlatagh’s piss-yellow banner, his Black Fists were very likely the only warband returning in good order. More than good order, as it happened, but considerably stronger than before.\n\nThe strangely soft mossy carpet of the forest floor gradually gave way to hard-packed dirt, and the tall trees on either side to war machines, huge piles of felled trees, haphazard stacks of the branches that had been stripped from them, tents, and big leather tarps under which various bands of goblins and orcs were sleeping. The familiar stench of the camp came as a relief; it was a sure sign that they were safe once more.\n\nA few scores of younger orcs scurried over to watch them pass, and he could tell they were sqwaaks even without the tell-tale stripe of white clay over their noses. They gawked at the weary, blood-stained kors; this was probably the first they’d seen of the war into which they had been drafted. Their innocence drew snorts and sneers from the kors, but for the most part, their passage went unremarked by the camp dwellers.\n\nA violent game of skullkick was drawing considerably more onlookers, as two groups of powerful orcs, mountain orcs from western Zoth Ommog by the look of them, were battling over a much-abused goblin head. When a big kick sent the skull sailing out of bounds high over the crowd, one of the players simply reached out with two powerful hands and ripped the head off the shoulders of a young goblin standing at the front of the crowd, drawing angry shrieks from the nearby goblins and hearty laughter from players on both sides.\n\nLugbol chuckled himself, although he noticed that as the orc punted the head far across the field to the other team, sending it arcing through the air trailed by a spray of dark green blood, the goblins were not laughing.\n\n“Who we going to report to?” Korpaghu grunted. The taciturn galvebel didn’t appear to have even noticed the game.\n\n“Whatever general is least likely to blame us for Zlatagh getting hisself good and squagged.”\n\n“Best stay away from any of the Zoth Ommoghu commanders, then.”\n\nLugbol nodded. Zlatagh was, or by this point, more likely, had been, a son of the cousin of one of the king’s younger brothers. That was why he’d been given the command of the raiders, and his failure was bound to make the Zoth Ommoghu look bad.\n\n“Uh oh,” he said, seeing a banner ahead that appeared to be moving rapidly in their direction. It was a black pennant, but thanks to the breeze, an outstretched clawed hand could be seen sewn in red upon it. “Don’t like that. Looks like Slayers.”\n\nThe various orcs and goblins that stood in between them and the approaching orcs seemed to vanish, and a moment later, a patrol of the much-feared mountain orcs were seen marching toward them. The Red Claw Slayers were one of the elite heavy infantry units of Zoth Ommog and they were famed throughout the septs for their gloves and boots made from the skin of trolls they’d slain, but ever since the Great Orc Azzakhar summoned the gungiyar’ugh and announced the invasion of the Man and Elf lands, they had served as Azzakhar’s personal enforcers.\n\nThere were only seven of them to Lugbol’s five hundred, but even so, he felt outnumbered. The galvebel who led the patrol was a good head taller than him, and looked as if he weighed half again as much. Even if Lugbol’s arm was mostly healed now, he knew wouldn’t last much longer against the massive orc than the average goblin sqwaak. And two of the galvebel’s kors were even bigger; marked with more white scars than tattoos, they were the survivors of inter-tribal wars far more vicious than anything Lugbol or his Black Fists had ever seen.\n\nThe big Slayer stopped and stared at him. Lugbol stopped as well, and raised his hand. The five columns of kors behind him came to a shuffling halt.\n\n“You, Shugaba, you were with the First Raiding Expedition, weren’t you?”\n\n“Damn straight, Galvebel!” Lugbol saluted. “Black Fist Infantry, Lugbol, kai hari Shugaba-Gungiyar. Zlatagh Maneater, Gran-kor.”\n\nThe Slayer ignored his salute. “The Great Orc wants to see you immediately. Have your second find quarters for your kors. You’ll come with me.”\n\nLugbol glanced at Korpaghu, who nodded. “Am I under arrest?”\n\n“I don’t know jack, Shugaba. I got orders to bring you to the Great Orc, so do you walk or do I have my kors beat you down and carry you?”\n\n“No, I’ll walk!”\n\n“Good.” Without further ado, the Slayer turned around and began stalking back in the direction he’d come. The bannerkor and the other Slayers waited until both the galvebel and Lugbol walked past them, then fell in behind them. Lugbol was relieved to see they were acting more like an honor guard than captors.\n\nThey attracted stares as they walked toward the center of the camp, past large piles of well-gnawed bones and smaller piles of refuse, but it was only the dread banner of the Slayers that attracted them, Lugbol soon realized. Gradually, he relaxed, as he concluded that if the Great Orc wanted him dead, he would be dead already. No, most likely Azzakhar simply wanted to know where his twenty-five thousand orcs and goblins were.\n\n“Is it true?” the galvebel said unexpectedly.\n\n“Is what true?”\n\n“Zlatagh, the raiding army. It’s said he lost a battle, a big one.”\n\n“You could say that.” Lugbol grimaced. “Has anyone from any other units come back?”\n\n“Dribs and drabs. Yours was the first gungiyar to return intact.”\n\nIntact? Lugbol snorted. “If you can call it that.”\n\n“How many did you lose?”\n\n“Thirty-four. We got ourselves caught between two enemy units during a night attack.”\n\n“Heavy?”\n\n“Very. They was like iron turtles.”\n\n“Not szavon’ugh, then.”\n\n“Don’t think so.”\n\nThe bigger orc growled thoughtfully. “You could have done a damned sight worse, Lugbol-shuga. Most shugaba, especially the sort commanding the light infantry, would have lost the lot. So listen. Keep your chin up when you talk to the Great Orc. He don’t like no cowards. He don’t take no lip neither, but he hates cowards.”\n\nLugbol glanced at the big galvebel, who was staring resolutely forward. He hadn’t expected such helpful advice from a Red Claw Slayer. “Thanks, Galvebel.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2080, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch17_lugbol-P2", "chapter": "ch17_lugbol", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAzzakhar / Great Orc — warlord; Mansbane praise-name is his.\nGrun-kor — form of address and impending rank; hyphenated.\nkwee / kir / kir'agh — orc females; forms as written.\ngob'agh — goblin females; keep apostrophe.\nTain / General Tain — huge general behind the curtain; Azza as his familiar address.\nAmor'agh — orc name for Amorrans; apostrophe as written.\nalv'agh — elves; apostrophe as written.\nGlaislael / Elebrion / Merithaim — elven places; keep spellings.\nwizzies — orc cant for mages; keep form.\nmurdu — orc cant for abuse/insubordination talk.\nvank / bollocks — vulgar anatomy cant as written.\nGor-Gor — hyphenated.\nBlack Fist — warband/regiment name.\nRed Claw Slayers — elite; capitals.\nszavon'ugh — local Man soldiery.\n\n### STORY\nAt the evening assembly Lugbol reads Snaghak’s hatred and sits through Zlatagh’s boasts until the shamans’ goblin-augury turns into a vision of orc death by fire and iron; Zlatagh decrees the captives for Gor-Gor, and Lugbol leaves still hunted.\nBack at his tents Lugbol sets triple guards against Snaghak, refuses to tap the firewater, works the burned arm, and sleeps on the bearskin.\nWaked at the watch change he walks the perimeter, sees moving fires beyond the Green Talons, and hears the first screams.\nHe runs toward iron men with torch-wings and fire artillery, forms what kors remain, and breaks south in silence rather than die buying Zlatagh a dawn.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nAlive, scent-drunk on kwee, reporting the night attack to Azzakhar and then to General Tain. Does not know the attackers’ name until Tain says Amor’agh. Offered a place in the “real army”; means to keep the Black Fists and ask a proper rank against murdu from regulars.\n\nAzzakhar\nGreat Orc; alive on a wooden throne in a pale-green sigil tent before a pyramid of skulls. Iron-tipped claws; females behind him; wants the Stone’s location logic from the witch-prophecy and a use for Lugbol.\n\nGeneral Tain\nLargest orc Lugbol has seen; alive; interrupted mid-squag behind the curtain; identifies Amor’agh by helm and formation; plans south against elves before west; doubts Lugbol’s size for regulars.\n\nKorpaghu\nAlive; finding quarters for the kors while Lugbol reports.\n\nSlayer galvebel\nAlive; delivers Lugbol and is dismissed.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThere were only seven of them to Lugbol’s five hundred, but even so, he felt outnumbered. The galvebel who led the patrol was a good head taller than him, and looked as if he weighed half again as much. Even if Lugbol’s arm was mostly healed now, he knew wouldn’t last much longer against the massive orc than the average goblin sqwaak. And two of the galvebel’s kors were even bigger; marked with more white scars than tattoos, they were the survivors of inter-tribal wars far more vicious than anything Lugbol or his Black Fists had ever seen.\n\nThe big Slayer stopped and stared at him. Lugbol stopped as well, and raised his hand. The five columns of kors behind him came to a shuffling halt.\n\n“You, Shugaba, you were with the First Raiding Expedition, weren’t you?”\n\n“Damn straight, Galvebel!” Lugbol saluted. “Black Fist Infantry, Lugbol, kai hari Shugaba-Gungiyar. Zlatagh Maneater, Gran-kor.”\n\nThe Slayer ignored his salute. “The Great Orc wants to see you immediately. Have your second find quarters for your kors. You’ll come with me.”\n\nLugbol glanced at Korpaghu, who nodded. “Am I under arrest?”\n\n“I don’t know jack, Shugaba. I got orders to bring you to the Great Orc, so do you walk or do I have my kors beat you down and carry you?”\n\n“No, I’ll walk!”\n\n“Good.” Without further ado, the Slayer turned around and began stalking back in the direction he’d come. The bannerkor and the other Slayers waited until both the galvebel and Lugbol walked past them, then fell in behind them. Lugbol was relieved to see they were acting more like an honor guard than captors.\n\nThey attracted stares as they walked toward the center of the camp, past large piles of well-gnawed bones and smaller piles of refuse, but it was only the dread banner of the Slayers that attracted them, Lugbol soon realized. Gradually, he relaxed, as he concluded that if the Great Orc wanted him dead, he would be dead already. No, most likely Azzakhar simply wanted to know where his twenty-five thousand orcs and goblins were.\n\n“Is it true?” the galvebel said unexpectedly.\n\n“Is what true?”\n\n“Zlatagh, the raiding army. It’s said he lost a battle, a big one.”\n\n“You could say that.” Lugbol grimaced. “Has anyone from any other units come back?”\n\n“Dribs and drabs. Yours was the first gungiyar to return intact.”\n\nIntact? Lugbol snorted. “If you can call it that.”\n\n“How many did you lose?”\n\n“Thirty-four. We got ourselves caught between two enemy units during a night attack.”\n\n“Heavy?”\n\n“Very. They was like iron turtles.”\n\n“Not szavon’ugh, then.”\n\n“Don’t think so.”\n\nThe bigger orc growled thoughtfully. “You could have done a damned sight worse, Lugbol-shuga. Most shugaba, especially the sort commanding the light infantry, would have lost the lot. So listen. Keep your chin up when you talk to the Great Orc. He don’t like no cowards. He don’t take no lip neither, but he hates cowards.”\n\nLugbol glanced at the big galvebel, who was staring resolutely forward. He hadn’t expected such helpful advice from a Red Claw Slayer. “Thanks, Galvebel.”\n\n### NOTES\nGiant pale-green tent with painted sigils; pyramid of skulls behind it.\nSoft furs on the floor; brazier; curtain concealing Tain and at least one female.\nKwee, gob’agh, and a female troll present as Azzakhar’s privilege.\nProphecy frame: if Amor’agh come north, the Stone is not south—so the witch waits; elves must still be smashed first (Glaislael, then Elebrion).\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nPast claw-branded guards he sees the skull mountain and nearly stops; kwee-scent hits; the Slayer tells him to keep it in his pants and leaves him inside. Soft furs, idle beauties, a she-troll that breaks his imagination, and Azzakhar on the throne naming him and demanding how Zlatagh’s host died. Lugbol tells the dark, the trees, the iron turtles, the panic north into szavon’ugh.\n\nTain is dragged from behind the curtain, hears the fight-pattern, names Amor’agh, and with Azzakhar turns the map: south to kill elf cities and wizzies before the main push. They eye Lugbol for an officer slot; he is “too small” for Tain’s regulars. Offered the real army, Lugbol asks to keep the Black Fists and a rank that stops murdu. Tain snorts approval of a right grun-kor. The scene lands as Azzakhar is about to concur and name terms.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2300 words. Orc-court coarseness; report voice clear under intimidation. Land on the brink of Azzakhar’s grant; do not stage the branding yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The Slayer grunted. Soon they passed a pair of guard-kors who had the Slayer claw branded on their knotted left biceps; both slammed their fists against their chests loudly in a manner that indicated respect. Little wonder, Lugbol thought, if this galvebel knew enough about the Great Orc to indicate his likes and dislikes.\n\nThey were approaching a giant pale green tent that was decorated with haphazardly placed sigils of some kind that were mostly blue and black. Magical protections, perhaps? But there was no pattern to them that he could initially discern until they got closer and he could see what they were. Lugbol’s eyes widened as he realized the rumors he’d discounted in the past were actually nothing more than the simple truth; the various marks were not sigils, but tattoos. It was apparent that Azzakhar’s royal tent had been constructed from the flayed skins of his fallen enemies. And looming behind it was something even more awe-inspiring.\n\nHe must have inadvertently stopped walking at the astonishing sight before him, because the galvebel snorted and pulled at his arm. “Nobody gets to be Great Orc by smelling no flowers. Only reason we’re all still here sitting on our arses and eating our gobbos is because Azzakhar’s the baddest of the bad-arsed.”\n\nIt wasn’t so much the tattooed tent as the gargantuan pyramid of skulls behind it that caused Lugbol to nod slowly in mute amazement. And fear. He didn’t believe there was much danger of his skin being added to the tent, but having his skull added to the bone-yellow pyramid that reached to the sky like an evil offering appeared to be a distinct possibility. He suddenly found himself wishing he’d had the sense to stay in the relative safety of the Korokhurmagh.\n\nA pair of even bigger orcs stood guard at the tent flap. A strangely familiar scent wafted out from it, and all of Lugbol’s senses went on alert. He stood up straighter, his fear forgotten, and sniffed eagerly at the air.\n\n“Keep it in your pants,” the galvebel growled. “Of course he’s got kwee with him. That’s one of the privileges of being the big damn Great Orc. But if you don’t keep your head on straight and forget the pretties are about with their quiffings and whiffings, he’ll rip off your vank and feed it to his devil-witch.”\n\nLugbol nodded and tried very hard to ignore the effect that the scent of the kwee was having on his body. The guards must have recognized the galvebel, because they nodded at him and pulled aside the big flap. It was high enough that even the taller galvebel was able to enter without ducking, and through it they stepped into a world that seemed entirely different than the stinking, green-stripped encampment outside.\n\nSoft furs of various animals lined the floor of the tent, wolf, bear, fox, and several others that Lugbol couldn’t identify. The trophies of the Great Orc’s many triumphs were on display, from the cracked granite crown that had once belonged to a rival orc king to the giant troll’s skull mounted on a sawed-off spear; it was an impressive collection. There were gilded Dwarf toys and other items Lugbol recognized as having been looted from the Man villages.\n\nBut it was the kwee that made the biggest impression on Lugbol, since he had been devoid of female companionship since the Great Orc demanded a one-third levy of every orc kingdom, sept, clan, and tribe in Hagahorn. There must have been a dozen kir’agh there, most of them half-naked, their smooth green skin alluringly highlighted by bright bits of captured man-cloth. Their little tusks were all capped with silver, and he saw their bored eyes brighten a little at his entrance, less from any interest in a small kor from the northern plains than at the prospect of some amusing cruelties to come.\n\nNor were they the only females. There were also two pretty young gob’agh, and unexpectedly, a female troll as well. It appeared the Great Orc was considerably less limited in his appetites than Lugbol would ever have imagined. The troll was smaller than the few trolls Lugbol had seen, mostly at a distance, but she was still sizable. She was leaning back on a knee-stool gnawing on a bone that was very nearly the size of Lugbol’s leg. Except for a delicate iron chain about her waist, she was also stark naked, and Lugbol couldn’t help noticing that not only were her breasts larger than his head, but her neck was thicker than his thighs.\n\nFor once, his imagination failed him entirely. With some effort, he managed to stop staring at the she-troll and direct his attention toward the large orc sitting sprawled upon a makeshift wooden throne.\n\nThe galvebel saluted, then bowed. “The shugaba of the returned gungiyar, Great Orc, as ordered.”\n\n“Very good, galvebel. You can go now.”\n\n“Great Orc!”\n\nLugbol stood straight and tried his best not to cringe as the Great Orc sat up on his throne and looked him over with a disturbing level of interest. Azzakhar was even bigger than the Slayers, and he dressed as if he was one of them, in fighting leathers, with only a black iron crown and gilded tusks to denote his royal status. His face was flat and brutish, but intelligent, his nostrils were bigger and his tusks were smaller than Lugbol would have expected. His scabbarded cleaver was hung carelessly off the back of the throne, and he didn’t even wear a dagger on his belt, although the height of his blue trollskin boots indicated that one might be concealed there.\n\nBut his claws were tipped with sharpened iron, and no orc with powerful hands the size of his could ever be considered weaponless. One white scar ran the length of his left bicep, while a somewhat newer one, healed but dark green, marred the left side of his face. This was no token king held up by his kin of sept and clan, but a true orc king who ruled by the strength of his fist and the force of his will.\n\nBehind him was a curtain that partially obscured the movement of someone, or something, concealed behind it. Whatever it was, it was moving, but it wasn’t until Lugbol heard a squeal in response to a rhythmic grunting that he realized what was happening there. He must have betrayed his surprise, because the Great Orc sat up and laughed.\n\n“Never mind them. Your name is Lugbol,” he declared unexpectedly. “I’m told you survived the battle that destroyed Zlatagh and the army I gave him.”\n\n“I did, Great Orc. As did most of my kors. Gog Black Fists. Light infantry.”\n\n“I heard you brought some stragglers with you too. That’s good. Now, how in the name of Gor-Gor’s giant vank did twenty-five thousand kors manage to get themselves killed?”\n\n“I don’t know exactly, Great Orc. We were attacked in our camp at night. No one expected it. They weren’t szavon’ugh. They wore iron and carried great shields. And they had strange war machines that threw terrible balls of fire. Like a shaman, only not magic. Most of the gungiyars were taken by surprise and routed in a panic.”\n\n“Panic!” Azzakhar snarled. “How many of them attacked?”\n\n“I don’t know, Great Orc. It was very dark, with the trees blocking the moonslight. I was walking the rounds, checking on the guard posts when the attack came. I think that is why I was able to keep my kors together. We fought our way past them and then we returned here after gathering up the others. None of them could tell me much; some of them never even saw any enemy.”\n\n“They fled north, where they were destroyed by the szavon’ugh.” The Great Orc nodded and ran a clawed finger up and down one of his golden tusks in a thoughtful manner. He seemed to come to some sort of decision then, because he looked back over his shoulder and roared at someone behind the curtain.\n\n“Tain! Get your horny damned hide out here!”\n\nBoth the movement and the grunting came to a sudden stop. “Just give me a little while–”\n\n“Stow your damned vank and get your arse out here now or I’ll cut it off and feed it to you!”\n\n“All right, all right,” a sullen voice grumbled.\n\n“He doesn’t actually think with his bollocks, even though you might think so,” the Great Orc confided. Lugbol nodded mutely, knowing he was entirely out of his element. He’d felt safer in the forest fleeing from the Iron Men.\n\nIt didn’t make him feel any less uneasy when the biggest orc Lugbol had ever seen pushed his way passed the curtain. General Tain was immense, wearing nothing but a sort of leather loincloth that did little to hide the monstrous vank that was threatening to burst it. His skin was a greenish blue, and his tusks were short, thick, blunt, and unadorned. Lugbol had seen him at a distance before, but never up close, and now that he did, he realized the general was at least one-quarter troll.\n\n“This better be damned important, Azza.”\n\n“It is. Lugbol, describe those Men that attacked you.”\n\nAs Lugbol dutifully described them again, and did his best to answer the general’s pointed questions about their armor, he could see that both the Great Orc and the half-orc were excited about something.\n\n“How did they fight?” General Tain demanded. “Not how well, we know they did for Zlatagh.”\n\n“They stand in close formation. They must drill a lot, because they stay tight. Their swords are very short, more like long daggers than proper swords. They don’t use them to chop either. They hide behind large shields and then the short swords flick out like a snake’s tongue. They’re not very big, maybe between our size and a goblin, they’re smaller than the szavon’ugh. But a small group of them chopped us up pretty bad. I lost my first galvebel to them.”\n\n“They all wear the same sort o’ helms, with metal covering their faces?” General Tain raised both hands to his face, covering his cheeks beyond his tusks. “Open in the middle. Some o’ them got plumes like a rooster.”\n\n“Like that, yes.”\n\n“Amor’agh,” the general told the Great Orc. “It’s got to be. No other men wear pots on their head and fight on foot with little swords.”\n\n“Then we can finally march! The witch said if they come north, then the Stone ain’t in the south. So she’ll want to head west.”\n\n“So we march west.”\n\n“No, the main body will go south first. The elves must be destroyed; I dasn’t leave them at my back to chew on my arse. They’ve had their damned birds flying over us morning and night, so they’ll know if we move on the Szavon’agh.”\n\n“Maybe they’ll leave us go?”\n\nThe Great Orc shook his head. “Maybe, but the alv’agh are weak. Only three cities remain to them now. Merithaim and Elebrion we can smash. The city on the sea could be tough. We got no boats.”\n\n“Don’t need no boats. We smash the two cities and kill all their wizzies at the wizzy tower, they’ll be too busy hiding on their island and pissing themselves to get in the way of anything we do after. They’ll just be glad we’re gone.”\n\n“How long?”\n\n“Ten days for Glaislael. Four weeks for Elebrion.”\n\n“So long?”\n\n“We gots to drag the war machines up the mountain. That takes time, especially with elven sky riders dropping rocks and magic on our heads.”\n\n“There is that.” He indicated Lugbol. “You got any use for this one? Might make for an officer. He was the only shugaba out of eighty-three to bring back his gungiyar intact. In fact, I’m told he come back with more kors than he left with.”\n\nTain looked over Lugbol, a faint scowl on his face. It was an intimidating sight, but Lugbol remembered the Slayer’s instructions and did his best to stand tall and show no fear.\n\n“He’s too small to make a regular. Where’s he from, Gog? He’d end up squagged, if not potted, the first day. He’d need a pair of enforcers to babysit him, and if we’re going to march soon, he won’t have time for them to kick his kors into shape.”\n\nThe Great Orc nodded. “What do you think, Lugbol-shuga? You want in the real army?”\n\n“With no disrespect to the general, Great Orc, I think it would be best to stay with the Black Fists. We took a real licking out there and the kors are just starting to get their spirit back. If I can, I’d just ask to keep the kors we picked up from the other gungiyar, at least those as want to stay on. A lot of them don’t got no unit no more, and they got nowhere to go.”\n\nThe two bigger orcs looked at each other. The general snorted. “Sounds like a right grun-kor to me. He’s right, he’ll do better with his own orcs, but a proper rank would be useful. That way he won’t have to take any murdu from some damned regular with rocks for brains.”\n", "completion": "The Slayer grunted. Soon they passed a pair of guard-kors who had the Slayer claw branded on their knotted left biceps; both slammed their fists against their chests loudly in a manner that indicated respect. Little wonder, Lugbol thought, if this galvebel knew enough about the Great Orc to indicate his likes and dislikes.\n\nThey were approaching a giant pale green tent that was decorated with haphazardly placed sigils of some kind that were mostly blue and black. Magical protections, perhaps? But there was no pattern to them that he could initially discern until they got closer and he could see what they were. Lugbol’s eyes widened as he realized the rumors he’d discounted in the past were actually nothing more than the simple truth; the various marks were not sigils, but tattoos. It was apparent that Azzakhar’s royal tent had been constructed from the flayed skins of his fallen enemies. And looming behind it was something even more awe-inspiring.\n\nHe must have inadvertently stopped walking at the astonishing sight before him, because the galvebel snorted and pulled at his arm. “Nobody gets to be Great Orc by smelling no flowers. Only reason we’re all still here sitting on our arses and eating our gobbos is because Azzakhar’s the baddest of the bad-arsed.”\n\nIt wasn’t so much the tattooed tent as the gargantuan pyramid of skulls behind it that caused Lugbol to nod slowly in mute amazement. And fear. He didn’t believe there was much danger of his skin being added to the tent, but having his skull added to the bone-yellow pyramid that reached to the sky like an evil offering appeared to be a distinct possibility. He suddenly found himself wishing he’d had the sense to stay in the relative safety of the Korokhurmagh.\n\nA pair of even bigger orcs stood guard at the tent flap. A strangely familiar scent wafted out from it, and all of Lugbol’s senses went on alert. He stood up straighter, his fear forgotten, and sniffed eagerly at the air.\n\n“Keep it in your pants,” the galvebel growled. “Of course he’s got kwee with him. That’s one of the privileges of being the big damn Great Orc. But if you don’t keep your head on straight and forget the pretties are about with their quiffings and whiffings, he’ll rip off your vank and feed it to his devil-witch.”\n\nLugbol nodded and tried very hard to ignore the effect that the scent of the kwee was having on his body. The guards must have recognized the galvebel, because they nodded at him and pulled aside the big flap. It was high enough that even the taller galvebel was able to enter without ducking, and through it they stepped into a world that seemed entirely different than the stinking, green-stripped encampment outside.\n\nSoft furs of various animals lined the floor of the tent, wolf, bear, fox, and several others that Lugbol couldn’t identify. The trophies of the Great Orc’s many triumphs were on display, from the cracked granite crown that had once belonged to a rival orc king to the giant troll’s skull mounted on a sawed-off spear; it was an impressive collection. There were gilded Dwarf toys and other items Lugbol recognized as having been looted from the Man villages.\n\nBut it was the kwee that made the biggest impression on Lugbol, since he had been devoid of female companionship since the Great Orc demanded a one-third levy of every orc kingdom, sept, clan, and tribe in Hagahorn. There must have been a dozen kir’agh there, most of them half-naked, their smooth green skin alluringly highlighted by bright bits of captured man-cloth. Their little tusks were all capped with silver, and he saw their bored eyes brighten a little at his entrance, less from any interest in a small kor from the northern plains than at the prospect of some amusing cruelties to come.\n\nNor were they the only females. There were also two pretty young gob’agh, and unexpectedly, a female troll as well. It appeared the Great Orc was considerably less limited in his appetites than Lugbol would ever have imagined. The troll was smaller than the few trolls Lugbol had seen, mostly at a distance, but she was still sizable. She was leaning back on a knee-stool gnawing on a bone that was very nearly the size of Lugbol’s leg. Except for a delicate iron chain about her waist, she was also stark naked, and Lugbol couldn’t help noticing that not only were her breasts larger than his head, but her neck was thicker than his thighs.\n\nFor once, his imagination failed him entirely. With some effort, he managed to stop staring at the she-troll and direct his attention toward the large orc sitting sprawled upon a makeshift wooden throne.\n\nThe galvebel saluted, then bowed. “The shugaba of the returned gungiyar, Great Orc, as ordered.”\n\n“Very good, galvebel. You can go now.”\n\n“Great Orc!”\n\nLugbol stood straight and tried his best not to cringe as the Great Orc sat up on his throne and looked him over with a disturbing level of interest. Azzakhar was even bigger than the Slayers, and he dressed as if he was one of them, in fighting leathers, with only a black iron crown and gilded tusks to denote his royal status. His face was flat and brutish, but intelligent, his nostrils were bigger and his tusks were smaller than Lugbol would have expected. His scabbarded cleaver was hung carelessly off the back of the throne, and he didn’t even wear a dagger on his belt, although the height of his blue trollskin boots indicated that one might be concealed there.\n\nBut his claws were tipped with sharpened iron, and no orc with powerful hands the size of his could ever be considered weaponless. One white scar ran the length of his left bicep, while a somewhat newer one, healed but dark green, marred the left side of his face. This was no token king held up by his kin of sept and clan, but a true orc king who ruled by the strength of his fist and the force of his will.\n\nBehind him was a curtain that partially obscured the movement of someone, or something, concealed behind it. Whatever it was, it was moving, but it wasn’t until Lugbol heard a squeal in response to a rhythmic grunting that he realized what was happening there. He must have betrayed his surprise, because the Great Orc sat up and laughed.\n\n“Never mind them. Your name is Lugbol,” he declared unexpectedly. “I’m told you survived the battle that destroyed Zlatagh and the army I gave him.”\n\n“I did, Great Orc. As did most of my kors. Gog Black Fists. Light infantry.”\n\n“I heard you brought some stragglers with you too. That’s good. Now, how in the name of Gor-Gor’s giant vank did twenty-five thousand kors manage to get themselves killed?”\n\n“I don’t know exactly, Great Orc. We were attacked in our camp at night. No one expected it. They weren’t szavon’ugh. They wore iron and carried great shields. And they had strange war machines that threw terrible balls of fire. Like a shaman, only not magic. Most of the gungiyars were taken by surprise and routed in a panic.”\n\n“Panic!” Azzakhar snarled. “How many of them attacked?”\n\n“I don’t know, Great Orc. It was very dark, with the trees blocking the moonslight. I was walking the rounds, checking on the guard posts when the attack came. I think that is why I was able to keep my kors together. We fought our way past them and then we returned here after gathering up the others. None of them could tell me much; some of them never even saw any enemy.”\n\n“They fled north, where they were destroyed by the szavon’ugh.” The Great Orc nodded and ran a clawed finger up and down one of his golden tusks in a thoughtful manner. He seemed to come to some sort of decision then, because he looked back over his shoulder and roared at someone behind the curtain.\n\n“Tain! Get your horny damned hide out here!”\n\nBoth the movement and the grunting came to a sudden stop. “Just give me a little while–”\n\n“Stow your damned vank and get your arse out here now or I’ll cut it off and feed it to you!”\n\n“All right, all right,” a sullen voice grumbled.\n\n“He doesn’t actually think with his bollocks, even though you might think so,” the Great Orc confided. Lugbol nodded mutely, knowing he was entirely out of his element. He’d felt safer in the forest fleeing from the Iron Men.\n\nIt didn’t make him feel any less uneasy when the biggest orc Lugbol had ever seen pushed his way passed the curtain. General Tain was immense, wearing nothing but a sort of leather loincloth that did little to hide the monstrous vank that was threatening to burst it. His skin was a greenish blue, and his tusks were short, thick, blunt, and unadorned. Lugbol had seen him at a distance before, but never up close, and now that he did, he realized the general was at least one-quarter troll.\n\n“This better be damned important, Azza.”\n\n“It is. Lugbol, describe those Men that attacked you.”\n\nAs Lugbol dutifully described them again, and did his best to answer the general’s pointed questions about their armor, he could see that both the Great Orc and the half-orc were excited about something.\n\n“How did they fight?” General Tain demanded. “Not how well, we know they did for Zlatagh.”\n\n“They stand in close formation. They must drill a lot, because they stay tight. Their swords are very short, more like long daggers than proper swords. They don’t use them to chop either. They hide behind large shields and then the short swords flick out like a snake’s tongue. They’re not very big, maybe between our size and a goblin, they’re smaller than the szavon’ugh. But a small group of them chopped us up pretty bad. I lost my first galvebel to them.”\n\n“They all wear the same sort o’ helms, with metal covering their faces?” General Tain raised both hands to his face, covering his cheeks beyond his tusks. “Open in the middle. Some o’ them got plumes like a rooster.”\n\n“Like that, yes.”\n\n“Amor’agh,” the general told the Great Orc. “It’s got to be. No other men wear pots on their head and fight on foot with little swords.”\n\n“Then we can finally march! The witch said if they come north, then the Stone ain’t in the south. So she’ll want to head west.”\n\n“So we march west.”\n\n“No, the main body will go south first. The elves must be destroyed; I dasn’t leave them at my back to chew on my arse. They’ve had their damned birds flying over us morning and night, so they’ll know if we move on the Szavon’agh.”\n\n“Maybe they’ll leave us go?”\n\nThe Great Orc shook his head. “Maybe, but the alv’agh are weak. Only three cities remain to them now. Merithaim and Elebrion we can smash. The city on the sea could be tough. We got no boats.”\n\n“Don’t need no boats. We smash the two cities and kill all their wizzies at the wizzy tower, they’ll be too busy hiding on their island and pissing themselves to get in the way of anything we do after. They’ll just be glad we’re gone.”\n\n“How long?”\n\n“Ten days for Glaislael. Four weeks for Elebrion.”\n\n“So long?”\n\n“We gots to drag the war machines up the mountain. That takes time, especially with elven sky riders dropping rocks and magic on our heads.”\n\n“There is that.” He indicated Lugbol. “You got any use for this one? Might make for an officer. He was the only shugaba out of eighty-three to bring back his gungiyar intact. In fact, I’m told he come back with more kors than he left with.”\n\nTain looked over Lugbol, a faint scowl on his face. It was an intimidating sight, but Lugbol remembered the Slayer’s instructions and did his best to stand tall and show no fear.\n\n“He’s too small to make a regular. Where’s he from, Gog? He’d end up squagged, if not potted, the first day. He’d need a pair of enforcers to babysit him, and if we’re going to march soon, he won’t have time for them to kick his kors into shape.”\n\nThe Great Orc nodded. “What do you think, Lugbol-shuga? You want in the real army?”\n\n“With no disrespect to the general, Great Orc, I think it would be best to stay with the Black Fists. We took a real licking out there and the kors are just starting to get their spirit back. If I can, I’d just ask to keep the kors we picked up from the other gungiyar, at least those as want to stay on. A lot of them don’t got no unit no more, and they got nowhere to go.”\n\nThe two bigger orcs looked at each other. The general snorted. “Sounds like a right grun-kor to me. He’s right, he’ll do better with his own orcs, but a proper rank would be useful. That way he won’t have to take any murdu from some damned regular with rocks for brains.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2302, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch17_lugbol-P3", "chapter": "ch17_lugbol", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nGrun-kor — newly conferred rank; hyphenated.\nkir / kir'agh / kwee — orc female(s); forms as written.\nBlack Fist — light infantry regiment under the raise.\nAzzakhar / Great Orc — brands him.\nTain / General Tain — urges fire-brand over ink.\nSlayer claw — brand mark; capitals as needed.\nvank — vulgar cant as written.\n\n### STORY\nHe runs toward iron men with torch-wings and fire artillery, forms what kors remain, and breaks south in silence rather than die buying Zlatagh a dawn.\nFifteen days later a swollen Black Fist remnant marches singing into the main army; Red Claw Slayers walk Lugbol toward the Great Orc, and the Slayer galvebel warns him not to claim too much credit for surviving Zlatagh’s ruin.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nAbout to be raised grun-kor of Black Fist light infantry; chooses fire-brand over slave-looking ink; will take pain without a bite-stick; mortified when Tain reads his hunger for the kir’agh; exits with a burn on one arm and a beautiful kir on the other, army-smell promising a march at last.\n\nAzzakhar\nAlive; grants kors, regiment raise, and brand; offers a kir afterward with a wink.\n\nGeneral Tain\nAlive; smacks Lugbol’s shoulder approvingly; laughs at the field-months starvation for females.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Then we can finally march! The witch said if they come north, then the Stone ain’t in the south. So she’ll want to head west.”\n\n“So we march west.”\n\n“No, the main body will go south first. The elves must be destroyed; I dasn’t leave them at my back to chew on my arse. They’ve had their damned birds flying over us morning and night, so they’ll know if we move on the Szavon’agh.”\n\n“Maybe they’ll leave us go?”\n\nThe Great Orc shook his head. “Maybe, but the alv’agh are weak. Only three cities remain to them now. Merithaim and Elebrion we can smash. The city on the sea could be tough. We got no boats.”\n\n“Don’t need no boats. We smash the two cities and kill all their wizzies at the wizzy tower, they’ll be too busy hiding on their island and pissing themselves to get in the way of anything we do after. They’ll just be glad we’re gone.”\n\n“How long?”\n\n“Ten days for Glaislael. Four weeks for Elebrion.”\n\n“So long?”\n\n“We gots to drag the war machines up the mountain. That takes time, especially with elven sky riders dropping rocks and magic on our heads.”\n\n“There is that.” He indicated Lugbol. “You got any use for this one? Might make for an officer. He was the only shugaba out of eighty-three to bring back his gungiyar intact. In fact, I’m told he come back with more kors than he left with.”\n\nTain looked over Lugbol, a faint scowl on his face. It was an intimidating sight, but Lugbol remembered the Slayer’s instructions and did his best to stand tall and show no fear.\n\n“He’s too small to make a regular. Where’s he from, Gog? He’d end up squagged, if not potted, the first day. He’d need a pair of enforcers to babysit him, and if we’re going to march soon, he won’t have time for them to kick his kors into shape.”\n\nThe Great Orc nodded. “What do you think, Lugbol-shuga? You want in the real army?”\n\n“With no disrespect to the general, Great Orc, I think it would be best to stay with the Black Fists. We took a real licking out there and the kors are just starting to get their spirit back. If I can, I’d just ask to keep the kors we picked up from the other gungiyar, at least those as want to stay on. A lot of them don’t got no unit no more, and they got nowhere to go.”\n\nThe two bigger orcs looked at each other. The general snorted. “Sounds like a right grun-kor to me. He’s right, he’ll do better with his own orcs, but a proper rank would be useful. That way he won’t have to take any murdu from some damned regular with rocks for brains.”\n\n### NOTES\nBrazier and branding iron in the Great Orc’s tent.\nInk tattoo would mark like a slave to some eyes; fire-brand is officer-common among Tain’s sort.\nRegiment raise: Black Fist light infantry; Lugbol may keep all kors and kick whiners.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nAzzakhar lets him keep every kor and raises the Black Fists; Tain says if he wants the Great Orc’s hand it must be fire, not ink. Lugbol refuses a bite-stick, takes the iron, and does not scream. Salutes, orders to return to the unit, honor barked like a Slayer—until Tain laughs that the poor bastard has been in the field for months and can smell the kir’agh. Azzakhar winks and tells him to take one. Lugbol walks out burned and accompanied, sure the sprawling army will move soon. The scene lands on that exit into camp.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Branding pain concrete, not operatic; land as he leaves the tent with the kir.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The Great Orc concurred, nodding. “You can keep your kors, Lugbol. All of them, if you want. Kick out the whiners and the slackers as you see fit. But the general says you sound like a proper grun-kor and I can’t see he’s wrong. So, what will it be, the ink or the fire?”\n\nLugbol couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face. He stood taller and he knew what the answer had to be, although he didn’t relish the pain that would inevitably ensue. “If it’s your hand that’ll do it, Great Orc, I’ll take the fire.”\n\n“If it’s his hand you want, then it’ll have to be the fire. He does the ink, no one will know if you’re a slave or a damn general!” General Tain laughed and then bellowed out some orders. It wasn’t long before a brazier was produced, hot and smoking, and protruding from it was a metal rod with a wooden handle.\n\n“You want something to bite down on, Lugbol-shuga?”\n\n“No, Great Orc.”\n\n“Ain’t no shame in the ink, you know. Most of my officers wear the tattoo.”\n\nLugbol nodded. The general was telling the truth, but not all of it. There wasn’t a single officer in the Red Claw Slayers, or in the other elite units, who didn’t wear his rank burned into his flesh. The arms of both General Tain and the Great Orc were scarred with the brands of rank, among them, the sigil presently heating up in the brazier.\n\n“I’ll take the fire all the same, general.”\n\n“Ahr!” The general smote Lugbol approvingly on the shoulder with his meaty hand, nearly knocking him over. “Maybe we’ll see you in the regulars yet, little Goghu!”\n\nThe Great Orc rose from his wooden throne, walked over to the brazier, and withdrew the branding iron from the flame. The end was glowing and radiating heat that Lugbol could feel on his face; the nearly molten iron pulled his eyes to it and mesmerized him. He could barely hear what Azzakhar was telling him, but he stood as straight as he could, tensed his left arm, and grabbed his left wrist with his right hand. He felt, rather than saw, the general move behind him, then one powerful hand grabbed his right shoulder while the other one supported his left elbow, leaving his left bicep exposed.\n\nThe Great Orc stepped in front of him, and for a moment, Azzakhar’s yellow eyes met his own. Azzakhar nodded once, and then pain unlike any Lugbol had ever known erupted in his upper arm. The searing agony seemed to tear through his flesh and deep into the bone, but he growled low in his throat and resisted the instinctive urge to pull away. He tried to count, but the pain was too intense. It seemed as if the moment would last forever, that he was trapped in a fragment of a fiery Hell. And then suddenly the pressure was gone, the intensity of the pain receded, and he could smell the stink of his own burned flesh. Sweat poured down from his brow and trickled down his sides, and he found himself breathing hard, as if he’d just sprinted across a field.\n\n“Damn good, Grun-kor!” A big hand swatted his backside. “Taken like a true kor indeed!”\n\nThe Great Orc merely nodded, then slipped the branding iron back in the brazier. But when he turned around again, Lugbol could see a satisfied look in the bigger orc’s eyes.\n\n“Thank you, Great Orc!” He stood up straight and saluted.\n\n“Grun-kor.” The Great Orc returned the salute. “You are hereby ordered to return to your unit, which I am raising to regimental status. Have a banner made accordingly. But before you go, is there anything more you’d like than a scar on your arm?”\n\n“The honor is more than this kor deserves, Great Orc!” Lugbol barked in his best imitation of the Slayers he’d seen. But he couldn’t help a sidelong glance at some of the nearby kir’agh, the more curious of whom had been watching his promotion.\n\nGeneral Tain burst out laughing. “The lad’s been in the field for months, Azza! Can’t you see the poor bastard is starving for ghash?”\n\nLugbol felt mortified, but he couldn’t deny that the general was right. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. No orc worth his sweat begged for kwee; not even here where there was none to be found except by permission of the Great Orc. A proper kor took, he did not ask. He said nothing.\n\nBut his silence did not fool Azzakhar. The big orc winked and spread his hand at the kir’agh behind him. “Take your choice with you. You can have her for three days and share her with your galvebels, but not more than two per day. Return her in the same shape you found her or I’ll rip off that arm I just branded and rape you with it. And if you’ll take my advice, don’t pick the half-troll unless you want your bloody vank ripped out by the roots.”\n\nThe newly appointed grun-kor of the Black Fist light infantry regiment looked at the kir’agh standing, or in some cases, seductively lying, before him. They looked back at him, their interest clearly piqued by the favor the Great Orc had shown him. One of them, one of the smaller kir, had short, powerful legs, a long mane dyed blue, and a challenging stare that he found particularly appealing. He indicated her, and she rose, shooting a triumphant sneer at the rest of the harem.\n\nGrun-kor Lugbol exited the tent, burning pain on one arm and the most beautiful kir he’d ever seen on the other. It wasn’t until three nights later, when he lay in his new tent sniffing happily at the fading scent of kwee in the air, that he realized why the Great Orc had given the kir to him for three days. Judging by the increasingly urgent orders being shouted in the camp around him, it would not be long before the Great Orc ordered his sprawling army to take the field at last.\n", "completion": "The Great Orc concurred, nodding. “You can keep your kors, Lugbol. All of them, if you want. Kick out the whiners and the slackers as you see fit. But the general says you sound like a proper grun-kor and I can’t see he’s wrong. So, what will it be, the ink or the fire?”\n\nLugbol couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face. He stood taller and he knew what the answer had to be, although he didn’t relish the pain that would inevitably ensue. “If it’s your hand that’ll do it, Great Orc, I’ll take the fire.”\n\n“If it’s his hand you want, then it’ll have to be the fire. He does the ink, no one will know if you’re a slave or a damn general!” General Tain laughed and then bellowed out some orders. It wasn’t long before a brazier was produced, hot and smoking, and protruding from it was a metal rod with a wooden handle.\n\n“You want something to bite down on, Lugbol-shuga?”\n\n“No, Great Orc.”\n\n“Ain’t no shame in the ink, you know. Most of my officers wear the tattoo.”\n\nLugbol nodded. The general was telling the truth, but not all of it. There wasn’t a single officer in the Red Claw Slayers, or in the other elite units, who didn’t wear his rank burned into his flesh. The arms of both General Tain and the Great Orc were scarred with the brands of rank, among them, the sigil presently heating up in the brazier.\n\n“I’ll take the fire all the same, general.”\n\n“Ahr!” The general smote Lugbol approvingly on the shoulder with his meaty hand, nearly knocking him over. “Maybe we’ll see you in the regulars yet, little Goghu!”\n\nThe Great Orc rose from his wooden throne, walked over to the brazier, and withdrew the branding iron from the flame. The end was glowing and radiating heat that Lugbol could feel on his face; the nearly molten iron pulled his eyes to it and mesmerized him. He could barely hear what Azzakhar was telling him, but he stood as straight as he could, tensed his left arm, and grabbed his left wrist with his right hand. He felt, rather than saw, the general move behind him, then one powerful hand grabbed his right shoulder while the other one supported his left elbow, leaving his left bicep exposed.\n\nThe Great Orc stepped in front of him, and for a moment, Azzakhar’s yellow eyes met his own. Azzakhar nodded once, and then pain unlike any Lugbol had ever known erupted in his upper arm. The searing agony seemed to tear through his flesh and deep into the bone, but he growled low in his throat and resisted the instinctive urge to pull away. He tried to count, but the pain was too intense. It seemed as if the moment would last forever, that he was trapped in a fragment of a fiery Hell. And then suddenly the pressure was gone, the intensity of the pain receded, and he could smell the stink of his own burned flesh. Sweat poured down from his brow and trickled down his sides, and he found himself breathing hard, as if he’d just sprinted across a field.\n\n“Damn good, Grun-kor!” A big hand swatted his backside. “Taken like a true kor indeed!”\n\nThe Great Orc merely nodded, then slipped the branding iron back in the brazier. But when he turned around again, Lugbol could see a satisfied look in the bigger orc’s eyes.\n\n“Thank you, Great Orc!” He stood up straight and saluted.\n\n“Grun-kor.” The Great Orc returned the salute. “You are hereby ordered to return to your unit, which I am raising to regimental status. Have a banner made accordingly. But before you go, is there anything more you’d like than a scar on your arm?”\n\n“The honor is more than this kor deserves, Great Orc!” Lugbol barked in his best imitation of the Slayers he’d seen. But he couldn’t help a sidelong glance at some of the nearby kir’agh, the more curious of whom had been watching his promotion.\n\nGeneral Tain burst out laughing. “The lad’s been in the field for months, Azza! Can’t you see the poor bastard is starving for ghash?”\n\nLugbol felt mortified, but he couldn’t deny that the general was right. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. No orc worth his sweat begged for kwee; not even here where there was none to be found except by permission of the Great Orc. A proper kor took, he did not ask. He said nothing.\n\nBut his silence did not fool Azzakhar. The big orc winked and spread his hand at the kir’agh behind him. “Take your choice with you. You can have her for three days and share her with your galvebels, but not more than two per day. Return her in the same shape you found her or I’ll rip off that arm I just branded and rape you with it. And if you’ll take my advice, don’t pick the half-troll unless you want your bloody vank ripped out by the roots.”\n\nThe newly appointed grun-kor of the Black Fist light infantry regiment looked at the kir’agh standing, or in some cases, seductively lying, before him. They looked back at him, their interest clearly piqued by the favor the Great Orc had shown him. One of them, one of the smaller kir, had short, powerful legs, a long mane dyed blue, and a challenging stare that he found particularly appealing. He indicated her, and she rose, shooting a triumphant sneer at the rest of the harem.\n\nGrun-kor Lugbol exited the tent, burning pain on one arm and the most beautiful kir he’d ever seen on the other. It wasn’t until three nights later, when he lay in his new tent sniffing happily at the fading scent of kwee in the air, that he realized why the Great Orc had given the kir to him for three days. Judging by the increasingly urgent orders being shouted in the camp around him, it would not be long before the Great Orc ordered his sprawling army to take the field at last.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1068, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch18_steinthor-P1", "chapter": "ch18_steinthor", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSteinthor Strongbow — viewpoint; Strongbow as epithet.\nHorse-Bjorn / Tjolnir Horse-Bjorn — dead tower captain; epithet as written.\nOttar the Grævling / the Grævling — poisoner-brewer; keep æ.\nEgil the Wyrm — stomps the death-chant; keep epithet.\nAalvarg — wolf-demon foe; capital A.\nDød for ulvene / Død til os / Død — Dalarn battle cries; keep spelling.\nValhalla / Skollvaldr — divine/hall names as written.\nhellebore — poison in the mead; lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nOn Raknarborg’s last night Steinthor sends Ulvdræber away, sings his death-song, and takes the North Tower when the Aalvarg climb.\nFire, rocks, and crest-fighting hold for a time; when cloud kills the moons he leads a torch rush into the press to give the line light again.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSteinthor Strongbow\nAlive, limping into the entry hall after the tower fight. Sorry Horse-Bjorn missed the fey cheer. Ready to drink the Grævling’s death-mead and open the gates. Not afraid to die; impatient to kill while the poison still allows it.\n\nOttar the Grævling\nAlive; rare smile; brewed hellebore-laced mead; acknowledges when Steinthor takes the cup; hands him a torch at the doors.\n\nHorse-Bjorn\nDeceased; thrown from the North Tower; present in jest about Valhalla complaints.\n\nEgil the Wyrm\nAlive among the bloody survivors; starts the stomping chant for death.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe big man nodded seriously, as if there was any advice that mattered now. “Go, Steinthor Strongbow, and the gods go with you.”\n\nSteinthor squeezed Hrafnkel’s arm again. He felt he hadn’t properly appreciated the Half-Giant’s courage until this moment. And yet, this was not the first or the fiftieth time he had felt Death’s cold hands clutching at him, what made him so womanish and sentimental now? Cursing himself, cursing his luck, cursing the wolves, and most of all, cursing whatever evil god had birthed the damnable creatures, he limped over to Rennir and reclaimed his bow, which was already strung.\n\n“Two volleys and then we run for the stairs and down into the keep.” He nocked an arrow.\n\n“Can you run?”\n\n“Not really.”\n\n“What happened to your sword?”\n\n“Got stuck.” He shrugged. “I’ll get another one inside.”\n\nA horn blew. It was a mighty blast worthy of a true jotun. “Half-Giant!” the men roared as they charged towards the ferocious struggle. The wolves were caught by surprise as the thirty-odd men with whom they were engaged suddenly fell back, giving the archers the space they required. Rennir was the first to loose, but Steinthor and the others quickly followed suit. They sent a second flight of shafts hammering into the foe before the gap was closed by Hrafnkel’s screaming men.\n\nHe felt Rennir grab his arm as they joined the bleeding, battered remnants of the Horse-Bjorn’s men and rushed towards the doorway, as fast as his injured leg would permit him to go. But they needn’t have hurried. He looked back and saw, silhouetted against the flames, the great figure of the Half-Giant holding an Aalvarg aloft in his massive hands before snapping the creature’s neck and swinging it like a limp, but heavy club. He’d have caught a Chooser’s eye with that one, thought Steinthor in astonishment and admiration.\n\nHe waited until the last man was through, then stepped down into the stairwell and pulled the door shut behind him. Rennir slid the metal slab into place, barring it, and the two of them began to follow the others down the stone stairs.\n\n“Can you make it down?” the bowman asked him.\n\nSteinthor suddenly realized that his wounded leg hurt and he was very, very tired. It won’t be long now, he promised himself. He only needed enough strength for one last task. The West Tower was already taken and the North Tower would only last as long as the Half-Giant and the door they had just barred. Their long defense of Raknarborg was over.\n\n“I can make it,” he said.\n\nHe leaned on Rennir’s arm and together they descended towards the keep. There was nothing left to defend. Now it was time to attack.\n\n### NOTES\nRaknarborg entry hall; exhausted bloody survivors; ale already flowing.\nDeath-mead in the bottom two-thirds of a cask; wooden cup floating in clouded liquid.\nMain gate sortie planned toward the Aalvarg campfires on the hills.\nPoison meant deadly but slow—time enough to reach the fires.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Steinthor.\n\nHe limps into cheerful contempt of death, trades Horse-Bjorn jokes with the Grævling, drains a last clean horn, and nods for the poisoned cask. The men chant Død; he takes a sword and the cup, shouts Død for ulvene and Død til os, drinks the bitter fire, and does not watch the rush to follow. Gates open; torch in hand; one look at the Grævling; then he plunges into the dark shouting the wolf-death cry. The scene lands on that plunge—before the sortie finds the Aalvarg.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Doom-cheerful hall register; land mid-plunge into darkness, not on the hill fight.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The mood in the entry hall was surprisingly cheerful, Steinthor thought as he limped painfully into it. He was sorry that Horse-Bjorn hadn’t lived to see the fey scene; it would have warmed his black heart to see so many men spitting contemptuously into the face of death. The Grævling saw him and quickly made his way over to him and clapped him on the shoulder. A rare smile lit up his grey-bearded face.\n\n“Strongbow! You made it! I heard both you and Horse-Bjorn fell.”\n\n“He fell all right,” Steinthor said regretfully. “Stood over me when a wolf knocked me down, and a moment later, got himself thrown from the tower.”\n\n“I’ll wager he died happy if he landed on one.”\n\n“I don’t know about that. He was cursing hellfire the last I heard him. Probably didn’t think it was proper heroic, getting tossed like that. Poor bastards just trying to enjoy the feast’ll be getting an earful about that for a long time!”\n\nThey both laughed at the thought of the Horse-Bjorn bitching and complaining to anyone in Valhalla who would listen to him about the manner of his dying.\n\n“You held them off longer than I thought. For a while, I was thinking we went to all this trouble for nothing. I was afraid we’d have to do it all over again tomorrow night!”\n\n“No fear of that.” Steinthor sighed and looked around at the exhausted, bloody men surrounding him. They were doing their best to keep their spirits up, each man bragging about how many wolves he had killed or how bravely one of his companions died. The ale didn’t hurt, of course, and he gladly took a big horn from which the ale was sloshing forth from a grinning man whose bleeding face had been badly raked by four claws from cheek to jaw.\n\nThe cold ale was like a godsend to his battle-parched throat. It might be the last beer he’d ever drink, but damned if it wasn’t the best he’d ever tasted! It seemed life was like love, always sweetest at the end.\n\nAnd the end was nigh. He drained the horn to its dregs, then tossed it to the floor. The Grævling looked at him inquisitively and he nodded. It was time for one final draught.\n\n“Drink deeply, men,” he called as the Grævling’s men dragged out the bottom two-thirds of a cask that had been filled with mead. “We’ll sour their bellies, we will, damn them if we don’t!”\n\nThe men looked at him expectantly. Then Egil the Wyrm started stomping his feet. The others picked it up, and then the chanting began. “Død! Død! Død!” Death! Death! Death!\n\nSteinthor knew what they wanted. The mead was laced with hellebore and whatever other evils the Grævling had seen fit to add. Skollvaldr alone knew what the concoction contained, or what it would taste like, and for all that the men were ready to die in battle, it was a hard thing to hold your own death in the palm of your hand, to taste it, and to drink it down.\n\n“Someone give me a damned sword!” he bellowed, and in a heartbeat there were ten or more blades being offered to him. He took the one that looked to have retained the most edge and raised it high in his right hand as he approached the cask and its tainted mead. A wooden cup was bobbing in the weirdly clouded liquid and Steinthor pushed it down into the mead before pulling it back up again, full and spilling over his left hand.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted.\n\n“Death to the wolves!” they shouted back.\n\n“Død til os!”\n\n“Death to us!” they echoed.\n\nIt was now or never, he thought to himself. He raised the cup of death to all of them, to each of them, to every doomed man there and every dead man who had fallen bravely in battle, and he realized, somewhat to his surprise, that he was thirsty.\n\n“Now we are truly the dead,” he said quietly, mostly to himself, and he raised the wooden cup to his lips. The mead was bitter and it burned like oily fire down his gullet, but he emptied the cup in a single draught. Ottar the Grævling nodded to him, acknowledging that the irrevocable step had at last been taken, and the approving roar of the men echoed off the stone walls of the hall.\n\nEnflamed by his example, men crowded towards the cask, unafraid and eager to drink from the cup of death. But Steinthor didn’t wait to watch. He didn’t know exactly how much time was left to him, but he knew there wasn’t much and there were still wolves to kill.\n\n“Open the doors!” he bellowed. “Open the gates!”\n\nThe great wooden doors creaked open. The Grævling ran to his side and handed him a torch. He looked back and saw that Ottar’s men had a large stack of them and were beginning to light them. No sooner had a man drank from the cask and roared out his defiance of the death that would soon claim him than he was pushed towards Steinthor and handed a blazing torch.\n\nSteinthor and the Grævling looked at each other. Neither one spoke. There was nothing to say. Steinthor looked around, saw that ten or twelve men had joined him, and decided that was enough. He pointed his torch at the fires that indicated the center of what passed for the Aalvarg encampment.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted one more time, and then he plunged forward into the darkness.\n", "completion": "The mood in the entry hall was surprisingly cheerful, Steinthor thought as he limped painfully into it. He was sorry that Horse-Bjorn hadn’t lived to see the fey scene; it would have warmed his black heart to see so many men spitting contemptuously into the face of death. The Grævling saw him and quickly made his way over to him and clapped him on the shoulder. A rare smile lit up his grey-bearded face.\n\n“Strongbow! You made it! I heard both you and Horse-Bjorn fell.”\n\n“He fell all right,” Steinthor said regretfully. “Stood over me when a wolf knocked me down, and a moment later, got himself thrown from the tower.”\n\n“I’ll wager he died happy if he landed on one.”\n\n“I don’t know about that. He was cursing hellfire the last I heard him. Probably didn’t think it was proper heroic, getting tossed like that. Poor bastards just trying to enjoy the feast’ll be getting an earful about that for a long time!”\n\nThey both laughed at the thought of the Horse-Bjorn bitching and complaining to anyone in Valhalla who would listen to him about the manner of his dying.\n\n“You held them off longer than I thought. For a while, I was thinking we went to all this trouble for nothing. I was afraid we’d have to do it all over again tomorrow night!”\n\n“No fear of that.” Steinthor sighed and looked around at the exhausted, bloody men surrounding him. They were doing their best to keep their spirits up, each man bragging about how many wolves he had killed or how bravely one of his companions died. The ale didn’t hurt, of course, and he gladly took a big horn from which the ale was sloshing forth from a grinning man whose bleeding face had been badly raked by four claws from cheek to jaw.\n\nThe cold ale was like a godsend to his battle-parched throat. It might be the last beer he’d ever drink, but damned if it wasn’t the best he’d ever tasted! It seemed life was like love, always sweetest at the end.\n\nAnd the end was nigh. He drained the horn to its dregs, then tossed it to the floor. The Grævling looked at him inquisitively and he nodded. It was time for one final draught.\n\n“Drink deeply, men,” he called as the Grævling’s men dragged out the bottom two-thirds of a cask that had been filled with mead. “We’ll sour their bellies, we will, damn them if we don’t!”\n\nThe men looked at him expectantly. Then Egil the Wyrm started stomping his feet. The others picked it up, and then the chanting began. “Død! Død! Død!” Death! Death! Death!\n\nSteinthor knew what they wanted. The mead was laced with hellebore and whatever other evils the Grævling had seen fit to add. Skollvaldr alone knew what the concoction contained, or what it would taste like, and for all that the men were ready to die in battle, it was a hard thing to hold your own death in the palm of your hand, to taste it, and to drink it down.\n\n“Someone give me a damned sword!” he bellowed, and in a heartbeat there were ten or more blades being offered to him. He took the one that looked to have retained the most edge and raised it high in his right hand as he approached the cask and its tainted mead. A wooden cup was bobbing in the weirdly clouded liquid and Steinthor pushed it down into the mead before pulling it back up again, full and spilling over his left hand.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted.\n\n“Death to the wolves!” they shouted back.\n\n“Død til os!”\n\n“Death to us!” they echoed.\n\nIt was now or never, he thought to himself. He raised the cup of death to all of them, to each of them, to every doomed man there and every dead man who had fallen bravely in battle, and he realized, somewhat to his surprise, that he was thirsty.\n\n“Now we are truly the dead,” he said quietly, mostly to himself, and he raised the wooden cup to his lips. The mead was bitter and it burned like oily fire down his gullet, but he emptied the cup in a single draught. Ottar the Grævling nodded to him, acknowledging that the irrevocable step had at last been taken, and the approving roar of the men echoed off the stone walls of the hall.\n\nEnflamed by his example, men crowded towards the cask, unafraid and eager to drink from the cup of death. But Steinthor didn’t wait to watch. He didn’t know exactly how much time was left to him, but he knew there wasn’t much and there were still wolves to kill.\n\n“Open the doors!” he bellowed. “Open the gates!”\n\nThe great wooden doors creaked open. The Grævling ran to his side and handed him a torch. He looked back and saw that Ottar’s men had a large stack of them and were beginning to light them. No sooner had a man drank from the cask and roared out his defiance of the death that would soon claim him than he was pushed towards Steinthor and handed a blazing torch.\n\nSteinthor and the Grævling looked at each other. Neither one spoke. There was nothing to say. Steinthor looked around, saw that ten or twelve men had joined him, and decided that was enough. He pointed his torch at the fires that indicated the center of what passed for the Aalvarg encampment.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted one more time, and then he plunged forward into the darkness.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 960, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch18_steinthor-P2", "chapter": "ch18_steinthor", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nsigskifting / Skinchanger — Aalvarg war-leader form; keep spelling.\nAalvarg — wolf-demon foe; capital A.\nDød for ulvene — battle cry; keep spelling.\nSkuli Skullbreaker — absent jarl; Steinthor means to wait for him in the Hall of Heroes.\nHall of Heroes — afterlife company; capitals as written.\nChoosers — implied claimers of the slain; capital C if used.\n\n### STORY\nOn Raknarborg’s last night Steinthor sends Ulvdræber away, sings his death-song, and takes the North Tower when the Aalvarg climb.\nFire, rocks, and crest-fighting hold for a time; when cloud kills the moons he leads a torch rush into the press to give the line light again.\nPinned under a wolf, he crawls free after Horse-Bjorn dies buying him breath; he orders Half-Giant’s horn—two volleys, then the stairs—and limps into the keep on Rennir’s arm toward the last attack.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSteinthor Strongbow\nPoisoned, wounded, driving a sortie through startled Aalvarg toward the hill fires. Knows the brew is working when strength fades. Will laugh at a sigskifting’s offer, attack, die with defiance in his mouth, and hold the certainty that he will meet Skullbreaker in the Hall of Heroes.\n\nSigskifting\nHuge skinchanger; alive at first meeting; parts his wolves, offers to end manflesh talk, then fights and kills Steinthor.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nSteinthor knew what they wanted. The mead was laced with hellebore and whatever other evils the Grævling had seen fit to add. Skollvaldr alone knew what the concoction contained, or what it would taste like, and for all that the men were ready to die in battle, it was a hard thing to hold your own death in the palm of your hand, to taste it, and to drink it down.\n\n“Someone give me a damned sword!” he bellowed, and in a heartbeat there were ten or more blades being offered to him. He took the one that looked to have retained the most edge and raised it high in his right hand as he approached the cask and its tainted mead. A wooden cup was bobbing in the weirdly clouded liquid and Steinthor pushed it down into the mead before pulling it back up again, full and spilling over his left hand.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted.\n\n“Death to the wolves!” they shouted back.\n\n“Død til os!”\n\n“Death to us!” they echoed.\n\nIt was now or never, he thought to himself. He raised the cup of death to all of them, to each of them, to every doomed man there and every dead man who had fallen bravely in battle, and he realized, somewhat to his surprise, that he was thirsty.\n\n“Now we are truly the dead,” he said quietly, mostly to himself, and he raised the wooden cup to his lips. The mead was bitter and it burned like oily fire down his gullet, but he emptied the cup in a single draught. Ottar the Grævling nodded to him, acknowledging that the irrevocable step had at last been taken, and the approving roar of the men echoed off the stone walls of the hall.\n\nEnflamed by his example, men crowded towards the cask, unafraid and eager to drink from the cup of death. But Steinthor didn’t wait to watch. He didn’t know exactly how much time was left to him, but he knew there wasn’t much and there were still wolves to kill.\n\n“Open the doors!” he bellowed. “Open the gates!”\n\nThe great wooden doors creaked open. The Grævling ran to his side and handed him a torch. He looked back and saw that Ottar’s men had a large stack of them and were beginning to light them. No sooner had a man drank from the cask and roared out his defiance of the death that would soon claim him than he was pushed towards Steinthor and handed a blazing torch.\n\nSteinthor and the Grævling looked at each other. Neither one spoke. There was nothing to say. Steinthor looked around, saw that ten or twelve men had joined him, and decided that was enough. He pointed his torch at the fires that indicated the center of what passed for the Aalvarg encampment.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted one more time, and then he plunged forward into the darkness.\n\n### NOTES\nNight outside Raknarborg’s main gate; Aalvarg attention split toward the towers.\nHill slope to the enemy fires; poisoned men collapsing and finished by wolves.\nSigskifting encounter on the slope; Steinthor already slowing.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Steinthor.\n\nThe sortie shocks the wolves; torch and sword clear a path until the poison’s slow edge shows and the hill howls answer. Men fall and are eaten; the line still climbs. Wolves part for a sigskifting who permits approach and promises no more manflesh talk—Steinthor laughs, cries Død for ulvene, and attacks. Wounded and poisoned, he is beaten down, throat-bitten while spitting defiance, and dies sure Skullbreaker will find him waiting in the Hall of Heroes. The scene lands on that death-certainty.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Kill concrete and unsentimental; land on the Hall of Heroes certainty.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The Aalvarg were initially taken aback by the unexpected sortie from the main gate. Their attention was on the two towers they had taken and they were fully occupied with trying to break down the barred and reinforced doors that would give them access to the heart of Raknarborg. The wolves closest to the entrance were not prepared for further battle, and were in fact milling aimlessly about, snapping at each other, and in some cases, even curled up and sleeping.\n\nSteinthor drove his sword through one cringing wolf and set another alight with his torch. It soon became clear that these were not whatever passed for front-line troops, as they were smaller than those on the tower, and many of them yipped and ran before the attacking Dalarn. A few snarling wolves tried halfheartedly to stand, but they were rapidly overrun by the men who stumbled forward despite their wounds and the poison that coursed through their veins.\n\n“How long do you think we have?” gasped one bearded warrior, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side.\n\n“Long enough to get there,” Steinthor grunted, pointing at the fires that were their destination. It didn’t really matter, but he knew the men needed a destination, and if there was any chance he could somehow kill one of the Aalvarg leaders, he was going to seize it.\n\nHe’d asked the Grævling to brew something that would be as deadly as it was slow-acting. It seemed he had succeeded, since he hadn’t dropped over dead as soon as he’d quaffed the doombrew, as he’d half-expected. Whether it would be strong enough to sicken the wolves that devoured them or if it would merely cause the monsters to turn away from their corpses, there was no way to know. But either fate was preferable to ending up in an Aalvarg gullet.\n\nA series of howls came from the hills above them. They were answered by the wolves on either side, and almost immediately, the few wolves that had been harrying them fell back. It soon became apparent that the enemy was no longer resisting their charge, but was retreating steadily before it. Steinthor looked to the left and he could see eyes glowing in the torchlight, moving as they loped easily alongside the jogging men. The same was true on the right. They were escorting him to the very place he wanted to go, he realized with grim satisfaction.\n\nThe slope of the hill was a struggle. More than one man collapsed, overcome with blood loss, and was quickly seized and dragged off into the darkness. The others didn’t even attempt to resist. The poison was beginning to take effect, and just to keep moving required all their remaining strength as their stomachs began to cramp and their heads began to spin. But the fires grew closer, and as the slope began to flatten out, Steinthor began to believe they might actually make it to the top.\n\nThe wolves falling back in front of him abruptly parted like water striking a large rock in the middle of a river. To Steinthor’s astonishment, he found himself facing a large Aalvarg in fully human form, standing nearly as tall as Steinthor himself despite its bare feet. In the light of the flames, he could see the man-thing was wearing an ill-fitting breastplate, underneath which it wore nothing but tattered rags. It held no weapon, nor did it appear to have any about its hairless body, which was lean, but powerful. It was flanked by others also wearing human shape, but none of them were as tall as it was.\n\n“Sigskifting!” he heard someone behind him exclaim. Skinchanger.\n\n“I permit you to come, warrior,” growled the big sigskifting in a gravelly voice. “There will be no more manflesh until we cross the great waters.”\n\nSteinthor laughed. It was a cold, mirthless laugh, but it took the Aalvarg by surprise.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted, and attacked.\n\nIn normal circumstances, he might have had the sigskifting, but wounded and poisoned as he was, his reactions were too slow. The big creature easily evaded his thrust and smashed its left fist into the side of Steinthor’s head, sending him sprawling to the ground. His men rushed past him, but they were immediately beset on every side, as the wolves tore them to pieces, howling triumphantly all the while. Steinthor pushed himself up to his knees, but before he could regain his feet, a violent spasm gripped his innards and he collapsed again, convulsing.\n\nThere was a growl in his right ear and then he was shoved over onto his back, his arms flopping weakly above his head. He felt heat on his cheek and a heavy panting, but his sight was failing and even the fires were growing dim. Then the face of the sigskifting appeared, practically nose to nose. The creature’s face was still human, but it was changing, elongating. Mottled fur sprouted from its skin and its teeth yellowed and grew longer. But Steinthor could still just make out words underneath the guttural growling.\n\n“I’m going to rip your throat out and eat your guts, Man! By the time I shit you out, you and all your tribe will be forgotten forever!”\n\n“You’ll be shitting naught but blood if you’re lucky!” Steinthor spat his last defiance just as the monster howled and clamped down on his exposed throat.\n\nPoisoned blood sprayed from his punctured jugular and his legs kicked frantically in his death throes, but Steinthor didn’t feel any pain. His eyes widened, not in death, but amazement, as he saw a bright light descending rapidly from the black skies above. The light transformed into a hand, a slender female hand stretching out towards him, and even as he died, he exulted in the certainty that when Skuli Skullbreaker finally arrived in the Hall of Heroes, he, Steinthor Strongbow, would be there waiting.\n", "completion": "The Aalvarg were initially taken aback by the unexpected sortie from the main gate. Their attention was on the two towers they had taken and they were fully occupied with trying to break down the barred and reinforced doors that would give them access to the heart of Raknarborg. The wolves closest to the entrance were not prepared for further battle, and were in fact milling aimlessly about, snapping at each other, and in some cases, even curled up and sleeping.\n\nSteinthor drove his sword through one cringing wolf and set another alight with his torch. It soon became clear that these were not whatever passed for front-line troops, as they were smaller than those on the tower, and many of them yipped and ran before the attacking Dalarn. A few snarling wolves tried halfheartedly to stand, but they were rapidly overrun by the men who stumbled forward despite their wounds and the poison that coursed through their veins.\n\n“How long do you think we have?” gasped one bearded warrior, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side.\n\n“Long enough to get there,” Steinthor grunted, pointing at the fires that were their destination. It didn’t really matter, but he knew the men needed a destination, and if there was any chance he could somehow kill one of the Aalvarg leaders, he was going to seize it.\n\nHe’d asked the Grævling to brew something that would be as deadly as it was slow-acting. It seemed he had succeeded, since he hadn’t dropped over dead as soon as he’d quaffed the doombrew, as he’d half-expected. Whether it would be strong enough to sicken the wolves that devoured them or if it would merely cause the monsters to turn away from their corpses, there was no way to know. But either fate was preferable to ending up in an Aalvarg gullet.\n\nA series of howls came from the hills above them. They were answered by the wolves on either side, and almost immediately, the few wolves that had been harrying them fell back. It soon became apparent that the enemy was no longer resisting their charge, but was retreating steadily before it. Steinthor looked to the left and he could see eyes glowing in the torchlight, moving as they loped easily alongside the jogging men. The same was true on the right. They were escorting him to the very place he wanted to go, he realized with grim satisfaction.\n\nThe slope of the hill was a struggle. More than one man collapsed, overcome with blood loss, and was quickly seized and dragged off into the darkness. The others didn’t even attempt to resist. The poison was beginning to take effect, and just to keep moving required all their remaining strength as their stomachs began to cramp and their heads began to spin. But the fires grew closer, and as the slope began to flatten out, Steinthor began to believe they might actually make it to the top.\n\nThe wolves falling back in front of him abruptly parted like water striking a large rock in the middle of a river. To Steinthor’s astonishment, he found himself facing a large Aalvarg in fully human form, standing nearly as tall as Steinthor himself despite its bare feet. In the light of the flames, he could see the man-thing was wearing an ill-fitting breastplate, underneath which it wore nothing but tattered rags. It held no weapon, nor did it appear to have any about its hairless body, which was lean, but powerful. It was flanked by others also wearing human shape, but none of them were as tall as it was.\n\n“Sigskifting!” he heard someone behind him exclaim. Skinchanger.\n\n“I permit you to come, warrior,” growled the big sigskifting in a gravelly voice. “There will be no more manflesh until we cross the great waters.”\n\nSteinthor laughed. It was a cold, mirthless laugh, but it took the Aalvarg by surprise.\n\n“Død for ulvene!” he shouted, and attacked.\n\nIn normal circumstances, he might have had the sigskifting, but wounded and poisoned as he was, his reactions were too slow. The big creature easily evaded his thrust and smashed its left fist into the side of Steinthor’s head, sending him sprawling to the ground. His men rushed past him, but they were immediately beset on every side, as the wolves tore them to pieces, howling triumphantly all the while. Steinthor pushed himself up to his knees, but before he could regain his feet, a violent spasm gripped his innards and he collapsed again, convulsing.\n\nThere was a growl in his right ear and then he was shoved over onto his back, his arms flopping weakly above his head. He felt heat on his cheek and a heavy panting, but his sight was failing and even the fires were growing dim. Then the face of the sigskifting appeared, practically nose to nose. The creature’s face was still human, but it was changing, elongating. Mottled fur sprouted from its skin and its teeth yellowed and grew longer. But Steinthor could still just make out words underneath the guttural growling.\n\n“I’m going to rip your throat out and eat your guts, Man! By the time I shit you out, you and all your tribe will be forgotten forever!”\n\n“You’ll be shitting naught but blood if you’re lucky!” Steinthor spat his last defiance just as the monster howled and clamped down on his exposed throat.\n\nPoisoned blood sprayed from his punctured jugular and his legs kicked frantically in his death throes, but Steinthor didn’t feel any pain. His eyes widened, not in death, but amazement, as he saw a bright light descending rapidly from the black skies above. The light transformed into a hand, a slender female hand stretching out towards him, and even as he died, he exulted in the certainty that when Skuli Skullbreaker finally arrived in the Hall of Heroes, he, Steinthor Strongbow, would be there waiting.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1005, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch19_skuli-P1", "chapter": "ch19_skuli", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSkuli Skullbreaker / Bági Ulfs — jarl and praise-name; keep forms.\nUlvdræber — longship; keep æ.\nMord Redcheek / the Redcheek — second; epithet as written.\nErlind Two-Dagger / Two-Dagger — crewman; keep epithet.\nAalvarg — wolf-demon foe; capital A.\nDalarn / Fifteen Clans — his people; keep forms.\nSavondir — southern realm across the sea.\nHirdfestmåltid — warrior’s banquet; keep spelling.\nsnekkja — longship type; lowercase.\nReaver King — bitter self-title; capitals as used.\n\n### STORY\nAt dusk on Raknarborg’s tower Skuli means to send Mord Redcheek’s forty into Hovedholm without him and die beside Steinthor Strongbow; the crew refuses, Hakon has lifted both his daggers, and Strongbow asks whether he walks onto the snekkja or goes tied.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSkuli Skullbreaker\nAlive aboard Ulvdræber at dawn after leaving Strongbow to die. Legs throb; soul heavy; not ready for Redcheek’s cheer. Still the last jarl in his own mind; already tasting the emptiness of a saga without a skald. Will not weep where the men see.\n\nMord Redcheek\nAlive, chapped hands from the steering oar; glad Skuli is aboard; talks stores, landing, and saga; goes aft to sleep if the grey holds.\n\nErlind Two-Dagger\nAlive; brings hot fish Diarf caught; sits quiet while Skuli eats; Redcheek’s man.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe Redcheek proffered his daggers to him and Skuli reclaimed them with what little dignity remained to him. As he sheathed them, he acknowledged Hakon’s skill with a little nod, and the young warrior smiled with pleasure.\n\n“Let us be clear on one thing, Mord Redcheek. This is the first and last time I will accept a demand from the crew. Once I set foot on that ship—what is she called?”\n\n“Ulvdræber,” the Redcheek answered. Wolfkiller.\n\n“A good name,” Skuli nodded approvingly. “Once I set foot on Ulvdræber, any more mutiny will be dealt with in the customary manner.”\n\nThe southerner, Surdaember, slurred something unintelligible at Hakon, who shook his head and answered sharply. Skuli ignored him. It was the Redcheek’s response that mattered; half the men chosen for the longship were his.\n\n“Any man who does not obey the Skullbreaker will face my axe. And I swear by the Strongbow that I will die before I raise my hand against you again… once Ulvdræber is kissed by tomorrow’s dawn with the Skullbreaker on her deck.”\n\nSkuli laughed. Not for nothing had he chosen Mord Redcheek to command this last desperate voyage of revenge. It seemed he had chosen well, for the man was a clever one. He hadn’t actually planned to leave the ship once he boarded it; that would be bad luck for him and demoralizing for the men. But the Redcheek wasn’t about to take the chance.\n\n“For good or ill, I am with you, Mord Redcheek. The night is coming, and with it the wolves. Let us go now, and leave Raknarborg to the noble dead.”\n\nHe took one last look out towards the sea. Leagues away to the south, were Brynjolf, Ingoberg, and Fjotra. Would he ever see their beloved faces again? Would he ever have the chance to once more hold them in his arms? It seemed unlikely. Ulvdræber was sailing from a place where Death was coming to a place where Death had reigned for a generation or more. What were the odds her crew would not meet him face to face?\n\nAnd yet, for the first time since he had bid his furious wife goodbye, the smallest ember of hope was kindled in his breast. Not even the Aldaföðr himself could be certain what tomorrow would bring. Tonight, the wind was strong and favorable, blowing from the east. Perhaps it was an omen. It was time to leave Raknarborg to its fate.\n\nHe strode, limping, but without hesitation, towards the stone stairs that would lead him down to the docks and to the ship that would deliver him to his unknown destiny. The men followed him. Death would have to wait one more day.\n\n### NOTES\nDawn under cloud; gentle swells; Ulvdræber at sea after fleeing Raknarborg.\nSkuli’s legs wounded but not walking-urgent yet; water butts to keep full for a south crossing.\nDried cod, herring, and other reaver stores aboard.\nNo skald among the forty.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Skuli.\n\nHeavy hearts on easy seas; Redcheek will not let him brood alone—Strongbow died well, sleep when the grey holds, land in a day or two for water. Skuli tastes the old failure: Dalarn saved into southern submission, no skald for the saga, Aalvarg that once crossed the sea and might again. He almost reaches for hope in clans who fled earlier, then hardens into reaver purpose—ship, killers, and a name.\n\nTwo-Dagger brings hot fish; quiet company; a young voice lifts a wolfsblood song and Skuli lets himself smile toward the refrain. The scene lands on that song—before the wind turns north and the voyage lengthens.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1800 words. Grief carried in sea-quiet; no melodrama. Land on the crew’s wolfsblood song.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The sea swells were gentle, but the hearts of the men who rode them were heavy. Dawn had broken under a cloud-filled sky, which they all knew meant the friends they’d left behind in Raknarborg were now dead. It was one thing to salute the courage of a man going off to face his fate with a brave heart, but another to realize the emptiness of the knowledge that one would never see his face again. Skuli sat in the prow of the boat, wrapped in the thick wool blanket under which he’d slept the night before. A few fat drops of water clung to it, but for the most part it was dry thanks to the relative calm of the sea. He found himself thinking about the Strongbow, part of him wishing he’d stayed behind to die at his friend’s side, but another part feeling relieved to know that he was still alive. And with that feeling of relief came shame.\n\nSomeone slapped him on the back. It was Mord Redcheek, his disloyal second-in-command, who’d come forward to join him.\n\n“Don’t be looking so gloomy now, Skullbreaker. They died well. And we’ll see them again soon enough, I reckon.”\n\n“Aye,” Skuli said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He saw the Redcheek’s hands were red and chapped, and he was rubbing them together as if to warm them. “Were you at the steerboard?”\n\n“Not much steering to do. The winds took us clear.”\n\n“You’ll want some sleep, then.”\n\n“Thought I’d see how you were doing first. With any luck, it will be a grey day. I can’t sleep when the damn sun is bright on the waves.”\n\nSkuli painfully extended his legs and stared at them. They throbbed with a dull, bone-deep pain, but that was nothing new. At the moment, the stiffness from spending the night with his legs curled up actually hurt worse than the still-healing wounds in his chest and shoulder. He grunted and massaged his aching muscles.\n\n“I’ve had worse. Just need a few days to let it heal. It’s not like we’re going to be walking anywhere soon.”\n\n“We’ll want to land in a day or two. Keep the butts full. No sense in drawing them dry if we don’t have to.”\n\nSkuli nodded. They would want to be sure they were sufficiently provisioned for a south crossing at all times. A thought occurred to him. “Do you think the wolves plan to cross the sea?”\n\n“Would have saved us considerable trouble if they had in the first place. That, or we should have run sooner and left the damned Isles to them at the start.”\n\n“We didn’t know they were so many. No one did.”\n\nNot until it was far too late. Skuli closed his eyes and listened as the sail rustled and the sea slapped against the sides of the longboat as it cut smoothly through the waves. The wind was moderate, but it was mostly an east wind and it pushed them along at a healthy rate. But to where? They did not know with any certainty that the home of the cursed wolf-demons was on the big island, it was little more than instinct that drew them there. If only they knew when and where the wolves had first shown their ugly furred faces, then they would know where to go! But even after decades of unending war and steadily being slaughtered and pushed east, they were as ignorant as their fathers had been.\n\nThe Redcheek clapped him on the shoulder. “The men are all glad you’re here. Just think what a saga it will make!”\n\n“We have no skald. Who will sing it?” He stared at a gull as it dove down towards the surface, presumably having spotted a fish, but came up with nothing in its yellow beak. “I wonder if that is how they were able to overcome us so easily?”\n\n“Because we have no skalds?”\n\n“No.” Skuli shifted his weight and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. With the heavy grey clouds overhead, it would not warm up until the sun climbed higher behind them. Even so, they did not look like rain. “Because we have not the art of writing like the southerners do. You saw how they planned their every move, how they kept track of the enemy numbers.”\n\n“They still fled across the sea, for all their art.”\n\n“One of their mages told me that an army of Aalvarg once crossed the sea, in his grandfather’s grandfather’s day. They defeated them, destroyed them utterly. And yet we, who have freely reaved their coasts for centuries, were defeated. There is a reason for that, Mord Redcheek.”\n\n“Ah, there’s a reason for everything, Skullbreaker. But it will do no harm to think more on it. We’re not going to retake our islands tomorrow.”\n\n“No. How are we for food?”\n\nThe Redcheek laughed. “This is not the first time I’ve reaved. We’ve stores a-plenty, dried cod and herring, flatbread, and we’ll hunt once we get to land. And we can always eat wolves.”\n\n“I’ve tried it.” Skuli grimaced. “Foul and stringy. Worse than they smell. Only good for soup, if that.”\n\nThe Redcheek laughed again, slapped him on the back, and made his way aft. Skuli stared moodily out over the waves, wondering if he was making a mistake not simply ordering the longboat south, to join Ingoberg and the rest of his surviving people. At least he knew Brynjolf and Fjotra were faring well; if nothing else, his decision to send them south to the King had proven to be a wise one.\n\nThe Dalarn would survive. There were other clans and families who had crossed the sea sooner, of course, but they were scattered everywhere from northern Savondir to the western coast of Selenoth. How many there were, no one could say. Single families had begin fleeing even in his father’s time, and he knew of at least four clans that had crossed the White Sea in their entirety after the Aalvarg onslaught had begun in earnest.\n\nCowards, he had scorned them then. But by now, they might be well established and secure in the south, while the remnants of the Fifteen Clans were entirely reliant upon the dubious mercy of an erstwhile victim and enemy. He snorted, wondering what his ancestors would make of a world in which their longtime hunting grounds had become a refuge for their children’s children. If they were looking on, from Hell or Hall, no doubt they scorned him and his generation for weaklings.\n\nWell, he would show them otherwise. He had a ship with a good name and a crew of killers. What more did a reaver king need? He was Bági Ulfs, he had killed many wolves, more wolves than any man before him, and he would kill many more before he fell. And then, he promised himself, I will not slink into the feast, but I will enter with my head held high, so that Halfrødr and the Strongbow will feel no shame to greet me or to welcome me as their comrade-in-arms.\n\nThe wind and the salt were stinging his eyes, he noticed, as he ran his hand over his face. How long had it been since he’d been reaving? He’d forgotten how the sea cold penetrated to the bone; it made an old wound he’d taken in his left arm, a slash from an Aalvarg’s jaws that had ripped it open from wrist to elbow, ache even though it was nothing more than a thick white line running down his arm.\n\nHe heard someone behind him and turned around to see Erlind Two-Dagger clambering over a strut, holding out one of his famous daggers with a blackened strip of fish that still had steam rising off impaled on it.\n\n“Diarf caught ’em last night,” he explained. “Thought you might do with a bit o’ breakfast.”\n\nSkuli nodded his thanks and took the dagger, then gingerly took a bite. Not only was the flesh piping-hot, but he’d once seen a man stab himself through the roof of his mouth when the longship slammed against the trough of a wave. And then there was the issue of picking out the sharp little bones too. The cod was a little undercooked and he had to spit out several bones, but the welcome heat warmed his gullet all the way down to his belly.\n\nThe wiry Two-Dagger, one of the Redcheek’s men, sat there quietly as he ate, content to stare out in the direction of the islands. They couldn’t be seen from the ship, not in this grey weather, but to an experienced seaman, they were obviously there all the same. If the east wind held, it would be three days before they’d come within sight of the Hovedmand, the biggest and westernmost island, and a fourth before they would make land on its further side.\n\nThe fish eaten and his hunger sated, he handed the dagger back to Two-Dagger, who leaned over the side and rinsed the blade in the salt water to remove the remains of the fish, then carefully dried it with a small cloth he kept tucked in his belt.\n\n“Don’t drop it now,” Skuli told him.\n\nTwo-Dagger smiled faintly, gave the blade one last polish, and returned it to its scabbard. “The Redcheek always says salt water is bad for the metal, but seems to me blood is just as salty. I think this is not the last time I must clean my knife on this voyage.”\n\nHe nodded to Skuli, then made his way back to his place in the rear of the ship. A good lad, Skuli thought, and a reliable fighter. Of course, all of them were, or they would not have survived this long. Indeed, there may never have been a crew of such killers in all the history of the Dalarn. He looked back out over the swells and prayed silently to the Aldaföðr, to the Valföðr, to the Father of the soon-to-be slain, that he would give these men deaths worthy of the mightiest saga.\n\nBehind him, he heard one of the younger men lift his voice in a familiar refrain. He smiled and decided he would take it for an omen.\n\nTonight we will the wolfsblood shed\n\nStrike them down and strike them dead.\n\nIs that a dog? No! Nothing more\n\nThan one more wolf-spawned demon whore!\n", "completion": "The sea swells were gentle, but the hearts of the men who rode them were heavy. Dawn had broken under a cloud-filled sky, which they all knew meant the friends they’d left behind in Raknarborg were now dead. It was one thing to salute the courage of a man going off to face his fate with a brave heart, but another to realize the emptiness of the knowledge that one would never see his face again. Skuli sat in the prow of the boat, wrapped in the thick wool blanket under which he’d slept the night before. A few fat drops of water clung to it, but for the most part it was dry thanks to the relative calm of the sea. He found himself thinking about the Strongbow, part of him wishing he’d stayed behind to die at his friend’s side, but another part feeling relieved to know that he was still alive. And with that feeling of relief came shame.\n\nSomeone slapped him on the back. It was Mord Redcheek, his disloyal second-in-command, who’d come forward to join him.\n\n“Don’t be looking so gloomy now, Skullbreaker. They died well. And we’ll see them again soon enough, I reckon.”\n\n“Aye,” Skuli said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He saw the Redcheek’s hands were red and chapped, and he was rubbing them together as if to warm them. “Were you at the steerboard?”\n\n“Not much steering to do. The winds took us clear.”\n\n“You’ll want some sleep, then.”\n\n“Thought I’d see how you were doing first. With any luck, it will be a grey day. I can’t sleep when the damn sun is bright on the waves.”\n\nSkuli painfully extended his legs and stared at them. They throbbed with a dull, bone-deep pain, but that was nothing new. At the moment, the stiffness from spending the night with his legs curled up actually hurt worse than the still-healing wounds in his chest and shoulder. He grunted and massaged his aching muscles.\n\n“I’ve had worse. Just need a few days to let it heal. It’s not like we’re going to be walking anywhere soon.”\n\n“We’ll want to land in a day or two. Keep the butts full. No sense in drawing them dry if we don’t have to.”\n\nSkuli nodded. They would want to be sure they were sufficiently provisioned for a south crossing at all times. A thought occurred to him. “Do you think the wolves plan to cross the sea?”\n\n“Would have saved us considerable trouble if they had in the first place. That, or we should have run sooner and left the damned Isles to them at the start.”\n\n“We didn’t know they were so many. No one did.”\n\nNot until it was far too late. Skuli closed his eyes and listened as the sail rustled and the sea slapped against the sides of the longboat as it cut smoothly through the waves. The wind was moderate, but it was mostly an east wind and it pushed them along at a healthy rate. But to where? They did not know with any certainty that the home of the cursed wolf-demons was on the big island, it was little more than instinct that drew them there. If only they knew when and where the wolves had first shown their ugly furred faces, then they would know where to go! But even after decades of unending war and steadily being slaughtered and pushed east, they were as ignorant as their fathers had been.\n\nThe Redcheek clapped him on the shoulder. “The men are all glad you’re here. Just think what a saga it will make!”\n\n“We have no skald. Who will sing it?” He stared at a gull as it dove down towards the surface, presumably having spotted a fish, but came up with nothing in its yellow beak. “I wonder if that is how they were able to overcome us so easily?”\n\n“Because we have no skalds?”\n\n“No.” Skuli shifted his weight and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. With the heavy grey clouds overhead, it would not warm up until the sun climbed higher behind them. Even so, they did not look like rain. “Because we have not the art of writing like the southerners do. You saw how they planned their every move, how they kept track of the enemy numbers.”\n\n“They still fled across the sea, for all their art.”\n\n“One of their mages told me that an army of Aalvarg once crossed the sea, in his grandfather’s grandfather’s day. They defeated them, destroyed them utterly. And yet we, who have freely reaved their coasts for centuries, were defeated. There is a reason for that, Mord Redcheek.”\n\n“Ah, there’s a reason for everything, Skullbreaker. But it will do no harm to think more on it. We’re not going to retake our islands tomorrow.”\n\n“No. How are we for food?”\n\nThe Redcheek laughed. “This is not the first time I’ve reaved. We’ve stores a-plenty, dried cod and herring, flatbread, and we’ll hunt once we get to land. And we can always eat wolves.”\n\n“I’ve tried it.” Skuli grimaced. “Foul and stringy. Worse than they smell. Only good for soup, if that.”\n\nThe Redcheek laughed again, slapped him on the back, and made his way aft. Skuli stared moodily out over the waves, wondering if he was making a mistake not simply ordering the longboat south, to join Ingoberg and the rest of his surviving people. At least he knew Brynjolf and Fjotra were faring well; if nothing else, his decision to send them south to the King had proven to be a wise one.\n\nThe Dalarn would survive. There were other clans and families who had crossed the sea sooner, of course, but they were scattered everywhere from northern Savondir to the western coast of Selenoth. How many there were, no one could say. Single families had begin fleeing even in his father’s time, and he knew of at least four clans that had crossed the White Sea in their entirety after the Aalvarg onslaught had begun in earnest.\n\nCowards, he had scorned them then. But by now, they might be well established and secure in the south, while the remnants of the Fifteen Clans were entirely reliant upon the dubious mercy of an erstwhile victim and enemy. He snorted, wondering what his ancestors would make of a world in which their longtime hunting grounds had become a refuge for their children’s children. If they were looking on, from Hell or Hall, no doubt they scorned him and his generation for weaklings.\n\nWell, he would show them otherwise. He had a ship with a good name and a crew of killers. What more did a reaver king need? He was Bági Ulfs, he had killed many wolves, more wolves than any man before him, and he would kill many more before he fell. And then, he promised himself, I will not slink into the feast, but I will enter with my head held high, so that Halfrødr and the Strongbow will feel no shame to greet me or to welcome me as their comrade-in-arms.\n\nThe wind and the salt were stinging his eyes, he noticed, as he ran his hand over his face. How long had it been since he’d been reaving? He’d forgotten how the sea cold penetrated to the bone; it made an old wound he’d taken in his left arm, a slash from an Aalvarg’s jaws that had ripped it open from wrist to elbow, ache even though it was nothing more than a thick white line running down his arm.\n\nHe heard someone behind him and turned around to see Erlind Two-Dagger clambering over a strut, holding out one of his famous daggers with a blackened strip of fish that still had steam rising off impaled on it.\n\n“Diarf caught ’em last night,” he explained. “Thought you might do with a bit o’ breakfast.”\n\nSkuli nodded his thanks and took the dagger, then gingerly took a bite. Not only was the flesh piping-hot, but he’d once seen a man stab himself through the roof of his mouth when the longship slammed against the trough of a wave. And then there was the issue of picking out the sharp little bones too. The cod was a little undercooked and he had to spit out several bones, but the welcome heat warmed his gullet all the way down to his belly.\n\nThe wiry Two-Dagger, one of the Redcheek’s men, sat there quietly as he ate, content to stare out in the direction of the islands. They couldn’t be seen from the ship, not in this grey weather, but to an experienced seaman, they were obviously there all the same. If the east wind held, it would be three days before they’d come within sight of the Hovedmand, the biggest and westernmost island, and a fourth before they would make land on its further side.\n\nThe fish eaten and his hunger sated, he handed the dagger back to Two-Dagger, who leaned over the side and rinsed the blade in the salt water to remove the remains of the fish, then carefully dried it with a small cloth he kept tucked in his belt.\n\n“Don’t drop it now,” Skuli told him.\n\nTwo-Dagger smiled faintly, gave the blade one last polish, and returned it to its scabbard. “The Redcheek always says salt water is bad for the metal, but seems to me blood is just as salty. I think this is not the last time I must clean my knife on this voyage.”\n\nHe nodded to Skuli, then made his way back to his place in the rear of the ship. A good lad, Skuli thought, and a reliable fighter. Of course, all of them were, or they would not have survived this long. Indeed, there may never have been a crew of such killers in all the history of the Dalarn. He looked back out over the swells and prayed silently to the Aldaföðr, to the Valföðr, to the Father of the soon-to-be slain, that he would give these men deaths worthy of the mightiest saga.\n\nBehind him, he heard one of the younger men lift his voice in a familiar refrain. He smiled and decided he would take it for an omen.\n\nTonight we will the wolfsblood shed\n\nStrike them down and strike them dead.\n\nIs that a dog? No! Nothing more\n\nThan one more wolf-spawned demon whore!\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1799, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch19_skuli-P2", "chapter": "ch19_skuli", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nUlvdræber — longship; keep æ.\nMord Redcheek / the Redcheek — steersman-second.\nGudrik Glum / Gudrik — dubious younger voice; epithet as used.\nSvan the Barkman / the Barkman — scout pick; keep epithet.\nEiliff — scout pair with Svan.\nHalldor / Solmund — young lookouts.\nHovedholm — western island; keep spelling.\nvika — distance measure; lowercase.\nnightmark / day mark / mid-even — time marks as written.\nAalvarg — wolf-demon foe; capital A.\nSavondir — fallback destination if the shore party is lost.\n\n### STORY\nAt dusk on Raknarborg’s tower Skuli means to send Mord Redcheek’s forty into Hovedholm without him and die beside Steinthor Strongbow; the crew refuses, Hakon has lifted both his daggers, and Strongbow asks whether he walks onto the snekkja or goes tied.\nHe accepts the quest, gives his word, takes Ulvdræber’s name and Redcheek’s timed oath, and limps for the docks with death put off one more day.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSkuli Skullbreaker\nAlive, planning a western-island landing from Redcheek’s unmarked village map. Legs still wrong for a tower run; will send others north and lead the village approach himself. Means this time not to let anyone steal his death. Chooses axe over shield for bitch-and-pup work.\n\nMord Redcheek\nAlive; carries the leather map; steers; will hold Ulvdræber on timed returns toward Savondir if the shore party vanishes.\n\nGudrik Glum\nAlive; dubious as usual; argues crew exchange and later asks to go north with the Barkman; refused—needed on the ship.\n\nSvan the Barkman / Eiliff\nAlive; to be sent north toward the tower once the landing plan firms.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHe heard someone behind him and turned around to see Erlind Two-Dagger clambering over a strut, holding out one of his famous daggers with a blackened strip of fish that still had steam rising off impaled on it.\n\n“Diarf caught ’em last night,” he explained. “Thought you might do with a bit o’ breakfast.”\n\nSkuli nodded his thanks and took the dagger, then gingerly took a bite. Not only was the flesh piping-hot, but he’d once seen a man stab himself through the roof of his mouth when the longship slammed against the trough of a wave. And then there was the issue of picking out the sharp little bones too. The cod was a little undercooked and he had to spit out several bones, but the welcome heat warmed his gullet all the way down to his belly.\n\nThe wiry Two-Dagger, one of the Redcheek’s men, sat there quietly as he ate, content to stare out in the direction of the islands. They couldn’t be seen from the ship, not in this grey weather, but to an experienced seaman, they were obviously there all the same. If the east wind held, it would be three days before they’d come within sight of the Hovedmand, the biggest and westernmost island, and a fourth before they would make land on its further side.\n\nThe fish eaten and his hunger sated, he handed the dagger back to Two-Dagger, who leaned over the side and rinsed the blade in the salt water to remove the remains of the fish, then carefully dried it with a small cloth he kept tucked in his belt.\n\n“Don’t drop it now,” Skuli told him.\n\nTwo-Dagger smiled faintly, gave the blade one last polish, and returned it to its scabbard. “The Redcheek always says salt water is bad for the metal, but seems to me blood is just as salty. I think this is not the last time I must clean my knife on this voyage.”\n\nHe nodded to Skuli, then made his way back to his place in the rear of the ship. A good lad, Skuli thought, and a reliable fighter. Of course, all of them were, or they would not have survived this long. Indeed, there may never have been a crew of such killers in all the history of the Dalarn. He looked back out over the swells and prayed silently to the Aldaföðr, to the Valföðr, to the Father of the soon-to-be slain, that he would give these men deaths worthy of the mightiest saga.\n\nBehind him, he heard one of the younger men lift his voice in a familiar refrain. He smiled and decided he would take it for an omen.\n\nTonight we will the wolfsblood shed\n\nStrike them down and strike them dead.\n\nIs that a dog? No! Nothing more\n\nThan one more wolf-spawned demon whore!\n\n### NOTES\nNorth wind costs two extra days; western end of the mysterious coast.\nEighteen unmarked villages on old leather; a tower symbol north of the chosen bay.\nPlan: sight rooftops, haul out of sight, land south of the village, search inland; optional early pair to the tower.\nSoutheasterly night wind before the final approach; shore almost sideways under Redcheek’s steering.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Skuli.\n\nNorth wind stretches the run to five days. Redcheek’s map offers eighteen nameless villages and a tower; they pick a bay, talk overland caution, and admit under silence that they may not have enough men left when it matters—Skuli will not be robbed of dying this time. One more night at sea; rooftops sighted; Ulvdræber hauled out of sight; three vika and talk of sending Svan and Eiliff north by nightmark.\n\nGudrik wants the bow-slot with the Barkman; Skuli keeps him on the ship with a promise that today is not his death, and a confession that Skuli fears other things more than dying. Redcheek’s steering lays them almost perfectly on the shore. The scene lands as the keel takes the beach—before the men murmur and spill inland.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2200 words. Planning talk practical; dread dry. Land on the sideways beaching, before the shore party forms.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Unfortunately, on the third day the wind shifted to the north, so it took five days before they reached the western end of the Hovedmand. The weather had held, mostly, and they had put to land twice, once on each of the intervening islands, to hunt and water. The men were in good spirits, especially after Skeggi Hjaltisson managed to bring down a pair of deer with his bow. They saw no sign of the Aalvarg, although they did twice see the grim sight of a burned-out and abandoned harbor town that had been sacked in years past by the monsters in the distance. Skuli had been tempted to go investigate, but the Redcheek convinced him otherwise. First, if there were any Aalvarg in the villages, they almost certainly would see them approaching from the sea, and more importantly, there would no doubt be similar sites once they reached the main island, where the two largest villages in the Isles had been situated.\n\nThere were eighteen villages marked on the old leather map the Redcheek carried. There were no names, just crude drawings of buildings that mostly looked like houses, except for one that appeared to be a tower of sorts, perhaps even a castle. It was the Redcheek’s notion that they might find some clue about the wolves in either the larger villages or the castle—if it was indeed a castle. As the ever-dour Gudrik Glum observed, given its position on the coast, it might be nothing more than a watchtower built to let the nearby villagers keep an eye out for returning reavers.\n\n“We don’t want to sail too far north. If they’ve got eyes in the tower, they’ll be able to guess where we’re going. We should make land to the south of the big village there.” The Redcheek indicated the large house that was closest to the tower. “We can grab a few of them, find one who talks, and figure out the lay of the land.”\n\n“Then go overland to the tower?” Gudrik sounded dubious. But then, he usually did.\n\n“Probably not, but we don’t know we’re going there yet,” Skuli said. “First we’ll search the village. For all we know, it may be empty. The important thing is that we keep the ship safe. If we lose it somehow, they’ll be able to hunt us down and there will be no escape. Mord, pick two skeleton crews of eight men. They will join Surdaember and Jorund sleeping at sea every night.”\n\nThe Redcheek nodded. “You want them to be able to bring back the news of whatever we find. I’ll be sure both crews have a good steersman.”\n\n“We can’t exchange crews if we’re going inland,” Gudrik pointed out. “Will they both stay with the ship?”\n\nSkuli and the Redcheek looked at each other. Skuli shrugged. “We can decide that when the time comes. We don’t know we’ll want twenty men going inland anyhow.”\n\nNeither of them said it, but they both knew that they didn’t know how many men would be left by the time they decided to go inland. Even the initial raids in search of shapeshifters to interrogate would be dangerous and could well prove fatal. But regardless, Skuli was determined to keep Ulvdræber out of reach of Aalvarg claws, even if that meant dooming those left behind on land.\n\nAnd this time, he would not let them take his death from him.\n\nThey spent one more night at sea, taking advantage of a southeasterly wind that brought them closer to the mysterious tower marked on the map. Jorund was convinced that it had something to do with the town of Thjovrer, which featured in two of the sagas he knew by heart. It had been a seaport, and one of the sagas referenced a bay, which could be seen on the map as well. As an obvious anomaly, the tower made for as good a starting point as any, especially since it was something they could approach at night by sea.\n\nThe village, on the other hand, they would have to come at from the land. As the wolves were creatures of the night, the chances that the ship would be spotted as it beached were too risky to run. On land, there was still the chance that the damned creatures would smell them, but Skuli had a plan for dealing with that too. He’d ordered the Redcheek to save the blood of the deer Skeggi had killed as well as the scent glands; given the powerful scent of the glands, he figured that crushing them and mixing it with the blood, then smearing the mixture on their hides and the soles of their boots would mask their scent enough to let them approach the village unobserved.\n\nHalldor and Solmund, two of the youngest men, were standing just behind the snekkja’s dragon, their youthfully keen eyes focused on the distant shore, looking for signs of the abandoned human habitation. Skuli had just finished wolfing down the last of a rabbit he’d cooked over one of the ship’s brass braziers when Solmund suddenly lifted his head and called out a warning.\n\n“I see… rooftops!” the young reaver announced. “And that point there, the land curves in. I think it’s the bay!”\n\n“Tell the Redcheek to steer to port and take us out of sight of land,” Skuli ordered Gudrik, who nodded and immediately began making his way aft. Skuli threw the remains of his lunch over the side, and gestured at Engli the Black, indicating that he should do the same with the hot coals. The wind wasn’t likely to carry the scent of smoke and burned flesh towards the town, but there was no sense taking any unnecessary chances. Aalvarg noses were keen, as many a Dalarn chieftain had learned to his dismay.\n\nHe felt the longship shift underneath him, and before long it was apparent that the land was disappearing to their right. The Redcheek came forward, pushing his way past men who were pulling on their armor and digging out their weapons from where they were stowed underneath the rowing benches. The two of them had chosen the men for the shore party days ago, but even those who would be staying on the ship were arming themselves.\n\n“With this wind, it won’t take long to make the three vika,” the Redcheek said, referring to the distance north they had agreed to leave between them and the village before landing. “It’s after high day, do you want to anchor and then land in the morning?”\n\nSkuli had something else on his mind. “I’m wondering if we should send a pair of men north right away. To the tower.”\n\n“They might be able to reach it by the nightmark.”\n\n“If they withdraw and make camp once they find it, then they can investigate it in the morning and still be back before the sun sets tomorrow.”\n\n“Who do you have in mind?”\n\n“I don’t. Except I don’t want you going and I’m not in any shape for it myself.”\n\n“Has wisdom finally broken through the thick skull of the Skullbreaker at last?” The Redcheek laughed. “Two of the older men, I think. Neither Eiliff nor Svan the Barkman are wounded, and Svan is good in the woods.”\n\n“Tell them. And tell those staying on board that they can have until mid-even before pushing off again for the night. Except for the two hunting parties, no one goes out of sight of the ship.”\n\n“I’ll see to it. When do you want us back tomorrow?”\n\n“Come to within sight at first light. If we’re not there, pull back and return again at day mark. Try again between mid-even and night mark, and if we’re not there the following day mark, sail south.”\n\n“For Savondir,” the Redcheek said, nodding. He looked in the direction of the coast, towards nothing Skuli could see. “I’ll get back to the steerboard now; I want to take us in.”\n\nSkuli nodded and began digging into his own possessions, looking for the lighter of his two mail coats. He didn’t anticipate any serious fighting tonight, but one never knew, and he wanted to be able to move quickly if need be. His wounded shoulder ached as he pulled it awkwardly over his head, but it stopped hurting as soon as he was able to put his arm down again.\n\nHe pursed his lips as he debated the wisdom of carrying his axe or his shield. He decided to go with the axe; he’d learned that when fighting by moonlight, especially moonlight obscured by tree branches and leaves, it was better to be the aggressor. While not entirely useless, it was hard to use your shield to block what you couldn’t see.\n\nBesides, with any luck they’d be up against unarmed bitches and wolf-pups. Their jaws and claws were still dangerous, but considerably less lethal than edged weapons in the long, muscular arms of the grown Aalvarg males. He slipped his scabbarded sword onto his warbelt, then stood up, keeping his legs spread wide against the rhythmic rocking of the snekkja, and buckled it before slipping his dagger inside the thick leather.\n\nIt wasn’t long after he sat down again that he felt Ulvdræber turning, although he had no idea what observation had informed the Redcheek’s decision. He’d never been a navigator. Gudrik came forward to sit beside him; although he was staying with the longship, he too was armored.\n\n“Mord says you’re sending Svan and Eiliff to the tower?”\n\n“North, anyhow. Who knows what’s really there.”\n\n“You think that’s wise?”\n\n“I think it saves us time. And if they run into something, better we lose two than twenty.”\n\nGudrik nodded. He seemed to be wrestling with himself. Skuli looked at the younger man expectantly.\n\n“I’m better than Eiliff,” he finally said. “With the bow. Want me to go with the Barkman?”\n\nSkuli stared out past the prow. The faintest hint of land ahead was beginning to appear through the sea mist. He grinned. This was truly a saga of the damned, even Gudrik Glum appeared to have found an adventurer’s heart.\n\n“Don’t want them putting arrows in anyone. Stay with Ulvdræber and the Redcheek. We need someone with the ship who won’t get excited and come after us if we don’t come back.”\n\n“I’m not afraid,” Gudrik insisted. The slight shaking of his hands belied his words, but Skuli ignored that and answered the younger man’s real question.\n\n“We all die sooner or later, Gudrik Glum. But today is not your time, not yet. I promise you that.”\n\n“You’re not afraid.” It was a statement, not a question.\n\n“Of course I am.” Skuli laughed at the startled look on the other man’s face. “But I’m afraid of different things. I’m afraid for my wife, and for my children on the other side of the sea. I’m afraid for the clans, trying to find a place among the southerners. Honestly, having a damn wolf tear out my throat would come as a relief of sorts.”\n\n“You don’t mean that!”\n\nSkuli ignored Gudrik for a moment, studying the treeline of the approaching coast. He saw no signs of habitation, human or Aalvarg, and a glance to the south showed that they were well out of sight of the village the younger lads had spotted. The shore was dangerously rocky, but a lighter-colored patch slightly to the north promised dirt, if not necessarily sand, upon which the longship could be beached.\n\nThe Redcheek obviously saw it too, as the prow gradually edged portside until it pointed directly at what he could now see was largely rock-free shoreline. He patted Gudrik’s leg and gave him a reassuring smile. “Wait until you’re my age, when everything hurts, you’ve got scars from your shoulders down to your toes, and then decide if you’re still so reluctant to die.” He groaned theatrically.\n\nThat made the younger man laugh, and they braced themselves as Ulvdræber sailed inexorably closer towards a shore that struck Skuli as dangerously steep. He hoped the Redcheek could see it; if the snekkja beached head-on, it seemed to him they’d risk staving a hole in the bottom, or worse, actually breaking the keel. But just as Skuli was about to rise and shout for the men to take the oars and back water in a last-ditch attempt to slow the longship, her sail was abruptly furled and she adroitly arced to port on a path that brought her smoothly up on the shore almost perfectly sideways.\n", "completion": "Unfortunately, on the third day the wind shifted to the north, so it took five days before they reached the western end of the Hovedmand. The weather had held, mostly, and they had put to land twice, once on each of the intervening islands, to hunt and water. The men were in good spirits, especially after Skeggi Hjaltisson managed to bring down a pair of deer with his bow. They saw no sign of the Aalvarg, although they did twice see the grim sight of a burned-out and abandoned harbor town that had been sacked in years past by the monsters in the distance. Skuli had been tempted to go investigate, but the Redcheek convinced him otherwise. First, if there were any Aalvarg in the villages, they almost certainly would see them approaching from the sea, and more importantly, there would no doubt be similar sites once they reached the main island, where the two largest villages in the Isles had been situated.\n\nThere were eighteen villages marked on the old leather map the Redcheek carried. There were no names, just crude drawings of buildings that mostly looked like houses, except for one that appeared to be a tower of sorts, perhaps even a castle. It was the Redcheek’s notion that they might find some clue about the wolves in either the larger villages or the castle—if it was indeed a castle. As the ever-dour Gudrik Glum observed, given its position on the coast, it might be nothing more than a watchtower built to let the nearby villagers keep an eye out for returning reavers.\n\n“We don’t want to sail too far north. If they’ve got eyes in the tower, they’ll be able to guess where we’re going. We should make land to the south of the big village there.” The Redcheek indicated the large house that was closest to the tower. “We can grab a few of them, find one who talks, and figure out the lay of the land.”\n\n“Then go overland to the tower?” Gudrik sounded dubious. But then, he usually did.\n\n“Probably not, but we don’t know we’re going there yet,” Skuli said. “First we’ll search the village. For all we know, it may be empty. The important thing is that we keep the ship safe. If we lose it somehow, they’ll be able to hunt us down and there will be no escape. Mord, pick two skeleton crews of eight men. They will join Surdaember and Jorund sleeping at sea every night.”\n\nThe Redcheek nodded. “You want them to be able to bring back the news of whatever we find. I’ll be sure both crews have a good steersman.”\n\n“We can’t exchange crews if we’re going inland,” Gudrik pointed out. “Will they both stay with the ship?”\n\nSkuli and the Redcheek looked at each other. Skuli shrugged. “We can decide that when the time comes. We don’t know we’ll want twenty men going inland anyhow.”\n\nNeither of them said it, but they both knew that they didn’t know how many men would be left by the time they decided to go inland. Even the initial raids in search of shapeshifters to interrogate would be dangerous and could well prove fatal. But regardless, Skuli was determined to keep Ulvdræber out of reach of Aalvarg claws, even if that meant dooming those left behind on land.\n\nAnd this time, he would not let them take his death from him.\n\nThey spent one more night at sea, taking advantage of a southeasterly wind that brought them closer to the mysterious tower marked on the map. Jorund was convinced that it had something to do with the town of Thjovrer, which featured in two of the sagas he knew by heart. It had been a seaport, and one of the sagas referenced a bay, which could be seen on the map as well. As an obvious anomaly, the tower made for as good a starting point as any, especially since it was something they could approach at night by sea.\n\nThe village, on the other hand, they would have to come at from the land. As the wolves were creatures of the night, the chances that the ship would be spotted as it beached were too risky to run. On land, there was still the chance that the damned creatures would smell them, but Skuli had a plan for dealing with that too. He’d ordered the Redcheek to save the blood of the deer Skeggi had killed as well as the scent glands; given the powerful scent of the glands, he figured that crushing them and mixing it with the blood, then smearing the mixture on their hides and the soles of their boots would mask their scent enough to let them approach the village unobserved.\n\nHalldor and Solmund, two of the youngest men, were standing just behind the snekkja’s dragon, their youthfully keen eyes focused on the distant shore, looking for signs of the abandoned human habitation. Skuli had just finished wolfing down the last of a rabbit he’d cooked over one of the ship’s brass braziers when Solmund suddenly lifted his head and called out a warning.\n\n“I see… rooftops!” the young reaver announced. “And that point there, the land curves in. I think it’s the bay!”\n\n“Tell the Redcheek to steer to port and take us out of sight of land,” Skuli ordered Gudrik, who nodded and immediately began making his way aft. Skuli threw the remains of his lunch over the side, and gestured at Engli the Black, indicating that he should do the same with the hot coals. The wind wasn’t likely to carry the scent of smoke and burned flesh towards the town, but there was no sense taking any unnecessary chances. Aalvarg noses were keen, as many a Dalarn chieftain had learned to his dismay.\n\nHe felt the longship shift underneath him, and before long it was apparent that the land was disappearing to their right. The Redcheek came forward, pushing his way past men who were pulling on their armor and digging out their weapons from where they were stowed underneath the rowing benches. The two of them had chosen the men for the shore party days ago, but even those who would be staying on the ship were arming themselves.\n\n“With this wind, it won’t take long to make the three vika,” the Redcheek said, referring to the distance north they had agreed to leave between them and the village before landing. “It’s after high day, do you want to anchor and then land in the morning?”\n\nSkuli had something else on his mind. “I’m wondering if we should send a pair of men north right away. To the tower.”\n\n“They might be able to reach it by the nightmark.”\n\n“If they withdraw and make camp once they find it, then they can investigate it in the morning and still be back before the sun sets tomorrow.”\n\n“Who do you have in mind?”\n\n“I don’t. Except I don’t want you going and I’m not in any shape for it myself.”\n\n“Has wisdom finally broken through the thick skull of the Skullbreaker at last?” The Redcheek laughed. “Two of the older men, I think. Neither Eiliff nor Svan the Barkman are wounded, and Svan is good in the woods.”\n\n“Tell them. And tell those staying on board that they can have until mid-even before pushing off again for the night. Except for the two hunting parties, no one goes out of sight of the ship.”\n\n“I’ll see to it. When do you want us back tomorrow?”\n\n“Come to within sight at first light. If we’re not there, pull back and return again at day mark. Try again between mid-even and night mark, and if we’re not there the following day mark, sail south.”\n\n“For Savondir,” the Redcheek said, nodding. He looked in the direction of the coast, towards nothing Skuli could see. “I’ll get back to the steerboard now; I want to take us in.”\n\nSkuli nodded and began digging into his own possessions, looking for the lighter of his two mail coats. He didn’t anticipate any serious fighting tonight, but one never knew, and he wanted to be able to move quickly if need be. His wounded shoulder ached as he pulled it awkwardly over his head, but it stopped hurting as soon as he was able to put his arm down again.\n\nHe pursed his lips as he debated the wisdom of carrying his axe or his shield. He decided to go with the axe; he’d learned that when fighting by moonlight, especially moonlight obscured by tree branches and leaves, it was better to be the aggressor. While not entirely useless, it was hard to use your shield to block what you couldn’t see.\n\nBesides, with any luck they’d be up against unarmed bitches and wolf-pups. Their jaws and claws were still dangerous, but considerably less lethal than edged weapons in the long, muscular arms of the grown Aalvarg males. He slipped his scabbarded sword onto his warbelt, then stood up, keeping his legs spread wide against the rhythmic rocking of the snekkja, and buckled it before slipping his dagger inside the thick leather.\n\nIt wasn’t long after he sat down again that he felt Ulvdræber turning, although he had no idea what observation had informed the Redcheek’s decision. He’d never been a navigator. Gudrik came forward to sit beside him; although he was staying with the longship, he too was armored.\n\n“Mord says you’re sending Svan and Eiliff to the tower?”\n\n“North, anyhow. Who knows what’s really there.”\n\n“You think that’s wise?”\n\n“I think it saves us time. And if they run into something, better we lose two than twenty.”\n\nGudrik nodded. He seemed to be wrestling with himself. Skuli looked at the younger man expectantly.\n\n“I’m better than Eiliff,” he finally said. “With the bow. Want me to go with the Barkman?”\n\nSkuli stared out past the prow. The faintest hint of land ahead was beginning to appear through the sea mist. He grinned. This was truly a saga of the damned, even Gudrik Glum appeared to have found an adventurer’s heart.\n\n“Don’t want them putting arrows in anyone. Stay with Ulvdræber and the Redcheek. We need someone with the ship who won’t get excited and come after us if we don’t come back.”\n\n“I’m not afraid,” Gudrik insisted. The slight shaking of his hands belied his words, but Skuli ignored that and answered the younger man’s real question.\n\n“We all die sooner or later, Gudrik Glum. But today is not your time, not yet. I promise you that.”\n\n“You’re not afraid.” It was a statement, not a question.\n\n“Of course I am.” Skuli laughed at the startled look on the other man’s face. “But I’m afraid of different things. I’m afraid for my wife, and for my children on the other side of the sea. I’m afraid for the clans, trying to find a place among the southerners. Honestly, having a damn wolf tear out my throat would come as a relief of sorts.”\n\n“You don’t mean that!”\n\nSkuli ignored Gudrik for a moment, studying the treeline of the approaching coast. He saw no signs of habitation, human or Aalvarg, and a glance to the south showed that they were well out of sight of the village the younger lads had spotted. The shore was dangerously rocky, but a lighter-colored patch slightly to the north promised dirt, if not necessarily sand, upon which the longship could be beached.\n\nThe Redcheek obviously saw it too, as the prow gradually edged portside until it pointed directly at what he could now see was largely rock-free shoreline. He patted Gudrik’s leg and gave him a reassuring smile. “Wait until you’re my age, when everything hurts, you’ve got scars from your shoulders down to your toes, and then decide if you’re still so reluctant to die.” He groaned theatrically.\n\nThat made the younger man laugh, and they braced themselves as Ulvdræber sailed inexorably closer towards a shore that struck Skuli as dangerously steep. He hoped the Redcheek could see it; if the snekkja beached head-on, it seemed to him they’d risk staving a hole in the bottom, or worse, actually breaking the keel. But just as Skuli was about to rise and shout for the men to take the oars and back water in a last-ditch attempt to slow the longship, her sail was abruptly furled and she adroitly arced to port on a path that brought her smoothly up on the shore almost perfectly sideways.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2165, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch19_skuli-P3", "chapter": "ch19_skuli", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nsigskifting — shapeshifter; keep spelling.\nAalvarg — wolf-demon foe; capital A.\nSvan the Barkman — sent north to the tower.\nUlvdræber — longship waiting offshore on timed returns.\nMord Redcheek — will bring the ship back at the marks.\nHalldor / Engli the Black / Alrik / Var / Erlind Two-Dagger — shore party names; epithets as written.\nsnyde — insult in Engli’s mouth; keep form.\n\n### STORY\nHe accepts Strongbow’s quest, boards Ulvdræber, and puts death off one more day.\nAt sea under grey dawn he mourns, eats Two-Dagger’s fish, and lets the crew’s wolfsblood song briefly lift him.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nSkuli Skullbreaker\nAlive ashore with the inland party; axe in hand; cold dinner; owl-call ambush on three Aalvarg who are not full wolf. Kills and questions a she-wolf who fears him—and claims she is not sigskifting but like him.\n\nSvan the Barkman\nAlive; dispatched north along the sea toward the tower with orders to stay out of trouble.\n\nMord Redcheek\nAlive aboard Ulvdræber on timed returns; not in the ambush.\n\nHalldor\nAlive near Skuli; whispers the approach; finishes a corpse after Two-Dagger’s kill.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I’m better than Eiliff,” he finally said. “With the bow. Want me to go with the Barkman?”\n\nSkuli stared out past the prow. The faintest hint of land ahead was beginning to appear through the sea mist. He grinned. This was truly a saga of the damned, even Gudrik Glum appeared to have found an adventurer’s heart.\n\n“Don’t want them putting arrows in anyone. Stay with Ulvdræber and the Redcheek. We need someone with the ship who won’t get excited and come after us if we don’t come back.”\n\n“I’m not afraid,” Gudrik insisted. The slight shaking of his hands belied his words, but Skuli ignored that and answered the younger man’s real question.\n\n“We all die sooner or later, Gudrik Glum. But today is not your time, not yet. I promise you that.”\n\n“You’re not afraid.” It was a statement, not a question.\n\n“Of course I am.” Skuli laughed at the startled look on the other man’s face. “But I’m afraid of different things. I’m afraid for my wife, and for my children on the other side of the sea. I’m afraid for the clans, trying to find a place among the southerners. Honestly, having a damn wolf tear out my throat would come as a relief of sorts.”\n\n“You don’t mean that!”\n\nSkuli ignored Gudrik for a moment, studying the treeline of the approaching coast. He saw no signs of habitation, human or Aalvarg, and a glance to the south showed that they were well out of sight of the village the younger lads had spotted. The shore was dangerously rocky, but a lighter-colored patch slightly to the north promised dirt, if not necessarily sand, upon which the longship could be beached.\n\nThe Redcheek obviously saw it too, as the prow gradually edged portside until it pointed directly at what he could now see was largely rock-free shoreline. He patted Gudrik’s leg and gave him a reassuring smile. “Wait until you’re my age, when everything hurts, you’ve got scars from your shoulders down to your toes, and then decide if you’re still so reluctant to die.” He groaned theatrically.\n\nThat made the younger man laugh, and they braced themselves as Ulvdræber sailed inexorably closer towards a shore that struck Skuli as dangerously steep. He hoped the Redcheek could see it; if the snekkja beached head-on, it seemed to him they’d risk staving a hole in the bottom, or worse, actually breaking the keel. But just as Skuli was about to rise and shout for the men to take the oars and back water in a last-ditch attempt to slow the longship, her sail was abruptly furled and she adroitly arced to port on a path that brought her smoothly up on the shore almost perfectly sideways.\n\n### NOTES\nMeet-point on the shore for Ulvdræber’s return marks.\nNight howls are juvenile; cold camp; no fire near the village path.\nAmbush on a well-traveled path; three Aalvarg in mixed form, one female survivor for questioning.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Skuli.\n\nThe men murmur at the beaching; Svan takes tower orders; Skuli sets the meet and leads inland. Nightmark howls; cold silent dinner; Var finds a path; owl-call line. Three Aalvarg come pad-rhythmed—not pure wolf, not the prize he wanted—until one looks back and the whistle goes. Axes and knives in the dark; Skuli misses, kicks, finishes; the men laugh over Alrik’s friendly stab from Engli. He flips the she-wolf, takes her face, asks the village—and she answers that she is not sigskifting, she is like him. The scene lands on that astonishment.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1800 words. Ambush concrete; wonder not softened into sentiment. Land on her claim to be like him.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "An impromptu, albeit subdued murmur arose from the men at the Redcheek’s impressive feat of steering, and then they were leaping down from the starboard side. More than a few of them tumbled to the ground, their legs stiff and cramped from days at sea. Skuli himself managed to stay on his feet, but he couldn’t repress a groan as a sharp spike of pain inexplicably ran down his spine, from the back of his head to the middle of his shoulders. He flexed his shoulders and lifted his arms, moving them back and forth until the mysterious pain disappeared.\n\nSomeone cleared his throat behind him and he turned around to see Svan the Barkman standing in front of him. The Barkman was a slender, dark-haired fellow with a long braided beard and sad, expressive eyes. He wore no armor but a thick wolfskin coat, and carried no sword. Instead, he had a longbow slung over his back, a large roll of arrows tied together suspended from his belt, and a thick spear that doubled as a staff in his left hand. “The Redcheek wants us to espy the tower, see if it’s there?”\n\n“Have a look. Stay out of trouble and don’t take any chances. Follow the sea north and you should run right into it. Learn what you can and then come back.” He slapped the Barkman on the shoulder. “Be back here at dawn; I’ll mark that tree over there.”\n\nThe Barkman looked to see where he was pointing, then nodded. Skuli nodded back, picked up his axe, then walked over to the big birch and cut four sizable chunks out of the side facing the sea. He made them at eye height to make them easier to see.\n\n“This is where we meet,” he called out loud enough to cause everyone’s heads to turn towards him. “Unless you want to take a wolf to wife, you damned well better be here by day mark if you get separated. Those with me, keep your mouths shut. Var and Engli, you’ll take the lead. Remember, we want to capture a sigskifting, so try not to kill any of them until you’re sure they can’t change.”\n\nHe glanced back at Mord Redcheek, who nodded coolly. Ulvdræber would be here on the morrow. The trick was to ensure that he and his men were as well. He raised his axe in a salute to the Redcheek, then began walking south. It was going to be a long night, and perhaps a bloody one too, but at least he’d get a break from trying to get to sleep on that damned boat!\n\nIt was not long after night mark when they heard the first howls. They were high-pitched, juvenile howls, considerably less frightening than the deep ones that used to come down from the hills above Raknarborg and echo off the stone walls. They had made good time through the forest, and before the sun had set, both scouts detected numerous signs of wolf spoor and even the well-gnawed remains of a recent kill.\n\nThey made a cold and silent dinner as the sky turned red, as Skuli dared not risk the scent of a fire so close to the suspected Aalvarg habitation. Engli supplemented his paltry repast of dried meat with a handful of blackberries he’d somehow managed to collect in passing, and their unripe bitterness did more to quench his hunger than the tørkød.\n\nAfter Var located what looked like a well-traveled path, Skuli decided that they would try an ambush. He had Engli rub more of the musky blood-gland mixture on his soles, then had him walk a good ways towards the ruins of the village they’d spotted from the sea. He decided that they would wait until the Blood Moon had climbed as high into the sky as the Bone Moon before they risked venturing further towards the village.\n\n“I hear something,” Halldor whispered in his ear. Skuli had kept the young man near him, partly to keep him safe, but also because young ears are keener than old ones, especially old ones that have long known the deafening din of battle. “They come… quickly, I think!”\n\nSkuli nodded and gave out a soft owl call. He heard a faint rustling down the line in response; the men were ready. There was just enough light from the two moons overhead to see the far side of the clearing he had chosen for the ambush. He couldn’t see the eight men hidden behind the trees on the other side, but he knew they were there.\n\nThen he could hear the softly-rhythmic buddadadum-buddadadum of the Aalvarg approaching as their pads drummed against the soft woodland soil. They were coming rapidly indeed, so quickly that even though he was waiting for them, their actual appearance still managed to take him by surprise. First one grey blur, then a second followed by a third, flashed in front of him. He almost leaped out at them instinctively, but restrained himself when, as he hoped, the combination of the clearing and the crushed gland he’d buried towards the far end of it brought them to a halt.\n\nNone of the three were in the pure wolf form, he was disappointed to see. No shapeshifters these, for surely one would have transformed itself in order to better follow the trail of scent. All three were in their twisted natural shape, half-man, half-wolf, with long, wiry arms and powerful haunched legs that were an obscene parody of a man’s limbs. They were obviously young; the biggest was only two-thirds the size of the average Aalvarg warrior, and they were fixated on the scent with their noses were pressed hard against the ground. As they ran, they made loud whuffling noises that sounded for all the world like dogs.\n\nSkuli was just about to whistle when one of them looked back in the direction from which they’d come and made a sound that could only be described as a remonstrative, but friendly bark. A moment later, two more young Aalvarg appeared, followed, to Skuli’s astonishment, by what looked very much like a young woman wearing tattered rags that left her long white legs exposed. Sigskifting!\n\nHe took a firm grip on his axe, took a deep breath, raised his right hand to his lips, and whistled loudly. Two of the wolves whipped their heads around, then whirled in a circle as men leaped from the trees around them. Skuli himself sprang at the female shapeshifter, whose mouth had fallen open with the shock of the unexpected assault. She shrieked as he expertly swept her legs out from under her with the butt end of his long axe handle, then swung the head at the nearest wolf-demon as it leaped at Halldor with its claws outstretched and teeth bared.\n\nHe missed as the metal blade slashed through the air behind the creature, but it screamed in either pain or fury as it impaled itself on his young clansman’s sword. The force of its leap, combined with its weight, caused Halldor to stumble back and let go of his blade, but another Dalarn was already on top of the wounded beast and repeatedly stabbing it with either hand, almost as if he was beating a drum. Two-Dagger, Skuli realized, and he glanced down just in time to see the shapeshifter was trying to scramble away into the forest on all fours.\n\nHe leaped forward and kicked her thigh, causing her to collapse on her stomach, clutching at her leg and screaming. He dropped his axe and fell to one knee, grabbed both her arms and then lifted her up, twisted his upper body, and slammed her to the ground to knock the wind out of her lungs. Before she could recover, he was on top of her, pulling both arms up as he pressed his left knee into her back. Only when she was helpless and secured did he glance back to see how his men were faring.\n\nAlthough he could not make out many faces or any other details in the darkness, he could tell from all the laughing and light-hearted cursing he heard, that all five of the other young wolves were already dead.\n\nHalldor, having managed to find his blade in the corpse of the Aalvarg that Two-Dagger had killed, finished cleaning it off, sheathed it, and handed Skuli a long leather thong. He bent the shapeshifter’s arms together, looped the thong around her forearms several times, then tied it tightly enough to draw a gasp of pain from her. That way, even if she shifted, or grew claws, she wouldn’t be able to cut through the thong.\n\nHe stood up, turned around, and looked around the clearing. He didn’t see anyone on the ground except the dead wolves. “Anyone hurt?”\n\n“Engli stabbed me!” he heard someone declare reproachfully. He thought it was Alrik.\n\n“You got in the way, you clumsy snyde!” Engli the Black sounded entirely unrepentant.\n\n“Are you all right, Alrik?”\n\n“He’ll live,” the deep bass of Var rumbled. “I tied up his arm.”\n\n“How am I supposed to fight with one arm?”\n\n“You didn’t fight with two,” Engli said, which sparked no little laughter among the men.\n\nSkuli smiled and turned back to the wolf-girl. He stuck his foot under her and flipped her over, revealing a tear-stained face that was unexpectedly pretty, even mottled as it was by the shadows and the moonlight filtered through the leaves above. Had he encountered her in different circumstances, he might well have thought her a young woman only a few years younger than Fjotra. He couldn’t tell what color her hair was, but it was neither dark nor light.\n\nHe kneeled down beside her and took her face in his well-callused hand. He was mildly surprised to see fear in her eyes rather than the bestial defiance he’d come to expect of her kind. “Can you understand me? Can you talk?”\n\nShe blinked and nodded.\n\n“Where is your village? How many of you live there?”\n\nHer answer confused him. “You are… you are men?”\n\nNow it was his turn to nod. And if her first words had confused him, her next ones had him rocking back on his heels in astonishment.\n\n“I am not sigskifting! I am like you!”\n", "completion": "An impromptu, albeit subdued murmur arose from the men at the Redcheek’s impressive feat of steering, and then they were leaping down from the starboard side. More than a few of them tumbled to the ground, their legs stiff and cramped from days at sea. Skuli himself managed to stay on his feet, but he couldn’t repress a groan as a sharp spike of pain inexplicably ran down his spine, from the back of his head to the middle of his shoulders. He flexed his shoulders and lifted his arms, moving them back and forth until the mysterious pain disappeared.\n\nSomeone cleared his throat behind him and he turned around to see Svan the Barkman standing in front of him. The Barkman was a slender, dark-haired fellow with a long braided beard and sad, expressive eyes. He wore no armor but a thick wolfskin coat, and carried no sword. Instead, he had a longbow slung over his back, a large roll of arrows tied together suspended from his belt, and a thick spear that doubled as a staff in his left hand. “The Redcheek wants us to espy the tower, see if it’s there?”\n\n“Have a look. Stay out of trouble and don’t take any chances. Follow the sea north and you should run right into it. Learn what you can and then come back.” He slapped the Barkman on the shoulder. “Be back here at dawn; I’ll mark that tree over there.”\n\nThe Barkman looked to see where he was pointing, then nodded. Skuli nodded back, picked up his axe, then walked over to the big birch and cut four sizable chunks out of the side facing the sea. He made them at eye height to make them easier to see.\n\n“This is where we meet,” he called out loud enough to cause everyone’s heads to turn towards him. “Unless you want to take a wolf to wife, you damned well better be here by day mark if you get separated. Those with me, keep your mouths shut. Var and Engli, you’ll take the lead. Remember, we want to capture a sigskifting, so try not to kill any of them until you’re sure they can’t change.”\n\nHe glanced back at Mord Redcheek, who nodded coolly. Ulvdræber would be here on the morrow. The trick was to ensure that he and his men were as well. He raised his axe in a salute to the Redcheek, then began walking south. It was going to be a long night, and perhaps a bloody one too, but at least he’d get a break from trying to get to sleep on that damned boat!\n\nIt was not long after night mark when they heard the first howls. They were high-pitched, juvenile howls, considerably less frightening than the deep ones that used to come down from the hills above Raknarborg and echo off the stone walls. They had made good time through the forest, and before the sun had set, both scouts detected numerous signs of wolf spoor and even the well-gnawed remains of a recent kill.\n\nThey made a cold and silent dinner as the sky turned red, as Skuli dared not risk the scent of a fire so close to the suspected Aalvarg habitation. Engli supplemented his paltry repast of dried meat with a handful of blackberries he’d somehow managed to collect in passing, and their unripe bitterness did more to quench his hunger than the tørkød.\n\nAfter Var located what looked like a well-traveled path, Skuli decided that they would try an ambush. He had Engli rub more of the musky blood-gland mixture on his soles, then had him walk a good ways towards the ruins of the village they’d spotted from the sea. He decided that they would wait until the Blood Moon had climbed as high into the sky as the Bone Moon before they risked venturing further towards the village.\n\n“I hear something,” Halldor whispered in his ear. Skuli had kept the young man near him, partly to keep him safe, but also because young ears are keener than old ones, especially old ones that have long known the deafening din of battle. “They come… quickly, I think!”\n\nSkuli nodded and gave out a soft owl call. He heard a faint rustling down the line in response; the men were ready. There was just enough light from the two moons overhead to see the far side of the clearing he had chosen for the ambush. He couldn’t see the eight men hidden behind the trees on the other side, but he knew they were there.\n\nThen he could hear the softly-rhythmic buddadadum-buddadadum of the Aalvarg approaching as their pads drummed against the soft woodland soil. They were coming rapidly indeed, so quickly that even though he was waiting for them, their actual appearance still managed to take him by surprise. First one grey blur, then a second followed by a third, flashed in front of him. He almost leaped out at them instinctively, but restrained himself when, as he hoped, the combination of the clearing and the crushed gland he’d buried towards the far end of it brought them to a halt.\n\nNone of the three were in the pure wolf form, he was disappointed to see. No shapeshifters these, for surely one would have transformed itself in order to better follow the trail of scent. All three were in their twisted natural shape, half-man, half-wolf, with long, wiry arms and powerful haunched legs that were an obscene parody of a man’s limbs. They were obviously young; the biggest was only two-thirds the size of the average Aalvarg warrior, and they were fixated on the scent with their noses were pressed hard against the ground. As they ran, they made loud whuffling noises that sounded for all the world like dogs.\n\nSkuli was just about to whistle when one of them looked back in the direction from which they’d come and made a sound that could only be described as a remonstrative, but friendly bark. A moment later, two more young Aalvarg appeared, followed, to Skuli’s astonishment, by what looked very much like a young woman wearing tattered rags that left her long white legs exposed. Sigskifting!\n\nHe took a firm grip on his axe, took a deep breath, raised his right hand to his lips, and whistled loudly. Two of the wolves whipped their heads around, then whirled in a circle as men leaped from the trees around them. Skuli himself sprang at the female shapeshifter, whose mouth had fallen open with the shock of the unexpected assault. She shrieked as he expertly swept her legs out from under her with the butt end of his long axe handle, then swung the head at the nearest wolf-demon as it leaped at Halldor with its claws outstretched and teeth bared.\n\nHe missed as the metal blade slashed through the air behind the creature, but it screamed in either pain or fury as it impaled itself on his young clansman’s sword. The force of its leap, combined with its weight, caused Halldor to stumble back and let go of his blade, but another Dalarn was already on top of the wounded beast and repeatedly stabbing it with either hand, almost as if he was beating a drum. Two-Dagger, Skuli realized, and he glanced down just in time to see the shapeshifter was trying to scramble away into the forest on all fours.\n\nHe leaped forward and kicked her thigh, causing her to collapse on her stomach, clutching at her leg and screaming. He dropped his axe and fell to one knee, grabbed both her arms and then lifted her up, twisted his upper body, and slammed her to the ground to knock the wind out of her lungs. Before she could recover, he was on top of her, pulling both arms up as he pressed his left knee into her back. Only when she was helpless and secured did he glance back to see how his men were faring.\n\nAlthough he could not make out many faces or any other details in the darkness, he could tell from all the laughing and light-hearted cursing he heard, that all five of the other young wolves were already dead.\n\nHalldor, having managed to find his blade in the corpse of the Aalvarg that Two-Dagger had killed, finished cleaning it off, sheathed it, and handed Skuli a long leather thong. He bent the shapeshifter’s arms together, looped the thong around her forearms several times, then tied it tightly enough to draw a gasp of pain from her. That way, even if she shifted, or grew claws, she wouldn’t be able to cut through the thong.\n\nHe stood up, turned around, and looked around the clearing. He didn’t see anyone on the ground except the dead wolves. “Anyone hurt?”\n\n“Engli stabbed me!” he heard someone declare reproachfully. He thought it was Alrik.\n\n“You got in the way, you clumsy snyde!” Engli the Black sounded entirely unrepentant.\n\n“Are you all right, Alrik?”\n\n“He’ll live,” the deep bass of Var rumbled. “I tied up his arm.”\n\n“How am I supposed to fight with one arm?”\n\n“You didn’t fight with two,” Engli said, which sparked no little laughter among the men.\n\nSkuli smiled and turned back to the wolf-girl. He stuck his foot under her and flipped her over, revealing a tear-stained face that was unexpectedly pretty, even mottled as it was by the shadows and the moonlight filtered through the leaves above. Had he encountered her in different circumstances, he might well have thought her a young woman only a few years younger than Fjotra. He couldn’t tell what color her hair was, but it was neither dark nor light.\n\nHe kneeled down beside her and took her face in his well-callused hand. He was mildly surprised to see fear in her eyes rather than the bestial defiance he’d come to expect of her kind. “Can you understand me? Can you talk?”\n\nShe blinked and nodded.\n\n“Where is your village? How many of you live there?”\n\nHer answer confused him. “You are… you are men?”\n\nNow it was his turn to nod. And if her first words had confused him, her next ones had him rocking back on his heels in astonishment.\n\n“I am not sigskifting! I am like you!”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1767, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch20_lodi-P1", "chapter": "ch20_lodi", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nKingsguard — battle-cry and office; one word, capital K.\ndraktakh / draktakha — scaled dwarf-things; forms as written.\nHublok Otek / Zeme Otek / Skála Otek / Roztok Otek / Pozar Otek / Válka Otek / Zemtek — dwarf gods/oaths; keep forms.\npasla / pasla / pasladha / paslhas / divci — dwarf women/children forms as written.\nVismi Bismisson — Hotstone mayor; keep spelling.\nBoru — plated siege veteran.\nOrin — young traveler; dies in the fight.\nYori / Thori — pickaxe twins.\nRaldri / Raldrizena — young couple from the train.\nMyf — Deepling under Lodi’s charge.\nHotstone / Hotstoners — cavern town and its dwarves.\n\n### STORY\nOn the fourth day downward with silent Myf, Lodi’s tunnel-train passenger cart halts without warning after days of stories and Grag.\nHe finds the thermal rail cold, orders the compartments to pack food, water, torches, and weapons, and forces Myf to speak—Deepling law allows talk to the Skyburned in emergency; she will obey—then turns away before her eyes unmake him.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nAlive in the Hotstone station fight’s aftermath; armor and beard soaked in red draktakh blood. Accounting dead and wounded; praying over Orin’s cut throat; steering Myf away from the worst; already wondering what stopped the train if these things did not.\n\nBoru\nAlive; plate splashed red; efficient killing partner; helps seal-talk and gratitude deflection.\n\nMyf\nAlive; silent shock at the halved draktakh; housed with pasla after the ice pool.\n\nVismi Bismisson\nHotstone mayor; alive; singed and grateful; does not know why the cavern was hit.\n\nOrin\nDeceased; throat opened early; coinsack to go to Raldri.\n\nYori / Thori\nAlive; wounded pride; told to gather scratched named pickaxes for resale.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nLodi frowned as half the dwarves burst out laughing even though they couldn’t have possibly known what Orin meant. It was nervous laughter, bordering on hysteria. “Keep it tight, lads,” he repeated. “Poke and bash, don’t swing and stab. Now, follow me!”\n\nHe hurled the torch aside and slipped his two-handed axe over his head. Boru was already holding his double-bladed great axe in both hands. Without further ado, he began jogging forward, not looking back to see if the others were following. The sound of battle grew louder as they approached the light, and Lodi could feel a slight warmth on his face from the burning fires.\n\nAs they rounded the final curve, he realized that the station, indeed, the town, was under attack. The situation wasn’t as quite as bad as he feared, as two buildings at the station were alight, but there was a team of dwarves already busily engaged in putting one of them out with sand, gravel, and water that was being pumped from a reservoir he couldn’t see.\n\nHe couldn’t quite see who their fellows were fighting, as being down on the level of the track, all he could see was the backs of the rearmost dwarves. When they reached the platform, he slid his axe onto it, clambered up, then turned around and extended a hand to help the dwarves following him, pulling them up one after the other while Boru got them back into formation.\n\nHe had just gotten back to the front when as something smashed its way through the thin defensive line set up by the station dwarves, felling one dwarf before shoving the dwarf next to him aside. It locked eyes with Lodi as he brandished his axe and then it bared its teeth as it gave an angry, unintelligible war cry.\n\nLodi nearly dropped his axe. Not because he was frightened, but because he had never, ever seen anything like the creature that stood in front of him, holding a crude iron bar in one hand. It looked like a dwarf, but a dwarf that was encased in some sort of metallic scales instead of skin and its eyes were yellow like an orc or a goblin. Was it armor? Or was it some sort of unholy abomination from the Underdeep?\n\nWhatever it was, it leaped at him, swinging its weapon horizontally at his head. Lodi dropped to one knee and the bar passed over him even as he swung his axe in a vicious plane about two arms-lengths below it. He saw that the creature bled just as red as any other dwarf as the upper half of its body abruptly parted company with the lower half, showering him with its blood.\n\nHe rose quickly to his feet, gore dripping from his axe. “Kingsguard!” he roared without even realizing what he was shouting. “Kingsguard!” the dwarves behind him echoed. And then he led them forward into the fray.\n\n### NOTES\nHotstone station town; two buildings still smoldering; hole the draktakha came from looks unnatural.\nNoncombatants were left up-tunnel; mayor will send for them.\nIce-cold rock pool for washing; taverns will house newcomers without charge.\nDraktakha bleed red; said to be Hublok Otek’s devil-work.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nPickaxe flashes and Kingsguard shouts finish the station fight beside Boru; the hole gets a look and a not-our-problem. Mayor Vismi names the enemy draktakha, thanks them, and trades wounded counts for fetching the pasla left in the tunnel. Twin pride, Orin’s throat, a four-god prayer and Válka’s honor line; Raldri’s party arrives to the wrong gore; Lodi makes Raldri take the coinsack and leads Myf through ash and a screaming divci to water and a bed. The scene lands once the newcomers have rooms—before the wake-drinking.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2400 words. Aftermath brutal and practical; land on housing secured, not the tavern wake.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The flash of a pickaxe. The grunt of a dwarf being struck. The screams of the wounded. Movement. Motion. Watching his foe’s chest, trying to read his next action, then either striking first, blocking, or seeking to evade. The smell of blood. The acrid stink of bladders being released in fear, and the stronger, more pungent odor of bowels being released in death. It was all so familiar to Lodi, and to his body, that he might have been battling cave goblins in the foundations of Iron Mountain, or men before the massive crowds of the Amorran arena. As he brought his axe down across the unarmored collarbone of one of the strange scaled dwarf-things, nearly cleaving it to the chest, he felt something tear in his wounded shoulder and knew he would be paying for it afterwards. But for now, he felt no pain, for his blood was up and the battle-fever was upon him.\n\n“Kingsguard!” he shouted so that his unarmored companions would know where he was. It made no sense, but old habits die hard and the cry served as well as any other. The station dwarves had been on the verge of being overwhelmed when Lodi and the others arrived, and the unexpected shock of their charge had initially driven the strange attackers back.\n\n“Kingsguard!” Boru shouted back from somewhere to his right. Lodi began moving towards him, as the older dwarf’s plate armor was proving to be a godsend. That, and his massive two-blade, which he swept back and forth before him, that sent the creatures reeling in fear even when they were not struck and permitted the other dwarves to advance into the space that was created. A few of them had developed a deadly technique where one dwarf would engage a scaled monster, his neighbor would crouch down to hook the dwarf-thing’s heel with his pick-head, then pull back hard on the handle. When the creature lost its balance and went down, the first dwarf would step forward and crush its head with the flat of his pick as his companion defended him.\n\nBetween that murderously efficient technique and their two armored axe-dwarves, Lodi’s impromptu company finally managed to force the enemy into retreat. There was a strange, wailing call, and then the freakish dwarf-things abruptly disengaged, throwing down their crude metal weapons, jostling, and knocking each other down in their panicked rush to flee. The fallen and the slow were quickly dispatched, and Lodi had to forcibly dissuade a few of the more hot-tempered young dwarves who would have foolishly followed the routed enemy down into the tunnel through which they’d fled.\n\nLodi studied the hole from which the strange creatures had emerged. It was small, but it didn’t look properly bored. It looked smooth, almost as if the stone had been melted rather than drilled. But what in the name of Skála Otek, the Rockfather, could possibly create such a neatly formed tunnel?\n\n“They’re going to want to seal that up, I should think,” Boru commented as he joined Lodi in front of the hole and ran his hand around the edges. “You ever seen anything like that?”\n\n“Not our problem.” He looked at Boru. The dwarf’s armor was liberally splashed with red blood from the crest of his helm to the toes of his steel boots. He realized he probably didn’t look much better, and the blood was going to wash off of Boru’s plate a damn sight easier than it was out of the heavy wool jacket that he wore under his chain mail. “What the peklo were those things? They had scales!”\n\n“They’re called draktakha. It’s said they are devils made by Hublok Otek. We’d heard reports, although this is the first time they’ve been seen this close to the surface.”\n\nThe speaker was a bald dwarf with a singed beard, a blackened face, and more than a little blood splattered across his forearms and chest. He started to hold out his hands to them in greeting, then belatedly tried to wipe them off on his trousers, and finally gave it up as a hopeless cause and bowed instead. “I’m Vismi, son of Bismi. I’m the mayor of Hotstone Cavern, and I can’t thank you enough for what the two of you and your companions here did for our clan.”\n\nLodi waved his hand and Boru made a dismissive sound. He understood the dwarf’s appreciation, but gratitude was hardly necessary. It wasn’t as if the draktakha or whatever the strange creatures were truly called, would have invited them in for mushrooms and moss tea after slaughtering the cavern clan.\n\n“I’m afraid you may have lost a few,” the mayor said. “Why don’t you see to your wounded and let us know what we can do for you.”\n\n“We left about twenty pasla and pasladha up in the tunnel, about five hundred yards back. Can you send a group of your zenha out to them and bring them here?”\n\n“Is that where you came from? A stopped train?”\n\nBoru nodded. “We was marching up when we heard the ruckus. Figured it was no place for the females and young ’uns. We left ten dwarves there to guard them.”\n\n“Well, I’m damn glad you showed when you did.” Vismi glanced over where some of the dwarves from the train were dragging a body out from under a pair of dead draktakha. “And I’m sorry about those you lost. See to your own; I’ll send my own wife out after the families.”\n\nLodi nodded. He figured there was no point in explaining that he didn’t even know most of the names of his own fallen. He and Boru walked back towards where two dwarves from the train were standing over their dead companion. They were both bloody, one was wounded, and they both had tears in their eyes.\n\n“It’s our brother, Hari,” the wounded dwarf said. “We was just going back to see our folks. How are we going to tell them? What do we-”\n\nHis voice trembled and broke off as he looked down at the ground, away from his fallen brother.\n\n“You tell them the truth.” Boru put his hand on the young dwarf’s shoulder. “He died saving dwarves, dwarf wives, and children. He died a hero and Zeme Otek will welcome him into the earth with honor.”\n\nLodi walked past the grieving brothers, patting each one on the back as he did so. There were fewer corpses along the route where they’d chased the cursed creatures, but once he reached the place where they’d thrown the attackers back, he saw how brutal the battle had been. They must have slain over sixty of the scaly things, and dozens of dwarves had fallen as well, though most of them were Hotstoners. He saw Thori and Yori; they were both alive but Yori was cradling his left arm even though he didn’t seem to be bleeding.\n\n“What happened?”\n\nYori’s face was pale and he was wincing with the pain, but there was fierce pride in his eyes as he raised his head and recognized Lodi. “Otekzatra thing caught my forearm with one of those stupid bars. I saw it coming and tried to block it with my pick, but I was too late.”\n\n“I killed the bastard, though.” Thori said proudly. “We was keeping it tight, just like you said. But his arm… that’s why we didn’t follow you when you went chasing after them.”\n\n“You got there soon enough,” Lodi reassured Yori. “Too late is when they knock you on the head. You’ll heal.”\n\nHe started to move on to check on the others, but turned back when a thought occurred to him. “Say, lads?”\n\n“Yeah, Lodi?”\n\n“You may want to gather up those picks. Scratched or no, you’ll be able to sell them for three, maybe four times what you were asking. After I tell the king what you all did here, with your picks, half the rich mizera at Iron Mountain are going to want one.”\n\nThe twins looked at each other, then broke into simultaneous smiles. “You may have a beard for business after all, Lodi Dunmorinson,” Thori said.\n\n“If the king don’t have nothing for you, come find us,” Yori added. “We’ll give you a job.”\n\nLodi laughed and turned away. But what he saw next quickly wiped the amusement from his face. A single dwarf lay dead not far from the severed halves of the draktakh Lodi had cut in half just after it broke through the Hotstone line. It was Orin Sperrylite, and his black beard was soaked and matted with the blood that had spilled down his tunic all the way to his crotch. His eyes were open and staring up at the stalactites on the ceiling overhead.\n\nLodi frowned, kneeled down, and gently lifted Orin’s beard. As he suspected, the young dwarf’s throat had been ripped open, most likely by a draktakh’s curved claw. Cursing under his breath, he closed Orin’s eyes, whispering a short, silent prayer to the First Fathers as he did so.\n\nAccept him, Zeme Otek.\n\nCover him, Skála Otek.\n\nConsole him, Roztok Otek.\n\nRelease him, Pozar Otek.\n\nShaking his head with frustration, knowing that the younger dwarf must have been struck down practically within reach of him, Lodi rose to his feet again. He leaned down to pick up Orin’s pickaxe, and was surprised to see there was blood on one tip. He snorted ruefully. Hadn’t he told the thieving gragtosser to bash, not stab? The unlucky lad may not have fought as well as he tossed, but he had shed zlotakh blood, and that made him worthy of the last line of the prayer, the one only addressed to the War Father on behalf of warriors fallen in battle.\n\nHonor him, Válka Otek.\n\nHe heard the rush of several dwarves approaching and saw it was Raldri, followed closely by Raldrizena and Myf.\n\n“Lodi!” the young dwarf cried. “Are you hurt?”\n\nLodi stared at him, incredulous, until he realized how he must have looked to them, covered in draktakh blood as he was. “I’m fine, lad. Orin didn’t make it through, though.”\n\n“Oh, no!” Raldrizena cried. Myf didn’t make a sound, but she raised her hand to her mouth and her eyes were suddenly bright with tears. Two of them traced a path down on either side of her nose, until she wiped them away and looked at Lodi with a concerned expression on her face.\n\n“Are you really all right? Lodi, you look… dreadful.”\n\n“It ain’t mine.” He shrugged. “Seems they bleed a lot when you chop them in two.”\n\nShe noticed the two halves of the draktakh for the first time, as her eyes suddenly widened and she gagged three times before mastering herself. It took her a moment to recover. “Did you do that? What is it?”\n\n“The Rock Father knows, but I sure don’t.” He looked at Raldri. “Orin had a fat coinsack on him. Best you take it off him. He don’t need it now.”\n\n“I’m not a graverobber!”\n\n“I ain’t saying you is. But if you don’t take it, strangers who never knew him will.”\n\nRaldri hesitated, then, at his wife’s urging, he kneeled down beside their former traveling companion. Before he turned away, Lodi noted with approval that the young dwarf had shut his eyes and seemed to be saying something, though if it was addressed to Orin or the First Fathers, he couldn’t tell. In truth, he didn’t care, he was just glad to know the younger generation still seemed to have a sense of decency about themselves.\n\n“Come with me,” he told Myf. “Let’s see if we can find you somewhere that ain’t burnt where they can put you up. I want to find some water so I can get cleaned up.”\n\nHe led her away from the bloody remains of battle and past the smoldering buildings into the town proper. The circle in the heart of the cavern was full of dwarves, most of whom were either in shock or wailing with grief. Twenty or so corpses had been arranged side by side in the center; as they watched, another young dwarf with a red beard was carried in by two older, red-bearded dwarves that looked as if they might be his father and his uncle. Myf looked away as they laid him carefully down by his fallen companions, the pain etched into the older dwarves’ faces was simply too much for her to bear.\n\nThen there was a piercing scream and a pretty young divci, distraught, tried to throw herself on the dead young dwarf. One of the older dwarves intercepted her and buried her face in his chest to muffle her heart-rending shrieks. Gods, Lodi thought. It wasn’t the battle itself that was so bad. For the most part, you were too busy to do much more than react and try to bash them before they could bash you. By far the worst part of it was the aftermath, and the sight of hearts breaking one after the other.\n\n“Zemtek, how could you let this happen?” he heard Myf whisper.\n\n“Zeme Otek didn’t have nothing to do with it. Better you ask Válka Otek.”\n\n“Why were they attacking this cavern?”\n\n“Let’s go ask him.” Lodi pointed to the mayor. “Maybe he knows something by now.”\n\nBut Vismi Bismisson knew no more than he had before. He did, however, lead them to a ice-cold rock pool where Lodi was able to climb in and wash off the worst of the now-sticky blood before it hardened, and he even promised Lodi some dry clothes. He also located the town’s two tavernkeepers, who readily agreed to put up all of the unexpected newcomers in their establishments without charging them for either room or board.\n", "completion": "The flash of a pickaxe. The grunt of a dwarf being struck. The screams of the wounded. Movement. Motion. Watching his foe’s chest, trying to read his next action, then either striking first, blocking, or seeking to evade. The smell of blood. The acrid stink of bladders being released in fear, and the stronger, more pungent odor of bowels being released in death. It was all so familiar to Lodi, and to his body, that he might have been battling cave goblins in the foundations of Iron Mountain, or men before the massive crowds of the Amorran arena. As he brought his axe down across the unarmored collarbone of one of the strange scaled dwarf-things, nearly cleaving it to the chest, he felt something tear in his wounded shoulder and knew he would be paying for it afterwards. But for now, he felt no pain, for his blood was up and the battle-fever was upon him.\n\n“Kingsguard!” he shouted so that his unarmored companions would know where he was. It made no sense, but old habits die hard and the cry served as well as any other. The station dwarves had been on the verge of being overwhelmed when Lodi and the others arrived, and the unexpected shock of their charge had initially driven the strange attackers back.\n\n“Kingsguard!” Boru shouted back from somewhere to his right. Lodi began moving towards him, as the older dwarf’s plate armor was proving to be a godsend. That, and his massive two-blade, which he swept back and forth before him, that sent the creatures reeling in fear even when they were not struck and permitted the other dwarves to advance into the space that was created. A few of them had developed a deadly technique where one dwarf would engage a scaled monster, his neighbor would crouch down to hook the dwarf-thing’s heel with his pick-head, then pull back hard on the handle. When the creature lost its balance and went down, the first dwarf would step forward and crush its head with the flat of his pick as his companion defended him.\n\nBetween that murderously efficient technique and their two armored axe-dwarves, Lodi’s impromptu company finally managed to force the enemy into retreat. There was a strange, wailing call, and then the freakish dwarf-things abruptly disengaged, throwing down their crude metal weapons, jostling, and knocking each other down in their panicked rush to flee. The fallen and the slow were quickly dispatched, and Lodi had to forcibly dissuade a few of the more hot-tempered young dwarves who would have foolishly followed the routed enemy down into the tunnel through which they’d fled.\n\nLodi studied the hole from which the strange creatures had emerged. It was small, but it didn’t look properly bored. It looked smooth, almost as if the stone had been melted rather than drilled. But what in the name of Skála Otek, the Rockfather, could possibly create such a neatly formed tunnel?\n\n“They’re going to want to seal that up, I should think,” Boru commented as he joined Lodi in front of the hole and ran his hand around the edges. “You ever seen anything like that?”\n\n“Not our problem.” He looked at Boru. The dwarf’s armor was liberally splashed with red blood from the crest of his helm to the toes of his steel boots. He realized he probably didn’t look much better, and the blood was going to wash off of Boru’s plate a damn sight easier than it was out of the heavy wool jacket that he wore under his chain mail. “What the peklo were those things? They had scales!”\n\n“They’re called draktakha. It’s said they are devils made by Hublok Otek. We’d heard reports, although this is the first time they’ve been seen this close to the surface.”\n\nThe speaker was a bald dwarf with a singed beard, a blackened face, and more than a little blood splattered across his forearms and chest. He started to hold out his hands to them in greeting, then belatedly tried to wipe them off on his trousers, and finally gave it up as a hopeless cause and bowed instead. “I’m Vismi, son of Bismi. I’m the mayor of Hotstone Cavern, and I can’t thank you enough for what the two of you and your companions here did for our clan.”\n\nLodi waved his hand and Boru made a dismissive sound. He understood the dwarf’s appreciation, but gratitude was hardly necessary. It wasn’t as if the draktakha or whatever the strange creatures were truly called, would have invited them in for mushrooms and moss tea after slaughtering the cavern clan.\n\n“I’m afraid you may have lost a few,” the mayor said. “Why don’t you see to your wounded and let us know what we can do for you.”\n\n“We left about twenty pasla and pasladha up in the tunnel, about five hundred yards back. Can you send a group of your zenha out to them and bring them here?”\n\n“Is that where you came from? A stopped train?”\n\nBoru nodded. “We was marching up when we heard the ruckus. Figured it was no place for the females and young ’uns. We left ten dwarves there to guard them.”\n\n“Well, I’m damn glad you showed when you did.” Vismi glanced over where some of the dwarves from the train were dragging a body out from under a pair of dead draktakha. “And I’m sorry about those you lost. See to your own; I’ll send my own wife out after the families.”\n\nLodi nodded. He figured there was no point in explaining that he didn’t even know most of the names of his own fallen. He and Boru walked back towards where two dwarves from the train were standing over their dead companion. They were both bloody, one was wounded, and they both had tears in their eyes.\n\n“It’s our brother, Hari,” the wounded dwarf said. “We was just going back to see our folks. How are we going to tell them? What do we-”\n\nHis voice trembled and broke off as he looked down at the ground, away from his fallen brother.\n\n“You tell them the truth.” Boru put his hand on the young dwarf’s shoulder. “He died saving dwarves, dwarf wives, and children. He died a hero and Zeme Otek will welcome him into the earth with honor.”\n\nLodi walked past the grieving brothers, patting each one on the back as he did so. There were fewer corpses along the route where they’d chased the cursed creatures, but once he reached the place where they’d thrown the attackers back, he saw how brutal the battle had been. They must have slain over sixty of the scaly things, and dozens of dwarves had fallen as well, though most of them were Hotstoners. He saw Thori and Yori; they were both alive but Yori was cradling his left arm even though he didn’t seem to be bleeding.\n\n“What happened?”\n\nYori’s face was pale and he was wincing with the pain, but there was fierce pride in his eyes as he raised his head and recognized Lodi. “Otekzatra thing caught my forearm with one of those stupid bars. I saw it coming and tried to block it with my pick, but I was too late.”\n\n“I killed the bastard, though.” Thori said proudly. “We was keeping it tight, just like you said. But his arm… that’s why we didn’t follow you when you went chasing after them.”\n\n“You got there soon enough,” Lodi reassured Yori. “Too late is when they knock you on the head. You’ll heal.”\n\nHe started to move on to check on the others, but turned back when a thought occurred to him. “Say, lads?”\n\n“Yeah, Lodi?”\n\n“You may want to gather up those picks. Scratched or no, you’ll be able to sell them for three, maybe four times what you were asking. After I tell the king what you all did here, with your picks, half the rich mizera at Iron Mountain are going to want one.”\n\nThe twins looked at each other, then broke into simultaneous smiles. “You may have a beard for business after all, Lodi Dunmorinson,” Thori said.\n\n“If the king don’t have nothing for you, come find us,” Yori added. “We’ll give you a job.”\n\nLodi laughed and turned away. But what he saw next quickly wiped the amusement from his face. A single dwarf lay dead not far from the severed halves of the draktakh Lodi had cut in half just after it broke through the Hotstone line. It was Orin Sperrylite, and his black beard was soaked and matted with the blood that had spilled down his tunic all the way to his crotch. His eyes were open and staring up at the stalactites on the ceiling overhead.\n\nLodi frowned, kneeled down, and gently lifted Orin’s beard. As he suspected, the young dwarf’s throat had been ripped open, most likely by a draktakh’s curved claw. Cursing under his breath, he closed Orin’s eyes, whispering a short, silent prayer to the First Fathers as he did so.\n\nAccept him, Zeme Otek.\n\nCover him, Skála Otek.\n\nConsole him, Roztok Otek.\n\nRelease him, Pozar Otek.\n\nShaking his head with frustration, knowing that the younger dwarf must have been struck down practically within reach of him, Lodi rose to his feet again. He leaned down to pick up Orin’s pickaxe, and was surprised to see there was blood on one tip. He snorted ruefully. Hadn’t he told the thieving gragtosser to bash, not stab? The unlucky lad may not have fought as well as he tossed, but he had shed zlotakh blood, and that made him worthy of the last line of the prayer, the one only addressed to the War Father on behalf of warriors fallen in battle.\n\nHonor him, Válka Otek.\n\nHe heard the rush of several dwarves approaching and saw it was Raldri, followed closely by Raldrizena and Myf.\n\n“Lodi!” the young dwarf cried. “Are you hurt?”\n\nLodi stared at him, incredulous, until he realized how he must have looked to them, covered in draktakh blood as he was. “I’m fine, lad. Orin didn’t make it through, though.”\n\n“Oh, no!” Raldrizena cried. Myf didn’t make a sound, but she raised her hand to her mouth and her eyes were suddenly bright with tears. Two of them traced a path down on either side of her nose, until she wiped them away and looked at Lodi with a concerned expression on her face.\n\n“Are you really all right? Lodi, you look… dreadful.”\n\n“It ain’t mine.” He shrugged. “Seems they bleed a lot when you chop them in two.”\n\nShe noticed the two halves of the draktakh for the first time, as her eyes suddenly widened and she gagged three times before mastering herself. It took her a moment to recover. “Did you do that? What is it?”\n\n“The Rock Father knows, but I sure don’t.” He looked at Raldri. “Orin had a fat coinsack on him. Best you take it off him. He don’t need it now.”\n\n“I’m not a graverobber!”\n\n“I ain’t saying you is. But if you don’t take it, strangers who never knew him will.”\n\nRaldri hesitated, then, at his wife’s urging, he kneeled down beside their former traveling companion. Before he turned away, Lodi noted with approval that the young dwarf had shut his eyes and seemed to be saying something, though if it was addressed to Orin or the First Fathers, he couldn’t tell. In truth, he didn’t care, he was just glad to know the younger generation still seemed to have a sense of decency about themselves.\n\n“Come with me,” he told Myf. “Let’s see if we can find you somewhere that ain’t burnt where they can put you up. I want to find some water so I can get cleaned up.”\n\nHe led her away from the bloody remains of battle and past the smoldering buildings into the town proper. The circle in the heart of the cavern was full of dwarves, most of whom were either in shock or wailing with grief. Twenty or so corpses had been arranged side by side in the center; as they watched, another young dwarf with a red beard was carried in by two older, red-bearded dwarves that looked as if they might be his father and his uncle. Myf looked away as they laid him carefully down by his fallen companions, the pain etched into the older dwarves’ faces was simply too much for her to bear.\n\nThen there was a piercing scream and a pretty young divci, distraught, tried to throw herself on the dead young dwarf. One of the older dwarves intercepted her and buried her face in his chest to muffle her heart-rending shrieks. Gods, Lodi thought. It wasn’t the battle itself that was so bad. For the most part, you were too busy to do much more than react and try to bash them before they could bash you. By far the worst part of it was the aftermath, and the sight of hearts breaking one after the other.\n\n“Zemtek, how could you let this happen?” he heard Myf whisper.\n\n“Zeme Otek didn’t have nothing to do with it. Better you ask Válka Otek.”\n\n“Why were they attacking this cavern?”\n\n“Let’s go ask him.” Lodi pointed to the mayor. “Maybe he knows something by now.”\n\nBut Vismi Bismisson knew no more than he had before. He did, however, lead them to a ice-cold rock pool where Lodi was able to climb in and wash off the worst of the now-sticky blood before it hardened, and he even promised Lodi some dry clothes. He also located the town’s two tavernkeepers, who readily agreed to put up all of the unexpected newcomers in their establishments without charging them for either room or board.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2379, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch20_lodi-P2", "chapter": "ch20_lodi", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ndraktakh / draktakha — scaled foes; forms as written.\nKingsguard — office and address; capital K.\nMyf — Deepling charge.\nBoru — veteran partner.\nVismi Bismisson / Hotstoners — mayor and townsfolk.\nOrin — dead; pickaxe to be gilded in memory.\nThorald — already sent ahead toward the king in prior plan.\nUnderdeep — deeper threat-place; capital U when the abyss is meant.\npasla — dwarf women; form as written.\n\n### STORY\nOn the fourth day downward with silent Myf, Lodi’s tunnel-train passenger cart halts without warning after days of stories and Grag.\nHe finds the thermal rail cold, orders the compartments to pack food, water, torches, and weapons, and forces Myf to speak—Deepling law allows talk to the Skyburned in emergency; she will obey—then turns away before her eyes unmake him.\nHe leads thirty-six armed dwarves into a burning station, bisects a scaled yellow-eyed dwarf-thing, and roars Kingsguard as he charges.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nAlive, hungover on the morning after; soft on the dead lads and hard on soft training; gifts Orin’s pick for a memorial; drives a push-cart expedition toward the king with Boru and volunteers. Suspicious the rail failure is not the draktakha’s doing.\n\nBoru\nAlive; defends the unarmored dead as no cowards; joins the cart plan; owes the Hotstone fighters.\n\nMyf\nAlive; offers to check his wounds; obedient when refused; housed with pasla.\n\nYoung engineer\nAlive; fifty-five; insists on joining to make twelve; may know Underdeep stone.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I ain’t saying you is. But if you don’t take it, strangers who never knew him will.”\n\nRaldri hesitated, then, at his wife’s urging, he kneeled down beside their former traveling companion. Before he turned away, Lodi noted with approval that the young dwarf had shut his eyes and seemed to be saying something, though if it was addressed to Orin or the First Fathers, he couldn’t tell. In truth, he didn’t care, he was just glad to know the younger generation still seemed to have a sense of decency about themselves.\n\n“Come with me,” he told Myf. “Let’s see if we can find you somewhere that ain’t burnt where they can put you up. I want to find some water so I can get cleaned up.”\n\nHe led her away from the bloody remains of battle and past the smoldering buildings into the town proper. The circle in the heart of the cavern was full of dwarves, most of whom were either in shock or wailing with grief. Twenty or so corpses had been arranged side by side in the center; as they watched, another young dwarf with a red beard was carried in by two older, red-bearded dwarves that looked as if they might be his father and his uncle. Myf looked away as they laid him carefully down by his fallen companions, the pain etched into the older dwarves’ faces was simply too much for her to bear.\n\nThen there was a piercing scream and a pretty young divci, distraught, tried to throw herself on the dead young dwarf. One of the older dwarves intercepted her and buried her face in his chest to muffle her heart-rending shrieks. Gods, Lodi thought. It wasn’t the battle itself that was so bad. For the most part, you were too busy to do much more than react and try to bash them before they could bash you. By far the worst part of it was the aftermath, and the sight of hearts breaking one after the other.\n\n“Zemtek, how could you let this happen?” he heard Myf whisper.\n\n“Zeme Otek didn’t have nothing to do with it. Better you ask Válka Otek.”\n\n“Why were they attacking this cavern?”\n\n“Let’s go ask him.” Lodi pointed to the mayor. “Maybe he knows something by now.”\n\nBut Vismi Bismisson knew no more than he had before. He did, however, lead them to a ice-cold rock pool where Lodi was able to climb in and wash off the worst of the now-sticky blood before it hardened, and he even promised Lodi some dry clothes. He also located the town’s two tavernkeepers, who readily agreed to put up all of the unexpected newcomers in their establishments without charging them for either room or board.\n\n### NOTES\nMass funeral: forty-eight Hotstoners among the dead; horrific and public.\nStationmaster and two engineers; one push-cart available; brakes to rig; three carts provisioned in plan.\nTarget: get word to the king; Thorald may already be carrying news.\nTwelve dwarves preferred for the carts; Hotstone to help gear up.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nWake-cups with Boru: Orin should have poked not swung; soft age versus courage; the niggling fear that whatever killed the rail is still ahead. Morning headache, Myf’s wound-offer refused, armor cleaned; Orin’s pick and refused coins to Vismi for a gilded memory; funeral horror; then stationmaster talk—walk the tunnel or push-carts with brakes, twelve strong, young engineer forcing his way on. Lodi smiles at a dwarf who might dig answers out of Underdeep stone. The scene lands on that smile—before the two days of provisioning.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2300 words. Grief and logistics braided; land on the expedition roster closed.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Once he saw Myf safely ensconced in a room with Raldrizena and several other pasla, Lodi joined Boru, the twins, and about ten other dwarves in the larger of the two taverns. Raldri joined them and used one of Orin’s gold coins to buy them all three rounds of ale, and even those who hadn’t met him mournfully raised their tankards to salute his courage and his generosity once, twice, and then again thrice.\n\n“He must have gone down in the initial charge,” Lodi, maudlin in his cups, muttered to Boru.\n\n“I didn’t see the poor lad,” the older dwarf, considerably less imposing now that he was shed of his armor, admitted. “Didn’t know him, more’s the pity. Earth Father rest him.”\n\n“Why didn’t he push the damn thing off him? I told them all to poke at the bastards, not swing the bloody useless things. When the hell did dwarves stop carrying axes about anyway?”\n\nBoru snorted. “About six months after the Troll King got hisself spitted.”\n\n“They’re too damn soft now! We was all carrying axes, half our dead would still be alive.”\n\n“Soft? No axes, no armor, and not a single lad ran! You ain’t being fair, Lodi. They was a credit to the dwarves, they was!”\n\n“Yeah, they was,” Lodi said as he hunched wearily down on the wooden table between his outspread elbows. “I don’t know, it just sickens my heart. Maybe I ain’t cut out for this sort o’ thing anymore.”\n\n“You and me both, laddie!” Boru rolled his shoulders and groaned. “I’ll be hurting for a sixday and I didn’t take so much as a bruise. Getting old hurts.”\n\n“Not as much as not getting older does.”\n\nBoru laughed and raised his ceramic tankard to knock it against Lodi’s. “Damn, Kingsguard, we may have lost a few, but we beat those bastards with nothing more than a bunch of green young civilians. That’ll be good for a few drinks once we reach the Mountain!”\n\nLodi frowned. A thought had been niggling at the bottom of his mind ever since he’d seen the draktakha disappearing down the tunnel from which they’d come. It finally formed itself into something he could express in words. “They wasn’t near the line.”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The draktakha, the scaly things.”\n\n“What about it?”\n\n“If they didn’t cause the trouble with the train rail, what did? And if the trouble ain’t here, they can’t fix it here. And if they can’t fix it here, how we going to get to the Mountain?”\n\nThe next day, Lodi slept in. That didn’t prevent him from waking with a headache that briefly made him wonder if someone had hit him with one of those damn iron clubs. He’d just been thinking of going upstairs and turning in when Vismi Bismisson and a group of locals showed up, seemingly determined to pour all the ale in Hotstone down their rescuers’ throats. He didn’t remember staggering upstairs, and he apparently hadn’t bothered undressing, as he was still wearing the brown wool tunic and trousers the mayor had given him the day before.\n\nHe found the urinal in the next room in the nick of time, and took longer than he would have imagined possible “draining the goblin”, as his old sergeant put it. He was still standing there stupidly, holding his dwarfhood in his hand, when a bleary-eyed, bushy-bearded Thori stuck his head in and announced that there was a breakfast spread downstairs, and that their presence at the funerals, which would be held at noon, was requested.\n\nLodi grunted something noncommittal before looking down and wondering if he was going to be done urinating by then. It would have come in handy yesterday, he thought. He could have put out all the damn fires by himself. After finally finishing, then splashing water on his face and running his wet hands through his hair and beard, he wandered downstairs and discovered a decent collection of lizard eggs, blindfish sausage, and flatcakes, all of which he washed down with several hairs of the dog that bit his arse the night before.\n\nHe went to find the tavernkeeper, who was kind enough to show where his clothes and armor had been left to dry. The clothes were nearly dry, but the chain mail was tacky, so he borrowed a wire brush and carried it outside, where he could clean it off without making a mess. He was still sitting there, working on some bloody grit in the left shoulder, when a familiar scent made him sit upright in a hurry.\n\n“Good morning, Lodi.” It was Myf, looking considerably fresher than any of the dwarves he’d encountered at breakfast.\n\n“Mornin’, anyhow,” he grunted, returning his attention to his armor. “Don’t know about good.”\n\n“Raldrizena tells me there will be a funeral today. Will you be attending?”\n\n“Aye. Seems the thing to do.”\n\n“It occurs to me you may have reopened your wounds yesterday. Do you want me to look at them?”\n\nHe looked up at her, startled. “Gods, no! I’m fine, Myf, you needn’t concern your pretty little head about me. Might want to have a gander at Yori’s arm, though, make sure they splinted it right.”\n\nShe nodded obediently, then climbed the steps past him. It took a considerable effort not to turn and watch her enter the tavern, but he managed it and returned to his mail-polishing after making a sound that was half-grumble, half-sigh.\n\nAfter he finished cleaning the armor, he returned it to the room in which he and the others had been sleeping, found the twins, and arranged for a purchase. His newly-owned pickaxe thus acquired, he went in search of Vismi Bismisson and found him in the funeral plot, where the bodies of Hotstone dwarves were interred to rejoin with the Earth Father. The huge cavern was abundantly lit with glowmoss and earthlight lamps, and festooned with colorful banners bearing clan runes, but the rows of rough canvas bags belied its somber purpose.\n\n“What can I do for you, Lodi?” The mayor was polite, but he was clearly pressed for time.\n\n“I wanted to give you this.” Lodi offered him Orin’s pickaxe and two silver coins. “That should cover the cost o’ havin’ it bronzed. Thought it would make a good remembrance for the folks here. You know, for the ones who died, the outsiders.”\n\nThe mayor accepted the pick, but refused the coins. “We won’t have it bronzed, we’ll have it gilded. Get me the names of those who died. They’ll be buried with our own and their names will be inscribed on this. A fitting tribute to the dwarves who saved Hotstone. Will you want to say a few words?”\n\nLodi shook his head. “Nah. Just wanted to give you Hotstoners something to remember them by. Seems they deserve it.”\n\nThe mayor smiled, though his eyes were grim. “Never fear, Lodi Dunmorinson. We dwarves, we don’t forget.”\n\nThe mass funeral was every bit as horrific and heartbreaking as Lodi assumed it would be. Forty-eight Hotstoners and nine outsiders were given back to Zeme Otek, who would see that their bodies eventually returned new life to the Kamensvet. The zemknez, an elderly dwarf with a long white beard that brushed the ground even though braided, spoke eloquently enough of bravery and sacrifice, but his words were cold comfort to the bereaved families who had lost their loved ones. Myf and the other pasla wept openly, and even Lodi found he had to swallow hard once or twice when a young widow tried, and failed, to hold herself together when speaking of her fallen husband.\n\nAfterwards, Lodi found Boru, and they sought out the cavern stationmaster. Fortunately, neither he nor his two engineers were among the slain, but they confirmed what Lodi had already surmised. While they could drag the carts to the platform easily enough, there was absolutely nothing they could do to bring the track back to life again.\n\n“It’s possible to walk it,” the older of the two engineers pointed out. “I done it a while back, after they cleared the blocking of the tunnel, but afore they had the track hot and running again. Takes a sixday, maybe half that again with the wives and little ones. There’s only two declines that’ll be a little tricky, but there’ll be ropes to assist you. Maybe even steps carved on the sides by now.”\n\n“There has to be a better way,” Boru said. “Don’t you got none o’ them carts with the push lever on it?”\n\nThe two engineers looked at each other. “Yeah, we got one. That’s how we was going to bring the train to the station. But you can’t use it to go all the way to Iron Mountain. You’ll go too fast on the big declines, jump the track, and probably kill everyone riding.”\n\n“I ain’t talking about the whole train,” Lodi said. “Forget the train. We got to get word to the king. He needs to know what happened here. For all we know, every cavern from the Underdeep to the Nebesvet is in danger from them critters.”\n\n“We could rig up some brakes for it,” the younger engineer said. “We never needed them here, but it shouldn’t be too hard. It’d let you carry two, maybe three carts safely.”\n\nThe older engineer had his eyes closed. “Three is no problem. The decline ain’t that steep. We could probably do four, but let’s leave it at three and keep it safe. You can’t take everyone on three carts, though.”\n\n“I don’t see that we want to anyhow,” Boru pointed out. “We got no idea what we might run into anywhere between here and Iron Mountain. Track’s dead, but maybe it’s blocked by a rockslide, maybe it’s been mined, hell, maybe a dragon found it and followed it down to the city! We don’t want the families coming with us until we know it’s safe.”\n\n“You, me, and eight others,” Lodi said. “If you Hotstoners can help us gear up, that’ll be enough to deal with most anything we run across. I’ll need to bring the young divci too; she’s in my charge, and considering that tunnel, I can’t be certain she’d be safer in Hotstone anyhow.”\n\nThe stationmaster looked as if he wanted to argue, but Lodi quelled him with a stare. “With eleven, we only need two carts. Attach the push-cart to the first one from the train and leave it loaded. Thori can be one of the eight; the twins will make our lives a living hell if we don’t let them unload those damn picks.”\n\nHe half expected opposition, but found none. Boru shrugged.\n\n“We owe it to them. We’d have lost five or six more if they hadn’t been along.”\n\nThere was a brief silence. Then the younger engineer spoke up. “Make it an even twelve. I’m coming with you.”\n\n“You can’t-”\n\n“I can too!” the younger engineer cut off the stationmaster. “I’m fifty-five years old and I’m old enough to make my own decisions, father! If something goes wrong with the push-cart, who is going to fix it? Besides, I’ve never been to Iron Mountain and I want to see it. What if I’d been killed by one of those supina pasla?”\n\nLodi frowned, not because he had any objection to the young dwarf joining the expedition. In fact, he thought it would be rather handy to have someone familiar with the track machinery along. But the engineer’s use of the term “scaly dwarves” troubled him. The bodies of the draktakha had been buried in one of the caverns used for degradable trash; they too would serve the dwarves of Hotstone Cavern in death. But before they’d been disposed, Lodi had taken a close look at one, and there was no denying that whatever it was, it was much more closely akin to a dwarf than an orc or a goblin.\n\nThere were minor differences about the beardless faces, the teeth were similar to a kobold’s and the bodies were somewhat thinner than the average dwarf’s, but it could hardly be denied that if you starved a dwarf, shaved him, bashed him in the mouth with a shovel, dipped him in glue and rolled him in bronzed snake scales, he’d look damned close to a draktakh. Too damned close.\n\nBut that was for the king’s council to sort out. His job was to see that Thorald had gotten word to the king about the massive orc invasion of the Elf and Man lands, and to let him know about this incursion by the mysterious creatures of the deep. He regretted that they hadn’t thought to preserve one of the bodies, then realized he could simply ask the Hotstoners for permission to dig one up. He looked at the young engineer and smiled. The lad could come in handy sooner than he probably expected.\n", "completion": "Once he saw Myf safely ensconced in a room with Raldrizena and several other pasla, Lodi joined Boru, the twins, and about ten other dwarves in the larger of the two taverns. Raldri joined them and used one of Orin’s gold coins to buy them all three rounds of ale, and even those who hadn’t met him mournfully raised their tankards to salute his courage and his generosity once, twice, and then again thrice.\n\n“He must have gone down in the initial charge,” Lodi, maudlin in his cups, muttered to Boru.\n\n“I didn’t see the poor lad,” the older dwarf, considerably less imposing now that he was shed of his armor, admitted. “Didn’t know him, more’s the pity. Earth Father rest him.”\n\n“Why didn’t he push the damn thing off him? I told them all to poke at the bastards, not swing the bloody useless things. When the hell did dwarves stop carrying axes about anyway?”\n\nBoru snorted. “About six months after the Troll King got hisself spitted.”\n\n“They’re too damn soft now! We was all carrying axes, half our dead would still be alive.”\n\n“Soft? No axes, no armor, and not a single lad ran! You ain’t being fair, Lodi. They was a credit to the dwarves, they was!”\n\n“Yeah, they was,” Lodi said as he hunched wearily down on the wooden table between his outspread elbows. “I don’t know, it just sickens my heart. Maybe I ain’t cut out for this sort o’ thing anymore.”\n\n“You and me both, laddie!” Boru rolled his shoulders and groaned. “I’ll be hurting for a sixday and I didn’t take so much as a bruise. Getting old hurts.”\n\n“Not as much as not getting older does.”\n\nBoru laughed and raised his ceramic tankard to knock it against Lodi’s. “Damn, Kingsguard, we may have lost a few, but we beat those bastards with nothing more than a bunch of green young civilians. That’ll be good for a few drinks once we reach the Mountain!”\n\nLodi frowned. A thought had been niggling at the bottom of his mind ever since he’d seen the draktakha disappearing down the tunnel from which they’d come. It finally formed itself into something he could express in words. “They wasn’t near the line.”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The draktakha, the scaly things.”\n\n“What about it?”\n\n“If they didn’t cause the trouble with the train rail, what did? And if the trouble ain’t here, they can’t fix it here. And if they can’t fix it here, how we going to get to the Mountain?”\n\nThe next day, Lodi slept in. That didn’t prevent him from waking with a headache that briefly made him wonder if someone had hit him with one of those damn iron clubs. He’d just been thinking of going upstairs and turning in when Vismi Bismisson and a group of locals showed up, seemingly determined to pour all the ale in Hotstone down their rescuers’ throats. He didn’t remember staggering upstairs, and he apparently hadn’t bothered undressing, as he was still wearing the brown wool tunic and trousers the mayor had given him the day before.\n\nHe found the urinal in the next room in the nick of time, and took longer than he would have imagined possible “draining the goblin”, as his old sergeant put it. He was still standing there stupidly, holding his dwarfhood in his hand, when a bleary-eyed, bushy-bearded Thori stuck his head in and announced that there was a breakfast spread downstairs, and that their presence at the funerals, which would be held at noon, was requested.\n\nLodi grunted something noncommittal before looking down and wondering if he was going to be done urinating by then. It would have come in handy yesterday, he thought. He could have put out all the damn fires by himself. After finally finishing, then splashing water on his face and running his wet hands through his hair and beard, he wandered downstairs and discovered a decent collection of lizard eggs, blindfish sausage, and flatcakes, all of which he washed down with several hairs of the dog that bit his arse the night before.\n\nHe went to find the tavernkeeper, who was kind enough to show where his clothes and armor had been left to dry. The clothes were nearly dry, but the chain mail was tacky, so he borrowed a wire brush and carried it outside, where he could clean it off without making a mess. He was still sitting there, working on some bloody grit in the left shoulder, when a familiar scent made him sit upright in a hurry.\n\n“Good morning, Lodi.” It was Myf, looking considerably fresher than any of the dwarves he’d encountered at breakfast.\n\n“Mornin’, anyhow,” he grunted, returning his attention to his armor. “Don’t know about good.”\n\n“Raldrizena tells me there will be a funeral today. Will you be attending?”\n\n“Aye. Seems the thing to do.”\n\n“It occurs to me you may have reopened your wounds yesterday. Do you want me to look at them?”\n\nHe looked up at her, startled. “Gods, no! I’m fine, Myf, you needn’t concern your pretty little head about me. Might want to have a gander at Yori’s arm, though, make sure they splinted it right.”\n\nShe nodded obediently, then climbed the steps past him. It took a considerable effort not to turn and watch her enter the tavern, but he managed it and returned to his mail-polishing after making a sound that was half-grumble, half-sigh.\n\nAfter he finished cleaning the armor, he returned it to the room in which he and the others had been sleeping, found the twins, and arranged for a purchase. His newly-owned pickaxe thus acquired, he went in search of Vismi Bismisson and found him in the funeral plot, where the bodies of Hotstone dwarves were interred to rejoin with the Earth Father. The huge cavern was abundantly lit with glowmoss and earthlight lamps, and festooned with colorful banners bearing clan runes, but the rows of rough canvas bags belied its somber purpose.\n\n“What can I do for you, Lodi?” The mayor was polite, but he was clearly pressed for time.\n\n“I wanted to give you this.” Lodi offered him Orin’s pickaxe and two silver coins. “That should cover the cost o’ havin’ it bronzed. Thought it would make a good remembrance for the folks here. You know, for the ones who died, the outsiders.”\n\nThe mayor accepted the pick, but refused the coins. “We won’t have it bronzed, we’ll have it gilded. Get me the names of those who died. They’ll be buried with our own and their names will be inscribed on this. A fitting tribute to the dwarves who saved Hotstone. Will you want to say a few words?”\n\nLodi shook his head. “Nah. Just wanted to give you Hotstoners something to remember them by. Seems they deserve it.”\n\nThe mayor smiled, though his eyes were grim. “Never fear, Lodi Dunmorinson. We dwarves, we don’t forget.”\n\nThe mass funeral was every bit as horrific and heartbreaking as Lodi assumed it would be. Forty-eight Hotstoners and nine outsiders were given back to Zeme Otek, who would see that their bodies eventually returned new life to the Kamensvet. The zemknez, an elderly dwarf with a long white beard that brushed the ground even though braided, spoke eloquently enough of bravery and sacrifice, but his words were cold comfort to the bereaved families who had lost their loved ones. Myf and the other pasla wept openly, and even Lodi found he had to swallow hard once or twice when a young widow tried, and failed, to hold herself together when speaking of her fallen husband.\n\nAfterwards, Lodi found Boru, and they sought out the cavern stationmaster. Fortunately, neither he nor his two engineers were among the slain, but they confirmed what Lodi had already surmised. While they could drag the carts to the platform easily enough, there was absolutely nothing they could do to bring the track back to life again.\n\n“It’s possible to walk it,” the older of the two engineers pointed out. “I done it a while back, after they cleared the blocking of the tunnel, but afore they had the track hot and running again. Takes a sixday, maybe half that again with the wives and little ones. There’s only two declines that’ll be a little tricky, but there’ll be ropes to assist you. Maybe even steps carved on the sides by now.”\n\n“There has to be a better way,” Boru said. “Don’t you got none o’ them carts with the push lever on it?”\n\nThe two engineers looked at each other. “Yeah, we got one. That’s how we was going to bring the train to the station. But you can’t use it to go all the way to Iron Mountain. You’ll go too fast on the big declines, jump the track, and probably kill everyone riding.”\n\n“I ain’t talking about the whole train,” Lodi said. “Forget the train. We got to get word to the king. He needs to know what happened here. For all we know, every cavern from the Underdeep to the Nebesvet is in danger from them critters.”\n\n“We could rig up some brakes for it,” the younger engineer said. “We never needed them here, but it shouldn’t be too hard. It’d let you carry two, maybe three carts safely.”\n\nThe older engineer had his eyes closed. “Three is no problem. The decline ain’t that steep. We could probably do four, but let’s leave it at three and keep it safe. You can’t take everyone on three carts, though.”\n\n“I don’t see that we want to anyhow,” Boru pointed out. “We got no idea what we might run into anywhere between here and Iron Mountain. Track’s dead, but maybe it’s blocked by a rockslide, maybe it’s been mined, hell, maybe a dragon found it and followed it down to the city! We don’t want the families coming with us until we know it’s safe.”\n\n“You, me, and eight others,” Lodi said. “If you Hotstoners can help us gear up, that’ll be enough to deal with most anything we run across. I’ll need to bring the young divci too; she’s in my charge, and considering that tunnel, I can’t be certain she’d be safer in Hotstone anyhow.”\n\nThe stationmaster looked as if he wanted to argue, but Lodi quelled him with a stare. “With eleven, we only need two carts. Attach the push-cart to the first one from the train and leave it loaded. Thori can be one of the eight; the twins will make our lives a living hell if we don’t let them unload those damn picks.”\n\nHe half expected opposition, but found none. Boru shrugged.\n\n“We owe it to them. We’d have lost five or six more if they hadn’t been along.”\n\nThere was a brief silence. Then the younger engineer spoke up. “Make it an even twelve. I’m coming with you.”\n\n“You can’t-”\n\n“I can too!” the younger engineer cut off the stationmaster. “I’m fifty-five years old and I’m old enough to make my own decisions, father! If something goes wrong with the push-cart, who is going to fix it? Besides, I’ve never been to Iron Mountain and I want to see it. What if I’d been killed by one of those supina pasla?”\n\nLodi frowned, not because he had any objection to the young dwarf joining the expedition. In fact, he thought it would be rather handy to have someone familiar with the track machinery along. But the engineer’s use of the term “scaly dwarves” troubled him. The bodies of the draktakha had been buried in one of the caverns used for degradable trash; they too would serve the dwarves of Hotstone Cavern in death. But before they’d been disposed, Lodi had taken a close look at one, and there was no denying that whatever it was, it was much more closely akin to a dwarf than an orc or a goblin.\n\nThere were minor differences about the beardless faces, the teeth were similar to a kobold’s and the bodies were somewhat thinner than the average dwarf’s, but it could hardly be denied that if you starved a dwarf, shaved him, bashed him in the mouth with a shovel, dipped him in glue and rolled him in bronzed snake scales, he’d look damned close to a draktakh. Too damned close.\n\nBut that was for the king’s council to sort out. His job was to see that Thorald had gotten word to the king about the massive orc invasion of the Elf and Man lands, and to let him know about this incursion by the mysterious creatures of the deep. He regretted that they hadn’t thought to preserve one of the bodies, then realized he could simply ask the Hotstoners for permission to dig one up. He looked at the young engineer and smiled. The lad could come in handy sooner than he probably expected.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2238, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch20_lodi-P3", "chapter": "ch20_lodi", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nKingsguard — in the marching song and as Myf’s address; capital K.\ndraktakha — scaled threat possibly ahead; form as written.\nMyf — brings scones and wine; Deepling wit.\nBoru — off-shift on the lead cart.\npush-cart — lever-driven rail cart; hyphenated as needed.\n\n### STORY\nHe leads thirty-six armed dwarves into a burning Hotstone station, bisects a scaled yellow-eyed dwarf-thing, and roars Kingsguard as he charges.\nAfterward he counts Orin among the dead, houses Myf, washes the red off in an ice pool, and sees the newcomers billeted without charge.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLodi\nAlive on the carts after two labor days; rotates levers; leads filthy verses; crosses to Myf’s cart for food and gets his ears burned by her demure threat to avert her eyes when trouble comes.\n\nMyf\nAlive; brings scones and wine; laughs at his jealousy of the young dwarfs; ends with a mischievous smile when he looks back.\n\nBoru\nAlive; earlier shift; not in the final exchange.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“You, me, and eight others,” Lodi said. “If you Hotstoners can help us gear up, that’ll be enough to deal with most anything we run across. I’ll need to bring the young divci too; she’s in my charge, and considering that tunnel, I can’t be certain she’d be safer in Hotstone anyhow.”\n\nThe stationmaster looked as if he wanted to argue, but Lodi quelled him with a stare. “With eleven, we only need two carts. Attach the push-cart to the first one from the train and leave it loaded. Thori can be one of the eight; the twins will make our lives a living hell if we don’t let them unload those damn picks.”\n\nHe half expected opposition, but found none. Boru shrugged.\n\n“We owe it to them. We’d have lost five or six more if they hadn’t been along.”\n\nThere was a brief silence. Then the younger engineer spoke up. “Make it an even twelve. I’m coming with you.”\n\n“You can’t-”\n\n“I can too!” the younger engineer cut off the stationmaster. “I’m fifty-five years old and I’m old enough to make my own decisions, father! If something goes wrong with the push-cart, who is going to fix it? Besides, I’ve never been to Iron Mountain and I want to see it. What if I’d been killed by one of those supina pasla?”\n\nLodi frowned, not because he had any objection to the young dwarf joining the expedition. In fact, he thought it would be rather handy to have someone familiar with the track machinery along. But the engineer’s use of the term “scaly dwarves” troubled him. The bodies of the draktakha had been buried in one of the caverns used for degradable trash; they too would serve the dwarves of Hotstone Cavern in death. But before they’d been disposed, Lodi had taken a close look at one, and there was no denying that whatever it was, it was much more closely akin to a dwarf than an orc or a goblin.\n\nThere were minor differences about the beardless faces, the teeth were similar to a kobold’s and the bodies were somewhat thinner than the average dwarf’s, but it could hardly be denied that if you starved a dwarf, shaved him, bashed him in the mouth with a shovel, dipped him in glue and rolled him in bronzed snake scales, he’d look damned close to a draktakh. Too damned close.\n\nBut that was for the king’s council to sort out. His job was to see that Thorald had gotten word to the king about the massive orc invasion of the Elf and Man lands, and to let him know about this incursion by the mysterious creatures of the deep. He regretted that they hadn’t thought to preserve one of the bodies, then realized he could simply ask the Hotstoners for permission to dig one up. He looked at the young engineer and smiled. The lad could come in handy sooner than he probably expected.\n\n### NOTES\nThree provisioned push-carts on the cold rail; hourly lever rotations.\nTunnel wind; connecting iron bar between carts.\nSong has ~twenty more verses of Kingsguard vulgarity after the first stanza.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lodi.\n\nTwo days to kit the carts, then laborious track miles and rotating levers. He starts the Kingsguard cock-song; the young bloods roar more verses; he crosses to Myf with sweat-stink warnings she ignores. She feeds him, denies being bothered by the song she could scarcely hear, laughs when he threatens the lads, and asks to be warned so she may avert her eyes if draktakha come. Alone in the flashing dark he burns; the song rises again; he looks back and catches her mischievous smile. The scene lands on that smile.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1300 words. Road-song vulgar; the flirtation dry and earned. Land on Myf’s smile.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It took two days to prepare and provision the three carts, which was a day longer than Lodi would have wished, but the stationmaster insisted on affixing one of the cavern’s largest glowstones to the front of the push-cart. He argued, reasonably enough, that given the greater-than-usual chance of a cave-in or rockslide blocking the track, it would be foolish to depend on their darksight alone. Barring the two steep declines that would increase their speed considerably, the stone would cast enough light to let them brake before crashing into any unexpected blockages.\n\nThe first two days on the track passed quickly, though laboriously. The push-cart was essentially a giant lever, which permitted three dwarves on one side and three dwarves on the other to alternate pushing down, which turned the axle that propelled the iron wheels underneath. This permitted them to move nearly as fast as the thermo-propelled train normally did so long as there was a slight decline, but the going was considerably harder and slower on a flat or an incline. Fortunately, the greater part of the track angled down, as the city of Iron Mountain rose from the shores of the great underground lake nestled at the heart of the mountain.\n\nEvery hour, two dwarves rotated off the cart and two fresh dwarves took their places at the levers. It wasn’t difficult work in comparison with the mining that was familiar to most of them; the trick was to stay in rhythm. They sang mining songs, and smithing songs, and even fighting songs. Lodi, forgetting himself, taught the younger dwarves one of his old favorites from the siege days, a ribald Kingsguard song, before he spotted Myf standing at the front of the cart behind them, listening to them. But his partners at the lever were already in full throat, so there was little he could do in good faith but join in with them.\n\nYou can bash an orc with a battle-axe,\n\nBeat a goblin to death with a rock.\n\nYou can crush a troll with a boulder roll,\n\nKill a kobold with a good hard knock.\n\nThe Kingsguard ain’t like t’other dwarves\n\nWe got balls like igneous rock.\n\nWe don’t got no fears, we don’t need no spears\n\nWe beat ’em down with a big hard cock!\n\nThere were about twenty more verses, most of which involved the various and creative ways the Kingsguard claimed to slaughter the enemies of the king with their unique and oversized weaponry, but Lodi decided against teaching them to the lads. Or rather, Lads, he corrected himself, for as his old Sergeant, Dulin Rockjaw had told his unit after their first skirmish, “once you see’d blood spill, you ain’t green no more. Yez still lads, but yez lads with a capital bloody L!”\n\nAside from Boru, who’d taken an earlier shift, his companions were all decidedly young, but except for the engineer, each of them had broken red ground, and unusually vicious red ground at that. So, they merited due regard, even if the way they delighted in putting particular emphasis in the form of volume on the last three words of the last line made Lodi wary of giving them any additional material.\n\nAfter his shift was over, Lodi carefully walked across the thick iron bar connecting the two carts and pulled himself up to the platform. Despite the chill air of the tunnel and the wind caused by their movement, he was stripped to the waist, and sweating as he was, he was reluctant to enter the compartment knowing that Myf would be in there. So, he was further discomfited when she came out bearing a pair of scones and a skin of mushroom wine.\n\n“I thought you might be hungry after all that work,” she said.\n\n“You may want not want to stand directly downwind, lass. It’s sweaty work, pushing these carts.”\n\n“I can see that,” she said, seemingly unconcerned. But she did lean against the side rail, which kept her safely out of the breeze of their passage. “Aren’t you going to come inside?”\n\n“Aye, once I dry meself a bit.” He raised the skin in salute and took a swig from it. “Thank you for this. I saw you was listening to us sing.”\n\n“If you can call it that.”\n\n“You know we didn’t mean nothing by it.”\n\n“By what? I could scarcely hear anything with all the noise from the track. But some of the younger dwarfs are undaunted by the fact that I cannot speak to them and I find their attentions onerous at times. So, I come out here to be alone.”\n\nLodi’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s been at you? I warned those hot-peckered louts to keep their poxied hands to themselves!”\n\nShe burst out laughing. Her laughter sounded like the sweet shattering of delicate crystal. “They’re very sweet and they mean no harm. You needn’t be at them. They merely grow tedious after a while.”\n\nLodi growled low in his throat. They was good lads, they was, but if they didn’t treat the lass right, he’d bash a skull or two, he would.\n\nThey stood there together in companionable silence as Lodi finished the scones and the wine. The breeze had dried him off and he was beginning to feel the chill, so he handed her the wineskin and slipped his shirt back over his head. His beard, he was pleased to see, was finally long enough that he needed to pull it out of his shirt, although it was still embarrassingly short for a dwarf of his years.\n\n“Do you think we’re likely to see any orcs or cave goblins?” she asked him unexpectedly.\n\n“No, I shouldn’t think so. If anything, we’re more likely to run into them draktakha again.”\n\n“And you will let me know if we do?”\n\n“Of course,” Lodi assured her, puzzled. “Why’d you ask?”\n\n“I should like to be warned when I am to avert my eyes, Kingsguard,” she replied demurely. She sniffed twice, rather archly, turned around, and went back into the passenger compartment.\n\nLodi stood there in the darkness with the tunnel walls flashing by, alone, feeling as if his cheeks had been set afire. He wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or leap off the front of the moving cart in shame. At just that very moment, the dwarves laboring on the push-cart burst into song again.\n\n“You can bash an orc with a battle-axe!”\n\nLodi groaned. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then, he dug deep within himself to find the nerve to do something that took more courage than facing three orcs in the great arena of Amorr with nothing more than a rusty Man-sword, something that made him distinctly more nervous than climbing down a cliff into a wyrm’s den in the troll-infested mountains of Uskiluhk. He took a deep breath, then he opened the door to the passenger compartment.\n\nMyf was sitting in her usual seat. Their eyes met. And then, her lips turned upward in a faint, but distinctly mischievous smile.\n", "completion": "It took two days to prepare and provision the three carts, which was a day longer than Lodi would have wished, but the stationmaster insisted on affixing one of the cavern’s largest glowstones to the front of the push-cart. He argued, reasonably enough, that given the greater-than-usual chance of a cave-in or rockslide blocking the track, it would be foolish to depend on their darksight alone. Barring the two steep declines that would increase their speed considerably, the stone would cast enough light to let them brake before crashing into any unexpected blockages.\n\nThe first two days on the track passed quickly, though laboriously. The push-cart was essentially a giant lever, which permitted three dwarves on one side and three dwarves on the other to alternate pushing down, which turned the axle that propelled the iron wheels underneath. This permitted them to move nearly as fast as the thermo-propelled train normally did so long as there was a slight decline, but the going was considerably harder and slower on a flat or an incline. Fortunately, the greater part of the track angled down, as the city of Iron Mountain rose from the shores of the great underground lake nestled at the heart of the mountain.\n\nEvery hour, two dwarves rotated off the cart and two fresh dwarves took their places at the levers. It wasn’t difficult work in comparison with the mining that was familiar to most of them; the trick was to stay in rhythm. They sang mining songs, and smithing songs, and even fighting songs. Lodi, forgetting himself, taught the younger dwarves one of his old favorites from the siege days, a ribald Kingsguard song, before he spotted Myf standing at the front of the cart behind them, listening to them. But his partners at the lever were already in full throat, so there was little he could do in good faith but join in with them.\n\nYou can bash an orc with a battle-axe,\n\nBeat a goblin to death with a rock.\n\nYou can crush a troll with a boulder roll,\n\nKill a kobold with a good hard knock.\n\nThe Kingsguard ain’t like t’other dwarves\n\nWe got balls like igneous rock.\n\nWe don’t got no fears, we don’t need no spears\n\nWe beat ’em down with a big hard cock!\n\nThere were about twenty more verses, most of which involved the various and creative ways the Kingsguard claimed to slaughter the enemies of the king with their unique and oversized weaponry, but Lodi decided against teaching them to the lads. Or rather, Lads, he corrected himself, for as his old Sergeant, Dulin Rockjaw had told his unit after their first skirmish, “once you see’d blood spill, you ain’t green no more. Yez still lads, but yez lads with a capital bloody L!”\n\nAside from Boru, who’d taken an earlier shift, his companions were all decidedly young, but except for the engineer, each of them had broken red ground, and unusually vicious red ground at that. So, they merited due regard, even if the way they delighted in putting particular emphasis in the form of volume on the last three words of the last line made Lodi wary of giving them any additional material.\n\nAfter his shift was over, Lodi carefully walked across the thick iron bar connecting the two carts and pulled himself up to the platform. Despite the chill air of the tunnel and the wind caused by their movement, he was stripped to the waist, and sweating as he was, he was reluctant to enter the compartment knowing that Myf would be in there. So, he was further discomfited when she came out bearing a pair of scones and a skin of mushroom wine.\n\n“I thought you might be hungry after all that work,” she said.\n\n“You may want not want to stand directly downwind, lass. It’s sweaty work, pushing these carts.”\n\n“I can see that,” she said, seemingly unconcerned. But she did lean against the side rail, which kept her safely out of the breeze of their passage. “Aren’t you going to come inside?”\n\n“Aye, once I dry meself a bit.” He raised the skin in salute and took a swig from it. “Thank you for this. I saw you was listening to us sing.”\n\n“If you can call it that.”\n\n“You know we didn’t mean nothing by it.”\n\n“By what? I could scarcely hear anything with all the noise from the track. But some of the younger dwarfs are undaunted by the fact that I cannot speak to them and I find their attentions onerous at times. So, I come out here to be alone.”\n\nLodi’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s been at you? I warned those hot-peckered louts to keep their poxied hands to themselves!”\n\nShe burst out laughing. Her laughter sounded like the sweet shattering of delicate crystal. “They’re very sweet and they mean no harm. You needn’t be at them. They merely grow tedious after a while.”\n\nLodi growled low in his throat. They was good lads, they was, but if they didn’t treat the lass right, he’d bash a skull or two, he would.\n\nThey stood there together in companionable silence as Lodi finished the scones and the wine. The breeze had dried him off and he was beginning to feel the chill, so he handed her the wineskin and slipped his shirt back over his head. His beard, he was pleased to see, was finally long enough that he needed to pull it out of his shirt, although it was still embarrassingly short for a dwarf of his years.\n\n“Do you think we’re likely to see any orcs or cave goblins?” she asked him unexpectedly.\n\n“No, I shouldn’t think so. If anything, we’re more likely to run into them draktakha again.”\n\n“And you will let me know if we do?”\n\n“Of course,” Lodi assured her, puzzled. “Why’d you ask?”\n\n“I should like to be warned when I am to avert my eyes, Kingsguard,” she replied demurely. She sniffed twice, rather archly, turned around, and went back into the passenger compartment.\n\nLodi stood there in the darkness with the tunnel walls flashing by, alone, feeling as if his cheeks had been set afire. He wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or leap off the front of the moving cart in shame. At just that very moment, the dwarves laboring on the push-cart burst into song again.\n\n“You can bash an orc with a battle-axe!”\n\nLodi groaned. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then, he dug deep within himself to find the nerve to do something that took more courage than facing three orcs in the great arena of Amorr with nothing more than a rusty Man-sword, something that made him distinctly more nervous than climbing down a cliff into a wyrm’s den in the troll-infested mountains of Uskiluhk. He took a deep breath, then he opened the door to the passenger compartment.\n\nMyf was sitting in her usual seat. Their eyes met. And then, her lips turned upward in a faint, but distinctly mischievous smile.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1212, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch21_lugbol-P1", "chapter": "ch21_lugbol", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngrun-kor — hyphenated rank; not “captain.”\nTadezha — keep spelling.\nkir / kir’agh — orc concubine(s); apostrophe plural as written.\nkwee — orc cant for female; keep form.\nGor-Gor — hyphenated war god.\nNekheru — keep spelling.\nHagahorn / Hagahornu / Hagahorn’ugh — place/people forms; apostrophe plurals as written.\nGhurash / Korpaghu / Khorpaghu — keep spellings; Korpaghu and Khorpaghu both appear — match the gold in place.\ngalvebel — Hagahorn junior officer rank; keep spelling.\ngraborgh — Hagahorn warleader rank; keep spelling.\nszhar — brand-mark of favor; keep spelling.\nAzzakhar — keep spelling.\nZlatagh — not Zlatag.\nKorokhurmagh — forest of the prior campaign; keep spelling.\ngungiyar / gungiyar’ugh — warband(s); apostrophe plural.\nSzavon’agh / Szavon’ugh — Savondese Men in orc mouths; keep forms.\nOmmog’ugh / Zoth Ommoghu — southern orc peoples; keep spellings.\nRed Claw Slayers — elite unit name; capitals as written.\nDrangahanu — Nekheru’s sept; keep spelling.\nkral / Felseg Kral — northern king-style title; keep forms.\nhubble — tribute/respect owed; keep cant.\nboar rider — two words when describing mounted Hagahornu.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nGrun-kor of the Gog Black Fist Infantry, newly branded by the Great Orc Azzakhar after the Zlatagh disaster. Alive, one arm still damaged from earlier burns, sprawled satiated in his tent after three days with Tadezha and a gifted cow. Wants her as a lasting gift when next the Great Orc offers reward. Does not yet know Nekheru has been given western command over him; contemptuous of being loaned to a mountain king he has never served.\n\nTadezha\nKir of the Great Orc, loaned to Lugbol for three days. Alive, naked in his tent, bruised from enthusiasm she claims to want. Barely sees Azzakhar; used as reward and political leash. Asks Lugbol to request her as a gift when he next earns the Great Orc’s attention. Gone from the tent before this scene ends.\n\nGhurash\nLugbol’s sour-faced galvebel. Alive; brings the Nekheru summons; escorts him toward the Hagahorn camp.\n\nKorpaghu\nCalls Lugbol from outside the tent with the summons; same camp circle as Ghurash.\n\nNekheru\nClan chief of the Drangahanu styling himself Felseg Kral; not yet seen. Taking the Hagahorn army west into Man lands while Azzakhar goes south after elves.\n\nAzzakhar\nGreat Orc who branded Lugbol and gifted Tadezha. Not present; splitting the host.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nZlatagh Maneater’s raiding host was smashed in the Korokhurmagh by iron Men and Mandokki cavalry; Lugbol’s Black Fist held together through the night and returned. The Great Orc rewarded him with grun-kor rank, a fire-brand, and a temporary gift of the kir Tadezha.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nOrc encampment after return from Man lands; Lugbol’s tent, then Nekheru’s Hagahorn turf marked by uprooted trees.\nLugbol’s left arm still injured; new brand on the left bicep still raw.\nNo abokhi’agh on the prior Man campaign; Tadezha is an exception by Great Orc gift.\nHagahornu guards are mountain-huge, iron-armored, northeastern accent; some bluish skin.\nFood in Nekheru’s camp is poor: green wood, roots, bark, goblin stew.\nGreat Orc marches south after elves; Nekheru west into Man lands.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nHe lies spent in his tent with Tadezha after three days of feast and futtering, brand and claw-marks barely noticed. She admits she wants him to ask the Great Orc for her when next he can name a reward, mocking the fear that makes captains refuse gifts. Korpaghu ruins the mood with a summons: King Nekheru is calling all grun-kors now, and they are under his command. Lugbol curses; she sends him out to earn her.\n\nOutside, Ghurash confirms Nekheru takes the west while Azzakhar goes south after elves. They join Hagahornu headed for the kral’s barrier of uprooted trees. Mountain guards sneer at Lugbol as half-gob until he spatters insults and proves he is the branded pissant Nekheru wanted; a broken-tusk galvebel escorts them in. Lugbol clocks the iron-hard Hagahorn ranks, remembers Zlatagh’s slipshod gungiyar’ugh, and learns Nekheru is only Drangahanu chief playing kral. The scene lands as they push toward the hill where the clan chief waits, before the audience begins.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2000 words. Coarse orc-camp register; lust and contempt in Lugbol’s head, boasts and insults in the mouths. Land on the approach to Nekheru, not the naming.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Lugbol lay sprawled on his back, as exhausted and satiated as an orc could be. In addition to gifting him Tadezha for three days, the Great Orc had sent his newest grun-kor a cow from his private herd as a sign of his favor yesterday. They had feasted and futtered and then feasted some more. His belly full and his bollocks empty, Lugbol barely noticed the lingering pain from the brand on his left bicep or the marks that her claws had left on his shoulders, back, and buttocks.\n\n“I wish you could stay another day or three,” he told her, following a contended sigh.\n\n“So do I,” she said, surprising him.\n\n“Truly? Why? I’m no Great Orc!”\n\nShe shrugged and looked off into the distance. “So? I barely see him. He had me once, the night I was given to him by the King of Shadaru. Ever since, he only keeps me around to dole out to reward his captains, or gives me to kings he suspects are trouble and wants to keep in line. That way they can say they had one of the Great Orc’s kir’agh; some of them are so eager to boast about it they can hardly wait to get the futtering over with. And some of them are cruel.”\n\nHe frowned, suddenly wondering if he had been too rough with her. Somehow, she seemed to read his mind, because she laughed and pulled at his hair hard enough to make him growl.\n\n“Don’t be silly. Every kir wants to be properly pounded! It is not difficult to feel the difference between enthusiasm and cruelty.”\n\nHe looked up and down her naked body. Her upper arms and breasts were mottled blue with bruises.\n\n“I was maybe too enthusiastic?”\n\n“There is no such thing.” She lightly ran a claw down his chest. “I want to ask you something.”\n\n“So ask.”\n\n“Will you do something for me?”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“Ask the Great Orc for me. As a gift.”\n\n“I can’t do that!” He looked down. “I mean, it’s not… I don’t–”\n\n“I don’t mean now! I mean when you do something that brings you to his attention again. Something that makes him ask you for a reward. I know him, Lugbol. He always asks, because he knows most orcs are too afraid to ask for anything from his hand. I mean, look at you!” She lowered her voice in mock imitation of a male orc’s. “It’s an honor, Great Orc! If I can just cut off me vank for yez, Great Orc, I’d be damnable proud!”\n\n“Shut up! Bloody kwee don’t know nothing of honor!”\n\n“Maybe not, but bloody kwee know all about this!” She grabbed him in a manner that made him close his eyes and grunt. He was just about to throw her on her back when he heard Korpaghu call to him from outside the tent.\n\n“Grun-kor!”\n\nOh, for the cursed love of Gor-Gor. “What?” he bellowed, hoping that Korpaghu would correctly conclude from his tone that he should squag off and go bother some other unsuspecting kor.\n\n“Got a summons from King Nekheru. He’s calling all grun-kors and warleaders under his command to attend him. Now, Grun-kor!”\n\n“What command? We ain’t under his command!”\n\n“We are now. His kors made it real clear.”\n\nLugbol unleashed a thunderous stream of obscenities and vulgarities that only made Tadezha fall flat on her back and laugh. She watched him dress, with a speculative expression that made him feel both proud and suspicious.\n\n“Well, I should go. You want someone to bring you back to the Great Orc?”\n\n“Go.” She fluttered a hand at him. “Go and do something that will make me yours, Lugbol.”\n\nHe growled low under his breath. By all the gods of the orcs and trolls, she was the finest, loveliest greenskin he’d ever seen. “I’ll do it or die trying,” he assured her.\n\n“Try not to get yourself killed,” she said. She ran her dark green tongue over her left tusk. “I would be sorry to hear it.”\n\nDamned if she wasn’t the sweetest ghash he ever did see. He cursed again, then stormed out of the tent, half-aroused and half-ready to kill the first orc he looked upon. Fortunately, that first orc was Ghurash, and the sight of his sour, tusked face was enough to settle him down.\n\n“Who put us under Nekheru?”\n\n“Who knows? Nobody knows nothing more than what I told you. Didn’t you say the Great Orc wanted us back in the Man lands?”\n\n“Yeah.”\n\n“Yeah, well, Nekheru’s got the command. He’s taking an army west while the Great Orc goes south, after the damned Elves.”\n\nLugbol thought about it a moment. The iron Men were bad, but their fire magic didn’t seem to be anywhere near as dangerous as the hellish sorceries wielded by the elf shamans. “I don’t know squat about Nekheru. Is he good for anything more than squagging gobbos?”\n\n“Cursed if I know.”\n\nFortunately, it wasn’t hard to find Nekheru’s camp. They weren’t the only warleaders being summoned to kiss the crown. Lugbol found himself following a pair of Hagahornu heavy cavalry kors who weren’t any taller than he was, but whose arms looked to be very nearly the size of his head.\n\n“Looks like we won’t be doing no hit-and-runs this time,” he observed. “Them boys are for straight-up banging heads.”\n\nGhurash nodded, and somehow, although Lugbol wouldn’t have thought it possible, his expression grew even more sour.\n\nTen massive Hagahornu mountain orcs stood outside the rude barrier of uprooted trees that marked the limits of Nekheru’s turf, five on either side of an opening barely big enough for the pair of boar riders to pass through. Lugbol was not a small orc, but these mountain orcs looked as if they had more than a splash of troll’s blood in them as most were a full head taller than him and several had a faint bluish cast to their skin. They eyed the two smaller orcs contemptuously, and Lugbol rubbed his new brand to remind himself that for all their size, he had the favor of the Great Orc.\n\nOne of the guards had what looked like a galvebel’s tattoo on his exposed chest, and he tilted his head as he studied first Ghurash, then Lugbol. His lower left tusk was broken off and capped with a false iron tusk.\n\n“This some kind’o joke?” he demanded of Lugbol in his thick-tongued northeastern accent. “Half-gobbo like you can’t be no Gor-Gor-damned graborgh!”\n\nLugbol spit at the bigger orc’s feet. “Who you calling half-gob, kobber?”\n\nThe galvebel’s yellow eyes narrowed, but with suspicion rather than anger. Lugbol exhaled slowly, glad to see that the mountain orc was inclined to think before he split any skulls in his massive, club-like hands.\n\n“You either stupid or you somebody.”\n\nLugbol spit again and wrinkled his lip in a contemptuous sneer. “If I’m stupid, then why am I standing here staring at your shriveled vank, squaggie?”\n\nThe big orc guffawed, setting off his subordinates, who pointed at Lugbol and slapped each other on the shoulder, no doubt picturing what would happen if Lugbol tried to mount their officer. Lugbol forced a hard smile and let them have their fun. He knew the galvebel had already backed down.\n\n“Yeah, you somebody. The king told me to look for a pissant what was a sharp bastard. He be you, yeah?”\n\n“Yeah, he be me,” Lugbol confirmed. “I ain’t no graborgh, though. The Great Orc just made me grun-kor.”\n\n“No szhar?” The big orc sounded impressed. He pointed to some of his kors. “You four, come with me. We bringing these little kors to Nekheru; we got orders. You five, you got the gate until I come back!”\n\n“Galvebel!” The remaining guards saluted while the four ordered to escort them fell in on either side of him and Ghurash. He practically had to jog to keep up with the long strides of the Hagahornu, but the galvebel clearly wasn’t trying to walk fast because he was chatting cheerfully down at Lugbol as he strode through the milling ranks of Nekheru’s forces.\n\n“We ain’t been here long, but the food sucks something fierce. All the wood is green and you can’t cook a bloody pot without a proper flame, so everything ends up half-raw and tasting like the damn bitter smoke. We thought when we was coming down out of the mountains that we’d be eating dwarves for breakfast and elves for dinner, but all we get is roots and bark and maybe a bit of gobbo in the stew. And now they saying we going after men?”\n\n“Man ain’t bad,” Ghurash commented. The galvebel glanced at him skeptically.\n\n“When you be eating men? I ain’t never had none meself.”\n\n“We was in the Man lands,” Lugbol explained. “We just came back three, four days ago. Got our voreghs handed to us, but not before we sacked and burned maybe twenty, thirty of their villages.”\n\n“Yeah? You must have got your taste of Man then. What’s it like?”\n\n“More tender than gobbo, less stringy. Less froggy, if you know what I mean.”\n\n“Damn!” The galvebel nodded eagerly. “I hope we get on the march soon, I could go for some o’ that!”\n\nLugbol nodded. The purposeful pace at which the bigger orc had set them was drawing attention to them now as they made their way towards wherever the king was, and Lugbol was, despite himself, impressed by what he was seeing. The Hagahorn’ugh were not cowardly kor-come-latelies, they were big, they wore armored breastplates and spaulders and vambraces cast in the iron mined from their mountains, and they looked proper hard. They might not be as numerous as the Ommog’ugh, nor as ruthlessly disciplined as elite Zoth Ommoghu units like the Red Claw Slayers, but they were no slouches. Seeing them up close, it was easy to understand why the Great Orc was wary of his newly-come ally. They weren’t no ghash’ugh.\n\nAnd they were certainly nothing like the rowdy, slipshod gungiyar’ugh that Zlatagh had led to disaster the previous moon.\n\nThat could be either good or bad. Nekheru would need hard kors if he was going to beat the iron demons and the terrible steel riders of the Szavon’agh. On the other hand, if they weren’t of a mind to listen to Lugbol, he and Ghurash were liable to find themselves torn limb from limb and stuffed in the iron Hagahorn cookpots no matter how highly the Great Orc valued him. Once the two armies split up and the Hagahorn’ugh marched on the Man lands, there would be nothing that Azzakhar, or the brand he’d personally applied, could do to protect them from the big mountain orcs.\n\n“Is Nekheru the kral of all Hagahorn?” he asked the galvebel.\n\n“Ain’t nobody ever been the kral of all Hagahorn, except of course the Troll Kral. Nah, he’s just the clan chief of the Drangahanu, and they’s the biggest sept, so all the mountain tribes that matter pays him hubble. They’s some that don’t, but mostly smaller tribes up north, real vicious bastards that’s half-troll, half-goat. He just calls hisself kral so’s the Great Orc and t’other southies give him his props.”\n", "completion": "Lugbol lay sprawled on his back, as exhausted and satiated as an orc could be. In addition to gifting him Tadezha for three days, the Great Orc had sent his newest grun-kor a cow from his private herd as a sign of his favor yesterday. They had feasted and futtered and then feasted some more. His belly full and his bollocks empty, Lugbol barely noticed the lingering pain from the brand on his left bicep or the marks that her claws had left on his shoulders, back, and buttocks.\n\n“I wish you could stay another day or three,” he told her, following a contended sigh.\n\n“So do I,” she said, surprising him.\n\n“Truly? Why? I’m no Great Orc!”\n\nShe shrugged and looked off into the distance. “So? I barely see him. He had me once, the night I was given to him by the King of Shadaru. Ever since, he only keeps me around to dole out to reward his captains, or gives me to kings he suspects are trouble and wants to keep in line. That way they can say they had one of the Great Orc’s kir’agh; some of them are so eager to boast about it they can hardly wait to get the futtering over with. And some of them are cruel.”\n\nHe frowned, suddenly wondering if he had been too rough with her. Somehow, she seemed to read his mind, because she laughed and pulled at his hair hard enough to make him growl.\n\n“Don’t be silly. Every kir wants to be properly pounded! It is not difficult to feel the difference between enthusiasm and cruelty.”\n\nHe looked up and down her naked body. Her upper arms and breasts were mottled blue with bruises.\n\n“I was maybe too enthusiastic?”\n\n“There is no such thing.” She lightly ran a claw down his chest. “I want to ask you something.”\n\n“So ask.”\n\n“Will you do something for me?”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“Ask the Great Orc for me. As a gift.”\n\n“I can’t do that!” He looked down. “I mean, it’s not… I don’t–”\n\n“I don’t mean now! I mean when you do something that brings you to his attention again. Something that makes him ask you for a reward. I know him, Lugbol. He always asks, because he knows most orcs are too afraid to ask for anything from his hand. I mean, look at you!” She lowered her voice in mock imitation of a male orc’s. “It’s an honor, Great Orc! If I can just cut off me vank for yez, Great Orc, I’d be damnable proud!”\n\n“Shut up! Bloody kwee don’t know nothing of honor!”\n\n“Maybe not, but bloody kwee know all about this!” She grabbed him in a manner that made him close his eyes and grunt. He was just about to throw her on her back when he heard Korpaghu call to him from outside the tent.\n\n“Grun-kor!”\n\nOh, for the cursed love of Gor-Gor. “What?” he bellowed, hoping that Korpaghu would correctly conclude from his tone that he should squag off and go bother some other unsuspecting kor.\n\n“Got a summons from King Nekheru. He’s calling all grun-kors and warleaders under his command to attend him. Now, Grun-kor!”\n\n“What command? We ain’t under his command!”\n\n“We are now. His kors made it real clear.”\n\nLugbol unleashed a thunderous stream of obscenities and vulgarities that only made Tadezha fall flat on her back and laugh. She watched him dress, with a speculative expression that made him feel both proud and suspicious.\n\n“Well, I should go. You want someone to bring you back to the Great Orc?”\n\n“Go.” She fluttered a hand at him. “Go and do something that will make me yours, Lugbol.”\n\nHe growled low under his breath. By all the gods of the orcs and trolls, she was the finest, loveliest greenskin he’d ever seen. “I’ll do it or die trying,” he assured her.\n\n“Try not to get yourself killed,” she said. She ran her dark green tongue over her left tusk. “I would be sorry to hear it.”\n\nDamned if she wasn’t the sweetest ghash he ever did see. He cursed again, then stormed out of the tent, half-aroused and half-ready to kill the first orc he looked upon. Fortunately, that first orc was Ghurash, and the sight of his sour, tusked face was enough to settle him down.\n\n“Who put us under Nekheru?”\n\n“Who knows? Nobody knows nothing more than what I told you. Didn’t you say the Great Orc wanted us back in the Man lands?”\n\n“Yeah.”\n\n“Yeah, well, Nekheru’s got the command. He’s taking an army west while the Great Orc goes south, after the damned Elves.”\n\nLugbol thought about it a moment. The iron Men were bad, but their fire magic didn’t seem to be anywhere near as dangerous as the hellish sorceries wielded by the elf shamans. “I don’t know squat about Nekheru. Is he good for anything more than squagging gobbos?”\n\n“Cursed if I know.”\n\nFortunately, it wasn’t hard to find Nekheru’s camp. They weren’t the only warleaders being summoned to kiss the crown. Lugbol found himself following a pair of Hagahornu heavy cavalry kors who weren’t any taller than he was, but whose arms looked to be very nearly the size of his head.\n\n“Looks like we won’t be doing no hit-and-runs this time,” he observed. “Them boys are for straight-up banging heads.”\n\nGhurash nodded, and somehow, although Lugbol wouldn’t have thought it possible, his expression grew even more sour.\n\nTen massive Hagahornu mountain orcs stood outside the rude barrier of uprooted trees that marked the limits of Nekheru’s turf, five on either side of an opening barely big enough for the pair of boar riders to pass through. Lugbol was not a small orc, but these mountain orcs looked as if they had more than a splash of troll’s blood in them as most were a full head taller than him and several had a faint bluish cast to their skin. They eyed the two smaller orcs contemptuously, and Lugbol rubbed his new brand to remind himself that for all their size, he had the favor of the Great Orc.\n\nOne of the guards had what looked like a galvebel’s tattoo on his exposed chest, and he tilted his head as he studied first Ghurash, then Lugbol. His lower left tusk was broken off and capped with a false iron tusk.\n\n“This some kind’o joke?” he demanded of Lugbol in his thick-tongued northeastern accent. “Half-gobbo like you can’t be no Gor-Gor-damned graborgh!”\n\nLugbol spit at the bigger orc’s feet. “Who you calling half-gob, kobber?”\n\nThe galvebel’s yellow eyes narrowed, but with suspicion rather than anger. Lugbol exhaled slowly, glad to see that the mountain orc was inclined to think before he split any skulls in his massive, club-like hands.\n\n“You either stupid or you somebody.”\n\nLugbol spit again and wrinkled his lip in a contemptuous sneer. “If I’m stupid, then why am I standing here staring at your shriveled vank, squaggie?”\n\nThe big orc guffawed, setting off his subordinates, who pointed at Lugbol and slapped each other on the shoulder, no doubt picturing what would happen if Lugbol tried to mount their officer. Lugbol forced a hard smile and let them have their fun. He knew the galvebel had already backed down.\n\n“Yeah, you somebody. The king told me to look for a pissant what was a sharp bastard. He be you, yeah?”\n\n“Yeah, he be me,” Lugbol confirmed. “I ain’t no graborgh, though. The Great Orc just made me grun-kor.”\n\n“No szhar?” The big orc sounded impressed. He pointed to some of his kors. “You four, come with me. We bringing these little kors to Nekheru; we got orders. You five, you got the gate until I come back!”\n\n“Galvebel!” The remaining guards saluted while the four ordered to escort them fell in on either side of him and Ghurash. He practically had to jog to keep up with the long strides of the Hagahornu, but the galvebel clearly wasn’t trying to walk fast because he was chatting cheerfully down at Lugbol as he strode through the milling ranks of Nekheru’s forces.\n\n“We ain’t been here long, but the food sucks something fierce. All the wood is green and you can’t cook a bloody pot without a proper flame, so everything ends up half-raw and tasting like the damn bitter smoke. We thought when we was coming down out of the mountains that we’d be eating dwarves for breakfast and elves for dinner, but all we get is roots and bark and maybe a bit of gobbo in the stew. And now they saying we going after men?”\n\n“Man ain’t bad,” Ghurash commented. The galvebel glanced at him skeptically.\n\n“When you be eating men? I ain’t never had none meself.”\n\n“We was in the Man lands,” Lugbol explained. “We just came back three, four days ago. Got our voreghs handed to us, but not before we sacked and burned maybe twenty, thirty of their villages.”\n\n“Yeah? You must have got your taste of Man then. What’s it like?”\n\n“More tender than gobbo, less stringy. Less froggy, if you know what I mean.”\n\n“Damn!” The galvebel nodded eagerly. “I hope we get on the march soon, I could go for some o’ that!”\n\nLugbol nodded. The purposeful pace at which the bigger orc had set them was drawing attention to them now as they made their way towards wherever the king was, and Lugbol was, despite himself, impressed by what he was seeing. The Hagahorn’ugh were not cowardly kor-come-latelies, they were big, they wore armored breastplates and spaulders and vambraces cast in the iron mined from their mountains, and they looked proper hard. They might not be as numerous as the Ommog’ugh, nor as ruthlessly disciplined as elite Zoth Ommoghu units like the Red Claw Slayers, but they were no slouches. Seeing them up close, it was easy to understand why the Great Orc was wary of his newly-come ally. They weren’t no ghash’ugh.\n\nAnd they were certainly nothing like the rowdy, slipshod gungiyar’ugh that Zlatagh had led to disaster the previous moon.\n\nThat could be either good or bad. Nekheru would need hard kors if he was going to beat the iron demons and the terrible steel riders of the Szavon’agh. On the other hand, if they weren’t of a mind to listen to Lugbol, he and Ghurash were liable to find themselves torn limb from limb and stuffed in the iron Hagahorn cookpots no matter how highly the Great Orc valued him. Once the two armies split up and the Hagahorn’ugh marched on the Man lands, there would be nothing that Azzakhar, or the brand he’d personally applied, could do to protect them from the big mountain orcs.\n\n“Is Nekheru the kral of all Hagahorn?” he asked the galvebel.\n\n“Ain’t nobody ever been the kral of all Hagahorn, except of course the Troll Kral. Nah, he’s just the clan chief of the Drangahanu, and they’s the biggest sept, so all the mountain tribes that matter pays him hubble. They’s some that don’t, but mostly smaller tribes up north, real vicious bastards that’s half-troll, half-goat. He just calls hisself kral so’s the Great Orc and t’other southies give him his props.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1962, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch21_lugbol-P2", "chapter": "ch21_lugbol", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHadvezer — warleader over light infantry/scouts; keep spelling.\nFelseg Kral — Nekheru’s styled address; both words.\nfaszh / faszhek / anyafaszhek — orc vulgar intensifiers; keep forms.\nvank — vulgar orc term; keep spelling.\nszazad’ugh — hundreds/companies; apostrophe plural.\nezer — thousand; keep form.\nfarkhut’agh — goblin cavalry count-term as used.\nsqwaak / squaggie — contemptuous address; keep forms.\nalulzabit’ugh — subordinate officers to meet at sunset; keep spelling.\ntalakhoza — meeting-place named by Nekheru; keep spelling.\nGog / Gogh’ugh / Goghu — Lugbol’s people-forms; keep as written.\nBlack Fist — Lugbol’s infantry; capitals.\nMulguth the Mighty / Goblinsbane — legendary warleader; keep epithet.\nmandokki — metal-clad Man cavalry; keep spelling.\nManlands — west campaign direction; one word as written when so used.\n\n### STORY\nLugbol finishes three days with Tadezha; a Nekheru summons pulls him from the tent; Ghurash confirms they now serve the Hagahorn kral who is marching west into Man lands.\n\nAt the uprooted-tree gate Lugbol spatters a sneering galvebel into recognizing Azzakhar’s branded grun-kor and is escorted inward through the Hagahorn ranks toward the clan chief’s hill.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nAlive, raw brand showing, one arm still bad, pushed through Nekheru’s crowd as Azzakhar’s leash. Knows Zlatagh’s twenty-five thousand died to Szavon iron; will not bluff competence he lacks. About to be tested by the kral’s contempt.\n\nNekheru\nFelseg Kral of the Drangahanu; stubby tusks, boar-rider build, white-streaked boar’s-tail mane. Alive on the hill among tribal inkings. Skeptical of Azzakhar’s little Goghu; half-minded to send Lugbol’s head back until the Man-lands report lands. Will name a Hadvezer for scouts and skirmishers.\n\nGhurash\nPresent at Lugbol’s side for the salute and naming.\n\nYellow orc\nUnnamed speaker Nekheru silences when Lugbol arrives; backs away.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“We was in the Man lands,” Lugbol explained. “We just came back three, four days ago. Got our voreghs handed to us, but not before we sacked and burned maybe twenty, thirty of their villages.”\n\n“Yeah? You must have got your taste of Man then. What’s it like?”\n\n“More tender than gobbo, less stringy. Less froggy, if you know what I mean.”\n\n“Damn!” The galvebel nodded eagerly. “I hope we get on the march soon, I could go for some o’ that!”\n\nLugbol nodded. The purposeful pace at which the bigger orc had set them was drawing attention to them now as they made their way towards wherever the king was, and Lugbol was, despite himself, impressed by what he was seeing. The Hagahorn’ugh were not cowardly kor-come-latelies, they were big, they wore armored breastplates and spaulders and vambraces cast in the iron mined from their mountains, and they looked proper hard. They might not be as numerous as the Ommog’ugh, nor as ruthlessly disciplined as elite Zoth Ommoghu units like the Red Claw Slayers, but they were no slouches. Seeing them up close, it was easy to understand why the Great Orc was wary of his newly-come ally. They weren’t no ghash’ugh.\n\nAnd they were certainly nothing like the rowdy, slipshod gungiyar’ugh that Zlatagh had led to disaster the previous moon.\n\nThat could be either good or bad. Nekheru would need hard kors if he was going to beat the iron demons and the terrible steel riders of the Szavon’agh. On the other hand, if they weren’t of a mind to listen to Lugbol, he and Ghurash were liable to find themselves torn limb from limb and stuffed in the iron Hagahorn cookpots no matter how highly the Great Orc valued him. Once the two armies split up and the Hagahorn’ugh marched on the Man lands, there would be nothing that Azzakhar, or the brand he’d personally applied, could do to protect them from the big mountain orcs.\n\n“Is Nekheru the kral of all Hagahorn?” he asked the galvebel.\n\n“Ain’t nobody ever been the kral of all Hagahorn, except of course the Troll Kral. Nah, he’s just the clan chief of the Drangahanu, and they’s the biggest sept, so all the mountain tribes that matter pays him hubble. They’s some that don’t, but mostly smaller tribes up north, real vicious bastards that’s half-troll, half-goat. He just calls hisself kral so’s the Great Orc and t’other southies give him his props.”\n\n### NOTES\nWide shallow hill inside Nekheru’s camp; circles of grun-kors and galvebels from many tribes.\nLugbol keeps about five szazad’ugh of Black Fist.\nSunset meeting of alulzabit’ugh at the talakhoza is set for later; not yet held.\nCommand count spoken: maybe fifteen ezer including four ezer goblin cavalry.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nThe galvebel shoves him through to Nekheru, who asks if he is Azzakhar’s leash and why any Goghu one-armed grun-kor is worth a damn. Lugbol names himself and Ghurash, then answers with the Korokhurmagh truth: Zlatagh’s host ate its own vanks; Black Fist fought, held, and came back. Nekheru laughs, reads the fire-brand, and says these Hagahorn are real kors—then names Lugbol Hadvezer over scouts and skirmishers, lets him keep his five hundreds, and makes the hill roar Oi until the point is made. Fifteen thousand counting goblin cavalry; meet the officers at sunset. Lugbol salutes, plows out through parting ranks, trades fists with the gate galvebel, and tells dubious Korpaghu the mandokki will wait in the open once real infantry comes. The scene lands on that road-clear exchange, before the return to his own tents.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1450 words. Court-of-kral coarseness; Lugbol’s fear stays inward, answers short. Land as they clear Nekheru’s camp, not on Snaghak.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The clan chief of the Drangahanu, Lugbol saw, was standing on a wide, shallow hill of sorts, surrounded by circles of grun-kors, galvebels, and assorted kors sporting inkings that indicated dozens of different tribes. He didn’t look tall, but he had the powerful shoulders and bulging forearms of a boar rider, and a square, pugnacious face marked by two comically stubby lower tusks. The sides of his head were shaved, and his white-streaked mane was tied back into a boar’s tail. He was listening, with a skeptical expression on his face, to a big orc with yellowish skin who was energetically waving his hands as he spoke.\n\nThe kors surrounding Nekheru gave way reluctantly, but they gave way nevertheless as the galvebel and his men pushed through the crowd. Conscious of the many curious eyes on him, Lugbol stared fixedly ahead and stuck his chest out. Only a few of the kors here would grasp the significance of his still-raw brand, but word would spread soon enough that he was, as the galvebel said, somebody.\n\nNekheru waved the yellow orc to silence as the galvebel saluted. “Felseg Kral, this is the little Goghu what you wanted.”\n\nThe kral nodded and waved off the galvebel. The big yellow orc started to say something, but Nekheru shot him a warning glance, and he had the sense to clap his trap and back away. When the kral returned his attention to Lugbol, Lugbol saw that they were much of a height, although the older orc was considerably heavier and more muscular. He had a paunch and his squat legs were bandy with years of sitting on boar’s back, but despite his age, his eyes were still keen with intelligence.\n\n“You’re to be Azzakhar’s leash on me?” he asked, raising one skeptical eyebrow. “Who the faszh are you, kor?”\n\n“Grun-kor Lugbol of the Gog Black Fist Infantry, Felseg Kral. And my galvebel, Ghurash.”\n\n“And why the faszh do I need a faszhek grun-kor from anyafaszhek Gog, Grun-kor Lugbol, especially a grun-kor with one faszhek arm?”\n\nWell, at least Nekheru wasn’t threatening to rape him with it, Lugbol told himself. “Because the kral is marching west into the Manlands, Felseg Kral. And because not one moon past, the bloody Szavon’ugh fed twenty-five thousand kors under Zlatagh Maneater their own anyafaszhek vanks. My Black Fist Infantry was the only gungiyar to fight, to stay together through the night, and return to the army afterwards, Felseg Kral.”\n\n“You think yez some kind of bad-arse kor, Grun-kor?”\n\n“No, Felseg Kral. I just try to look before I stick my vank in it.”\n\nNekheru barked with laughter. “Then yez one kor in a thousand, Grun-kor Lugbol. So Azzakhar ain’t looking to throw my kors into the grinder?”\n\n“I wouldn’t know, Felseg Kral. I seen him once, when he give me this.” Lugbol pointed to his arm.\n\n“With the fire,” the kral said approvingly. His bulging arms were marked with nothing more than tattoos and scars, but then, Lugbol hadn’t seen a single Hagahornu zabit sporting a brand. It didn’t seem the northerners were inclined to burn themselves; after taking the fire himself, Lugbol very strongly felt that the Hagahornu had the right of it. “So what did the looking learn you?”\n\n“They can fight. We thought we was safe because we was in the trees, so their cavalry couldn’t smash us and their foot couldn’t catch us. We bled them, we burned their villages and we killed their kwee and their kin, but somehow they got behind us and squagged us good. All the gobbos and half the kors who live is probably still running.”\n\n“Orcs.”\n\n“What do you mean?”\n\n“Orcs,” the kral repeated. He gestured around him. “They wasn’t no kors. These be kors, Grun-kor. Kors like you.”\n\n“Right,” Lugbol said as if he meant it. He didn’t know what else to say. And what was he going to do, argue with the orc?\n\nThe kral chuckled. “I’d half a mind to send your head back to Azzakhar before, but now I see he didn’t mean nothing by it, I think it’ll serve me better on yez shoulders. I’m naming you Hadvezer. You’ll command the scouts and the skirmishers.”\n\n“Felseg Kral!” Lugbol blurted, half in shock, half in protest. In normal circumstances, a hadvezer was a warleader of more than one clan. In the present situation, it meant that the kral was putting Lugbol on his command staff, and making him senior to every graborgh, grun-kor, and shugaba in the cursed army!\n\n“Do I keep my kors?”\n\n“How many you got?”\n\n“Roundabout five szazad’ugh, Felseg Kral.”\n\nThe kral tapped his chin reflectively. “Yeah, Hadvezer Lugbol, you can keep them. Probably best to keep a few Gogh’ugh around in case some thickskull gets it in his head to think he don’t have to take yez orders.”\n\n“Thank you, Felseg Kral.” Lugbol knew very well that the kral had probably just saved his life. No matter what he was called, he was going to need all the muscle he could get to keep the Hagahorn’ugh kors in line. Fortunately, the same thought appeared to strike the kral.\n\n“Oi, listen up, all you sqwaaks and squaggies! This here’s Lugbol, of the Black Fist! He’s small, he’s Goghu, but for all that I’m telling you he’s the new Hadvezer for the light infantry! He’s a right proper kor, he’s fought Man before, and if he’s yez commander, you’ll damn well do what he say or I’ll have yez skin flayed and made into a vest for him to wear! You got that, kors?”\n\n“Oi, Felseg Kral!” the Hagahorn’ugh shouted, with no reluctance that Lugbol could see. But it wasn’t enough for Kral Nekheru.\n\n“You got that, kors?” he shouted back.\n\n“Oi, Felseg Kral!” they roared, much louder the second time. Nekheru nodded and turned back to Lugbol.\n\n“Can’t say you won’t run into nobody who’ll give you trouble, what with being Goghu and all. If they do, pull rank on ’em; I’ll back you up.” The kral snorted, his eyes distant. “Some of the big ’uns need to be kicked in the bollocks once or twice to fall in line. Come back tonight at sunset; you’ll be meeting your alulzabit’ugh at the talakhoza.”\n\n“How many kors will I have?”\n\n“Counting the sqwaaks, maybe fifteen ezer, four o’ them farkhut’agh.”\n\nLugbol nodded. Fifteen thousand, four thousand being goblin cavalry. He was being given command of an army bigger than any he’d ever imagined could possibly exist before being summoned by the Great Orc the previous autumn. It reminded him of when his anya had first told him tales of Mulguth the Mighty, the terrible Goblinsbane, who commanded more kors than any orc could count. And yet, that was ten ezers less than Zlatagh had commanded, Zlatagh Piss-taker, whose body now lay rotting in the Korokhurmagh along with thousands of other orcs and gobbos.\n\n“I’ll be your eyes, Felseg Kral!” He saluted, and the kral saluted back. When he turned around to face the crowd of bigger, more powerful orcs staring at him again, he no longer felt the weight of their collective gaze. He was grun-kor of the Black Fist infantry, and damned if they weren’t the best in the cursed Hagahorn’ugh army.\n\nHe didn’t wait for an escort. He simply plowed straight ahead, with Khorpaghu falling in behind him, and all the Hagahornu kors parted before him as if he was an anyafaszhek troll. The big galvebel was back at the makeshift gate with his orcs. He must have heard the kral’s announcement, as he raised his fist swiftly and his fellow guards followed suit. Lugbol grinned and raised his fist in response; it felt pretty damned good.\n\nOnce they were clear of the kral’s camp, Korpaghu finally opened his mouth. “You really want to go back into the Korokhurmagh?”\n\n“They’re not going to fight us there. Not when the real infantry are with us. The mandokki will wait for us out in the open once they know we have to come to them.”\n\n“If you say,” the galvebel said. He sounded dubious.\n", "completion": "The clan chief of the Drangahanu, Lugbol saw, was standing on a wide, shallow hill of sorts, surrounded by circles of grun-kors, galvebels, and assorted kors sporting inkings that indicated dozens of different tribes. He didn’t look tall, but he had the powerful shoulders and bulging forearms of a boar rider, and a square, pugnacious face marked by two comically stubby lower tusks. The sides of his head were shaved, and his white-streaked mane was tied back into a boar’s tail. He was listening, with a skeptical expression on his face, to a big orc with yellowish skin who was energetically waving his hands as he spoke.\n\nThe kors surrounding Nekheru gave way reluctantly, but they gave way nevertheless as the galvebel and his men pushed through the crowd. Conscious of the many curious eyes on him, Lugbol stared fixedly ahead and stuck his chest out. Only a few of the kors here would grasp the significance of his still-raw brand, but word would spread soon enough that he was, as the galvebel said, somebody.\n\nNekheru waved the yellow orc to silence as the galvebel saluted. “Felseg Kral, this is the little Goghu what you wanted.”\n\nThe kral nodded and waved off the galvebel. The big yellow orc started to say something, but Nekheru shot him a warning glance, and he had the sense to clap his trap and back away. When the kral returned his attention to Lugbol, Lugbol saw that they were much of a height, although the older orc was considerably heavier and more muscular. He had a paunch and his squat legs were bandy with years of sitting on boar’s back, but despite his age, his eyes were still keen with intelligence.\n\n“You’re to be Azzakhar’s leash on me?” he asked, raising one skeptical eyebrow. “Who the faszh are you, kor?”\n\n“Grun-kor Lugbol of the Gog Black Fist Infantry, Felseg Kral. And my galvebel, Ghurash.”\n\n“And why the faszh do I need a faszhek grun-kor from anyafaszhek Gog, Grun-kor Lugbol, especially a grun-kor with one faszhek arm?”\n\nWell, at least Nekheru wasn’t threatening to rape him with it, Lugbol told himself. “Because the kral is marching west into the Manlands, Felseg Kral. And because not one moon past, the bloody Szavon’ugh fed twenty-five thousand kors under Zlatagh Maneater their own anyafaszhek vanks. My Black Fist Infantry was the only gungiyar to fight, to stay together through the night, and return to the army afterwards, Felseg Kral.”\n\n“You think yez some kind of bad-arse kor, Grun-kor?”\n\n“No, Felseg Kral. I just try to look before I stick my vank in it.”\n\nNekheru barked with laughter. “Then yez one kor in a thousand, Grun-kor Lugbol. So Azzakhar ain’t looking to throw my kors into the grinder?”\n\n“I wouldn’t know, Felseg Kral. I seen him once, when he give me this.” Lugbol pointed to his arm.\n\n“With the fire,” the kral said approvingly. His bulging arms were marked with nothing more than tattoos and scars, but then, Lugbol hadn’t seen a single Hagahornu zabit sporting a brand. It didn’t seem the northerners were inclined to burn themselves; after taking the fire himself, Lugbol very strongly felt that the Hagahornu had the right of it. “So what did the looking learn you?”\n\n“They can fight. We thought we was safe because we was in the trees, so their cavalry couldn’t smash us and their foot couldn’t catch us. We bled them, we burned their villages and we killed their kwee and their kin, but somehow they got behind us and squagged us good. All the gobbos and half the kors who live is probably still running.”\n\n“Orcs.”\n\n“What do you mean?”\n\n“Orcs,” the kral repeated. He gestured around him. “They wasn’t no kors. These be kors, Grun-kor. Kors like you.”\n\n“Right,” Lugbol said as if he meant it. He didn’t know what else to say. And what was he going to do, argue with the orc?\n\nThe kral chuckled. “I’d half a mind to send your head back to Azzakhar before, but now I see he didn’t mean nothing by it, I think it’ll serve me better on yez shoulders. I’m naming you Hadvezer. You’ll command the scouts and the skirmishers.”\n\n“Felseg Kral!” Lugbol blurted, half in shock, half in protest. In normal circumstances, a hadvezer was a warleader of more than one clan. In the present situation, it meant that the kral was putting Lugbol on his command staff, and making him senior to every graborgh, grun-kor, and shugaba in the cursed army!\n\n“Do I keep my kors?”\n\n“How many you got?”\n\n“Roundabout five szazad’ugh, Felseg Kral.”\n\nThe kral tapped his chin reflectively. “Yeah, Hadvezer Lugbol, you can keep them. Probably best to keep a few Gogh’ugh around in case some thickskull gets it in his head to think he don’t have to take yez orders.”\n\n“Thank you, Felseg Kral.” Lugbol knew very well that the kral had probably just saved his life. No matter what he was called, he was going to need all the muscle he could get to keep the Hagahorn’ugh kors in line. Fortunately, the same thought appeared to strike the kral.\n\n“Oi, listen up, all you sqwaaks and squaggies! This here’s Lugbol, of the Black Fist! He’s small, he’s Goghu, but for all that I’m telling you he’s the new Hadvezer for the light infantry! He’s a right proper kor, he’s fought Man before, and if he’s yez commander, you’ll damn well do what he say or I’ll have yez skin flayed and made into a vest for him to wear! You got that, kors?”\n\n“Oi, Felseg Kral!” the Hagahorn’ugh shouted, with no reluctance that Lugbol could see. But it wasn’t enough for Kral Nekheru.\n\n“You got that, kors?” he shouted back.\n\n“Oi, Felseg Kral!” they roared, much louder the second time. Nekheru nodded and turned back to Lugbol.\n\n“Can’t say you won’t run into nobody who’ll give you trouble, what with being Goghu and all. If they do, pull rank on ’em; I’ll back you up.” The kral snorted, his eyes distant. “Some of the big ’uns need to be kicked in the bollocks once or twice to fall in line. Come back tonight at sunset; you’ll be meeting your alulzabit’ugh at the talakhoza.”\n\n“How many kors will I have?”\n\n“Counting the sqwaaks, maybe fifteen ezer, four o’ them farkhut’agh.”\n\nLugbol nodded. Fifteen thousand, four thousand being goblin cavalry. He was being given command of an army bigger than any he’d ever imagined could possibly exist before being summoned by the Great Orc the previous autumn. It reminded him of when his anya had first told him tales of Mulguth the Mighty, the terrible Goblinsbane, who commanded more kors than any orc could count. And yet, that was ten ezers less than Zlatagh had commanded, Zlatagh Piss-taker, whose body now lay rotting in the Korokhurmagh along with thousands of other orcs and gobbos.\n\n“I’ll be your eyes, Felseg Kral!” He saluted, and the kral saluted back. When he turned around to face the crowd of bigger, more powerful orcs staring at him again, he no longer felt the weight of their collective gaze. He was grun-kor of the Black Fist infantry, and damned if they weren’t the best in the cursed Hagahorn’ugh army.\n\nHe didn’t wait for an escort. He simply plowed straight ahead, with Khorpaghu falling in behind him, and all the Hagahornu kors parted before him as if he was an anyafaszhek troll. The big galvebel was back at the makeshift gate with his orcs. He must have heard the kral’s announcement, as he raised his fist swiftly and his fellow guards followed suit. Lugbol grinned and raised his fist in response; it felt pretty damned good.\n\nOnce they were clear of the kral’s camp, Korpaghu finally opened his mouth. “You really want to go back into the Korokhurmagh?”\n\n“They’re not going to fight us there. Not when the real infantry are with us. The mandokki will wait for us out in the open once they know we have to come to them.”\n\n“If you say,” the galvebel said. He sounded dubious.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1417, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch21_lugbol-P3", "chapter": "ch21_lugbol", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSnaghak / Snaggletooth — rival former shugaba; both forms as used.\nUnbak — hulking kor Snaghak pushes forward; keep spelling.\nshugaba — warband captain; keep form.\nOrdogh — oath-name in Lugbol’s curse; keep spelling.\nmurdu — orc denial/curse; keep spelling.\nhadvezerek — form Snaghak uses mocking the rank; keep spelling.\nBlack Foot — Ghurash’s slip for Black Fist in the shout; keep as spoken.\nLaw of the Orc — wartime ban on challenging the named hadvezer; capitalize as written.\ncobber — vulgar boast-term; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nLugbol is summoned from Tadezha to Nekheru’s camp; at the Hagahorn gate he forces recognition as Azzakhar’s branded grun-kor and is escorted toward the clan chief.\n\nOn the hill Nekheru names him Hadvezer of scouts and skirmishers, lets him keep his Black Fist, and sends him out; Lugbol clears the camp telling Korpaghu the mandokki will wait in the open.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nLugbol\nAlive, newly Hadvezer, returning to find Tadezha already collected by Azzakhar’s guards. One arm still injured; will not lose face before his kors. Knows wartime law: challenges to a named hadvezer are death. Means to bait Snaghak into a “fair” jaws-and-claws fight that is not a rank challenge.\n\nSnaghak\nFormer shugaba rival from the Zlatagh host; alive, snot-blowing, hoping Lugbol is dead. Uses Unbak as cat’s-paw; explodes when Lugbol answers with a crossbow instead of claws. Will swear a non-challenge one-on-one.\n\nUnbak\nHulking, slow kor Snaghak pushes to mouth a challenge; wets himself when the crossbow covers him.\n\nGhurash / Korpaghu\nBack Lugbol publicly; spiked club and crossbow kor in play.\n\nTadezha\nAlready gone; collected by Great Orc guards in Lugbol’s absence.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“You got that, kors?” he shouted back.\n\n“Oi, Felseg Kral!” they roared, much louder the second time. Nekheru nodded and turned back to Lugbol.\n\n“Can’t say you won’t run into nobody who’ll give you trouble, what with being Goghu and all. If they do, pull rank on ’em; I’ll back you up.” The kral snorted, his eyes distant. “Some of the big ’uns need to be kicked in the bollocks once or twice to fall in line. Come back tonight at sunset; you’ll be meeting your alulzabit’ugh at the talakhoza.”\n\n“How many kors will I have?”\n\n“Counting the sqwaaks, maybe fifteen ezer, four o’ them farkhut’agh.”\n\nLugbol nodded. Fifteen thousand, four thousand being goblin cavalry. He was being given command of an army bigger than any he’d ever imagined could possibly exist before being summoned by the Great Orc the previous autumn. It reminded him of when his anya had first told him tales of Mulguth the Mighty, the terrible Goblinsbane, who commanded more kors than any orc could count. And yet, that was ten ezers less than Zlatagh had commanded, Zlatagh Piss-taker, whose body now lay rotting in the Korokhurmagh along with thousands of other orcs and gobbos.\n\n“I’ll be your eyes, Felseg Kral!” He saluted, and the kral saluted back. When he turned around to face the crowd of bigger, more powerful orcs staring at him again, he no longer felt the weight of their collective gaze. He was grun-kor of the Black Fist infantry, and damned if they weren’t the best in the cursed Hagahorn’ugh army.\n\nHe didn’t wait for an escort. He simply plowed straight ahead, with Khorpaghu falling in behind him, and all the Hagahornu kors parted before him as if he was an anyafaszhek troll. The big galvebel was back at the makeshift gate with his orcs. He must have heard the kral’s announcement, as he raised his fist swiftly and his fellow guards followed suit. Lugbol grinned and raised his fist in response; it felt pretty damned good.\n\nOnce they were clear of the kral’s camp, Korpaghu finally opened his mouth. “You really want to go back into the Korokhurmagh?”\n\n“They’re not going to fight us there. Not when the real infantry are with us. The mandokki will wait for us out in the open once they know we have to come to them.”\n\n“If you say,” the galvebel said. He sounded dubious.\n\n### NOTES\nBlack Fist tents; afternoon crowd gathering for entertainment.\nCrossbow kor present among Lugbol’s men.\nWartime rule: once hadvezer is named, challenging him is death; a private jaws-and-claws bout can be sworn as not a challenge.\nLugbol’s left arm vulnerable; he will break a hand finishing Snaghak.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Lugbol.\n\nTadezha is already gone when he returns. Snaghak surfaces with Unbak to mouth a challenge Lugbol cannot win fair with one arm. Lugbol puts a crossbow on Unbak, names himself hadvezer under wartime law, and offers Snaghak a sworn jaws-and-claws fight that will not transfer rank. Snaghak takes the bait. They claw and punch until Lugbol head-butts, beats him senseless, breaks his own hand on the finishing blows, then crushes Snaghak’s throat underheel while the Black Fist chants. The scene lands on that kill and the shrug to Korpaghu.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2050 words. Fight concrete and ugly; no glory padding. Land on the throat-crush, not a later assembly.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "He was disappointed to discover upon their return that Tadezha was already gone. His kors reported that a pair of the Great Orc’s guards appeared not long after Lugbol’s departure to collect her. He was just about to order an assembly when behind him, he heard a familiar voice calling his name.\n\nHe turned around to see a most unwelcome sight. It was Snaghak, the bastard orc he’d hoped was rotting deep in the forest with Zlatagh. No such luck, it seemed.\n\n“What in the name of Ordogh’s bunghole is yez ugly face doing here, Snaggletooth?”\n\nSnaghak held up one finger to his left nostril and blew. A long string of green-yellow snot flew out and landed very near Lugbol’s left foot. It was a damned good shot, Lugbol was reluctantly forced to admit. “I heard the Black Fist was taking in all sorts o’ kors.”\n\n“Don’t want you, Snaggletooth.”\n\n“Didn’t think you did, Grun-kor.” He jerked a thumb at a hulking orc behind him who looked vaguely familiar to Lugbol. “See, I was just talking to Unbak here, and he don’t much like how yez calling the shots around here.”\n\n“That so?”\n\nThe big orc blinked slowly. He wasn’t a mountain orc, and compared to the Hagahorn’ugh kors he looked almost underfed, but even so, he was clearly capable of tearing Lugbol limb-from-limb.\n\n“Yeah,” Unbak said. “Yeah, you punk-arse, me say.”\n\nRight. Lugbol glanced to both sides. There were far too many of his orcs paying witness to let the challenge pass, and while he was loath to kill one of his own kors, there was no way he could hope to beat down Unbak, especially not with an injured arm. Well, Snaghak left him little choice. He gestured to a kor he saw wearing a crossbow slung across his back.\n\n“You, yeah you, point that at the big one there.”\n\nThe kor hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, wound the crank, slipped in a bolt and aimed it at the big orc’s unarmored chest.\n\nUnbak blinked stupidly, a perplexed expression gradually making its way across his broad green face. Snaghak, on the other hand, exploded with rage, just as Lugbol had hoped.\n\n“I knowed you was tricksy, but I never knowed you was yellow, you bloody ghash!” The former shugaba was nearly frothing at the mouth in his fury. “You may be grun-kor, but you think one single kor in the gungiyar is going to follow you anywheres if you have yez kors kill’im instead of fighting the challenge, you stinking coward?”\n\nLugbol merely smiled. The Law of the Orc was less an iron-clad set of rules than time-honored traditions violated with impunity by those with the power to do so, and bent as far as possible by those without it, but there was one law that was always kept by every orc, in every clan and every tribe. And that was, in times of war—defined as when the gungiyar’ugh were gathered and the hadvezer named—no challenges were permitted to the warleader on pain of death.\n\n“You would be right, if yez big friend there had challenged me when I was just a grun-kor, Snaghak. But I ain’t no grun-kor no more. I’m hadvezer.”\n\n“Murdu!” Snaghak snarled. “You ain’t no hadvezer!”\n\n“Go ask the kral of the Hagahorn if you don’t believe me.”\n\nGhurash stepped forward, twirling a spiked club he had somehow acquired without Lugbol noticing. A circle of kors had begun to gather now, sensing the prospects for some afternoon entertainment.\n\n“Best watch your filthy faszhek mouth,” the normally taciturn galvebel said loudly. “I was there. He’s grun-kor of the Black Foot, but now he’s hadvezer for the whole bloody light infantry too.”\n\nTriumphant whoops and blood-curdling howls erupted from the orcs who heard him, prompting even more to rush out of their tents and inquire as to the cause. Lugbol looked around and saw nearly one hundred of his kors had already gathered around; even some passing heavy infantry had heard the commotion and were standing on the outskirts of the mob.\n\n“You want me to pincushion this big faszhan, Hadvezer?” the orc with the crossbow asked with a smirk. Unbak, already pale, promptly wet himself, sparking shrieks and screams of mocking laughter.\n\n“That depends on our friend Snaggletooth here,” Lugbol said, staring down the former shugaba. “If he’ll take me on, right here, right now, I’ll let the piss-legger live.”\n\n“Fight, fight, fight!” The watching orcs began to chant. Snaghak’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.\n\n“Yez just trying to trick me.”\n\n“No trick. What, yez gonna yellow out now?”\n\n“Yez gonna say I challenged you, then hide behind yez damn hadvezerek to kill me, yeah?”\n\n“What sort o’ yellow ghash is you, Snaggletooth?” Lugbol wrinkled his lip contemptuously. “You put yez stupid pal here up to challenge me, and now yez gonna let him die because yez too damn yellow-bellied to fight an orc with one arm?”\n\n“I ain’t too yellow nothing! You swear to Gor-Gor and the Great Orc hisself that yez’ll fight me fair, one-on-one, and it ain’t no challenge.”\n\n“It ain’t no challenge,” Lugbol agreed. “You beat me down, you still ain’t grun-kor and you sure as hell ain’t hadvezer.”\n\nIt was a moot point, he knew. Snaghak had no intention of leaving him alive, and even if he did somehow survive a beat-down, the kors would never follow him after so many of them saw it happen.\n\n“Swear it!”\n\n“I swear it by Gor-Gor and the Great Orc Azzakhar,” he vowed. “And by Kral Nekheru,” he added, just in case word got back to the Hagahornu leader. If he lived, it couldn’t hurt to kiss the kral’s green arse. “That enough for you?”\n\nSnaghak still looked suspicious, but he nodded slowly. Lugbol glanced at the orc with the crossbow and made a gesture with his hand. The orc slipped the string and removed the bolt, prompting a cruel laugh from the crowd as Unbak began to shake and shiver with the afterfear.\n\n“Who’s the punk-arse now, you faszhek fraud?” someone shouted at him, and the big orc cringed. Lugbol almost felt sorry for him; the poor brute was too stupid to know how Snaghak had been using him. For that alone, Snaghak deserved to get his head stove in.\n\n“So, how you wanna go, Lugbollocks?” Snaghak seemed to be recovering from the unexpected shock of Lugbol’s promotion and was returning to his usual brazen self. “Clubs, claws, or blades?”\n\n“I was thinking I’d just beat you to death with my big ol’ cobber,” Lugbol said, grabbing himself. “Seeing that yez too damn tight-arsed to squag and yez teeth are too damn snaggled to risk my vank.”\n\nThe Black Fists roared their lusty approval of his open contempt. Snaghak flushed dark green with fury, which was exactly what Lugbol wanted. The shugaba might be a sneak and a backstabber, but he’d earned a reputation as a good fighter, and he’d made for a fairly even match even when Lugbol had been healthy.\n\n“I’ll kill you for that,” Snaghak hissed. “Think I’m a faszhek gobbo? I’ll rape your corpse and fry your vank for my dinner tonight!”\n\n“Better invite some friends then, Snaggie. This big ol’ vank’ll feed at least five.” His kors fairly screamed with laughter, but Lugbol resisted the urge to throw more wood on the fire as Snaghak looked more than ready to leap at his throat. “Jaws and claws, Snaghak. Just jaws and claws. Now throw the faszh down or run like the bitch yez be!”\n\nSnaghak snarled and leaped at him, leading with his left shoulder in an attempt to knock Lugbol down. Anticipating this, Lugbol dodged right, but slashed to the left with his right hand, raking his outstretched claws across Snaghak’s ugly face. He raised his hand, and the watching orcs shouted at the sight of Snaghak’s blood dripping down his forearm.\n\nSnaghak growled, but the pain of the three deep scratches carved in parallel across his left cheek seemed to calm him rather than enrage him. Lugbol reminded himself that the other orc didn’t get to be shugaba of the Long Marchers by being stupid and prone to spiraling out of control. They circled each other slowly, each looking for an opening to exploit. Lugbol lashed out with his left foot, but it was a half-hearted feint and Snaghak simply ignored it. His angry yellow eyes never left Lugbol’s face.\n\n“Just kill the bastard already,” he heard Korpaghu shout, and he hurled himself forward, slashing and clawing at Snaghak’s face. But the other orc ducked his windmilling swings and smashed his shoulder into Lugbol’s bad arm, then threw two punches at it in rapid succession. He didn’t even try to hit Lugbol’s face, and he didn’t have to, as the pain that erupted in Lugbol’s arm nearly took his breath away as it spread up to his shoulder. He somehow managed to kick Snaghak off him with his left foot, but sensing an advantage, Snaghak closed in again, avoided a jab, grabbed Lugbol’s shoulder with both hands, and snapped at Lugbol’s arm with his tusks.\n\nBut before Snaghak’s jaws could close on the injured limb, Lugbol head-butted his enemy. Green blood spattered all over his forehead, blinding him momentarily. Snaghak shrieked and stumbled back, both hands covering his face. Lugbol was staggered himself by the force of the blow, but he wiped at his face and threw himself at his bloody opponent with a snarl that was echoed by the watchers. His own blood up, Lugbol barely felt the burning pain in his arm as he smashed his left fist into Snaghak’s jaw, then threw a right to his cheek, and another left that harmlessly clipped the other orc’s ear before finally buckling Snaghak’s knees with a powerful right uppercut.\n\nAs the dazed orc started to crumple, Lugbol reared back and hit Snaghak as hard as he could on the side of the head. Snaghak went down heavily, as if he’d been struck with a club, and Lugbol was on him in a flash, straddling his limp body and pinning down his arms with his knees before smashing fist after fist after fist into the now-unconscious orc’s bloody face. Then there was a loud crack, and a sharp new pain flowered in his hand.\n\n“Gordammit!” he swore viciously, before awkwardly pushing himself off of Snaghak, cradling his left forearm in his right hand. He’d either broken his hand or his wrist and it hurt like an anyafaszhek. “Son of a whore can’t even take a beat-down without being a pain in the arse!”\n\nHe rose unsteadily to cheers and an incipient chant that quickly grew louder. “Black Fist, Black Fist, Black Fist!” Lugbol nodded, and turned in a circle to acknowledge the chanting kors, and not without effort, raised his broken, bloody hand above his head.\n\nKorpaghu stepped forward. “You’re not going to let the bastard live, are you?” He fingered the Man dagger he wore at his belt meaningfully.\n\n“Don’t be stupid,” Lugbol said wearily. “Be a piss-poor grun-kor if I dasn’t do it meself.”\n\nHe walked over to Snaghak, lying prone and helpless in his own blood. He almost felt sorry for the arrogant shugaba, who had never known when to shut his trap or leave well enough alone. Then he looked up at Korpaghu and shrugged, wincing as the movement caused his shoulder to twinge.\n\n“Don’t bring it if you don’t got it.”\n\nAnd with that, he stomped down hard on Snaghak’s exposed throat, crushing the defenseless orc’s airpipe under a horny, callused heel with an audible crunch.\n", "completion": "He was disappointed to discover upon their return that Tadezha was already gone. His kors reported that a pair of the Great Orc’s guards appeared not long after Lugbol’s departure to collect her. He was just about to order an assembly when behind him, he heard a familiar voice calling his name.\n\nHe turned around to see a most unwelcome sight. It was Snaghak, the bastard orc he’d hoped was rotting deep in the forest with Zlatagh. No such luck, it seemed.\n\n“What in the name of Ordogh’s bunghole is yez ugly face doing here, Snaggletooth?”\n\nSnaghak held up one finger to his left nostril and blew. A long string of green-yellow snot flew out and landed very near Lugbol’s left foot. It was a damned good shot, Lugbol was reluctantly forced to admit. “I heard the Black Fist was taking in all sorts o’ kors.”\n\n“Don’t want you, Snaggletooth.”\n\n“Didn’t think you did, Grun-kor.” He jerked a thumb at a hulking orc behind him who looked vaguely familiar to Lugbol. “See, I was just talking to Unbak here, and he don’t much like how yez calling the shots around here.”\n\n“That so?”\n\nThe big orc blinked slowly. He wasn’t a mountain orc, and compared to the Hagahorn’ugh kors he looked almost underfed, but even so, he was clearly capable of tearing Lugbol limb-from-limb.\n\n“Yeah,” Unbak said. “Yeah, you punk-arse, me say.”\n\nRight. Lugbol glanced to both sides. There were far too many of his orcs paying witness to let the challenge pass, and while he was loath to kill one of his own kors, there was no way he could hope to beat down Unbak, especially not with an injured arm. Well, Snaghak left him little choice. He gestured to a kor he saw wearing a crossbow slung across his back.\n\n“You, yeah you, point that at the big one there.”\n\nThe kor hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, wound the crank, slipped in a bolt and aimed it at the big orc’s unarmored chest.\n\nUnbak blinked stupidly, a perplexed expression gradually making its way across his broad green face. Snaghak, on the other hand, exploded with rage, just as Lugbol had hoped.\n\n“I knowed you was tricksy, but I never knowed you was yellow, you bloody ghash!” The former shugaba was nearly frothing at the mouth in his fury. “You may be grun-kor, but you think one single kor in the gungiyar is going to follow you anywheres if you have yez kors kill’im instead of fighting the challenge, you stinking coward?”\n\nLugbol merely smiled. The Law of the Orc was less an iron-clad set of rules than time-honored traditions violated with impunity by those with the power to do so, and bent as far as possible by those without it, but there was one law that was always kept by every orc, in every clan and every tribe. And that was, in times of war—defined as when the gungiyar’ugh were gathered and the hadvezer named—no challenges were permitted to the warleader on pain of death.\n\n“You would be right, if yez big friend there had challenged me when I was just a grun-kor, Snaghak. But I ain’t no grun-kor no more. I’m hadvezer.”\n\n“Murdu!” Snaghak snarled. “You ain’t no hadvezer!”\n\n“Go ask the kral of the Hagahorn if you don’t believe me.”\n\nGhurash stepped forward, twirling a spiked club he had somehow acquired without Lugbol noticing. A circle of kors had begun to gather now, sensing the prospects for some afternoon entertainment.\n\n“Best watch your filthy faszhek mouth,” the normally taciturn galvebel said loudly. “I was there. He’s grun-kor of the Black Foot, but now he’s hadvezer for the whole bloody light infantry too.”\n\nTriumphant whoops and blood-curdling howls erupted from the orcs who heard him, prompting even more to rush out of their tents and inquire as to the cause. Lugbol looked around and saw nearly one hundred of his kors had already gathered around; even some passing heavy infantry had heard the commotion and were standing on the outskirts of the mob.\n\n“You want me to pincushion this big faszhan, Hadvezer?” the orc with the crossbow asked with a smirk. Unbak, already pale, promptly wet himself, sparking shrieks and screams of mocking laughter.\n\n“That depends on our friend Snaggletooth here,” Lugbol said, staring down the former shugaba. “If he’ll take me on, right here, right now, I’ll let the piss-legger live.”\n\n“Fight, fight, fight!” The watching orcs began to chant. Snaghak’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.\n\n“Yez just trying to trick me.”\n\n“No trick. What, yez gonna yellow out now?”\n\n“Yez gonna say I challenged you, then hide behind yez damn hadvezerek to kill me, yeah?”\n\n“What sort o’ yellow ghash is you, Snaggletooth?” Lugbol wrinkled his lip contemptuously. “You put yez stupid pal here up to challenge me, and now yez gonna let him die because yez too damn yellow-bellied to fight an orc with one arm?”\n\n“I ain’t too yellow nothing! You swear to Gor-Gor and the Great Orc hisself that yez’ll fight me fair, one-on-one, and it ain’t no challenge.”\n\n“It ain’t no challenge,” Lugbol agreed. “You beat me down, you still ain’t grun-kor and you sure as hell ain’t hadvezer.”\n\nIt was a moot point, he knew. Snaghak had no intention of leaving him alive, and even if he did somehow survive a beat-down, the kors would never follow him after so many of them saw it happen.\n\n“Swear it!”\n\n“I swear it by Gor-Gor and the Great Orc Azzakhar,” he vowed. “And by Kral Nekheru,” he added, just in case word got back to the Hagahornu leader. If he lived, it couldn’t hurt to kiss the kral’s green arse. “That enough for you?”\n\nSnaghak still looked suspicious, but he nodded slowly. Lugbol glanced at the orc with the crossbow and made a gesture with his hand. The orc slipped the string and removed the bolt, prompting a cruel laugh from the crowd as Unbak began to shake and shiver with the afterfear.\n\n“Who’s the punk-arse now, you faszhek fraud?” someone shouted at him, and the big orc cringed. Lugbol almost felt sorry for him; the poor brute was too stupid to know how Snaghak had been using him. For that alone, Snaghak deserved to get his head stove in.\n\n“So, how you wanna go, Lugbollocks?” Snaghak seemed to be recovering from the unexpected shock of Lugbol’s promotion and was returning to his usual brazen self. “Clubs, claws, or blades?”\n\n“I was thinking I’d just beat you to death with my big ol’ cobber,” Lugbol said, grabbing himself. “Seeing that yez too damn tight-arsed to squag and yez teeth are too damn snaggled to risk my vank.”\n\nThe Black Fists roared their lusty approval of his open contempt. Snaghak flushed dark green with fury, which was exactly what Lugbol wanted. The shugaba might be a sneak and a backstabber, but he’d earned a reputation as a good fighter, and he’d made for a fairly even match even when Lugbol had been healthy.\n\n“I’ll kill you for that,” Snaghak hissed. “Think I’m a faszhek gobbo? I’ll rape your corpse and fry your vank for my dinner tonight!”\n\n“Better invite some friends then, Snaggie. This big ol’ vank’ll feed at least five.” His kors fairly screamed with laughter, but Lugbol resisted the urge to throw more wood on the fire as Snaghak looked more than ready to leap at his throat. “Jaws and claws, Snaghak. Just jaws and claws. Now throw the faszh down or run like the bitch yez be!”\n\nSnaghak snarled and leaped at him, leading with his left shoulder in an attempt to knock Lugbol down. Anticipating this, Lugbol dodged right, but slashed to the left with his right hand, raking his outstretched claws across Snaghak’s ugly face. He raised his hand, and the watching orcs shouted at the sight of Snaghak’s blood dripping down his forearm.\n\nSnaghak growled, but the pain of the three deep scratches carved in parallel across his left cheek seemed to calm him rather than enrage him. Lugbol reminded himself that the other orc didn’t get to be shugaba of the Long Marchers by being stupid and prone to spiraling out of control. They circled each other slowly, each looking for an opening to exploit. Lugbol lashed out with his left foot, but it was a half-hearted feint and Snaghak simply ignored it. His angry yellow eyes never left Lugbol’s face.\n\n“Just kill the bastard already,” he heard Korpaghu shout, and he hurled himself forward, slashing and clawing at Snaghak’s face. But the other orc ducked his windmilling swings and smashed his shoulder into Lugbol’s bad arm, then threw two punches at it in rapid succession. He didn’t even try to hit Lugbol’s face, and he didn’t have to, as the pain that erupted in Lugbol’s arm nearly took his breath away as it spread up to his shoulder. He somehow managed to kick Snaghak off him with his left foot, but sensing an advantage, Snaghak closed in again, avoided a jab, grabbed Lugbol’s shoulder with both hands, and snapped at Lugbol’s arm with his tusks.\n\nBut before Snaghak’s jaws could close on the injured limb, Lugbol head-butted his enemy. Green blood spattered all over his forehead, blinding him momentarily. Snaghak shrieked and stumbled back, both hands covering his face. Lugbol was staggered himself by the force of the blow, but he wiped at his face and threw himself at his bloody opponent with a snarl that was echoed by the watchers. His own blood up, Lugbol barely felt the burning pain in his arm as he smashed his left fist into Snaghak’s jaw, then threw a right to his cheek, and another left that harmlessly clipped the other orc’s ear before finally buckling Snaghak’s knees with a powerful right uppercut.\n\nAs the dazed orc started to crumple, Lugbol reared back and hit Snaghak as hard as he could on the side of the head. Snaghak went down heavily, as if he’d been struck with a club, and Lugbol was on him in a flash, straddling his limp body and pinning down his arms with his knees before smashing fist after fist after fist into the now-unconscious orc’s bloody face. Then there was a loud crack, and a sharp new pain flowered in his hand.\n\n“Gordammit!” he swore viciously, before awkwardly pushing himself off of Snaghak, cradling his left forearm in his right hand. He’d either broken his hand or his wrist and it hurt like an anyafaszhek. “Son of a whore can’t even take a beat-down without being a pain in the arse!”\n\nHe rose unsteadily to cheers and an incipient chant that quickly grew louder. “Black Fist, Black Fist, Black Fist!” Lugbol nodded, and turned in a circle to acknowledge the chanting kors, and not without effort, raised his broken, bloody hand above his head.\n\nKorpaghu stepped forward. “You’re not going to let the bastard live, are you?” He fingered the Man dagger he wore at his belt meaningfully.\n\n“Don’t be stupid,” Lugbol said wearily. “Be a piss-poor grun-kor if I dasn’t do it meself.”\n\nHe walked over to Snaghak, lying prone and helpless in his own blood. He almost felt sorry for the arrogant shugaba, who had never known when to shut his trap or leave well enough alone. Then he looked up at Korpaghu and shrugged, wincing as the movement caused his shoulder to twinge.\n\n“Don’t bring it if you don’t got it.”\n\nAnd with that, he stomped down hard on Snaghak’s exposed throat, crushing the defenseless orc’s airpipe under a horny, callused heel with an audible crunch.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2031, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch22_bereth-P1", "chapter": "ch22_bereth", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nBereth — sky-raider viewpoint; keep spelling.\nMerlian — her warhawk; keep spelling.\nSilverbow / Silverbows — scout designation; capitals as written.\nLord Oakenheart — commander issuing search orders; both words capitalized.\nMerithaim — border realm; keep spelling.\nUskilukh — troll seat named in camp theory; keep spelling.\nGoblinsbane — prior war epithet; one word.\nCollegium Occludum — mage college; both words capitalized.\nIlriathas — heir to Mons Kelethan; keep spelling.\nMons Kelethan — his seat; keep spelling.\nGaern — her father’s warhawk; keep spelling.\nElebrion — royal city/aerie reference; keep spelling.\nSelenoth — world-name; keep spelling.\nWitchkings — historical foes; one word capital W.\nGlaislael / Crystal City — fallen royal city; keep forms.\nSaeliras — painter of “The Last Stand…”; keep spelling.\nKingsguard — capitalized unit name.\nwarhawk — one word for the great hawks.\nskyrider / sky raider — forms as written in place.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nEighty-five-year-old Elebrion sky raider; sharpest eyes in the ranger wing. Alive at a solitary campsite on a perfect spring morning. Bound to Merlian for more than three decades; magic required to control him, so she has refused Ilriathas’s many marriage proposals. Ordered by Lord Oakenheart to search for two missing Silverbows watching the orc vanguard near Merithaim’s unmarked border. Expects them dead; will not abandon them unconfirmed.\n\nMerlian\nHer giant speckled warhawk; male; answers her seven-note whistle. Alive, hunting west of camp until called.\n\nIlriathas\nHeir to Mons Kelethan; handsome, calm, repeatedly proposing. Not present; in her thoughts as the price of sky.\n\nLord Oakenheart\nNot present; gave the morning search order without optimism.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nSpring morning; gentle west wind, cloudless azure sky.\nOrc/goblin host halted two weeks, stretching leagues; self-devouring swamp of filth; demonic drums and shaman rites continue; exploratory tendrils west and south only.\nNo trolls sighted by scout or sky raider despite theories of a new troll king.\nBereth’s pack: tent and blankets rolled, food for three days, water for four.\nHawk saddle: reins loose on pommel; thick safety straps and bronze buckles.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nA perfect sky-riding morning makes her recite scrap-verse at the sun and set aside the morbid echo of Glaislael’s fall. Oakenheart’s order is to find two Silverbows missing three days near the stagnant orc host; she knows her eyes are the wing’s best and that ground-hiding from that many-legged beast is hopeless. She calls Merlian, feeds him a dessicated mouse, straps in, and climbs into the blue—tempted to flee into fishing and meditation, pulled back by duty.\n\nFlight turns north on an easterly sea wind while she turns over Ilriathas’s proposals: she will not trade hawk-magic for marriage, remembering Gaern, the Royal Aerie egg, and the binding spell that made Merlian hers. She hunts the gaps in the orc coverage until she spots an elf jogging below and cries Silverbow—he draws steel and never looks up. The scene lands on that miss, before she shouts him onto the hawk’s notice.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2700 words. Elven aerial register; poetry and memory without soft focus. Land on the unnoticed Silverbow, not the pickup.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It was a perfect day for sky riding, thought Bereth, as she yawned and stretched under the warming rays of the springtime sun. The wind was gentle and from the west, the few clouds that wandered by high overhead were white and harmless, and the sky was a bright shade of azure that practically invited one to leap joyfully into it. The brilliance of the blue reminded her of the cloaks worn by the Kingsguard in a painting by Saeliras that she particularly admired. Then it occurred to her that the painting was entitled “The Last Stand” or to give it its full name, “The Last Stand of the Kingsguard Before the Gates of the Crystal City”.\n\nIt was only hours after the event so nobly depicted that Glaislael fell to the Witchkings. And with the royal city, both High King Lasgolir and his noble Kingsguard had fallen. She sighed and put the thought aside. It was a rather morbid one in light of the present circumstances. Even so, she found herself looking forward to the thought of leaping aloft and immersing herself in the rich, shimmering blue.\n\nShe spread her arms and addressed her singular audience, the sun.\n\nShall this cobalt sea\n\nBe swallowed up by horror,\n\nThat many-legged beast?\n\nI rise into cloudless skies,\n\nMy hatred my companion\n\nAstride fearless wings.\n\nShe was not discontent. It made little in the way of sense, which was a pity, but it was true to her sense of the morning. There was a practical advantage to the cloudless day as well. The prospect of good visibility was pleasing; a pair of Silverbows that were charged with keeping a watchful eye on the vanguard of the orc army passing too close for liking to the unmarked borders of Merithaim had not been seen in three days. Her orders, direct from Lord Oakenheart, were to spend the morning searching for them, although he was not sanguine about their prospects.\n\nBereth was aware that she possessed the sharpest eyes in the ranger wing, and so she concluded that if she couldn’t find them, either the Silverbows did not want to be found or they were already dead. It was hard to imagine that a pair of veteran scouts could be taken without so much as a hint of a distress signal, but then, the orc army was so massive that trying to hide from it on the ground was very like standing on a beach trying to hide from the sea. Except, unlike the sea, this vast army was neither advancing nor retreating. It simply sat there, day after day, doing nothing but slowly dwindle as it fed on itself.\n\nPerhaps a different approach would better suit her heart. After all, what did the sky fear from those poor wingless worms who crawled miserably across the surface of the earth? Nothing. Nothing at all.\n\nCancer on the land\n\nEngorged, and still it starves.\n\nO many-legged beast!\n\nWill you spare a limb for me,\n\nOr devour yourself entire?\n\nShe smiled. That was more properly expressive of her contempt for the foe. The vast army of orcs, goblins, and various and sundry other monstrosities stretched out for leagues along what would have been called its line of march were it still moving. But what had once been a slow-moving river, albeit a stinking, greenish-brown river more than half-choked with filth and sediment, was now a fetid swamp, coated from one end to the other with slimy green algae. Why, she did not know. The wizards did not know. Lord Oakenheart himself did not know.\n\nAll they knew was that the invading army halted its march two weeks ago. The demonic drums still echoed, the shrieking shamans still enacted their foul rituals, and screaming goblins were still spitted and roasted over open flames when they were not simply torn limb from limb and hurled into the large pig-iron pots to boil. But, with the exception of a few exploratory tendrils that were extruded out to west and south, the savage grotesquerie that she thought of as a gargantuan many-legged beast squatted fitfully in its own squalor. It was an army that fought no battles, an army whose only casualties were self-inflicted as it devoured itself.\n\nUnfortunately, every few days, ragged new columns of goblins would march in, and those that did not bring sufficient supplies with them soon found themselves fed to the ravenous hunger of the great beast.\n\nThe reason the vast army did nothing was much discussed throughout the elven camps. One popular theory was that a new troll king had come to power in Uskilukh and the army was awaiting the arrival of its liege. The orc septs were nominally subservient to their trollish masters, and since it was not long since they had last marched south at the behest of the Goblinsbane, the notion was not incredible. It was, however, somewhat undermined by the fact that no one, neither scout nor sky raider, had laid eyes upon a single troll, with or without a crown.\n\nAnother theory was that the orcish warleaders feared the high mages of the Collegium Occludum and were attempting some dark ritual, perhaps seeking to raise mighty devils from the pits of the deepest hells, in order to remove the mages from the field before launching their invasion. That made somewhat more sense to her. The archmages of the esoteric college fully merited being feared by any rational being, but then, if the orcs had a means of neutralizing the elven magistrae, would they not have done so before gathering their massive army?\n\nBereth’s take on the sprawling migration was rather more straightforward. Orcs were stupid, short-sighted, and their ability to connect consequences to actions did not considerably exceed that of the average rock. One could no more reasonably expect to understand their motivations for doing anything that didn’t involve killing, eating, or raping than one would expect to understand the actions of a tree, a stone, or a river. Such an invasion was best seen as a sort of natural disaster, averted if possible and mitigated if not.\n\nShe whistled, a seven-note succession that ended in a long, high trill. For a long moment, there was no response. She was not alarmed, however, as it was always possible that her great bird was too far away to hear her. But then she heard his answering cry, a distant shriek from the west that brought a smile to her lips. A small speck appeared in the sky to the west, high over her head, and it rapidly grew larger as Merlian obediently sped towards her. Seeing that he was on his way, she glanced about her campsite to ensure that she had forgotten nothing.\n\nHer tent and her blankets were rolled up and tied tightly under her leather pack, which was secured with a pair of iron buckles. She had enough food for three more days and water for four; she couldn’t count on being able to find anything edible within leagues of the starving orcs and any water in the area was bound to be thoroughly fouled by them as well.\n\nThe giant hawk arced gracefully towards the ground, his massive wings fully extended. She reached into a pouch on her belt and retrieved a dessicated mouse, which she offered to him after he landed and took three delicate steps in her direction. He accepted the offering with his customary delicacy, taking it from her palm with a powerful beak that could easily have severed her forearm.\n\nAfter swallowing the morsel, Merlian shook his head and ruffled his neck feathers. That was her cue; she obediently reached up and between the long quills to scratch the sensitive skin underneath them. He gave out a satisfied caw, then shook his head again. They were well familiar with each other; the great hawks were long-lived and he had borne Bereth safely through the skies for more than three decades now.\n\nHis scent was pungent, but comforting to her, as reassuring as the creak of the aged leather of the saddle and the shift of the powerful body in between her legs. She didn’t even bother with the reins, but left them loosely tied around the pommel of the saddle, as she’d left them last night.\n\nShe did, however, slip under the thick leather straps that would keep her on Merlian’s back should he shift directions too suddenly or tilt overmuch and pulled them tight before securing the bronze buckles. The orcs had no fliers themselves, but they did have archers and mages, and abrupt changes in course could be fatal to the unprepared. And more than one sky raider had fallen to a well-aimed spear thrown by a troll, although she doubted she would have to worry about any such fate today.\n\nBereth clucked and Merlian leaped into the sky. Her body rocked back and forth in the usual rhythm as the warhawk’s wings beat against the air, pulling her skyward. Soon he leveled out, facing east, and she gave him his head for a little while, allowing him to fly towards the sun and the distant sea. It was so peaceful up high that she found the thought of simply flying away and spending a quiet day or two fishing and meditating to be seductive, but her sense of duty quickly reasserted itself. The Silverbows were almost surely dead already, but until their fate was known, they must not be abandoned.\n\nShe reached down and patted the left side of his neck. Ever alert, the great hawk banked his wings and turned north. It was an easterly wind today, and cool, coming as it did from the direction of the sea.\n\nWhy was the thought of flying away so tempting? She was a little surprised at herself. It wasn’t the first time Ilriathas had proposed marriage to her. It wasn’t the tenth time, for that matter. The heir to Mons Kelethan was a handsome elf, tall, brave, and of impeccable bloodlines. He was barely a century old, twenty years older than her own eighty-five, but possessed of a calm wisdom of an elf two centuries his senior. She liked him, in fact, had she been able she would have taken him as a lover four decades ago.\n\nBut the price he asked of her was too high. It wasn’t that she was overly enamored of her magic. While there were those elfesses who made a fetish of sorcery and devoted their lives to it at the Collegium Occludum, she was not one of them. To her, it was a tool, nothing more. Still, without magic, one could not utilize the spell required to control hawks like Merlian, and she was loathe to even think about giving up this, the freedom to soar high over the lands of Selenoth like some sort of wind goddess.\n\nShe cursed whatever perverse god or devil had tied an elfess’s ability to procreate to the sacrifice of her magic. She had friends who had cast aside their virginity without a moment’s thought for what they were giving up, and she envied their blithe uninterest in all things magical. And perhaps she might have felt the same, had her father not so often taken her up on Gaern, his ancient warhawk, and learned what it was like to feel the sky winds on her face.\n\nFor as long as she could remember, she’d dreamed about one day having her own bird, her own sky companion. She’d learned the spells of binding when she’d barely reached half her present height and chanted them to herself as she fell asleep at night. And she had never known such happiness as the morning of her thirty-fifth birthday, when her father had taken her up on Gaern and flown her to the Royal Aerie high above Elebrion, and there shown her the great speckled egg from which Merlian had been hatched. She spent most of the day there, caressing it, singing to it, and telling it of the adventures they would have together.\n\nWhen the time of the hatching came closer, she would beg rides from every skyrider she encountered; she passed more than one night asleep in the Aerie. On the day Merlian hatched, she’d been initially disappointed to discover that he was a male bird, but the disappointment soon passed as she eagerly awaited the day when he would first take to the skies. And every night, she recited the spells that she would use to let them ride the winds together.\n\nWaiting for him to grow to a size sufficient to carry her was the longest three years of her life. Fortunately, he was large and she was small, and so she was finally granted permission to cast the spell that was now engraved upon her memory and take to the skies.\n\nBereth glanced down at the trees slowly flowing by beneath her, like a vast bright green river. She would need to pay closer attention soon; it would not be long before she would be approaching the first outposts of the enemy army. She stroked the back of Merlian’s neck and smiled. In truth, she could live without magic. But this? Never. Let Ilriathas breed his handsome sons and beautiful daughters on some other maiden, let some other noble-born elfess who did not know the joys of the sky dwell in Mons Kelethan and be called Lady Kelethan and sit near the royal table on feast-days. Let her lay claim to the lovely mountain castle and its famous views, none would ever compare to those she had seen from on high.\n\nA hint of movement far below caught her eye. She frowned, wondering what it might be, and swiftly untied the reins that had been hitherto unneeded. It was a valley of sorts below, with a ridge that ran north to south to the east and a gentler series of hills to the west. There was a lake closer to the hills than to the ridge, and it appeared some sort of creek or little river ran down from the ridge and through the trees of the valley to terminate in the kidney-shaped lake. With a gentle tug on the reins, she caused Merlian to circle about, hoping to get a better view of whatever was moving down below.\n\nIt was moving quickly through the trees, too quickly to be an orc. It could be an elf, but then, it could be a deer as well. Or, perhaps, a goblin wolfrider. She urged Merlian into a descending spiral, and reached behind the saddle for her bow and a quiver. She untied the leather thongs that held the former and withdrew three long white-feathered arrows from the latter.\n\nThe green expanse of the forest gradually transformed into individual trees and the gaps in the forest canopy became more apparent. She saw a gap in the coverage that appeared to be in the direct path where the creature was headed and caused Merlian to level out. It wasn’t a huge opening, but it was just enough to see an elf jogging through it underneath.\n\n“Silverbow!” she cried. “Silverbow!”\n\nHe pulled up, drew his sword, and looked wildly about him. He did not, however, think to look straight up. She laughed and slipped the arrows back into the quiver.\n", "completion": "It was a perfect day for sky riding, thought Bereth, as she yawned and stretched under the warming rays of the springtime sun. The wind was gentle and from the west, the few clouds that wandered by high overhead were white and harmless, and the sky was a bright shade of azure that practically invited one to leap joyfully into it. The brilliance of the blue reminded her of the cloaks worn by the Kingsguard in a painting by Saeliras that she particularly admired. Then it occurred to her that the painting was entitled “The Last Stand” or to give it its full name, “The Last Stand of the Kingsguard Before the Gates of the Crystal City”.\n\nIt was only hours after the event so nobly depicted that Glaislael fell to the Witchkings. And with the royal city, both High King Lasgolir and his noble Kingsguard had fallen. She sighed and put the thought aside. It was a rather morbid one in light of the present circumstances. Even so, she found herself looking forward to the thought of leaping aloft and immersing herself in the rich, shimmering blue.\n\nShe spread her arms and addressed her singular audience, the sun.\n\nShall this cobalt sea\n\nBe swallowed up by horror,\n\nThat many-legged beast?\n\nI rise into cloudless skies,\n\nMy hatred my companion\n\nAstride fearless wings.\n\nShe was not discontent. It made little in the way of sense, which was a pity, but it was true to her sense of the morning. There was a practical advantage to the cloudless day as well. The prospect of good visibility was pleasing; a pair of Silverbows that were charged with keeping a watchful eye on the vanguard of the orc army passing too close for liking to the unmarked borders of Merithaim had not been seen in three days. Her orders, direct from Lord Oakenheart, were to spend the morning searching for them, although he was not sanguine about their prospects.\n\nBereth was aware that she possessed the sharpest eyes in the ranger wing, and so she concluded that if she couldn’t find them, either the Silverbows did not want to be found or they were already dead. It was hard to imagine that a pair of veteran scouts could be taken without so much as a hint of a distress signal, but then, the orc army was so massive that trying to hide from it on the ground was very like standing on a beach trying to hide from the sea. Except, unlike the sea, this vast army was neither advancing nor retreating. It simply sat there, day after day, doing nothing but slowly dwindle as it fed on itself.\n\nPerhaps a different approach would better suit her heart. After all, what did the sky fear from those poor wingless worms who crawled miserably across the surface of the earth? Nothing. Nothing at all.\n\nCancer on the land\n\nEngorged, and still it starves.\n\nO many-legged beast!\n\nWill you spare a limb for me,\n\nOr devour yourself entire?\n\nShe smiled. That was more properly expressive of her contempt for the foe. The vast army of orcs, goblins, and various and sundry other monstrosities stretched out for leagues along what would have been called its line of march were it still moving. But what had once been a slow-moving river, albeit a stinking, greenish-brown river more than half-choked with filth and sediment, was now a fetid swamp, coated from one end to the other with slimy green algae. Why, she did not know. The wizards did not know. Lord Oakenheart himself did not know.\n\nAll they knew was that the invading army halted its march two weeks ago. The demonic drums still echoed, the shrieking shamans still enacted their foul rituals, and screaming goblins were still spitted and roasted over open flames when they were not simply torn limb from limb and hurled into the large pig-iron pots to boil. But, with the exception of a few exploratory tendrils that were extruded out to west and south, the savage grotesquerie that she thought of as a gargantuan many-legged beast squatted fitfully in its own squalor. It was an army that fought no battles, an army whose only casualties were self-inflicted as it devoured itself.\n\nUnfortunately, every few days, ragged new columns of goblins would march in, and those that did not bring sufficient supplies with them soon found themselves fed to the ravenous hunger of the great beast.\n\nThe reason the vast army did nothing was much discussed throughout the elven camps. One popular theory was that a new troll king had come to power in Uskilukh and the army was awaiting the arrival of its liege. The orc septs were nominally subservient to their trollish masters, and since it was not long since they had last marched south at the behest of the Goblinsbane, the notion was not incredible. It was, however, somewhat undermined by the fact that no one, neither scout nor sky raider, had laid eyes upon a single troll, with or without a crown.\n\nAnother theory was that the orcish warleaders feared the high mages of the Collegium Occludum and were attempting some dark ritual, perhaps seeking to raise mighty devils from the pits of the deepest hells, in order to remove the mages from the field before launching their invasion. That made somewhat more sense to her. The archmages of the esoteric college fully merited being feared by any rational being, but then, if the orcs had a means of neutralizing the elven magistrae, would they not have done so before gathering their massive army?\n\nBereth’s take on the sprawling migration was rather more straightforward. Orcs were stupid, short-sighted, and their ability to connect consequences to actions did not considerably exceed that of the average rock. One could no more reasonably expect to understand their motivations for doing anything that didn’t involve killing, eating, or raping than one would expect to understand the actions of a tree, a stone, or a river. Such an invasion was best seen as a sort of natural disaster, averted if possible and mitigated if not.\n\nShe whistled, a seven-note succession that ended in a long, high trill. For a long moment, there was no response. She was not alarmed, however, as it was always possible that her great bird was too far away to hear her. But then she heard his answering cry, a distant shriek from the west that brought a smile to her lips. A small speck appeared in the sky to the west, high over her head, and it rapidly grew larger as Merlian obediently sped towards her. Seeing that he was on his way, she glanced about her campsite to ensure that she had forgotten nothing.\n\nHer tent and her blankets were rolled up and tied tightly under her leather pack, which was secured with a pair of iron buckles. She had enough food for three more days and water for four; she couldn’t count on being able to find anything edible within leagues of the starving orcs and any water in the area was bound to be thoroughly fouled by them as well.\n\nThe giant hawk arced gracefully towards the ground, his massive wings fully extended. She reached into a pouch on her belt and retrieved a dessicated mouse, which she offered to him after he landed and took three delicate steps in her direction. He accepted the offering with his customary delicacy, taking it from her palm with a powerful beak that could easily have severed her forearm.\n\nAfter swallowing the morsel, Merlian shook his head and ruffled his neck feathers. That was her cue; she obediently reached up and between the long quills to scratch the sensitive skin underneath them. He gave out a satisfied caw, then shook his head again. They were well familiar with each other; the great hawks were long-lived and he had borne Bereth safely through the skies for more than three decades now.\n\nHis scent was pungent, but comforting to her, as reassuring as the creak of the aged leather of the saddle and the shift of the powerful body in between her legs. She didn’t even bother with the reins, but left them loosely tied around the pommel of the saddle, as she’d left them last night.\n\nShe did, however, slip under the thick leather straps that would keep her on Merlian’s back should he shift directions too suddenly or tilt overmuch and pulled them tight before securing the bronze buckles. The orcs had no fliers themselves, but they did have archers and mages, and abrupt changes in course could be fatal to the unprepared. And more than one sky raider had fallen to a well-aimed spear thrown by a troll, although she doubted she would have to worry about any such fate today.\n\nBereth clucked and Merlian leaped into the sky. Her body rocked back and forth in the usual rhythm as the warhawk’s wings beat against the air, pulling her skyward. Soon he leveled out, facing east, and she gave him his head for a little while, allowing him to fly towards the sun and the distant sea. It was so peaceful up high that she found the thought of simply flying away and spending a quiet day or two fishing and meditating to be seductive, but her sense of duty quickly reasserted itself. The Silverbows were almost surely dead already, but until their fate was known, they must not be abandoned.\n\nShe reached down and patted the left side of his neck. Ever alert, the great hawk banked his wings and turned north. It was an easterly wind today, and cool, coming as it did from the direction of the sea.\n\nWhy was the thought of flying away so tempting? She was a little surprised at herself. It wasn’t the first time Ilriathas had proposed marriage to her. It wasn’t the tenth time, for that matter. The heir to Mons Kelethan was a handsome elf, tall, brave, and of impeccable bloodlines. He was barely a century old, twenty years older than her own eighty-five, but possessed of a calm wisdom of an elf two centuries his senior. She liked him, in fact, had she been able she would have taken him as a lover four decades ago.\n\nBut the price he asked of her was too high. It wasn’t that she was overly enamored of her magic. While there were those elfesses who made a fetish of sorcery and devoted their lives to it at the Collegium Occludum, she was not one of them. To her, it was a tool, nothing more. Still, without magic, one could not utilize the spell required to control hawks like Merlian, and she was loathe to even think about giving up this, the freedom to soar high over the lands of Selenoth like some sort of wind goddess.\n\nShe cursed whatever perverse god or devil had tied an elfess’s ability to procreate to the sacrifice of her magic. She had friends who had cast aside their virginity without a moment’s thought for what they were giving up, and she envied their blithe uninterest in all things magical. And perhaps she might have felt the same, had her father not so often taken her up on Gaern, his ancient warhawk, and learned what it was like to feel the sky winds on her face.\n\nFor as long as she could remember, she’d dreamed about one day having her own bird, her own sky companion. She’d learned the spells of binding when she’d barely reached half her present height and chanted them to herself as she fell asleep at night. And she had never known such happiness as the morning of her thirty-fifth birthday, when her father had taken her up on Gaern and flown her to the Royal Aerie high above Elebrion, and there shown her the great speckled egg from which Merlian had been hatched. She spent most of the day there, caressing it, singing to it, and telling it of the adventures they would have together.\n\nWhen the time of the hatching came closer, she would beg rides from every skyrider she encountered; she passed more than one night asleep in the Aerie. On the day Merlian hatched, she’d been initially disappointed to discover that he was a male bird, but the disappointment soon passed as she eagerly awaited the day when he would first take to the skies. And every night, she recited the spells that she would use to let them ride the winds together.\n\nWaiting for him to grow to a size sufficient to carry her was the longest three years of her life. Fortunately, he was large and she was small, and so she was finally granted permission to cast the spell that was now engraved upon her memory and take to the skies.\n\nBereth glanced down at the trees slowly flowing by beneath her, like a vast bright green river. She would need to pay closer attention soon; it would not be long before she would be approaching the first outposts of the enemy army. She stroked the back of Merlian’s neck and smiled. In truth, she could live without magic. But this? Never. Let Ilriathas breed his handsome sons and beautiful daughters on some other maiden, let some other noble-born elfess who did not know the joys of the sky dwell in Mons Kelethan and be called Lady Kelethan and sit near the royal table on feast-days. Let her lay claim to the lovely mountain castle and its famous views, none would ever compare to those she had seen from on high.\n\nA hint of movement far below caught her eye. She frowned, wondering what it might be, and swiftly untied the reins that had been hitherto unneeded. It was a valley of sorts below, with a ridge that ran north to south to the east and a gentler series of hills to the west. There was a lake closer to the hills than to the ridge, and it appeared some sort of creek or little river ran down from the ridge and through the trees of the valley to terminate in the kidney-shaped lake. With a gentle tug on the reins, she caused Merlian to circle about, hoping to get a better view of whatever was moving down below.\n\nIt was moving quickly through the trees, too quickly to be an orc. It could be an elf, but then, it could be a deer as well. Or, perhaps, a goblin wolfrider. She urged Merlian into a descending spiral, and reached behind the saddle for her bow and a quiver. She untied the leather thongs that held the former and withdrew three long white-feathered arrows from the latter.\n\nThe green expanse of the forest gradually transformed into individual trees and the gaps in the forest canopy became more apparent. She saw a gap in the coverage that appeared to be in the direct path where the creature was headed and caused Merlian to level out. It wasn’t a huge opening, but it was just enough to see an elf jogging through it underneath.\n\n“Silverbow!” she cried. “Silverbow!”\n\nHe pulled up, drew his sword, and looked wildly about him. He did not, however, think to look straight up. She laughed and slipped the arrows back into the quiver.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2598, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch22_bereth-P2", "chapter": "ch22_bereth", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nlathaid — elven distance measure; keep spelling.\nDeathless Ones / Shadow Walkers / Sylvanae — remembered spirit-names; capitals as written.\nwarleader — orc command figure; one word when so used.\n\n### STORY\nOn a clear spring morning Bereth rises to search for missing Silverbows over the stagnant orc host; she calls Merlian, sets aside marriage-temptation, and finds a Merithaimi scout who has not looked up.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive on Merlian’s back above the trees; bow ready. Has just seen a living Silverbow who has not yet seen her.\n\nSilverbow (Merithaimi)\nRagged, dirty, smiling; not Elebrion-born. Has a wounded partner tied in a tall tree on an island; clever about water versus orcs and wolves.\n\nMerlian\nCircling above; responsive to her leg and voice.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nBereth glanced down at the trees slowly flowing by beneath her, like a vast bright green river. She would need to pay closer attention soon; it would not be long before she would be approaching the first outposts of the enemy army. She stroked the back of Merlian’s neck and smiled. In truth, she could live without magic. But this? Never. Let Ilriathas breed his handsome sons and beautiful daughters on some other maiden, let some other noble-born elfess who did not know the joys of the sky dwell in Mons Kelethan and be called Lady Kelethan and sit near the royal table on feast-days. Let her lay claim to the lovely mountain castle and its famous views, none would ever compare to those she had seen from on high.\n\nA hint of movement far below caught her eye. She frowned, wondering what it might be, and swiftly untied the reins that had been hitherto unneeded. It was a valley of sorts below, with a ridge that ran north to south to the east and a gentler series of hills to the west. There was a lake closer to the hills than to the ridge, and it appeared some sort of creek or little river ran down from the ridge and through the trees of the valley to terminate in the kidney-shaped lake. With a gentle tug on the reins, she caused Merlian to circle about, hoping to get a better view of whatever was moving down below.\n\nIt was moving quickly through the trees, too quickly to be an orc. It could be an elf, but then, it could be a deer as well. Or, perhaps, a goblin wolfrider. She urged Merlian into a descending spiral, and reached behind the saddle for her bow and a quiver. She untied the leather thongs that held the former and withdrew three long white-feathered arrows from the latter.\n\nThe green expanse of the forest gradually transformed into individual trees and the gaps in the forest canopy became more apparent. She saw a gap in the coverage that appeared to be in the direct path where the creature was headed and caused Merlian to level out. It wasn’t a huge opening, but it was just enough to see an elf jogging through it underneath.\n\n“Silverbow!” she cried. “Silverbow!”\n\nHe pulled up, drew his sword, and looked wildly about him. He did not, however, think to look straight up. She laughed and slipped the arrows back into the quiver.\n\n### NOTES\nForest canopy with islanded watercourses north of the orc mass; orcs and wolves hate water.\nSecond Silverbow injured, tied on a branch of the tallest tree on the second-largest island.\nOrc host still stagnant to the west; descending low draws inaccurate archery.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nShe gets the Silverbow’s eyes up, learns he is Merithaimi and that his partner lives tied in a tree on a watered island, and approves the water-logic that keeps orcs and wolves off. They arrange the pickup; she works Merlian down, and the practical cheer of a living scout does not erase the host’s stink when she turns west.\n\nOver the infestation the land is stripped and fouled; anger rises; she risks a low pass that draws useless shafts while she hunts for a small party that should be hauling captured treasure toward the warleaders. The scene lands on that search over the camp, just before she locks on the armored column with the dragged cart.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1850 words. Scout-rescue clean and swift; contempt for the host stays concrete. Land on the hunt over camp, not the cart sighting.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Up here!” she shouted as she retied the bow and slid it behind the saddle. He looked up, started at the sight of the massive hawk circling above the trees, and waved. His clothes were stained and ragged, and his face was dirty, but the white gleam of his smile showed that he was in good spirits. To her surprise, she saw he was not from Elebrion, but was a wood elf.\n\n“Which one are you?”\n\n“Arwis Autumnleaf!” he shouted. “Gelrinas is wounded. I hid him in a tree about a day’s march north of here and led the orcs chasing us away from him. Are they nearby?”\n\n“Didn’t see them. Do you want me to drop a ladder down to you?”\n\n“No, you need to find Gelrinas before they do! I can make it back to the camp on foot. But I can tell you exactly where you’ll find him!”\n\n“How bad is it?”\n\n“What?”\n\n“His wound! How bad is it?”\n\n“Took an arrow through the leg. I removed it and cleaned his leg. He should survive if they haven’t found him yet.”\n\n“How am I supposed to find him?”\n\n“It won’t be hard from the air.” He pointed almost due north, towards the direction from whence he’d come. “A bit more than two days’ march, you’ll see a round lake. A river feeds into it and out of it, and there are three small islands in the middle. Two of them have trees. He’s in the tallest tree on the second-largest island. I tied him onto a branch so he can sleep without falling off.”\n\nBereth nodded approvingly. This elf was clever. Orcs and wolves hated water and wouldn’t have willingly followed them into the lake. Even if they did, there was a good chance they wouldn’t climb any trees when Arwis had left them a trail to follow on the other side of the lake. He would have made it look as if they’d camped there briefly, then continued, leaving them no reason to search the island.\n\nAnd, of course, both elves would have known that if anyone was going to rescue Gelrinas, it would be a sky raider on the back of a warhawk. A tree was the optimal location for an extrication from enemy territory.\n\n“How far from the outskirts of the camp?”\n\n“Three-quarters of a day. I doubt they’ll see you coming.” He looked back to the north. “I should leave now. They weren’t far behind me. Those cursed wolves are fast and they stick to one’s trail.”\n\n“Do you need anything?”\n\nShe thought he smiled up at her. “If you don’t mind, I haven’t eaten anything in two days.”\n\n“I thought as much.” She reached back into her left saddlepack and withdrew a pouch containing a loaf of hard bread, then slipped a pair of apples into it. “Watch out, now!”\n\nShe dropped the pouch and it landed with a thud that even she could hear. Ah well, even a bruised apple would ease an empty stomach. He retrieved it and held it up to salute her with it. “My gratitude is boundless. What is your name, angel of my salvation?”\n\n“Bereth, Bereth mer Eulenarias.”\n\n“Then my thanks to you, Bereth. I hope to see you again one day, so I may thank you more properly.” He bowed, adding a little hand flourish that made her laugh, then waved before breaking into a swift and graceful jog.\n\nShe couldn’t help smiling as she watched him go. There was something spirited about him that she liked. Perhaps if Ilriathas was a bit more like this wood elf, bolder, less deliberate, less consumed by the supreme importance of his bloodline and its continuation, she might be willing to countenance the sacrifice he required of her. But that was impossible. To him, she was nothing more than another piece to be flawlessly arranged in his perfect, aristocratic life.\n\nIt was, she supposed, a sincere compliment that he deemed her worthy of bearing his children. Her bloodline was very nearly as royal as his own, and the mere fact that he wanted to marry her indicated that she was beautiful, for Ilriathas was far too haughty an aesthete to surround himself with anything that was not.\n\nNever mind that for now, she told herself. There was a wounded elf who needed rescue. She directed Merlian north, and pulled back on the reins, guiding him higher into the sky, further from the eyes of the enemy she anticipated would soon be upon her. The hawk’s wings beat strongly, but smoothly as he carried her rapidly over the trees and grass and stones below.\n\nIt wasn’t long before she began seeing signs of the orc depredations. Sizable swaths of forest were blackened and burned, presumably on the part of foraging expeditions sent out to obtain meat of one form or another. Instead of stalking their prey or even utilizing beaters, the orcs would set a series of fires that drove their prey into nets. It was an effective tactic, especially in enemy territory, since it could take years for the flora and fauna to recover.\n\nAlthough it was not the first time she had seen such abuse of the forest, the sight awoke an anger within her. She curled her lip and shook her head. How was it that her people had not wiped out these hateful creatures long ago? She thought for a moment, and then spoke into the wind.\n\nFire, madness, and pain\n\nThey rape the green land.\n\nGreat spirits of the trees\n\nAwake! Arise, in righteous wrath,\n\nAnd wreak your vengeance upon them!\n\nBut the great spirits slumbered on, insensate. Or perhaps they were no more, gone, departed from the world like the ancient races of old. Only the elves remembered them now, the Deathless Ones, the Shadow Walkers, and the Sylvanae. The younger races, Man, Orc, and Goblin, knew nothing of their kind. What she would not give to see the woods awaken, to see the trees rise up and tear their violators limb from limb! But the forest slept on.\n\nShe passed over a dozen black gouges torn from its green body before she stopped counting them. Doing so served no purpose except to quantify her pain. And then, she had spotted a gleaming ribbon that worked its way south in a twisting, curving path that might be the outlet of which the scout had spoken. She followed it, and before long spotted the lake with the three islands she had been seeking.\n\nBefore descending, she circled it, looking carefully for any sign of the enemy. It looked as if there might have been a pair of modest camps, judging by the two areas where trees had been downed near the water, but no one was there now. It looked safe enough, so she guided Merlian towards the middle island, then towards the more thickly wooded part of it, where the trees grew the highest. But although she circled it twice, and even called out Gelrinas’s name, she saw no one and heard no reply.\n\nIt wasn’t until Merlian landed and she dismounted to investigate the trees more closely that she saw the signs of the struggle. Enough feet to trample the grass had been here recently, and there were small traces of blood, red blood that belonged to no goblin or orc, along the way those feet had been traveling. She followed the blood and bent grass to the water’s edge, and saw the marks of clawed and booted feet imprinted on the damp, sandy soil, as well as the unmistakable indications of a boat landing.\n\nShe swore bitterly. She could not have missed him by long! Judging by the marks, a mere two day-tenths sooner and he would have been safe. Vexed, she folded her arms and tapped her fingers. Should she go after him and try to see what had become of him? She had a bow and she was a fair shot from Merlian’s back, perhaps she could even spare him the rape and torture that were his most likely fate. She knew rescue would be impossible, but mercy might not be beyond her reach. Her other option was to fly south and ensure that Arwis Autumnleaf was not ridden down and captured.\n\nLord Oakenheart would have her bring Autumnleaf to him, on the off-chance that he had gleaned some useful intelligence concerning the enemy’s intentions. And for her own sake, she did not wish to fly over the enemy’s camp again; the stench alone was sufficient cause to turn away. But she could not bear to think about the atrocities that would be visited upon a brother elf; it would have been kinder if Autumnleaf had simply cut his wounded companion’s throat before leaving him behind.\n\nShe turned west before she even realized she had done so. Taking a deep breath, she resigned herself to the morbid task before her, and untied her bow once more. This time, she only took out one arrow, but she slung the quiver over her shoulder. She knew that she might not get more than one or two shots before the orcs reacted to her; hopefully Gelrinas’s captors would not have reached the main camp before she caught up to them. She stroked the great hawk’s neck and urged him on, then rocked back as his next wingbeat, more powerful than the previous one, sent them surging forward.\n\nThe signs of the invasion, or infestation, as she thought of it, were unmistakable. Instead of blackened, burned-out scars, the trees had been leveled and the grass all but killed by tens of thousands of orcs tramping about and spraying their stinking urine everywhere. The green carpet below her gave way to sickly browns and yellows, dotted with tents like warts or tumors upon the land.\n\nShe took the risk of descending low enough to make out individual orcs, and sure enough, it was not long before the first alarms went up. She could see arms pointing at her, and two or three archers sent shafts up towards her, but none of them came anywhere near her or the hawk insofar as she could tell. They didn’t worry her; orc archery was little more accurate than children throwing stones. Her attention was focused on the ground, looking for the small party that would, if she was any judge of things, be bringing their captured treasure to one of the warleaders in the center of the camp.\n", "completion": "“Up here!” she shouted as she retied the bow and slid it behind the saddle. He looked up, started at the sight of the massive hawk circling above the trees, and waved. His clothes were stained and ragged, and his face was dirty, but the white gleam of his smile showed that he was in good spirits. To her surprise, she saw he was not from Elebrion, but was a wood elf.\n\n“Which one are you?”\n\n“Arwis Autumnleaf!” he shouted. “Gelrinas is wounded. I hid him in a tree about a day’s march north of here and led the orcs chasing us away from him. Are they nearby?”\n\n“Didn’t see them. Do you want me to drop a ladder down to you?”\n\n“No, you need to find Gelrinas before they do! I can make it back to the camp on foot. But I can tell you exactly where you’ll find him!”\n\n“How bad is it?”\n\n“What?”\n\n“His wound! How bad is it?”\n\n“Took an arrow through the leg. I removed it and cleaned his leg. He should survive if they haven’t found him yet.”\n\n“How am I supposed to find him?”\n\n“It won’t be hard from the air.” He pointed almost due north, towards the direction from whence he’d come. “A bit more than two days’ march, you’ll see a round lake. A river feeds into it and out of it, and there are three small islands in the middle. Two of them have trees. He’s in the tallest tree on the second-largest island. I tied him onto a branch so he can sleep without falling off.”\n\nBereth nodded approvingly. This elf was clever. Orcs and wolves hated water and wouldn’t have willingly followed them into the lake. Even if they did, there was a good chance they wouldn’t climb any trees when Arwis had left them a trail to follow on the other side of the lake. He would have made it look as if they’d camped there briefly, then continued, leaving them no reason to search the island.\n\nAnd, of course, both elves would have known that if anyone was going to rescue Gelrinas, it would be a sky raider on the back of a warhawk. A tree was the optimal location for an extrication from enemy territory.\n\n“How far from the outskirts of the camp?”\n\n“Three-quarters of a day. I doubt they’ll see you coming.” He looked back to the north. “I should leave now. They weren’t far behind me. Those cursed wolves are fast and they stick to one’s trail.”\n\n“Do you need anything?”\n\nShe thought he smiled up at her. “If you don’t mind, I haven’t eaten anything in two days.”\n\n“I thought as much.” She reached back into her left saddlepack and withdrew a pouch containing a loaf of hard bread, then slipped a pair of apples into it. “Watch out, now!”\n\nShe dropped the pouch and it landed with a thud that even she could hear. Ah well, even a bruised apple would ease an empty stomach. He retrieved it and held it up to salute her with it. “My gratitude is boundless. What is your name, angel of my salvation?”\n\n“Bereth, Bereth mer Eulenarias.”\n\n“Then my thanks to you, Bereth. I hope to see you again one day, so I may thank you more properly.” He bowed, adding a little hand flourish that made her laugh, then waved before breaking into a swift and graceful jog.\n\nShe couldn’t help smiling as she watched him go. There was something spirited about him that she liked. Perhaps if Ilriathas was a bit more like this wood elf, bolder, less deliberate, less consumed by the supreme importance of his bloodline and its continuation, she might be willing to countenance the sacrifice he required of her. But that was impossible. To him, she was nothing more than another piece to be flawlessly arranged in his perfect, aristocratic life.\n\nIt was, she supposed, a sincere compliment that he deemed her worthy of bearing his children. Her bloodline was very nearly as royal as his own, and the mere fact that he wanted to marry her indicated that she was beautiful, for Ilriathas was far too haughty an aesthete to surround himself with anything that was not.\n\nNever mind that for now, she told herself. There was a wounded elf who needed rescue. She directed Merlian north, and pulled back on the reins, guiding him higher into the sky, further from the eyes of the enemy she anticipated would soon be upon her. The hawk’s wings beat strongly, but smoothly as he carried her rapidly over the trees and grass and stones below.\n\nIt wasn’t long before she began seeing signs of the orc depredations. Sizable swaths of forest were blackened and burned, presumably on the part of foraging expeditions sent out to obtain meat of one form or another. Instead of stalking their prey or even utilizing beaters, the orcs would set a series of fires that drove their prey into nets. It was an effective tactic, especially in enemy territory, since it could take years for the flora and fauna to recover.\n\nAlthough it was not the first time she had seen such abuse of the forest, the sight awoke an anger within her. She curled her lip and shook her head. How was it that her people had not wiped out these hateful creatures long ago? She thought for a moment, and then spoke into the wind.\n\nFire, madness, and pain\n\nThey rape the green land.\n\nGreat spirits of the trees\n\nAwake! Arise, in righteous wrath,\n\nAnd wreak your vengeance upon them!\n\nBut the great spirits slumbered on, insensate. Or perhaps they were no more, gone, departed from the world like the ancient races of old. Only the elves remembered them now, the Deathless Ones, the Shadow Walkers, and the Sylvanae. The younger races, Man, Orc, and Goblin, knew nothing of their kind. What she would not give to see the woods awaken, to see the trees rise up and tear their violators limb from limb! But the forest slept on.\n\nShe passed over a dozen black gouges torn from its green body before she stopped counting them. Doing so served no purpose except to quantify her pain. And then, she had spotted a gleaming ribbon that worked its way south in a twisting, curving path that might be the outlet of which the scout had spoken. She followed it, and before long spotted the lake with the three islands she had been seeking.\n\nBefore descending, she circled it, looking carefully for any sign of the enemy. It looked as if there might have been a pair of modest camps, judging by the two areas where trees had been downed near the water, but no one was there now. It looked safe enough, so she guided Merlian towards the middle island, then towards the more thickly wooded part of it, where the trees grew the highest. But although she circled it twice, and even called out Gelrinas’s name, she saw no one and heard no reply.\n\nIt wasn’t until Merlian landed and she dismounted to investigate the trees more closely that she saw the signs of the struggle. Enough feet to trample the grass had been here recently, and there were small traces of blood, red blood that belonged to no goblin or orc, along the way those feet had been traveling. She followed the blood and bent grass to the water’s edge, and saw the marks of clawed and booted feet imprinted on the damp, sandy soil, as well as the unmistakable indications of a boat landing.\n\nShe swore bitterly. She could not have missed him by long! Judging by the marks, a mere two day-tenths sooner and he would have been safe. Vexed, she folded her arms and tapped her fingers. Should she go after him and try to see what had become of him? She had a bow and she was a fair shot from Merlian’s back, perhaps she could even spare him the rape and torture that were his most likely fate. She knew rescue would be impossible, but mercy might not be beyond her reach. Her other option was to fly south and ensure that Arwis Autumnleaf was not ridden down and captured.\n\nLord Oakenheart would have her bring Autumnleaf to him, on the off-chance that he had gleaned some useful intelligence concerning the enemy’s intentions. And for her own sake, she did not wish to fly over the enemy’s camp again; the stench alone was sufficient cause to turn away. But she could not bear to think about the atrocities that would be visited upon a brother elf; it would have been kinder if Autumnleaf had simply cut his wounded companion’s throat before leaving him behind.\n\nShe turned west before she even realized she had done so. Taking a deep breath, she resigned herself to the morbid task before her, and untied her bow once more. This time, she only took out one arrow, but she slung the quiver over her shoulder. She knew that she might not get more than one or two shots before the orcs reacted to her; hopefully Gelrinas’s captors would not have reached the main camp before she caught up to them. She stroked the great hawk’s neck and urged him on, then rocked back as his next wingbeat, more powerful than the previous one, sent them surging forward.\n\nThe signs of the invasion, or infestation, as she thought of it, were unmistakable. Instead of blackened, burned-out scars, the trees had been leveled and the grass all but killed by tens of thousands of orcs tramping about and spraying their stinking urine everywhere. The green carpet below her gave way to sickly browns and yellows, dotted with tents like warts or tumors upon the land.\n\nShe took the risk of descending low enough to make out individual orcs, and sure enough, it was not long before the first alarms went up. She could see arms pointing at her, and two or three archers sent shafts up towards her, but none of them came anywhere near her or the hawk insofar as she could tell. They didn’t worry her; orc archery was little more accurate than children throwing stones. Her attention was focused on the ground, looking for the small party that would, if she was any judge of things, be bringing their captured treasure to one of the warleaders in the center of the camp.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1785, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch22_bereth-P3", "chapter": "ch22_bereth", "packet": "P3", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ncart-bow / cart-bows — heavy orc missile engines; hyphenated as written.\nwolfrider — goblin wolf-cavalry; one word when it appears.\n\n### STORY\nBereth rises to search for missing Silverbows; she calls Merlian, sets aside marriage-temptation for duty, and finds a Merithaimi scout who has not looked up.\n\nShe recovers the Silverbow, learns his wounded partner is tied on a watered island, then turns west over the fouled host and hunts low for a captive-party.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive on Merlian above the orc column; bow in play. Does not yet know the cart-bows will take her hawk. Will choose trail-breaking over dying with Merlian when he cannot rise.\n\nMerlian\nStruck and failing; pinning eyes; still tries to carry her to trees. Alive at the crash; dying as she takes feathers and climbs away.\n\nOrc column\nScore of armored warriors escorting irregulars and a supine captive on a dragged litter-cart toward camp center.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe swore bitterly. She could not have missed him by long! Judging by the marks, a mere two day-tenths sooner and he would have been safe. Vexed, she folded her arms and tapped her fingers. Should she go after him and try to see what had become of him? She had a bow and she was a fair shot from Merlian’s back, perhaps she could even spare him the rape and torture that were his most likely fate. She knew rescue would be impossible, but mercy might not be beyond her reach. Her other option was to fly south and ensure that Arwis Autumnleaf was not ridden down and captured.\n\nLord Oakenheart would have her bring Autumnleaf to him, on the off-chance that he had gleaned some useful intelligence concerning the enemy’s intentions. And for her own sake, she did not wish to fly over the enemy’s camp again; the stench alone was sufficient cause to turn away. But she could not bear to think about the atrocities that would be visited upon a brother elf; it would have been kinder if Autumnleaf had simply cut his wounded companion’s throat before leaving him behind.\n\nShe turned west before she even realized she had done so. Taking a deep breath, she resigned herself to the morbid task before her, and untied her bow once more. This time, she only took out one arrow, but she slung the quiver over her shoulder. She knew that she might not get more than one or two shots before the orcs reacted to her; hopefully Gelrinas’s captors would not have reached the main camp before she caught up to them. She stroked the great hawk’s neck and urged him on, then rocked back as his next wingbeat, more powerful than the previous one, sent them surging forward.\n\nThe signs of the invasion, or infestation, as she thought of it, were unmistakable. Instead of blackened, burned-out scars, the trees had been leveled and the grass all but killed by tens of thousands of orcs tramping about and spraying their stinking urine everywhere. The green carpet below her gave way to sickly browns and yellows, dotted with tents like warts or tumors upon the land.\n\nShe took the risk of descending low enough to make out individual orcs, and sure enough, it was not long before the first alarms went up. She could see arms pointing at her, and two or three archers sent shafts up towards her, but none of them came anywhere near her or the hawk insofar as she could tell. They didn’t worry her; orc archery was little more accurate than children throwing stones. Her attention was focused on the ground, looking for the small party that would, if she was any judge of things, be bringing their captured treasure to one of the warleaders in the center of the camp.\n\n### NOTES\nLow altitude over orc camp fringe; cart-bows present among celebrating orcs.\nTall oak and neighboring canopy dense enough for branch-to-branch trail breaking.\nWolves will take Merlian’s scent and body as distraction if she leaves him.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nShe spots armored escorts dragging a cart-bound captive and commits to a shot-run. Arrows and slingstones rise; cart-bows punch Merlian; the hawk laboring for the trees with orcs in chase. He gets her to the canopy, eyes pinning; she screams his name, strips what she must, takes two feathers, and forces herself to climb away so wolves will glut on him instead of tracking her. The scene lands as she starts up a nearby oak, Merlian left behind.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1550 words. Grief hard and physical; no elegy speech. Break off on the climb, not the night in the tree.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Then she spotted them. There was a score of armored warriors marching in two lines on either side of about half that many irregulars. In the middle of the irregulars was a supine figure lying on what appeared to be a makeshift cart, only the ends dragged on the ground and left two parallel lines in the dirt behind it. Two big orcs, one on each pole, were pulling it along; it was essentially a stretcher, she realized, only the orcs couldn’t bother to carry it in a manner that would give the passenger a smoother ride.\n\nShe considered her options. A shot straight ahead and down was difficult, but shooting to the side as the bird moved perpendicular to the target was nearly as hard. She would have to come at Gelrinas from behind due to the stretcher-draggers, as their big bodies would be in the way if she flew ahead and then came back towards him. The problem was that she would probably have only one shot before they understood her purpose and took measures to stop her by shielding his body.\n\nShe must make it count, she told herself, if she was to spare the elf the indignities and depredations of his captors. And, she realized, there was only one option if she was to be absolutely sure of her shot. She would have to bring Merlian to a stop in the air, and the best way to do that was to cause him to bank steeply just as she passed in front of the stretcher in a curve tight enough to put her directly above her target. That would leave her vulnerable to any archers quick enough to respond, but there were no more shafts being directed her way at the moment so she decided the risk was minimal.\n\nShe nocked her arrow and aimed Merlian for a point to the right of the orc party. Just as she passed it, she leaned to the side and pulled hard on the left rein. The hawk obeyed instantly, and for a brief moment she was suspended almost parallel with the ground as the great bird seemed to swoop around an invisible pole. The ground swept past her in a dizzying blur, but the elf on the stretcher was right at the center of her perception and all the world rotated around him. Without thinking, she pulled back the drawstring, and loosed her arrow. Almost as soon as the drawstring snapped, she felt herself being lifted skyward again as Merlian leveled out and began flying back the way they’d come.\n\nShe heard the consternation erupt below before she’d even looked back to see if the arrow had hit home. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the two orcs had dropped the front of the stretcher to the ground, and like many of their companions, were staring up at her, gesticulating angrily.\n\nBereth laughed, as much in relief at the sight of the arrow protruding from Gelrinas’s chest as at the furious impotence of the orcs. Even if he wasn’t dead yet, he would be soon, before he could face further torture. She toyed with the idea of trying the same trick to kill a few of his captors, but decided against it. The faster she could leave this enfouled, diseased land, the better.\n\nThen, without warning Merlian let out a high-pitched shriek of pain and he unexpectedly pitched to the left. His wings stopped beating, and he held them out, spread wide, as if trying to keep himself aloft. Bereth knew at once that something was wrong. She looked down, and saw a group of orcs jumping up and down, pointing, celebrating. And, to her horror, she saw a pair of cart-bows, insidious machines that were similar to the elven hydra, only they loosed one large bolt instead of three. Both were propped upon upon a pile of logs to permit being aimed skyward. The cart-bows were normally used as anti-cavalry artillery, as its winched cables allowed the bolts to punch right through armor.\n\nOr, as it happened, feathers and flesh. As Bereth urged him on, Merlian fought to beat his wings, but the effort was halting, as if it pained him too much to do so. Bereth looked back and saw a small group of orcs was chasing after her, as if they knew her struggling warhawk could not long stay aloft.\n\nAnguish smote her heart as she realized they were probably correct. Merlian’s eyes were pinning, the irises growing rapidly larger, then shrinking again, a certain sign that he was in pain. She wanted to sob and throw her arms around his thick feathered neck, but she knew that doing so would only make it even harder for him to keep flying. Instead, she took a deep breath, set her face, and tried to put her terror and her grief aside for the moment, in order to better calculate what she would need to do to stay alive once she was forced to ground.\n\nMerlian was gliding now in a slow, steady descent. They were still over the ruined earth of the orc camp, or rather, the section that was given over to their goblin slave-allies, and she was low enough that she could hear the smaller monsters jabbering as they halted their activities and came out of their tents to point at the sky. At their current altitude, they would barely make it to the tall green trees that marked the extent of the orc army’s deforestation.\n\n“Come on, brave heart, come on, my dear,” she leaned forward and whispered to the stricken warhawk. Tears streaked back from her eyes into her hair, as the wind refused to permit them to fall. “Be strong, my darling.”\n\nArrows flew up at her, as did stones from goblin slings, and she was forced to lie flat on his neck to avoid them. She could feel his body twitch as several of them struck him, and she felt his pain in her soul as if it were her own.\n\nHe somehow seemed to understand her need to reach the trees, because he stroked his wings twice more, a valiant effort that gave him just enough height to clear the first row of them. Then they were engulfed by a leafy green storm, leaves and branches whipping at her face as Merlian broke through the forest canopy into the shadowed depths below.\n\nMiraculously, the great hawk found the strength to backstroke once, twice more, slowing them down considerably before he abruptly furled his wings and fell to the forest floor. “Merlian!” she screamed, more concerned about her bird than the fact that they were plunging rapidly towards the ground. Somehow, they missed striking any trees, and when they struck, his big body and soft feathers cushioned the impact for her.\n\n“Merlian!” she screamed again. He opened his eyes, only a little, and she rapidly undid the two buckles that held her strapped into the saddle, then leaped to the ground. She ran around him and embraced his head, crying and kissing his beak. But no sooner had she thrown her arms around him than he gave out a whistling sigh and sagged to the ground, his ink-blue tongue lolling from his beak.\n\n“Merlian, no!” she cried. But when she stepped back, she could see the end of the crudely hewn wooden bolt protruding from the left side of his breast. It must have nearly pierced his heart; she wondered at the amazing strength that had allowed her to escape the orc encampment.\n\nWhich reminded her, she was far from safe. The orcs would already be after her, the wolves would soon be on the scent of her trail, and though it made her soul-sick to think of the foul beasts devouring her dear hawk’s flesh and decorating themselves with his noble feathers, the discovery of his sizable body would be a major distraction to most of the hunters now chasing after her.\n\nShe climbed back up to the saddle and retrieved those items that she needed most. Her bow, her arrows, her sword, a pouch of food, and two small skins of water. Everything else she would have to abandon, because there was only one way to ensure the wolves would not easily scent her trail. Fortunately, the trees here were tall enough, and thick enough, that their big branches extended out well past their nearest neighbors.\n\nBereth kissed Merlian’s beak again and plucked a single feather from his neck, then another one from his breast. After one last mournful look back at her longtime companion, she began climbing a nearby oak.\n", "completion": "Then she spotted them. There was a score of armored warriors marching in two lines on either side of about half that many irregulars. In the middle of the irregulars was a supine figure lying on what appeared to be a makeshift cart, only the ends dragged on the ground and left two parallel lines in the dirt behind it. Two big orcs, one on each pole, were pulling it along; it was essentially a stretcher, she realized, only the orcs couldn’t bother to carry it in a manner that would give the passenger a smoother ride.\n\nShe considered her options. A shot straight ahead and down was difficult, but shooting to the side as the bird moved perpendicular to the target was nearly as hard. She would have to come at Gelrinas from behind due to the stretcher-draggers, as their big bodies would be in the way if she flew ahead and then came back towards him. The problem was that she would probably have only one shot before they understood her purpose and took measures to stop her by shielding his body.\n\nShe must make it count, she told herself, if she was to spare the elf the indignities and depredations of his captors. And, she realized, there was only one option if she was to be absolutely sure of her shot. She would have to bring Merlian to a stop in the air, and the best way to do that was to cause him to bank steeply just as she passed in front of the stretcher in a curve tight enough to put her directly above her target. That would leave her vulnerable to any archers quick enough to respond, but there were no more shafts being directed her way at the moment so she decided the risk was minimal.\n\nShe nocked her arrow and aimed Merlian for a point to the right of the orc party. Just as she passed it, she leaned to the side and pulled hard on the left rein. The hawk obeyed instantly, and for a brief moment she was suspended almost parallel with the ground as the great bird seemed to swoop around an invisible pole. The ground swept past her in a dizzying blur, but the elf on the stretcher was right at the center of her perception and all the world rotated around him. Without thinking, she pulled back the drawstring, and loosed her arrow. Almost as soon as the drawstring snapped, she felt herself being lifted skyward again as Merlian leveled out and began flying back the way they’d come.\n\nShe heard the consternation erupt below before she’d even looked back to see if the arrow had hit home. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the two orcs had dropped the front of the stretcher to the ground, and like many of their companions, were staring up at her, gesticulating angrily.\n\nBereth laughed, as much in relief at the sight of the arrow protruding from Gelrinas’s chest as at the furious impotence of the orcs. Even if he wasn’t dead yet, he would be soon, before he could face further torture. She toyed with the idea of trying the same trick to kill a few of his captors, but decided against it. The faster she could leave this enfouled, diseased land, the better.\n\nThen, without warning Merlian let out a high-pitched shriek of pain and he unexpectedly pitched to the left. His wings stopped beating, and he held them out, spread wide, as if trying to keep himself aloft. Bereth knew at once that something was wrong. She looked down, and saw a group of orcs jumping up and down, pointing, celebrating. And, to her horror, she saw a pair of cart-bows, insidious machines that were similar to the elven hydra, only they loosed one large bolt instead of three. Both were propped upon upon a pile of logs to permit being aimed skyward. The cart-bows were normally used as anti-cavalry artillery, as its winched cables allowed the bolts to punch right through armor.\n\nOr, as it happened, feathers and flesh. As Bereth urged him on, Merlian fought to beat his wings, but the effort was halting, as if it pained him too much to do so. Bereth looked back and saw a small group of orcs was chasing after her, as if they knew her struggling warhawk could not long stay aloft.\n\nAnguish smote her heart as she realized they were probably correct. Merlian’s eyes were pinning, the irises growing rapidly larger, then shrinking again, a certain sign that he was in pain. She wanted to sob and throw her arms around his thick feathered neck, but she knew that doing so would only make it even harder for him to keep flying. Instead, she took a deep breath, set her face, and tried to put her terror and her grief aside for the moment, in order to better calculate what she would need to do to stay alive once she was forced to ground.\n\nMerlian was gliding now in a slow, steady descent. They were still over the ruined earth of the orc camp, or rather, the section that was given over to their goblin slave-allies, and she was low enough that she could hear the smaller monsters jabbering as they halted their activities and came out of their tents to point at the sky. At their current altitude, they would barely make it to the tall green trees that marked the extent of the orc army’s deforestation.\n\n“Come on, brave heart, come on, my dear,” she leaned forward and whispered to the stricken warhawk. Tears streaked back from her eyes into her hair, as the wind refused to permit them to fall. “Be strong, my darling.”\n\nArrows flew up at her, as did stones from goblin slings, and she was forced to lie flat on his neck to avoid them. She could feel his body twitch as several of them struck him, and she felt his pain in her soul as if it were her own.\n\nHe somehow seemed to understand her need to reach the trees, because he stroked his wings twice more, a valiant effort that gave him just enough height to clear the first row of them. Then they were engulfed by a leafy green storm, leaves and branches whipping at her face as Merlian broke through the forest canopy into the shadowed depths below.\n\nMiraculously, the great hawk found the strength to backstroke once, twice more, slowing them down considerably before he abruptly furled his wings and fell to the forest floor. “Merlian!” she screamed, more concerned about her bird than the fact that they were plunging rapidly towards the ground. Somehow, they missed striking any trees, and when they struck, his big body and soft feathers cushioned the impact for her.\n\n“Merlian!” she screamed again. He opened his eyes, only a little, and she rapidly undid the two buckles that held her strapped into the saddle, then leaped to the ground. She ran around him and embraced his head, crying and kissing his beak. But no sooner had she thrown her arms around him than he gave out a whistling sigh and sagged to the ground, his ink-blue tongue lolling from his beak.\n\n“Merlian, no!” she cried. But when she stepped back, she could see the end of the crudely hewn wooden bolt protruding from the left side of his breast. It must have nearly pierced his heart; she wondered at the amazing strength that had allowed her to escape the orc encampment.\n\nWhich reminded her, she was far from safe. The orcs would already be after her, the wolves would soon be on the scent of her trail, and though it made her soul-sick to think of the foul beasts devouring her dear hawk’s flesh and decorating themselves with his noble feathers, the discovery of his sizable body would be a major distraction to most of the hunters now chasing after her.\n\nShe climbed back up to the saddle and retrieved those items that she needed most. Her bow, her arrows, her sword, a pouch of food, and two small skins of water. Everything else she would have to abandon, because there was only one way to ensure the wolves would not easily scent her trail. Fortunately, the trees here were tall enough, and thick enough, that their big branches extended out well past their nearest neighbors.\n\nBereth kissed Merlian’s beak again and plucked a single feather from his neck, then another one from his breast. After one last mournful look back at her longtime companion, she began climbing a nearby oak.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1462, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch23_bereth-P1", "chapter": "ch23_bereth", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nIlriathas — rescuer on the black warhawk Ebon; keep spelling.\nEbon — Ilriathas’s huge hawk; keep spelling.\nMerithaim — border wood she flees through; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nOn a clear spring morning Bereth rises to search for missing Silverbows over the stagnant orc host; she calls Merlian, sets aside marriage-temptation, and finds a Merithaimi scout who has not looked up.\n\nShe recovers the Silverbow, learns his partner is tied on a watered island, then turns west over the fouled host and hunts low for a captive-party moving toward the warleaders.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive, waking in a split-trunk oak after Merlian’s death and a night of tree-travel. Bow and limited arrows; face scratched by branches. Furious that Ilriathas did not miss her by nightfall. Does not yet know he is overhead with a rope.\n\nIlriathas\nAlive on Ebon above her when the wolf-chase peaks; grinning despite her tongue; will haul her out.\n\nOrcs / wolfriders\nThree arguing orcs approach her oak at dawn; later chase with wolves and lancers through the wood.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHe somehow seemed to understand her need to reach the trees, because he stroked his wings twice more, a valiant effort that gave him just enough height to clear the first row of them. Then they were engulfed by a leafy green storm, leaves and branches whipping at her face as Merlian broke through the forest canopy into the shadowed depths below.\n\nMiraculously, the great hawk found the strength to backstroke once, twice more, slowing them down considerably before he abruptly furled his wings and fell to the forest floor. “Merlian!” she screamed, more concerned about her bird than the fact that they were plunging rapidly towards the ground. Somehow, they missed striking any trees, and when they struck, his big body and soft feathers cushioned the impact for her.\n\n“Merlian!” she screamed again. He opened his eyes, only a little, and she rapidly undid the two buckles that held her strapped into the saddle, then leaped to the ground. She ran around him and embraced his head, crying and kissing his beak. But no sooner had she thrown her arms around him than he gave out a whistling sigh and sagged to the ground, his ink-blue tongue lolling from his beak.\n\n“Merlian, no!” she cried. But when she stepped back, she could see the end of the crudely hewn wooden bolt protruding from the left side of his breast. It must have nearly pierced his heart; she wondered at the amazing strength that had allowed her to escape the orc encampment.\n\nWhich reminded her, she was far from safe. The orcs would already be after her, the wolves would soon be on the scent of her trail, and though it made her soul-sick to think of the foul beasts devouring her dear hawk’s flesh and decorating themselves with his noble feathers, the discovery of his sizable body would be a major distraction to most of the hunters now chasing after her.\n\nShe climbed back up to the saddle and retrieved those items that she needed most. Her bow, her arrows, her sword, a pouch of food, and two small skins of water. Everything else she would have to abandon, because there was only one way to ensure the wolves would not easily scent her trail. Fortunately, the trees here were tall enough, and thick enough, that their big branches extended out well past their nearest neighbors.\n\nBereth kissed Merlian’s beak again and plucked a single feather from his neck, then another one from his breast. After one last mournful look back at her longtime companion, she began climbing a nearby oak.\n\n### NOTES\nDawn in Merithaim wood; split-trunk oak sleeping perch.\nBereth broke trail west then south overnight after leaving Merlian.\nWolves can outpace her on the ground; canopy travel is her only edge.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nShe wakes to orc argument under her oak, kills cleanly when they notice her, and runs the canopy when howls answer the noise. She burns at Ilriathas for not missing her overnight, chooses trees over ground, and nearly dies when wolves circle ahead—a snarl saves her long enough to drop a lancer and keep moving without her bow’s best angles. Exhausted and bloody-faced, she meets a rope and Ilriathas’s grin above the leaves. The scene lands on his order to hold tight so Ebon can pull her clear, before she is in the saddle.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2850 words. Pursuit brutal and breathless; irritation at Ilriathas sharp, not cute. Land on the rope order, not the lift.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She awoke to the harsh, grunting sound of orcish being spoken. Three orcs were arguing loudly amongst themselves as they approached the split-trunked oak tree in which Bereth had been sleeping. They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to where they were going, so as she yawned silently and rubbed at her eyes, she decided that it was mere bad luck that had brought them here so close to her.\n\nShe’d leaped from tree to tree, initially heading west rather than south in an attempt to hide her trail from her pursuers, most particularly the goblin wolfriders whose mounts could not only follow her scent, but easily outpace her on the ground. Once she felt she’d gone far enough to escape the likely extent of their pursuit, she climbed down in order to make better time. No matter how agile the elf, it was much faster to run over the dark mossy floor of the forest than it was to balance on the branches of the trees, ignoring the annoyance of having your face constantly whipped by twigs and leaves, and occasionally having to stop and climb either up or down in order to find a branch that extended far enough to reach another tree.\n\nOnly well after second Moonrise did she finally stop running and climb into the forked embrace of a slumbering forest giant. She tied herself to a branch, curled up in her cloak and fell into an exhausted, fitful sleep, only to be woken by the guttural sounds of the orcs arguing below. Or complaining, she realized as she listened to them. It was hard to understand them, as they spoke in a dialect different from any other she’d heard before.\n\nAs near as she could tell, they were angry about being sent on a pointless chase after an elf whom they wouldn’t even be permitted to devour. Her eyes narrowed as the conversation turned more optimistic, as the smallest of the three orcs pointed out that even if they couldn’t kill her or eat her, there were other entertainments to be had. He then began expounding on his plans for her, the full extent of which Bereth never learned. It was her own fault, though, as she rather rudely interrupted his oration by loosing an arrow that entered his left eye and partially exited the rear of his misshapen skull.\n\nHis two companions didn’t notice at first, but continued for three or four more steps before turning around to see what had happened to him. It was almost comical to see how they looked back, then down, then stared stupidly at each other for a moment before awareness of what had happened finally dawned on them. As the bigger one roared defiantly up at the trees, Bereth put a second arrow right down his gullet, and the razor-sharp point came out the back of his neck as he slumped, choking and dying, to the ground. The third orc was a little more clever, as he didn’t waste any time shouting or looking up at the trees, but instead began running as fast as his stumpy bowed legs would allow.\n\nBereth raised her bow, but there were several branches obscuring her line of sight, so she was obliged to put an arrow through his thigh rather than a more lethal location. But she knew it would be enough to slow him down, so she untied herself and climbed down from the tree without hurrying, then strolled in the direction that he’d fled. He was limping badly and bleeding profusely, so it wasn’t difficult to catch up with him.\n\nAt the sound of her footsteps behind him, the wounded orc whirled around. He was about a head shorter than her, but he was probably three times her weight. He wore a metal breastplate and had several dark tattoos on his arms, that, combined with the large rectangular cleaver he was drawing from its goblinskin sheath, told her that he was what passed for a proper soldier, not an irregular. The arrow piercing his left thigh was hampering his movements, but between the big blade and his bulging arms, there was no doubt that he could chop her in half if he could get close enough.\n\n“Yar!” he shouted as he took a step towards her. She calmly put a second arrow in his throat, then stood there and watched him die. She retrieved that arrow easily enough, as it very nearly went all the way through him, but the one in his thigh was a little tougher. She walked back and recovered the second arrow, but not even putting her foot on the dead orc’s head and tugging hard was enough to pull the first one out of its skull. She gave it up with a sigh; that still left her with eighteen arrows, although three of them were now fouled, like her hands, with dark green orc’s blood.\n\nShe wiped them off as best she could on some leaves, followed by some moss, then slipped them back into her quiver. It was tempting to use a little of her water to at least rinse off her hands, but she knew she’d better save it for drinking. Perhaps she’d stumble across a creek soon. In any event, it was time to move on. If they were still looking for her this far west, they probably weren’t going to give up the chase easily and although orcs were undisciplined, three regulars would be missed well before sunset.\n\nStill stiff from her makeshift bed, she took the time to stretch her arms and legs before breaking into an easy jog heading south. With any luck, she’d be spotted by one of her fellow raiders before the end of the day.\n\nThe sun was just approaching its apex when Bereth heard the howls in the distance. Wolves. She cursed under her breath and took one last bite out of the apple she’d been eating before tossing it into the stream at which she’d stopped to wash her hands and catch her breath. She debated wading through the water to try to break her scent trail, but the stream seemed to be meandering more west than south and the water would only increase her pursuers’ worrisome advantage in speed.\n\nIf they lost her scent here, they’d simply send a pair of wolves running along each bank until they picked it up again, and gained even more ground on her. Best to simply run straight south as fast as she could and hope someone spotted her from above before they caught her.\n\nAnd so, she ran. She wasn’t tired, but it soon became apparent that something in her left knee wasn’t quite right. Had she twisted it without noticing when poor Merlian struck the ground? She tried not to favor it, but the more she tried not to do so, the more conscious of it she became. It wasn’t exactly painful, it was more of a discomfiting pressure, but it prevented her from properly stretching her left leg out as she ran and put a sort of hitch in her stride.\n\nAgain and again, she looked to the sky above the forest canopy and saw nothing. Every time she sensed motion overhead, her heart leaped, hoping that it was the familiar shape of a warhawk soaring above her. But time and time again, it was only birds, or occasionally, a squirrel leaping from one tree to another. At first, she felt despair, especially as the howls of the wolves grew louder, although they were still too far behind her to see. But the despair rapidly turned to irritation, then anger.\n\nWhere were they? They knew she was out here. Surely Arwis Autumnleaf had reached their forward base and told Lord Oakenheart that he’d seen her, and where she was heading! Why didn’t the High Guard commander have sky raiders out looking for her, as she’d been ordered out to find the wretched Silverbows? And where was Ilriathas? He came up with one excuse or another to inflict himself upon her nearly every evening, surely he, at least, would have missed her. He probably wouldn’t have gone looking for her himself, given his other responsibilities, but he might at least have sent out a hawk or two.\n\nShe fumed as she ran. If an elf was so besotted with her as to propose marriage more than a dozen times, how could he possibly not notice her failure to return to camp by nightfall? The howls were getting closer and she knew she didn’t have much more time. Should she climb a tree and attempt to keep running? Or should she try to find some defensible ground and make a last stand?\n\nShe looked back and saw a green-and-grey flash behind her. It looked like her choice was made for her. She nocked an arrow, waited until the wolfrider cleared a large tree, then loosed the arrow at his chest. She didn’t wait to see if she’d hit, instead she looked upward to locate the biggest, most branch-laden oak she could find. There was one about twenty paces to her left, so she ran towards it as fast as her injured knee would allow.\n\nIt was a snarl that saved her. Somehow, the wolves must have gotten past her and circled back to cut her off, because she heard the sound and instinctively ducked to her left just as the wolfrider shot past her, the tip of his lance barely missing her right shoulder. She had a clean shot at the goblin’s back, but without knowing if there were others, she didn’t dare take the time to draw and nock an arrow.\n\nA second lancer appeared, but this time she was ready. She let him come at her, then ducked under his lance and jammed her bow into the wolf’s slashing jaws. It snapped in two, but did something to the wolf that cause it to break its stride and start thrashing and snapping wildly at nothing in particular. Its rider pulled desperately on the reins, but to no avail.\n\nShe regretted the loss of her bow, but admittedly, it wouldn’t have done her much good in the belly of a wolf pack. She reached the tree she’d picked out and leaped at the huge trunk, using her right leg to propel herself up to the lowest branch. She pulled herself up to it just in time to avoid having her legs skewered by a third wolfrider who was standing in the saddle and stabbing up at them with his lance.\n\nA quick count revealed there were at least ten of them approaching, and several appeared to be pulling shortbows from their saddlebags. Goblins might not be crack archers, but considering she was barely off the ground, they didn’t have to be. So, she grimly clambered up the giant oak, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before some of them started climbing up after her. Assuming, of course, none of their archers managed to pin her to the trunk first.\n\nA shaft flew past her and struck a branch above her. She had no choice but to keep climbing, until finally she was high enough that none of their wild attempts were coming anywhere near her. That being accomplished, she stepped out on a branch that reached out to entangle itself with one from a neighboring tree and adroitly changed trees. But any sense of relief was short lived, as she could see there were already two goblins well off the ground and rapidly climbing the first tree.\n\nShe looked down at the branch on which she was standing and wondered if she might be able to saw through its thickness before the goblins could reach it, but one look at her knife’s sharp, non-serrated edges convinced her otherwise. What else did she have? A sword, some food, some water, and a few rudimentary magic spells, none of which would permit her to blast a goblin from a tree.\n\nBut one of them might help someone find her, if only they were looking. She hadn’t dared send up a signal previously, for fear that it would lead her pursuers to her first, but that was a moot point now. She reached into her pouch, withdrew a small sack containing an amount of red powder, and poured about a third of it into her hand. She closed her eyes, concentrating to remember the words of the spell, then spoke them quickly and hurled the powder skyward.\n\nA burst of red light shot skyward, forcing her to shield her eyes against it. She heard unintelligible shouts from below; the goblins had obviously grasped what she intended, though what they planned to do about it was beyond her. She continued moving from tree to tree, and sent up three more magical beacons before the spellpowder was exhausted.\n\nHer options appeared to be exhausted too. It sounded as if more goblins had arrived, as the first two were following her path through the trees, while judging by the cries, others had marked the trees from which her spells were shining into the sky and were climbing them. Her hands began to shake with fear as she realized there was nothing more she could do. She had a sword, she had a dagger, and she had her arrows, but the chances that none of the climbing goblins was carrying a bow didn’t strike her as very likely.\n\nDespite herself, she began to cry. Silent tears made their way down her face as she realized that her terrible decision to go after the unlucky Gelrinas had not only gotten Merlian killed, but sealed her own fate too. Why didn’t she turn back after seeing he was gone? He was as good as dead already, now she had thrown away her life, and her hawk’s life, for nothing!\n\nA shadow passed by overhead. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see what it was. Was it just another cursed bird? Or had someone seen her signals? Could it be she wasn’t high enough for them to see her through the leaves and branches? She put a hand to her lips and gave out a piercing whistle, followed by another, then she began to climb to the very top of the forest canopy.\n\nShe had nearly reached the top of the tree when a black-feathered arrow whirred past her shoulder. Whipping her head around, she saw a grinning forest goblin sitting precariously on a thin, swaying branch with his back to the trunk, holding a shortbow in his left arm. He must have anticipated her and climbed higher once she started throwing out the spell-beacons; how else was she going to escape, after all, but from above?\n\nCalmly, deliberately, he nocked a second arrow and raised his bow. But before he could aim it, there was a soft whirring sound and he convulsed unexpectedly, arms flailing, dropping both bow and arrow to clatter their way down through the leaves and branches below. He jerked twice more and then sat still, his head slumped on his chest, just above the bright yellow-feathered arrow now buried in his heart.\n\nYellow feathers? She only knew one elf who insisted on dying his feathers yellow! She looked up to see the familiar face of Ilriathas, Lord Kelethan, as he drew back the string on his silver bow again and sent a second arrow down into the trees beneath her. There was a scream, followed by a crashing sound as a second goblin plunged towards its death on the forest floor far below. His warhawk, a black-headed giant nearly half again the size of Merlian, was perched with its huge wings spread on the very top of a taller tree nearby.\n\n“Bereth!” he cried. “Are you hurt?”\n\n“No!”\n\nHe held up a knotted rope that she assumed was attached to his saddle. “Can you climb?”\n\n“I’m up here, aren’t I?” She couldn’t help it. There was something about Ilriathas that inevitably sharpened her tongue.\n\nHe merely grinned, shook his head, and tossed the rope down. It tangled on the branch above her, and she pulled herself up to grab it. But before she could start climbing it, he held up his hand. “Hold on tight, let Ebon pull you clear.”\n", "completion": "She awoke to the harsh, grunting sound of orcish being spoken. Three orcs were arguing loudly amongst themselves as they approached the split-trunked oak tree in which Bereth had been sleeping. They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to where they were going, so as she yawned silently and rubbed at her eyes, she decided that it was mere bad luck that had brought them here so close to her.\n\nShe’d leaped from tree to tree, initially heading west rather than south in an attempt to hide her trail from her pursuers, most particularly the goblin wolfriders whose mounts could not only follow her scent, but easily outpace her on the ground. Once she felt she’d gone far enough to escape the likely extent of their pursuit, she climbed down in order to make better time. No matter how agile the elf, it was much faster to run over the dark mossy floor of the forest than it was to balance on the branches of the trees, ignoring the annoyance of having your face constantly whipped by twigs and leaves, and occasionally having to stop and climb either up or down in order to find a branch that extended far enough to reach another tree.\n\nOnly well after second Moonrise did she finally stop running and climb into the forked embrace of a slumbering forest giant. She tied herself to a branch, curled up in her cloak and fell into an exhausted, fitful sleep, only to be woken by the guttural sounds of the orcs arguing below. Or complaining, she realized as she listened to them. It was hard to understand them, as they spoke in a dialect different from any other she’d heard before.\n\nAs near as she could tell, they were angry about being sent on a pointless chase after an elf whom they wouldn’t even be permitted to devour. Her eyes narrowed as the conversation turned more optimistic, as the smallest of the three orcs pointed out that even if they couldn’t kill her or eat her, there were other entertainments to be had. He then began expounding on his plans for her, the full extent of which Bereth never learned. It was her own fault, though, as she rather rudely interrupted his oration by loosing an arrow that entered his left eye and partially exited the rear of his misshapen skull.\n\nHis two companions didn’t notice at first, but continued for three or four more steps before turning around to see what had happened to him. It was almost comical to see how they looked back, then down, then stared stupidly at each other for a moment before awareness of what had happened finally dawned on them. As the bigger one roared defiantly up at the trees, Bereth put a second arrow right down his gullet, and the razor-sharp point came out the back of his neck as he slumped, choking and dying, to the ground. The third orc was a little more clever, as he didn’t waste any time shouting or looking up at the trees, but instead began running as fast as his stumpy bowed legs would allow.\n\nBereth raised her bow, but there were several branches obscuring her line of sight, so she was obliged to put an arrow through his thigh rather than a more lethal location. But she knew it would be enough to slow him down, so she untied herself and climbed down from the tree without hurrying, then strolled in the direction that he’d fled. He was limping badly and bleeding profusely, so it wasn’t difficult to catch up with him.\n\nAt the sound of her footsteps behind him, the wounded orc whirled around. He was about a head shorter than her, but he was probably three times her weight. He wore a metal breastplate and had several dark tattoos on his arms, that, combined with the large rectangular cleaver he was drawing from its goblinskin sheath, told her that he was what passed for a proper soldier, not an irregular. The arrow piercing his left thigh was hampering his movements, but between the big blade and his bulging arms, there was no doubt that he could chop her in half if he could get close enough.\n\n“Yar!” he shouted as he took a step towards her. She calmly put a second arrow in his throat, then stood there and watched him die. She retrieved that arrow easily enough, as it very nearly went all the way through him, but the one in his thigh was a little tougher. She walked back and recovered the second arrow, but not even putting her foot on the dead orc’s head and tugging hard was enough to pull the first one out of its skull. She gave it up with a sigh; that still left her with eighteen arrows, although three of them were now fouled, like her hands, with dark green orc’s blood.\n\nShe wiped them off as best she could on some leaves, followed by some moss, then slipped them back into her quiver. It was tempting to use a little of her water to at least rinse off her hands, but she knew she’d better save it for drinking. Perhaps she’d stumble across a creek soon. In any event, it was time to move on. If they were still looking for her this far west, they probably weren’t going to give up the chase easily and although orcs were undisciplined, three regulars would be missed well before sunset.\n\nStill stiff from her makeshift bed, she took the time to stretch her arms and legs before breaking into an easy jog heading south. With any luck, she’d be spotted by one of her fellow raiders before the end of the day.\n\nThe sun was just approaching its apex when Bereth heard the howls in the distance. Wolves. She cursed under her breath and took one last bite out of the apple she’d been eating before tossing it into the stream at which she’d stopped to wash her hands and catch her breath. She debated wading through the water to try to break her scent trail, but the stream seemed to be meandering more west than south and the water would only increase her pursuers’ worrisome advantage in speed.\n\nIf they lost her scent here, they’d simply send a pair of wolves running along each bank until they picked it up again, and gained even more ground on her. Best to simply run straight south as fast as she could and hope someone spotted her from above before they caught her.\n\nAnd so, she ran. She wasn’t tired, but it soon became apparent that something in her left knee wasn’t quite right. Had she twisted it without noticing when poor Merlian struck the ground? She tried not to favor it, but the more she tried not to do so, the more conscious of it she became. It wasn’t exactly painful, it was more of a discomfiting pressure, but it prevented her from properly stretching her left leg out as she ran and put a sort of hitch in her stride.\n\nAgain and again, she looked to the sky above the forest canopy and saw nothing. Every time she sensed motion overhead, her heart leaped, hoping that it was the familiar shape of a warhawk soaring above her. But time and time again, it was only birds, or occasionally, a squirrel leaping from one tree to another. At first, she felt despair, especially as the howls of the wolves grew louder, although they were still too far behind her to see. But the despair rapidly turned to irritation, then anger.\n\nWhere were they? They knew she was out here. Surely Arwis Autumnleaf had reached their forward base and told Lord Oakenheart that he’d seen her, and where she was heading! Why didn’t the High Guard commander have sky raiders out looking for her, as she’d been ordered out to find the wretched Silverbows? And where was Ilriathas? He came up with one excuse or another to inflict himself upon her nearly every evening, surely he, at least, would have missed her. He probably wouldn’t have gone looking for her himself, given his other responsibilities, but he might at least have sent out a hawk or two.\n\nShe fumed as she ran. If an elf was so besotted with her as to propose marriage more than a dozen times, how could he possibly not notice her failure to return to camp by nightfall? The howls were getting closer and she knew she didn’t have much more time. Should she climb a tree and attempt to keep running? Or should she try to find some defensible ground and make a last stand?\n\nShe looked back and saw a green-and-grey flash behind her. It looked like her choice was made for her. She nocked an arrow, waited until the wolfrider cleared a large tree, then loosed the arrow at his chest. She didn’t wait to see if she’d hit, instead she looked upward to locate the biggest, most branch-laden oak she could find. There was one about twenty paces to her left, so she ran towards it as fast as her injured knee would allow.\n\nIt was a snarl that saved her. Somehow, the wolves must have gotten past her and circled back to cut her off, because she heard the sound and instinctively ducked to her left just as the wolfrider shot past her, the tip of his lance barely missing her right shoulder. She had a clean shot at the goblin’s back, but without knowing if there were others, she didn’t dare take the time to draw and nock an arrow.\n\nA second lancer appeared, but this time she was ready. She let him come at her, then ducked under his lance and jammed her bow into the wolf’s slashing jaws. It snapped in two, but did something to the wolf that cause it to break its stride and start thrashing and snapping wildly at nothing in particular. Its rider pulled desperately on the reins, but to no avail.\n\nShe regretted the loss of her bow, but admittedly, it wouldn’t have done her much good in the belly of a wolf pack. She reached the tree she’d picked out and leaped at the huge trunk, using her right leg to propel herself up to the lowest branch. She pulled herself up to it just in time to avoid having her legs skewered by a third wolfrider who was standing in the saddle and stabbing up at them with his lance.\n\nA quick count revealed there were at least ten of them approaching, and several appeared to be pulling shortbows from their saddlebags. Goblins might not be crack archers, but considering she was barely off the ground, they didn’t have to be. So, she grimly clambered up the giant oak, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before some of them started climbing up after her. Assuming, of course, none of their archers managed to pin her to the trunk first.\n\nA shaft flew past her and struck a branch above her. She had no choice but to keep climbing, until finally she was high enough that none of their wild attempts were coming anywhere near her. That being accomplished, she stepped out on a branch that reached out to entangle itself with one from a neighboring tree and adroitly changed trees. But any sense of relief was short lived, as she could see there were already two goblins well off the ground and rapidly climbing the first tree.\n\nShe looked down at the branch on which she was standing and wondered if she might be able to saw through its thickness before the goblins could reach it, but one look at her knife’s sharp, non-serrated edges convinced her otherwise. What else did she have? A sword, some food, some water, and a few rudimentary magic spells, none of which would permit her to blast a goblin from a tree.\n\nBut one of them might help someone find her, if only they were looking. She hadn’t dared send up a signal previously, for fear that it would lead her pursuers to her first, but that was a moot point now. She reached into her pouch, withdrew a small sack containing an amount of red powder, and poured about a third of it into her hand. She closed her eyes, concentrating to remember the words of the spell, then spoke them quickly and hurled the powder skyward.\n\nA burst of red light shot skyward, forcing her to shield her eyes against it. She heard unintelligible shouts from below; the goblins had obviously grasped what she intended, though what they planned to do about it was beyond her. She continued moving from tree to tree, and sent up three more magical beacons before the spellpowder was exhausted.\n\nHer options appeared to be exhausted too. It sounded as if more goblins had arrived, as the first two were following her path through the trees, while judging by the cries, others had marked the trees from which her spells were shining into the sky and were climbing them. Her hands began to shake with fear as she realized there was nothing more she could do. She had a sword, she had a dagger, and she had her arrows, but the chances that none of the climbing goblins was carrying a bow didn’t strike her as very likely.\n\nDespite herself, she began to cry. Silent tears made their way down her face as she realized that her terrible decision to go after the unlucky Gelrinas had not only gotten Merlian killed, but sealed her own fate too. Why didn’t she turn back after seeing he was gone? He was as good as dead already, now she had thrown away her life, and her hawk’s life, for nothing!\n\nA shadow passed by overhead. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see what it was. Was it just another cursed bird? Or had someone seen her signals? Could it be she wasn’t high enough for them to see her through the leaves and branches? She put a hand to her lips and gave out a piercing whistle, followed by another, then she began to climb to the very top of the forest canopy.\n\nShe had nearly reached the top of the tree when a black-feathered arrow whirred past her shoulder. Whipping her head around, she saw a grinning forest goblin sitting precariously on a thin, swaying branch with his back to the trunk, holding a shortbow in his left arm. He must have anticipated her and climbed higher once she started throwing out the spell-beacons; how else was she going to escape, after all, but from above?\n\nCalmly, deliberately, he nocked a second arrow and raised his bow. But before he could aim it, there was a soft whirring sound and he convulsed unexpectedly, arms flailing, dropping both bow and arrow to clatter their way down through the leaves and branches below. He jerked twice more and then sat still, his head slumped on his chest, just above the bright yellow-feathered arrow now buried in his heart.\n\nYellow feathers? She only knew one elf who insisted on dying his feathers yellow! She looked up to see the familiar face of Ilriathas, Lord Kelethan, as he drew back the string on his silver bow again and sent a second arrow down into the trees beneath her. There was a scream, followed by a crashing sound as a second goblin plunged towards its death on the forest floor far below. His warhawk, a black-headed giant nearly half again the size of Merlian, was perched with its huge wings spread on the very top of a taller tree nearby.\n\n“Bereth!” he cried. “Are you hurt?”\n\n“No!”\n\nHe held up a knotted rope that she assumed was attached to his saddle. “Can you climb?”\n\n“I’m up here, aren’t I?” She couldn’t help it. There was something about Ilriathas that inevitably sharpened her tongue.\n\nHe merely grinned, shook his head, and tossed the rope down. It tangled on the branch above her, and she pulled herself up to grab it. But before she could start climbing it, he held up his hand. “Hold on tight, let Ebon pull you clear.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2779, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch23_bereth-P2", "chapter": "ch23_bereth", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nDaeledeth — Collegium mage for the snatch raid; keep spelling.\nthan / gwaed ludrith — mage-craft terms named in briefing; keep forms.\nLassarian — sky raider who will carry her later; introduced in orders context.\nRhian — raider named for the mage escort; keep spelling.\nLord Oakenheart — issuing the prisoner snatch; keep form.\nBrig Brenin — later honor-site named in camp talk; keep if present, else omit.\negg right / clutch — warhawk breeding queue; keep camp forms.\n\n### STORY\nShe recovers the Silverbow, learns his partner is tied on a watered island, then turns west over the fouled host and hunts low for a captive-party.\n\nShe commits on an armored cart-escort; cart-bows cripple Merlian; he carries her to the trees and she leaves him dying, taking feathers and climbing away.\n\nBereth wakes in a Merithaim oak to orcs below, kills and runs the canopy from wolves and lancers, and reaches Ilriathas’s rope as Ebon waits to haul her clear.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive, hauled onto Ebon before Ilriathas; face marked by trees; grieving Merlian. Will cry, then lock down when he tests whether she can still fly missions. Knows replacing a hawk takes years and rank she lacks.\n\nIlriathas\nHolds her; asks after Merlian; cannot give her the next clutch egg; redirects her to Oakenheart’s raid rather than sending her home broken.\n\nDaeledeth\nCollegium mage assigned to stun-snatch orc officers; not yet on the wing with her in this scene’s end-state of orders.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nA shadow passed by overhead. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see what it was. Was it just another cursed bird? Or had someone seen her signals? Could it be she wasn’t high enough for them to see her through the leaves and branches? She put a hand to her lips and gave out a piercing whistle, followed by another, then she began to climb to the very top of the forest canopy.\n\nShe had nearly reached the top of the tree when a black-feathered arrow whirred past her shoulder. Whipping her head around, she saw a grinning forest goblin sitting precariously on a thin, swaying branch with his back to the trunk, holding a shortbow in his left arm. He must have anticipated her and climbed higher once she started throwing out the spell-beacons; how else was she going to escape, after all, but from above?\n\nCalmly, deliberately, he nocked a second arrow and raised his bow. But before he could aim it, there was a soft whirring sound and he convulsed unexpectedly, arms flailing, dropping both bow and arrow to clatter their way down through the leaves and branches below. He jerked twice more and then sat still, his head slumped on his chest, just above the bright yellow-feathered arrow now buried in his heart.\n\nYellow feathers? She only knew one elf who insisted on dying his feathers yellow! She looked up to see the familiar face of Ilriathas, Lord Kelethan, as he drew back the string on his silver bow again and sent a second arrow down into the trees beneath her. There was a scream, followed by a crashing sound as a second goblin plunged towards its death on the forest floor far below. His warhawk, a black-headed giant nearly half again the size of Merlian, was perched with its huge wings spread on the very top of a taller tree nearby.\n\n“Bereth!” he cried. “Are you hurt?”\n\n“No!”\n\nHe held up a knotted rope that she assumed was attached to his saddle. “Can you climb?”\n\n“I’m up here, aren’t I?” She couldn’t help it. There was something about Ilriathas that inevitably sharpened her tongue.\n\nHe merely grinned, shook his head, and tossed the rope down. It tangled on the branch above her, and she pulled herself up to grab it. But before she could start climbing it, he held up his hand. “Hold on tight, let Ebon pull you clear.”\n\n### NOTES\nReturn flight toward elven camps; then ground briefing for a four-hawk snatch.\nMission tasks: shoot threats, bind stunned officers for hawk carry, protect the mage above all.\nReports say orc shamans are less hapless than hoped—Daeledeth knows than and gwaed ludrith.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nEbon hauls her up; Ilriathas holds her, sees her ruined face, and hears Merlian is dead. She breaks; he has no next-clutch egg to give and will not let her rot in Elebrion—Oakenheart needs a bow on a mage-snatch with Rhian, Lassarian, and Daeledeth. She hears the rules: kill threats, bind stunned officers, bring the mage home, take no stupid risks. The scene lands on that binding charge, before the warhawks are over the targeted tents.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1400 words. Grief first, then mission steel; no comfort speech beyond what Ilriathas actually gives. Land on the orders, not the takeoff.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "At his urging, the huge hawk beat its powerful wings and pulled her up and out of the treetops. The rope swayed back and forth, but with the aid of the knots she easily climbed up it until Ilriathas was able to reach over and pull her bodily up into the saddle in front of him. He held her close for a moment, and she let him, allowing herself to relax against his strong, lean body in a moment of pure relief.\n\nHe pushed her back and examined her closely. “What happened to your face?”\n\n“Trees,” she said, wondering how bad she looked for him to comment on it. “I tried to break my trail by going west through the branches, but some orcs stumbled upon me. I think the wolfriders must have found the bodies and picked up my trail from there.”\n\nHe nodded. “That would explain why you’re so much further to the west than we expected. Elrithas sent out ten raiders looking for you this morning, but no one thought you’d do anything but run straight south.”\n\nShe was glad to hear she’d been missed after all. Elrithas was Lord Oakenheart to those less highborn than Ilri. “You did.”\n\n“You’ve never done anything straightforward or sensible in your life, Bereth. I didn’t see any reason you’d start now.”\n\nShe hit him on the shoulder and then put her head against his chest again, stifling a sob. “Why didn’t you come sooner? They almost got me!”\n\n“I thought you were already dead until I saw that first red light go up. I came as fast as I could. Bereth, don’t cry!”\n\nShe couldn’t help it. “Merlian’s dead, Ilri. And I couldn’t save Gelrinas. The orcs already had him.”\n\n“Shh, it’s not your fault.”\n\n“It’s not my fault? I followed him. I put an arrow in him! And then… and then they shot poor Merlian with… with a scorpion!”\n\nShe was crying too hard to say anything more. For once in his life, Ilriathas had the sense to keep his mouth shut. He simply held her close in his arms and let her weep as the giant hawk bore her south, to safety.\n\nHer face was healing, but it felt like a map of the northern mountains as the little cuts and scratches inflicted on her by the trees scabbed over, creating ridges and peaks on her cheeks and chin. They itched, too, and it was hard to resist the temptation to pick at them.\n\nShe pulled on her flying leathers with reluctance. She didn’t know what Lord Oakenheart had in mind, but she’d been summoned to him and told to be armed and armored. So, she buckled her belt with its two scabbards, sword and dagger, ran her hands through her unbraided hair, and went to see him.\n\nThe elf lord was in his tent, poring over a map with two of her fellow sky raiders. He looked up when she entered, and she was surprised to see him frown at her.\n\n“You don’t look ready to fly, Bereth. Your hair is loose. And where is your bow?”\n\n“I don’t have a hawk,” she protested. “How am I going to fly?”\n\n“You’re still a raider, aren’t you? You’ll fly with Lassarian on Mellt.”\n\n“I don’t know if I’m ready-”\n\n“I don’t care if you think you’re ready or not, Bereth. You cost us one very valuable bird in a foolish attempt to save an elf who was already lost to us. You very nearly cost me an equally valuable raider and put the lives of twelve other elves at risk in the process. So don’t tell me that all that effort was in vain or I’ll send you back to Elebrion today!”\n\nHer mouth fell open. How could he be so unfair? Didn’t he know that Merlian’s loss hurt her more deeply than it could ever bother him? Then she realized that he was testing her, seeing if she had the wherewithal to hold herself together. In that awareness, she found her resolve. She took a deep breath, blinked away the tears that had not quite filled her eyes, and stood at rigid attention.\n\n“I’m sorry, my Lord. What are your orders?”\n\n“That’s better.” The intimidating anger vanished from his face. “We’re seeing some indications that the Great Orc is finally preparing to make a move. We want two captives for interrogation, regulars, preferably officers. That’s why I’m sending two hawks, and two elves per hawk. We can get in and out faster if the rider stays in the saddle.”\n\n“And having a spotter always helps,” Lassarian added. He nodded to Bereth. “I’m sorry about your bird.”\n\n“Thanks,” she said numbly. “Who is the fourth?”\n\n“The Collegium is sending over a proper mage. He’s called Daeledeth, and he’s familiar with both than and gwaed ludrith. We’ve had reports that their shamans are less hapless than would be desired and I don’t want to risk losing two more birds. We have few enough as it is.”\n\nShe looked down, all too aware of the implicit criticism in his words. She felt a pair of strong hands on her shoulders and looked up to see Lord Oakenheart looking closely at her. “Bereth, you simply must be more careful. Lord Kelethan was beside himself when you didn’t return and the Silverbow told us you’d gone after his wounded partner. You don’t have anything to prove, so stop taking these risks! Focus on your orders, on the mission. That comes first!”\n\nBut I do have to prove myself, she wanted to say. To you, above everyone! But she nodded obediently instead.\n\nDaeledeth turned out to be a tall, quiet elf, more scholar than sorcerer, although his calm demeanor favorably impressed the three sky raiders. He arrived with the morning courier from Elebrion, bearing messages from the King and various other personages in the capital. The easy way he unbuckled himself and dismounted from the messenger’s hawk was also a good sign; not every scholar at the Collegium had experience with sky-riding.\n\nRhian, whose hawk the mage would be riding, explained to him their basic plan, and warned him of the orcish shamans. Daeledeth smiled faintly upon hearing them, which gave Bereth some confidence that he would be able to deal with them if necessary. Since Lord Oakenheart had scouts flying daily over the giant abscess the orcs had carved in the forest, they had a very good idea of where the various orc tribes were located; they didn’t know their names, but they did know the banners. The idea was to fly high over the outskirts of the camp, then drop down unexpectedly in one of the camps on the northwestern side that belonged to a tribe of regular infantry. Fortunately, there were clouds in the sky, not many, but more than likely enough to mask their approach from above.\n\nThe irregulars were much easier to capture, stationed as they were on the periphery of the army, but they seldom knew any more about the intentions of the orc high command than Lord Oakenheart did. In fact, they usually knew considerably less than the elven commander did about what was happening inside their own camp.\n\nBereth braided her hair as Oakenheart gave Rhian and Daeledeth some final instructions. Her own orders were simple; put an arrow into any orc or goblin who threatened hawk or rider, leap off the hawk and bind the hands and feet of any orc stunned by the mage so that the hawk could safely carry them, and not to take any undue risks while trying to fulfill the first two tasks. Above all, the three of them were to make sure that the mage was returned safely to the Collegium or consequences most dire would befall them all.\n", "completion": "At his urging, the huge hawk beat its powerful wings and pulled her up and out of the treetops. The rope swayed back and forth, but with the aid of the knots she easily climbed up it until Ilriathas was able to reach over and pull her bodily up into the saddle in front of him. He held her close for a moment, and she let him, allowing herself to relax against his strong, lean body in a moment of pure relief.\n\nHe pushed her back and examined her closely. “What happened to your face?”\n\n“Trees,” she said, wondering how bad she looked for him to comment on it. “I tried to break my trail by going west through the branches, but some orcs stumbled upon me. I think the wolfriders must have found the bodies and picked up my trail from there.”\n\nHe nodded. “That would explain why you’re so much further to the west than we expected. Elrithas sent out ten raiders looking for you this morning, but no one thought you’d do anything but run straight south.”\n\nShe was glad to hear she’d been missed after all. Elrithas was Lord Oakenheart to those less highborn than Ilri. “You did.”\n\n“You’ve never done anything straightforward or sensible in your life, Bereth. I didn’t see any reason you’d start now.”\n\nShe hit him on the shoulder and then put her head against his chest again, stifling a sob. “Why didn’t you come sooner? They almost got me!”\n\n“I thought you were already dead until I saw that first red light go up. I came as fast as I could. Bereth, don’t cry!”\n\nShe couldn’t help it. “Merlian’s dead, Ilri. And I couldn’t save Gelrinas. The orcs already had him.”\n\n“Shh, it’s not your fault.”\n\n“It’s not my fault? I followed him. I put an arrow in him! And then… and then they shot poor Merlian with… with a scorpion!”\n\nShe was crying too hard to say anything more. For once in his life, Ilriathas had the sense to keep his mouth shut. He simply held her close in his arms and let her weep as the giant hawk bore her south, to safety.\n\nHer face was healing, but it felt like a map of the northern mountains as the little cuts and scratches inflicted on her by the trees scabbed over, creating ridges and peaks on her cheeks and chin. They itched, too, and it was hard to resist the temptation to pick at them.\n\nShe pulled on her flying leathers with reluctance. She didn’t know what Lord Oakenheart had in mind, but she’d been summoned to him and told to be armed and armored. So, she buckled her belt with its two scabbards, sword and dagger, ran her hands through her unbraided hair, and went to see him.\n\nThe elf lord was in his tent, poring over a map with two of her fellow sky raiders. He looked up when she entered, and she was surprised to see him frown at her.\n\n“You don’t look ready to fly, Bereth. Your hair is loose. And where is your bow?”\n\n“I don’t have a hawk,” she protested. “How am I going to fly?”\n\n“You’re still a raider, aren’t you? You’ll fly with Lassarian on Mellt.”\n\n“I don’t know if I’m ready-”\n\n“I don’t care if you think you’re ready or not, Bereth. You cost us one very valuable bird in a foolish attempt to save an elf who was already lost to us. You very nearly cost me an equally valuable raider and put the lives of twelve other elves at risk in the process. So don’t tell me that all that effort was in vain or I’ll send you back to Elebrion today!”\n\nHer mouth fell open. How could he be so unfair? Didn’t he know that Merlian’s loss hurt her more deeply than it could ever bother him? Then she realized that he was testing her, seeing if she had the wherewithal to hold herself together. In that awareness, she found her resolve. She took a deep breath, blinked away the tears that had not quite filled her eyes, and stood at rigid attention.\n\n“I’m sorry, my Lord. What are your orders?”\n\n“That’s better.” The intimidating anger vanished from his face. “We’re seeing some indications that the Great Orc is finally preparing to make a move. We want two captives for interrogation, regulars, preferably officers. That’s why I’m sending two hawks, and two elves per hawk. We can get in and out faster if the rider stays in the saddle.”\n\n“And having a spotter always helps,” Lassarian added. He nodded to Bereth. “I’m sorry about your bird.”\n\n“Thanks,” she said numbly. “Who is the fourth?”\n\n“The Collegium is sending over a proper mage. He’s called Daeledeth, and he’s familiar with both than and gwaed ludrith. We’ve had reports that their shamans are less hapless than would be desired and I don’t want to risk losing two more birds. We have few enough as it is.”\n\nShe looked down, all too aware of the implicit criticism in his words. She felt a pair of strong hands on her shoulders and looked up to see Lord Oakenheart looking closely at her. “Bereth, you simply must be more careful. Lord Kelethan was beside himself when you didn’t return and the Silverbow told us you’d gone after his wounded partner. You don’t have anything to prove, so stop taking these risks! Focus on your orders, on the mission. That comes first!”\n\nBut I do have to prove myself, she wanted to say. To you, above everyone! But she nodded obediently instead.\n\nDaeledeth turned out to be a tall, quiet elf, more scholar than sorcerer, although his calm demeanor favorably impressed the three sky raiders. He arrived with the morning courier from Elebrion, bearing messages from the King and various other personages in the capital. The easy way he unbuckled himself and dismounted from the messenger’s hawk was also a good sign; not every scholar at the Collegium had experience with sky-riding.\n\nRhian, whose hawk the mage would be riding, explained to him their basic plan, and warned him of the orcish shamans. Daeledeth smiled faintly upon hearing them, which gave Bereth some confidence that he would be able to deal with them if necessary. Since Lord Oakenheart had scouts flying daily over the giant abscess the orcs had carved in the forest, they had a very good idea of where the various orc tribes were located; they didn’t know their names, but they did know the banners. The idea was to fly high over the outskirts of the camp, then drop down unexpectedly in one of the camps on the northwestern side that belonged to a tribe of regular infantry. Fortunately, there were clouds in the sky, not many, but more than likely enough to mask their approach from above.\n\nThe irregulars were much easier to capture, stationed as they were on the periphery of the army, but they seldom knew any more about the intentions of the orc high command than Lord Oakenheart did. In fact, they usually knew considerably less than the elven commander did about what was happening inside their own camp.\n\nBereth braided her hair as Oakenheart gave Rhian and Daeledeth some final instructions. Her own orders were simple; put an arrow into any orc or goblin who threatened hawk or rider, leap off the hawk and bind the hands and feet of any orc stunned by the mage so that the hawk could safely carry them, and not to take any undue risks while trying to fulfill the first two tasks. Above all, the three of them were to make sure that the mage was returned safely to the Collegium or consequences most dire would befall them all.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1345, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch23_bereth-P3", "chapter": "ch23_bereth", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMellt — Lassarian’s hawk; keep spelling.\nLassarian — carries Bereth behind him; keep spelling.\nRhian — escorting Daeledeth; keep spelling.\nDaeledeth — mage in trance-risk over the tents; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nShe commits on an armored cart-escort; cart-bows cripple Merlian; he carries her to the trees and she leaves him dying, taking feathers and climbing away.\n\nBereth wakes in a Merithaim oak to orcs below, kills and runs the canopy from wolves and lancers, and reaches Ilriathas’s rope as Ebon waits to haul her clear.\n\nIlriathas lifts her, hears Merlian is dead, cannot spare a near clutch egg, and sends her to Oakenheart’s mage-snatch with Rhian, Lassarian, and Daeledeth under protect-the-mage orders.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive behind Lassarian on Mellt over the orc tents; bow working. Still hollow without Merlian; functional. Does not understand why Rhian’s hawk dives madly at the end.\n\nLassarian\nPilot; pulls the wingtip turn when Rhian goes wrong.\n\nRhian / Daeledeth\nOn the second working hawk; Daeledeth may be entranced; their bird furls and falls without clear arrow-hit.\n\nSpotter warhawks\nTwo already over the target; emergency-only per Oakenheart.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe looked down, all too aware of the implicit criticism in his words. She felt a pair of strong hands on her shoulders and looked up to see Lord Oakenheart looking closely at her. “Bereth, you simply must be more careful. Lord Kelethan was beside himself when you didn’t return and the Silverbow told us you’d gone after his wounded partner. You don’t have anything to prove, so stop taking these risks! Focus on your orders, on the mission. That comes first!”\n\nBut I do have to prove myself, she wanted to say. To you, above everyone! But she nodded obediently instead.\n\nDaeledeth turned out to be a tall, quiet elf, more scholar than sorcerer, although his calm demeanor favorably impressed the three sky raiders. He arrived with the morning courier from Elebrion, bearing messages from the King and various other personages in the capital. The easy way he unbuckled himself and dismounted from the messenger’s hawk was also a good sign; not every scholar at the Collegium had experience with sky-riding.\n\nRhian, whose hawk the mage would be riding, explained to him their basic plan, and warned him of the orcish shamans. Daeledeth smiled faintly upon hearing them, which gave Bereth some confidence that he would be able to deal with them if necessary. Since Lord Oakenheart had scouts flying daily over the giant abscess the orcs had carved in the forest, they had a very good idea of where the various orc tribes were located; they didn’t know their names, but they did know the banners. The idea was to fly high over the outskirts of the camp, then drop down unexpectedly in one of the camps on the northwestern side that belonged to a tribe of regular infantry. Fortunately, there were clouds in the sky, not many, but more than likely enough to mask their approach from above.\n\nThe irregulars were much easier to capture, stationed as they were on the periphery of the army, but they seldom knew any more about the intentions of the orc high command than Lord Oakenheart did. In fact, they usually knew considerably less than the elven commander did about what was happening inside their own camp.\n\nBereth braided her hair as Oakenheart gave Rhian and Daeledeth some final instructions. Her own orders were simple; put an arrow into any orc or goblin who threatened hawk or rider, leap off the hawk and bind the hands and feet of any orc stunned by the mage so that the hawk could safely carry them, and not to take any undue risks while trying to fulfill the first two tasks. Above all, the three of them were to make sure that the mage was returned safely to the Collegium or consequences most dire would befall them all.\n\n### NOTES\nNight/low raid over a section of orc encampment; poor orc communications help isolation of the snatch.\nPrisoners to be stunned, bound, and carried; draw minimal attention.\nFalling dive is long enough to feel endless to Bereth.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nSpotters are already up; Oakenheart wants silence more than arrows. She rides Lassarian’s dive, shoots, binds stunned officers in the chaos, and tastes the long falling terror of the attack run. They climb clear—then Rhian’s hawk, mage aboard, ignores the reins and furls into a dive with no wound she can see. The scene breaks as that bird begins to fall.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1950 words. Raid kinetic and cold; break mid-crisis on Rhian’s falling hawk, not the ground impact.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Two other warhawks were already over the targeted section of the orc encampment. They were spotters charged with identifying the probable officers and they could provide additional archery if required. But Lord Oakenheart made it clear that they should only be summoned in the case of the most dire emergency; he wanted to draw as little attention to the captured prisoners as possible. Given the poor communications among the orc tribes, news of the capture might not even make it to the Great Orc if it was accomplished in a sufficiently circumspect manner.\n\nShe felt a slight ache in her heart as Lassarian pulled her up behind him in the saddle. His Mellt was about the same size as Merlian, but was a more fidgety bird with a more pungent odor to him. She had two bows and more than fifty arrows stowed about her; hopefully she wouldn’t need many of them. It was far from the first time that she’d ridden skyward on another bird, but it hurt to think that this would be only the first of many such flights. It would be at least seven years before she could possibly raise another hawk from its shell; there were lengthy waiting lists and she was not of such rank as to jump the list.\n\nA sky raider without her hawk might be a sky raider still, but she didn’t feel like one anymore. Even the familiar rhythmic surge as the warhawk leaped into the sky and bore them aloft on his powerful wings felt different without the reins in her hands. They flew at a normal altitude for some time, then the other hawk began to climb and she knew that they were approaching the orc-infested lands. At such heights, it was cold, and both she and Lassarian withdrew the leather hoods and masks that would keep them from getting overly chilled. Before too much more time had passed, they spotted the scouts far ahead, circling above a medium-sized white cloud that shielded them from any onlookers below.\n\nAt this height, of course, it hardly mattered, as even if they were seen, a warhawk was indistinguishable from a much smaller bird at a lower altitude. And there were no shortage of eagles, vultures, and birds of prey to be found soaring over the nest of abomination below, looking for carrion.\n\nRhian flew wing-to-wing with one of the scouts, then broke off to inform them of what he’d learned. “They’ve got three likely targets!” he shouted over the wind. “One shaman, two officers. We want to bag the shaman if we can; the mage here will take him out first.”\n\n“Do they know we’re here?”\n\n“They don’t think so!”\n\nLassarian nodded. He didn’t seem nervous, and Bereth probably wouldn’t have been if she’d been flying Merlian either. They practiced dive-landings and live extractions on a regular basis. But her stomach was already tightening; a steep vertical was terrifying when you weren’t the one telling the bird when to pull up. Not that a bird would ever fly into the ground, but every one was different and no two birds ended a dive alike. She found herself rather desperately praying that Mellt preferred to pull up sooner than Merlian had.\n\nShe tugged at the two sets of straps that would be keeping her in the saddle and pulled the looser of the two tight. She checked Lassarian’s too; both of his needed tightening. She pulled out an arrow; it was one of the green-stained ones from three days ago, and she tucked it under her arm with the bow. She could feel that Lassarian was already taking slow, deep breaths to prepare himself; his body was rigid with tension. It relieved her a little to know that she wasn’t the only one who was frightened.\n\nAfter all, there were one hundred thousand orcs and goblins waiting below, all of whom would simply love to kill and eat them, if not worse, if given the opportunity. And no elf knew better than her how vulnerable they would be.\n\nShe could see Rhian leaning back and shouting instructions into Daeledeth’s ear. It would be worse for the mage than any of them, and they needed him to be able to cast his spells as soon as they leveled out, if not sooner.\n\n“I hate this!” she shouted into Lassarian’s ear.\n\n“So do I!” he agreed. “Just hold onto that bow! Now get ready!”\n\nShe leaned forward, tucked her head against his back, and put both arms around his waist, holding her bow and the arrow alongside her left forearm. Lassarian’s leathers were too thick to make them uncomfortable for him, and besides, that would be the least of his concerns in a moment.\n\nWith her eyes tightly closed, she couldn’t see Rhian give the signal. But Lassarian abruptly leaned forward onto the warhawk’s neck and she heard Mellt furl his wings. Then they were falling, plunging like a stone dropped off a precipice and she screamed into Lassarian’s cold, leather-clad back as her stomach seemed to leap violently up her throat and out her open mouth. The wind howled in her ears, her heart raced, her muscles flexed tightly as if bracing for a blow. Lassarian was so rigid he felt more like a statue than an elf, only the motion of his breathing against her face and chest made it clear that he was alive. Down, down they fell, until it felt to her as if the torment would never end, that this was some sort of cold bottomless Hell into which the damned were doomed to fall forever.\n\nFalling, falling, falling. It was too long! They had fallen too far! She cringed, wondering if she would even feel anything, striking the earth at such speed.\n\nJust as she felt she couldn’t possibly take it anymore, Mellt stretched out his wings and a strangely warm sensation swept through her body as she was abruptly thrown backward. The great bird had come out of his dive considerably closer to the ground than she would have dared and was hurtling over the stripped and barren plain not far over the heads of the gaping, astonished orcs. It was with some difficulty that she pulled herself forward, then released Lassarian and concentrated on nocking her arrow before looking for a target. She saw Rhian and Daeledeth were two hawk-lengths ahead of them, and observed a faint purple aura swelling around the mage’s head as he focused his power.\n\nLassarian pointed out the two big orcs standing on either side of a grotesque figure wearing some sort of horned cloak. Presumably the shaman. Dozens of tents and scores of orcs flew beneath them, and she quickly scanned the ground to the left side of the hawk looking for archers or any ballistae of the sort that killed Merlian. She spotted one about one hundred fifty paces away, although its solitary crew orc was lounging against it and paying no attention to the commotion erupting nearby. She put an arrow through his neck anyhow.\n\nAfter nocking another arrow, she saw that Daeledeth must have cast his spell, because both the big orcs and the suspected shaman were down. She loosed her arrow at the closest orc, then slipped her bow over her shoulder and unbuckled the saddle straps.\n\n“Going in,” Lassarian said tersely. He had his own bow in one hand, and was guiding Mellt with the other. The hawk backstroked on command, extended its legs, and no sooner had it touched ground than Bereth was out of the saddle and off its back, leather thongs in hand. First she bound the shaman, slashing off a piece of cloth and stuffing it in his tusked mouth for good measure, then she tied up the nearer of the two officers. As she pulled his heavy arms behind his back and rapidly wrapped a thong around his wrists, she could hear the steady thrum, thrum, thrum of Lassarian’s bowstring as he methodically shot down any orc who looked like approaching.\n\nThen there was a crackle and an explosion not far away. Bereth looked up and saw that Daeledeth had hurled a lightning bolt just in front of a large tent from which orcs had been pouring out. Now there was a crater, around which about twenty orcs were lying motionless where they had been flung, and the tent was burning. She finished tying up the officer, glanced at the other, and without thinking twice, drew her dagger again and drove it into his throat, then pulled back hard. A gout of green blood erupted in response.\n\nSatisfied, she wiped off the blade on the furry rag that covered the first officer’s groin and ran over to Mellt. She leaped up and caught Lassarian’s extended hand; he pulled her up the side of the giant bird and into the saddle. Mellt took two hops, grasped the unconscious shaman in one talon, then leaped into the air. Bereth saw Rhian was already descending upon the other orc, so after buckling her straps she slipped the bow from her back and began scouring the area, searching for targets.\n\nA tightly compact group appeared to be charging forward from the east, so she dropped the leader with an arrow through his leg, which caused them to spread out and slowed them down a little. She cursed; she’d been aiming for his throat but the jerking motion of the hawk as it climbed had thrown her off. She loosed two more shafts at two other orcs, both scoring hits, although she couldn’t be certain that she’d hit anything vital.\n\nRhian was right behind them, his hawk having swooped down and seized the orc in both talons without so much as touching the ground. Daeledeth pointed his fist and a second lighting bolt erupted amidst the orcs at whom she’d been shooting. Bereth looked on enviously as more than a dozen orcs went flying through the air. It was a neat trick, that. She consoled herself by putting an arrow through the face of one that had survived the sorcerous blast and was struggling to survive.\n\nThey were safely off the ground and out of the range of any orc archers when something went wrong. The other hawk abruptly stopped beating its massive wings and started coasting. Then, for no reason that either Bereth or Lassarian could see, the hawk began turning in a slow circle, as if it was going to head back towards the section of the encampment they had just escaped.\n\nBoth of them could see that Rhian was shouting and pulling on the reins, but to no avail. “Something is wrong!” Lassarian shouted, in case she hadn’t noticed, and he pulled Mellt around in a tight wingtip turn.\n\n“What is he doing?” she shouted back.\n\n“I have no idea!”\n\n“Did it get hit?\n\n“I don’t see how!”\n\nAnd then, without warning, the other hawk furled its wings and began to fall from the sky.\n", "completion": "Two other warhawks were already over the targeted section of the orc encampment. They were spotters charged with identifying the probable officers and they could provide additional archery if required. But Lord Oakenheart made it clear that they should only be summoned in the case of the most dire emergency; he wanted to draw as little attention to the captured prisoners as possible. Given the poor communications among the orc tribes, news of the capture might not even make it to the Great Orc if it was accomplished in a sufficiently circumspect manner.\n\nShe felt a slight ache in her heart as Lassarian pulled her up behind him in the saddle. His Mellt was about the same size as Merlian, but was a more fidgety bird with a more pungent odor to him. She had two bows and more than fifty arrows stowed about her; hopefully she wouldn’t need many of them. It was far from the first time that she’d ridden skyward on another bird, but it hurt to think that this would be only the first of many such flights. It would be at least seven years before she could possibly raise another hawk from its shell; there were lengthy waiting lists and she was not of such rank as to jump the list.\n\nA sky raider without her hawk might be a sky raider still, but she didn’t feel like one anymore. Even the familiar rhythmic surge as the warhawk leaped into the sky and bore them aloft on his powerful wings felt different without the reins in her hands. They flew at a normal altitude for some time, then the other hawk began to climb and she knew that they were approaching the orc-infested lands. At such heights, it was cold, and both she and Lassarian withdrew the leather hoods and masks that would keep them from getting overly chilled. Before too much more time had passed, they spotted the scouts far ahead, circling above a medium-sized white cloud that shielded them from any onlookers below.\n\nAt this height, of course, it hardly mattered, as even if they were seen, a warhawk was indistinguishable from a much smaller bird at a lower altitude. And there were no shortage of eagles, vultures, and birds of prey to be found soaring over the nest of abomination below, looking for carrion.\n\nRhian flew wing-to-wing with one of the scouts, then broke off to inform them of what he’d learned. “They’ve got three likely targets!” he shouted over the wind. “One shaman, two officers. We want to bag the shaman if we can; the mage here will take him out first.”\n\n“Do they know we’re here?”\n\n“They don’t think so!”\n\nLassarian nodded. He didn’t seem nervous, and Bereth probably wouldn’t have been if she’d been flying Merlian either. They practiced dive-landings and live extractions on a regular basis. But her stomach was already tightening; a steep vertical was terrifying when you weren’t the one telling the bird when to pull up. Not that a bird would ever fly into the ground, but every one was different and no two birds ended a dive alike. She found herself rather desperately praying that Mellt preferred to pull up sooner than Merlian had.\n\nShe tugged at the two sets of straps that would be keeping her in the saddle and pulled the looser of the two tight. She checked Lassarian’s too; both of his needed tightening. She pulled out an arrow; it was one of the green-stained ones from three days ago, and she tucked it under her arm with the bow. She could feel that Lassarian was already taking slow, deep breaths to prepare himself; his body was rigid with tension. It relieved her a little to know that she wasn’t the only one who was frightened.\n\nAfter all, there were one hundred thousand orcs and goblins waiting below, all of whom would simply love to kill and eat them, if not worse, if given the opportunity. And no elf knew better than her how vulnerable they would be.\n\nShe could see Rhian leaning back and shouting instructions into Daeledeth’s ear. It would be worse for the mage than any of them, and they needed him to be able to cast his spells as soon as they leveled out, if not sooner.\n\n“I hate this!” she shouted into Lassarian’s ear.\n\n“So do I!” he agreed. “Just hold onto that bow! Now get ready!”\n\nShe leaned forward, tucked her head against his back, and put both arms around his waist, holding her bow and the arrow alongside her left forearm. Lassarian’s leathers were too thick to make them uncomfortable for him, and besides, that would be the least of his concerns in a moment.\n\nWith her eyes tightly closed, she couldn’t see Rhian give the signal. But Lassarian abruptly leaned forward onto the warhawk’s neck and she heard Mellt furl his wings. Then they were falling, plunging like a stone dropped off a precipice and she screamed into Lassarian’s cold, leather-clad back as her stomach seemed to leap violently up her throat and out her open mouth. The wind howled in her ears, her heart raced, her muscles flexed tightly as if bracing for a blow. Lassarian was so rigid he felt more like a statue than an elf, only the motion of his breathing against her face and chest made it clear that he was alive. Down, down they fell, until it felt to her as if the torment would never end, that this was some sort of cold bottomless Hell into which the damned were doomed to fall forever.\n\nFalling, falling, falling. It was too long! They had fallen too far! She cringed, wondering if she would even feel anything, striking the earth at such speed.\n\nJust as she felt she couldn’t possibly take it anymore, Mellt stretched out his wings and a strangely warm sensation swept through her body as she was abruptly thrown backward. The great bird had come out of his dive considerably closer to the ground than she would have dared and was hurtling over the stripped and barren plain not far over the heads of the gaping, astonished orcs. It was with some difficulty that she pulled herself forward, then released Lassarian and concentrated on nocking her arrow before looking for a target. She saw Rhian and Daeledeth were two hawk-lengths ahead of them, and observed a faint purple aura swelling around the mage’s head as he focused his power.\n\nLassarian pointed out the two big orcs standing on either side of a grotesque figure wearing some sort of horned cloak. Presumably the shaman. Dozens of tents and scores of orcs flew beneath them, and she quickly scanned the ground to the left side of the hawk looking for archers or any ballistae of the sort that killed Merlian. She spotted one about one hundred fifty paces away, although its solitary crew orc was lounging against it and paying no attention to the commotion erupting nearby. She put an arrow through his neck anyhow.\n\nAfter nocking another arrow, she saw that Daeledeth must have cast his spell, because both the big orcs and the suspected shaman were down. She loosed her arrow at the closest orc, then slipped her bow over her shoulder and unbuckled the saddle straps.\n\n“Going in,” Lassarian said tersely. He had his own bow in one hand, and was guiding Mellt with the other. The hawk backstroked on command, extended its legs, and no sooner had it touched ground than Bereth was out of the saddle and off its back, leather thongs in hand. First she bound the shaman, slashing off a piece of cloth and stuffing it in his tusked mouth for good measure, then she tied up the nearer of the two officers. As she pulled his heavy arms behind his back and rapidly wrapped a thong around his wrists, she could hear the steady thrum, thrum, thrum of Lassarian’s bowstring as he methodically shot down any orc who looked like approaching.\n\nThen there was a crackle and an explosion not far away. Bereth looked up and saw that Daeledeth had hurled a lightning bolt just in front of a large tent from which orcs had been pouring out. Now there was a crater, around which about twenty orcs were lying motionless where they had been flung, and the tent was burning. She finished tying up the officer, glanced at the other, and without thinking twice, drew her dagger again and drove it into his throat, then pulled back hard. A gout of green blood erupted in response.\n\nSatisfied, she wiped off the blade on the furry rag that covered the first officer’s groin and ran over to Mellt. She leaped up and caught Lassarian’s extended hand; he pulled her up the side of the giant bird and into the saddle. Mellt took two hops, grasped the unconscious shaman in one talon, then leaped into the air. Bereth saw Rhian was already descending upon the other orc, so after buckling her straps she slipped the bow from her back and began scouring the area, searching for targets.\n\nA tightly compact group appeared to be charging forward from the east, so she dropped the leader with an arrow through his leg, which caused them to spread out and slowed them down a little. She cursed; she’d been aiming for his throat but the jerking motion of the hawk as it climbed had thrown her off. She loosed two more shafts at two other orcs, both scoring hits, although she couldn’t be certain that she’d hit anything vital.\n\nRhian was right behind them, his hawk having swooped down and seized the orc in both talons without so much as touching the ground. Daeledeth pointed his fist and a second lighting bolt erupted amidst the orcs at whom she’d been shooting. Bereth looked on enviously as more than a dozen orcs went flying through the air. It was a neat trick, that. She consoled herself by putting an arrow through the face of one that had survived the sorcerous blast and was struggling to survive.\n\nThey were safely off the ground and out of the range of any orc archers when something went wrong. The other hawk abruptly stopped beating its massive wings and started coasting. Then, for no reason that either Bereth or Lassarian could see, the hawk began turning in a slow circle, as if it was going to head back towards the section of the encampment they had just escaped.\n\nBoth of them could see that Rhian was shouting and pulling on the reins, but to no avail. “Something is wrong!” Lassarian shouted, in case she hadn’t noticed, and he pulled Mellt around in a tight wingtip turn.\n\n“What is he doing?” she shouted back.\n\n“I have no idea!”\n\n“Did it get hit?\n\n“I don’t see how!”\n\nAnd then, without warning, the other hawk furled its wings and began to fall from the sky.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1872, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch24_bereth-P1", "chapter": "ch24_bereth", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCachu adar — Bereth’s curse; keep Welsh form.\nPrince Hoelion — prince-general of the coming battle; keep spelling.\nHorse Lord Malchderas — cavalry commander named in plans; keep spelling.\nWhite Oak Knights — heavy horse; capitals as written.\ngweldbel crystals — battlefield magic kit; keep spelling.\nBrig Brenin — place to honor Merlian; keep spelling.\nCollegium — mage authority; capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nShe commits on an armored cart-escort; cart-bows cripple Merlian; he carries her to the trees and she leaves him dying, taking feathers and climbing away.\n\nBereth wakes in a Merithaim oak to orcs below, kills and runs the canopy from wolves and lancers, and reaches Ilriathas’s rope as Ebon waits to haul her clear.\n\nIlriathas lifts her, hears Merlian is dead, cannot spare a near clutch egg, and sends her to Oakenheart’s mage-snatch with Rhian, Lassarian, and Daeledeth under protect-the-mage orders.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive behind Lassarian watching Rhian’s hawk dive like a mad thing; remembers Collegium warnings about demons and will look for a summoner. Still raw over Merlian; Ilriathas’s egg promise will shake her without buying marriage.\n\nLassarian\nWith her on Mellt; practical about what the coming battle can and cannot do.\n\nIlriathas\nArranges second pick of the third clutch for her; insists he will not trade the egg for her maidenhood.\n\nRhian / Daeledeth\nPulled from the possessed dive’s aftermath into interrogation of captives; mage craft in play.\n\nLord Oakenheart / Prince Hoelion\nShaping a pinprick battle, not a destruction of the host; Hoelion will not try to smash the mass outright.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThen there was a crackle and an explosion not far away. Bereth looked up and saw that Daeledeth had hurled a lightning bolt just in front of a large tent from which orcs had been pouring out. Now there was a crater, around which about twenty orcs were lying motionless where they had been flung, and the tent was burning. She finished tying up the officer, glanced at the other, and without thinking twice, drew her dagger again and drove it into his throat, then pulled back hard. A gout of green blood erupted in response.\n\nSatisfied, she wiped off the blade on the furry rag that covered the first officer’s groin and ran over to Mellt. She leaped up and caught Lassarian’s extended hand; he pulled her up the side of the giant bird and into the saddle. Mellt took two hops, grasped the unconscious shaman in one talon, then leaped into the air. Bereth saw Rhian was already descending upon the other orc, so after buckling her straps she slipped the bow from her back and began scouring the area, searching for targets.\n\nA tightly compact group appeared to be charging forward from the east, so she dropped the leader with an arrow through his leg, which caused them to spread out and slowed them down a little. She cursed; she’d been aiming for his throat but the jerking motion of the hawk as it climbed had thrown her off. She loosed two more shafts at two other orcs, both scoring hits, although she couldn’t be certain that she’d hit anything vital.\n\nRhian was right behind them, his hawk having swooped down and seized the orc in both talons without so much as touching the ground. Daeledeth pointed his fist and a second lighting bolt erupted amidst the orcs at whom she’d been shooting. Bereth looked on enviously as more than a dozen orcs went flying through the air. It was a neat trick, that. She consoled herself by putting an arrow through the face of one that had survived the sorcerous blast and was struggling to survive.\n\nThey were safely off the ground and out of the range of any orc archers when something went wrong. The other hawk abruptly stopped beating its massive wings and started coasting. Then, for no reason that either Bereth or Lassarian could see, the hawk began turning in a slow circle, as if it was going to head back towards the section of the encampment they had just escaped.\n\nBoth of them could see that Rhian was shouting and pulling on the reins, but to no avail. “Something is wrong!” Lassarian shouted, in case she hadn’t noticed, and he pulled Mellt around in a tight wingtip turn.\n\n“What is he doing?” she shouted back.\n\n“I have no idea!”\n\n“Did it get hit?\n\n“I don’t see how!”\n\nAnd then, without warning, the other hawk furled its wings and began to fall from the sky.\n\n### NOTES\nImmediate continuation from Rhian’s diving hawk over the orc camp fringe.\nCaptured officers bound for interrogation after the snatch.\nLater: cold mountain-stream wash; standing briefing between Lassarian and another raider.\nElven numbers tiny versus the orc mass; plan is attrition and delay southward.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nRhian’s hawk plunges as if mad; she hunts a summoner, helps drag stunned prisoners, and lives through the ugly aftermath of a demon-touched bird. Ilriathas finds her afterward with an egg-right from the third clutch—love without leverage—and she will not marry him for it. Camp talk turns to Merlian’s honor and the prince’s coming battle: not annihilation, only pinpricks to make the southward march hurt. Two hours and a freezing stream later she stands in Oakenheart’s briefing while Lassarian’s prediction holds—Hoelion will not try to destroy that many orcs. The scene lands as flying orders begin, before the target list speech.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2700 words. Horror then politics without softening either; land as briefing starts, not mid-battle.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Bereth watched in horror as the warhawk ridden by Rhian and Daeledeth dove towards the ground. It didn’t seem to have been wounded or hurt, its bizarre behavior was almost as if it had lost its mind. Rhian was shouting commands and frantically pulling up on the reins to no avail while the mage seemed to be in some sort of trance. Then Bereth remembered being told that the Collegium elf was a specialist in gwaed ludrith, blood magic. The orc shamans used it to drive their own soldiers mad with battlelust, and sometimes even to demonically possess them. Perhaps Daeledeth was trying to break a spell….\n\nWhere there was a spell, there had to be a spellcaster nearby. She scanned the ground. There! An orc wearing filthy robes, as if in mockery of his elven counterparts, was standing with his head thrown back and his hands outstretched, as if calling the hawk to the ground. With an arrow already nocked, it was a simple matter to loose it and put it through his outstretched neck. She saw the fletchings appear in the center of his throat, then they all but disappeared beneath the first fountain of dark green arterial blood.\n\nThe shaman threw up his arms and fell backward; the spell broken, Rhian’s hawk shrieked in avian fury and spread his wings. The speed of his descent was such that he nearly bounced the captured orc in his talons off the ground, but he managed a sweeping turn just over the heads of a platoon of orcs who harmlessly hurled clubs and clods of dirt at the giant bird before climbing into the sky again on the strength of his powerful wings.\n\nBereth shot two orcs in the platoon on general principle, then stowed her bow as Lassarian followed Rhian higher into the sky.\n\n“Nice shot,” Lassarian shouted. “How did you know it was the orcs?”\n\n“I didn’t!” she shouted back honestly. Then again, who else would it have been.\n\nOnce at altitude, they pulled level with the other hawk. Rhian patted his heart, then gave her a thumbs up, while the mage acknowledged her with a wry smile and a little bow from the waist. The scouts who had been waiting in the clouds above descended and fell in with them, one on either side, not that they had proved to be any use in the emergency.\n\nWhether it was the shock of the cold air high in the sky or simply the spell wearing off, both orcs soon woke and began thrashing about. But on command from their riders, the two hawks simply tightened their talons a little until the orcs stopped struggling; it only took three repetitions before the shaman learned his lesson. The officer required two further rounds of squeeze-and-relax before he likewise gave in to the inevitable.\n\nLassarian laughed and shook his head before leaning back and putting his mouth against her ear. “Not the smartest bastards, are they?”\n\nNo, smart they were not. And yet, they could afford to trade twenty-for-one and still come out ahead. The loss of the Silverbow yesterday was almost as grievous a loss as all the losses she and her fellow raiders had inflicted upon the cursed greenskins; throw in the loss of Merlian and even though she’d killed at least 12 orcs and one goblin herself, the end result was still probably to the Great Orc’s advantage. True, they were probably well ahead on the basis of Daeledeth’s lethal lightning bolts and the capture of the shaman, but things could have so easily gone the other way. How long could they survive this slow bleeding? The High King had to know he couldn’t win a war of attrition against a foe boasting such numbers.\n\nIt always seemed to take less time returning than it did flying out. The aerial sentries saluted them as they flew in, and three trumpet blasts were sounded by their earthbound counterparts as they approached to land. Mellt held up his captive in one talon while alighting carefully on a single leg, while Rhian’s hawk unceremoniously dropped the other orc before landing normally on two. Fully armored regulars leaped upon the orcs immediately, slashing through the thongs binding their legs and pulling them roughly to their feet before literally dragging them off to be interrogated.\n\nThe orcs were surprisingly subdued, but then, being ensorcelled, bound, hauled away and frozen at high-altitude was liable to dampen even the fiercest spirit.\n\n“You did well,” Lassarian complimented her as she undid the strap buckles and retrieved her gear from the saddlebags. “That was some quick thinking back there.”\n\nShe nodded absently, then shook her head at him. “You pulled out of that dive awfully late. You should be more careful with him.”\n\n“You’re probably right.” His grin disappeared and his eyes darkened with pity that was hard to bear. “Well, if you ever need a lift.”\n\n“I’ll know who to avoid!” She winked to take the sting out of her words and swung herself down from the saddle. “See you around, Lassarian.”\n\n“And you, Bereth.” With a brief wave, Mellt took to the skies again in a brief explosion of wind and feathers.\n\nShe walked in the direction of her tent, her stomach rumbling. She hoped the mess chefs would provide something edible this evening; the mushroom-stuffed quail she’d eaten the night before hadn’t sat well in her stomach. She’d cried herself to sleep, with the salt from her tears burning wherever they crossed the scratches on her face. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt so bereft, or alone, even though she knew there was still a place for her in the raiders.\n\nSeveral of them greeted her as she walked by, as did various members of their support staff. Their forward base had been here long enough for a variety of amenities to spring up, although unfortunately nothing like the hot bath for which she would cheerfully murder an entire squadron of goblins. It was evident that word of her loss had spread throughout the unit, as they spoke to her in soft, subdued voices that indicated their sympathy without forcing her to acknowledge it. It insensibly angered her, and yet she loved them for it.\n\nShe had nearly reached her tent when she heard someone calling to her. She recognized the voice and sighed. It was Ilriathas, of course, and he was bearing a bouquet of flowers, lilïaugwyn. She smiled faintly at him, took them from him, and permitted him to put an arm around her. For a moment, just a moment, she put her head on his chest, and for once, the safety and comfort that he offered was welcome.\n\nAfter holding her for a spell, then giving her one last squeeze before releasing her, he turned to face north, more or less in the direction where Merlian had fallen, crossed both hands over his breast, and bowed.\n\nThat bravest of hearts\n\nBeats no more on high.\n\nYet his great spirit lives on\n\nAs long as elves ride the sky.\n\nA memory always with us, forever.\n\n“I have something else for you,” he said as she wept silently, touched by his words. “If you want it.”\n\nWithout opening her eyes or looking up at him, she shook her head. “If you propose marriage to me again, Ilri, I swear to you that I will gut you right now and leave Mons Kelethan without heir.”\n\n“I spoke to the King.”\n\nShe had to admit, ready access to the crown was one benefit of being a High Lord of Elebrion. “About what?” She scarcely dared to hope.\n\n“Your egg.”\n\n“My– my what?” She pushed away from him and looked up at his face. His green eyes were sincere as ever. “My egg?”\n\nHe nodded. “I couldn’t secure one from the next clutch, but you’re to have the second pick of the third clutch. It’s been arranged.”\n\n“Oh, Ilri!” Impulsively, she pulled him down to her and kissed him on the mouth. Then her eyes narrowed and she pushed herself away again. “That must have cost you considerably.”\n\n“It’s nothing.”\n\n“Cachu adar!” she swore, knowing that he lied. She knew very well how much an egg right was worth. He might well have given up a village, or even an entire demesne, simply to let her move so many clutches up the waiting list. “Ilri, you know I’m not going to marry you just because I’m in your debt!”\n\n“Obviously.” He shrugged. “How fortunate I am to be able to wait for you to come to your senses and give up your maiden sorceries.”\n\nShe stared at him. “You didn’t even ask me first.”\n\n“You can always change your mind between now and when the egg hatches.” He smiled. “In which case, I might even make a profit.”\n\n“No, but be honest with me. You can’t tell me this isn’t exactly the moment for which you’ve been waiting for ten years!”\n\n“I would never take advantage of you that way, Bereth! Yes, I love you. But I know you far too well to try to buy your affections! I know you’re not ready to give up the sky, give up all of this. Your magic, it’s part of who you are, at least right now. But I thought I’d lost you forever yesterday. It just about killed me.”\n\nShe frowned at him, skeptical. “Well, all right. You can’t blame me for being suspicious.”\n\n“Haven’t I proved my innocence in that particular regard?”\n\n“Yeah, and in an admittedly impressive manner. It must be nice to be that wealthy.”\n\n“I find it is more the influence and the royal connections that are truly valuable,” he said, mock-pretentiously. “Gold only gets you so far.”\n\nShe smiled faintly. “Far enough. Will you come tonight?”\n\n“I’ll fly you there myself if you’ll let me.”\n\nShe thought about it for a moment. When a hawk died, it was customary to burn his body on the Brig Brenin, the only peak higher than Minith Eleb, on a bonfire lit by the sorceries of his rider, or if the rider had been killed too, by a fellow sky rider. But since Merlian’s body was lost, and by now, probably butchered, cooked, and devoured, she had only the one extra feather to burn. She could burn it in the camp tonight and save her fellow riders the not-inconsiderable trouble of saddling up their birds and taking the time to fly to the mountain and back in the dark.\n\nShe tried to explain that it wasn’t necessary to Ilri. But overcome by her emotions, she suddenly found that she couldn’t talk. Breathing hard and biting her bottom lip, she reached into her jacket and pulled out the two feathers, then held them out to him imploringly, her eyes filled with tears.\n\nHe understood, of course. Cupping her hand gently in his, he leaned forward, closed his eyes, and inhaled the fading scent of the feathers. Then he looked at her, and with great solemnity, offered her a formal certhbas in Merlian’s honor.\n\nHarthwch a dewrder\n\nDim’mwy hela yr awyr\n\nMae’r wylais wynt\n\nThe grief was suddenly more than she could bear. He took her in his arms as she cried against his chest. He held her as long as she needed, until she cried herself out. She finally pushed herself away, her nose running, her face red and blotchy, feeling both embarrassed and resentful that he should see her this way. She wiped at her face and tried to apologize, but he shushed her.\n\n“Let us honor him properly, Bereth. Let us grieve with you. You are still one of us. You are not alone.”\n\n“But–” she waved her free hand indicating the camp. Somehow, he understood her. He tapped one of the feathers still clutched in her hand.\n\n“He will be burned on the mountaintop tonight, with a feather from the breast of every warhawk in the High Guard. Leave it to me.”\n\n“All right,” she managed to say. “Will you carry me?”\n\n“I will come for you before sunset,” he promised. Then he kissed her on the forehead and walked away. She watched him go, wondering how it could be that she simply could not find it in her heart to love him. He was so good to her, he was, as her mother often reminded her, quite literally too good for her. And he loved her, there was no doubting it. Why, then, when he kissed her, did she feel nothing inside?\n\nIt was three days after the High Guard gathered on the Brig Brenin to honor Merlian and half the camp was staring at the two distant specks in the sky that were rapidly growing larger. They all knew something was brewing by the speed with which the morning patrol was returning early. Bereth glanced at Lassarian; Lord Oakenheart had assigned her temporarily to the rider of the big warhawk and the two of them had been having what could either be considered a late breakfast or an early lunch discussing Lassarian’s patrol the previous evening. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, but as the camp began stirring with unusual activity, they both fell silent and turned to the north.\n\n“They’re flying hard,” she said, unnecessarily.\n\nLassarian nodded and threw back the remaining contents of his silver flagon. He winced; he’d been complaining that the wine was sour. “Two to one they’re on the move.”\n\n“Two to one what?”\n\nHe simply raised an eyebrow. She laughed and shook her head. “Mellt has a better chance, Lasri. And he smells better too. When is the last time you took a bath?”\n\nThe tall elf wrinkled his nose and sniffed at his leathers, then recoiled. “Gods, you’re right. It’s those bloody night patrols. About the time I start feeling capable of anything more than eating or sleeping, they’ve got me in the clouds again.”\n\nShe cringed a little inside; losing Merlian had put more pressure on the already overworked riders and hawks alike. But she forced a smile. “It doesn’t look like you’re going to be any less busy now.”\n\n“Nor you,” he waggled a finger at her, then reached out, took an apple, and tossed it to her. Then he took two more for himself. “Better save that. They’ll be giving everyone their orders tonight and who knows when we’ll be able to find any time to eat a proper meal.”\n\nShe nodded and stowed the fruit away in a pocket of her leather flight coat. This high up the mountain it was cool enough, especially with the wind coming from the north, that she habitually wore it hanging open about the camp. “What do you think the Prince-General’s plan will be?”\n\n“Same thing it always is. Harry them from above, use the cavalry to cut off any deep thrusts, and use the infantry to destroy them. Then hope that they get bored dying the death of a thousand pinpricks and go home.”\n\n“That many orcs, they can take a lot more than a thousand pinpricks.”\n\nTwo hours and one very cold immersion in a mountain stream later, she was standing in between Lassarian and another raider, listening to Lord Oakenheart give them their flying orders. As Lassarian had predicted, Prince Hoelion wasn’t going to try to stop them cold, merely make their march south unpleasant.\n", "completion": "Bereth watched in horror as the warhawk ridden by Rhian and Daeledeth dove towards the ground. It didn’t seem to have been wounded or hurt, its bizarre behavior was almost as if it had lost its mind. Rhian was shouting commands and frantically pulling up on the reins to no avail while the mage seemed to be in some sort of trance. Then Bereth remembered being told that the Collegium elf was a specialist in gwaed ludrith, blood magic. The orc shamans used it to drive their own soldiers mad with battlelust, and sometimes even to demonically possess them. Perhaps Daeledeth was trying to break a spell….\n\nWhere there was a spell, there had to be a spellcaster nearby. She scanned the ground. There! An orc wearing filthy robes, as if in mockery of his elven counterparts, was standing with his head thrown back and his hands outstretched, as if calling the hawk to the ground. With an arrow already nocked, it was a simple matter to loose it and put it through his outstretched neck. She saw the fletchings appear in the center of his throat, then they all but disappeared beneath the first fountain of dark green arterial blood.\n\nThe shaman threw up his arms and fell backward; the spell broken, Rhian’s hawk shrieked in avian fury and spread his wings. The speed of his descent was such that he nearly bounced the captured orc in his talons off the ground, but he managed a sweeping turn just over the heads of a platoon of orcs who harmlessly hurled clubs and clods of dirt at the giant bird before climbing into the sky again on the strength of his powerful wings.\n\nBereth shot two orcs in the platoon on general principle, then stowed her bow as Lassarian followed Rhian higher into the sky.\n\n“Nice shot,” Lassarian shouted. “How did you know it was the orcs?”\n\n“I didn’t!” she shouted back honestly. Then again, who else would it have been.\n\nOnce at altitude, they pulled level with the other hawk. Rhian patted his heart, then gave her a thumbs up, while the mage acknowledged her with a wry smile and a little bow from the waist. The scouts who had been waiting in the clouds above descended and fell in with them, one on either side, not that they had proved to be any use in the emergency.\n\nWhether it was the shock of the cold air high in the sky or simply the spell wearing off, both orcs soon woke and began thrashing about. But on command from their riders, the two hawks simply tightened their talons a little until the orcs stopped struggling; it only took three repetitions before the shaman learned his lesson. The officer required two further rounds of squeeze-and-relax before he likewise gave in to the inevitable.\n\nLassarian laughed and shook his head before leaning back and putting his mouth against her ear. “Not the smartest bastards, are they?”\n\nNo, smart they were not. And yet, they could afford to trade twenty-for-one and still come out ahead. The loss of the Silverbow yesterday was almost as grievous a loss as all the losses she and her fellow raiders had inflicted upon the cursed greenskins; throw in the loss of Merlian and even though she’d killed at least 12 orcs and one goblin herself, the end result was still probably to the Great Orc’s advantage. True, they were probably well ahead on the basis of Daeledeth’s lethal lightning bolts and the capture of the shaman, but things could have so easily gone the other way. How long could they survive this slow bleeding? The High King had to know he couldn’t win a war of attrition against a foe boasting such numbers.\n\nIt always seemed to take less time returning than it did flying out. The aerial sentries saluted them as they flew in, and three trumpet blasts were sounded by their earthbound counterparts as they approached to land. Mellt held up his captive in one talon while alighting carefully on a single leg, while Rhian’s hawk unceremoniously dropped the other orc before landing normally on two. Fully armored regulars leaped upon the orcs immediately, slashing through the thongs binding their legs and pulling them roughly to their feet before literally dragging them off to be interrogated.\n\nThe orcs were surprisingly subdued, but then, being ensorcelled, bound, hauled away and frozen at high-altitude was liable to dampen even the fiercest spirit.\n\n“You did well,” Lassarian complimented her as she undid the strap buckles and retrieved her gear from the saddlebags. “That was some quick thinking back there.”\n\nShe nodded absently, then shook her head at him. “You pulled out of that dive awfully late. You should be more careful with him.”\n\n“You’re probably right.” His grin disappeared and his eyes darkened with pity that was hard to bear. “Well, if you ever need a lift.”\n\n“I’ll know who to avoid!” She winked to take the sting out of her words and swung herself down from the saddle. “See you around, Lassarian.”\n\n“And you, Bereth.” With a brief wave, Mellt took to the skies again in a brief explosion of wind and feathers.\n\nShe walked in the direction of her tent, her stomach rumbling. She hoped the mess chefs would provide something edible this evening; the mushroom-stuffed quail she’d eaten the night before hadn’t sat well in her stomach. She’d cried herself to sleep, with the salt from her tears burning wherever they crossed the scratches on her face. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt so bereft, or alone, even though she knew there was still a place for her in the raiders.\n\nSeveral of them greeted her as she walked by, as did various members of their support staff. Their forward base had been here long enough for a variety of amenities to spring up, although unfortunately nothing like the hot bath for which she would cheerfully murder an entire squadron of goblins. It was evident that word of her loss had spread throughout the unit, as they spoke to her in soft, subdued voices that indicated their sympathy without forcing her to acknowledge it. It insensibly angered her, and yet she loved them for it.\n\nShe had nearly reached her tent when she heard someone calling to her. She recognized the voice and sighed. It was Ilriathas, of course, and he was bearing a bouquet of flowers, lilïaugwyn. She smiled faintly at him, took them from him, and permitted him to put an arm around her. For a moment, just a moment, she put her head on his chest, and for once, the safety and comfort that he offered was welcome.\n\nAfter holding her for a spell, then giving her one last squeeze before releasing her, he turned to face north, more or less in the direction where Merlian had fallen, crossed both hands over his breast, and bowed.\n\nThat bravest of hearts\n\nBeats no more on high.\n\nYet his great spirit lives on\n\nAs long as elves ride the sky.\n\nA memory always with us, forever.\n\n“I have something else for you,” he said as she wept silently, touched by his words. “If you want it.”\n\nWithout opening her eyes or looking up at him, she shook her head. “If you propose marriage to me again, Ilri, I swear to you that I will gut you right now and leave Mons Kelethan without heir.”\n\n“I spoke to the King.”\n\nShe had to admit, ready access to the crown was one benefit of being a High Lord of Elebrion. “About what?” She scarcely dared to hope.\n\n“Your egg.”\n\n“My– my what?” She pushed away from him and looked up at his face. His green eyes were sincere as ever. “My egg?”\n\nHe nodded. “I couldn’t secure one from the next clutch, but you’re to have the second pick of the third clutch. It’s been arranged.”\n\n“Oh, Ilri!” Impulsively, she pulled him down to her and kissed him on the mouth. Then her eyes narrowed and she pushed herself away again. “That must have cost you considerably.”\n\n“It’s nothing.”\n\n“Cachu adar!” she swore, knowing that he lied. She knew very well how much an egg right was worth. He might well have given up a village, or even an entire demesne, simply to let her move so many clutches up the waiting list. “Ilri, you know I’m not going to marry you just because I’m in your debt!”\n\n“Obviously.” He shrugged. “How fortunate I am to be able to wait for you to come to your senses and give up your maiden sorceries.”\n\nShe stared at him. “You didn’t even ask me first.”\n\n“You can always change your mind between now and when the egg hatches.” He smiled. “In which case, I might even make a profit.”\n\n“No, but be honest with me. You can’t tell me this isn’t exactly the moment for which you’ve been waiting for ten years!”\n\n“I would never take advantage of you that way, Bereth! Yes, I love you. But I know you far too well to try to buy your affections! I know you’re not ready to give up the sky, give up all of this. Your magic, it’s part of who you are, at least right now. But I thought I’d lost you forever yesterday. It just about killed me.”\n\nShe frowned at him, skeptical. “Well, all right. You can’t blame me for being suspicious.”\n\n“Haven’t I proved my innocence in that particular regard?”\n\n“Yeah, and in an admittedly impressive manner. It must be nice to be that wealthy.”\n\n“I find it is more the influence and the royal connections that are truly valuable,” he said, mock-pretentiously. “Gold only gets you so far.”\n\nShe smiled faintly. “Far enough. Will you come tonight?”\n\n“I’ll fly you there myself if you’ll let me.”\n\nShe thought about it for a moment. When a hawk died, it was customary to burn his body on the Brig Brenin, the only peak higher than Minith Eleb, on a bonfire lit by the sorceries of his rider, or if the rider had been killed too, by a fellow sky rider. But since Merlian’s body was lost, and by now, probably butchered, cooked, and devoured, she had only the one extra feather to burn. She could burn it in the camp tonight and save her fellow riders the not-inconsiderable trouble of saddling up their birds and taking the time to fly to the mountain and back in the dark.\n\nShe tried to explain that it wasn’t necessary to Ilri. But overcome by her emotions, she suddenly found that she couldn’t talk. Breathing hard and biting her bottom lip, she reached into her jacket and pulled out the two feathers, then held them out to him imploringly, her eyes filled with tears.\n\nHe understood, of course. Cupping her hand gently in his, he leaned forward, closed his eyes, and inhaled the fading scent of the feathers. Then he looked at her, and with great solemnity, offered her a formal certhbas in Merlian’s honor.\n\nHarthwch a dewrder\n\nDim’mwy hela yr awyr\n\nMae’r wylais wynt\n\nThe grief was suddenly more than she could bear. He took her in his arms as she cried against his chest. He held her as long as she needed, until she cried herself out. She finally pushed herself away, her nose running, her face red and blotchy, feeling both embarrassed and resentful that he should see her this way. She wiped at her face and tried to apologize, but he shushed her.\n\n“Let us honor him properly, Bereth. Let us grieve with you. You are still one of us. You are not alone.”\n\n“But–” she waved her free hand indicating the camp. Somehow, he understood her. He tapped one of the feathers still clutched in her hand.\n\n“He will be burned on the mountaintop tonight, with a feather from the breast of every warhawk in the High Guard. Leave it to me.”\n\n“All right,” she managed to say. “Will you carry me?”\n\n“I will come for you before sunset,” he promised. Then he kissed her on the forehead and walked away. She watched him go, wondering how it could be that she simply could not find it in her heart to love him. He was so good to her, he was, as her mother often reminded her, quite literally too good for her. And he loved her, there was no doubting it. Why, then, when he kissed her, did she feel nothing inside?\n\nIt was three days after the High Guard gathered on the Brig Brenin to honor Merlian and half the camp was staring at the two distant specks in the sky that were rapidly growing larger. They all knew something was brewing by the speed with which the morning patrol was returning early. Bereth glanced at Lassarian; Lord Oakenheart had assigned her temporarily to the rider of the big warhawk and the two of them had been having what could either be considered a late breakfast or an early lunch discussing Lassarian’s patrol the previous evening. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, but as the camp began stirring with unusual activity, they both fell silent and turned to the north.\n\n“They’re flying hard,” she said, unnecessarily.\n\nLassarian nodded and threw back the remaining contents of his silver flagon. He winced; he’d been complaining that the wine was sour. “Two to one they’re on the move.”\n\n“Two to one what?”\n\nHe simply raised an eyebrow. She laughed and shook her head. “Mellt has a better chance, Lasri. And he smells better too. When is the last time you took a bath?”\n\nThe tall elf wrinkled his nose and sniffed at his leathers, then recoiled. “Gods, you’re right. It’s those bloody night patrols. About the time I start feeling capable of anything more than eating or sleeping, they’ve got me in the clouds again.”\n\nShe cringed a little inside; losing Merlian had put more pressure on the already overworked riders and hawks alike. But she forced a smile. “It doesn’t look like you’re going to be any less busy now.”\n\n“Nor you,” he waggled a finger at her, then reached out, took an apple, and tossed it to her. Then he took two more for himself. “Better save that. They’ll be giving everyone their orders tonight and who knows when we’ll be able to find any time to eat a proper meal.”\n\nShe nodded and stowed the fruit away in a pocket of her leather flight coat. This high up the mountain it was cool enough, especially with the wind coming from the north, that she habitually wore it hanging open about the camp. “What do you think the Prince-General’s plan will be?”\n\n“Same thing it always is. Harry them from above, use the cavalry to cut off any deep thrusts, and use the infantry to destroy them. Then hope that they get bored dying the death of a thousand pinpricks and go home.”\n\n“That many orcs, they can take a lot more than a thousand pinpricks.”\n\nTwo hours and one very cold immersion in a mountain stream later, she was standing in between Lassarian and another raider, listening to Lord Oakenheart give them their flying orders. As Lassarian had predicted, Prince Hoelion wasn’t going to try to stop them cold, merely make their march south unpleasant.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2627, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch24_bereth-P2", "chapter": "ch24_bereth", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTywyllas — triad leader who drops his arm; keep spelling.\nwarboar — orc heavy mount; one word.\nwolfrider — goblin light cavalry; one word.\nmagister — Collegium speaker on demon compulsion; lowercase unless titled.\n\n### STORY\nBereth wakes in a Merithaim oak to orcs below, kills and runs the canopy from wolves and lancers, and reaches Ilriathas’s rope as Ebon waits to haul her clear.\n\nIlriathas lifts her, hears Merlian is dead, cannot spare a near clutch egg, and sends her to Oakenheart’s mage-snatch with Rhian, Lassarian, and Daeledeth under protect-the-mage orders.\n\nShe rides Lassarian’s snatch-dive, binds stunned officers, and climbs clear; then Rhian’s hawk, mage aboard, furls into an unexplained dive with no wound she can see.\n\nBereth watches Rhian’s demon-touched dive, helps secure prisoners, receives Ilriathas’s third-clutch egg promise without yielding marriage, and stands in Oakenheart’s briefing for Prince Hoelion’s pinprick battle.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive among the raiders hearing target priorities: shamans, officers, warboars—not wolves. Skeptical that killing a summoner cleanly explains the hawk’s possession. Strapped for the dive as the first triad tips over.\n\nLord Oakenheart\nClears his throat, runs the raid plan, sends the magister back after demon-compulsion talk.\n\nMagister\nAdmits uncertainty; assumes the demon was compelled and uninterested in the hawk itself.\n\nLassarian\nBeside her; will shout Hold on as their triad goes.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nIt was three days after the High Guard gathered on the Brig Brenin to honor Merlian and half the camp was staring at the two distant specks in the sky that were rapidly growing larger. They all knew something was brewing by the speed with which the morning patrol was returning early. Bereth glanced at Lassarian; Lord Oakenheart had assigned her temporarily to the rider of the big warhawk and the two of them had been having what could either be considered a late breakfast or an early lunch discussing Lassarian’s patrol the previous evening. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, but as the camp began stirring with unusual activity, they both fell silent and turned to the north.\n\n“They’re flying hard,” she said, unnecessarily.\n\nLassarian nodded and threw back the remaining contents of his silver flagon. He winced; he’d been complaining that the wine was sour. “Two to one they’re on the move.”\n\n“Two to one what?”\n\nHe simply raised an eyebrow. She laughed and shook her head. “Mellt has a better chance, Lasri. And he smells better too. When is the last time you took a bath?”\n\nThe tall elf wrinkled his nose and sniffed at his leathers, then recoiled. “Gods, you’re right. It’s those bloody night patrols. About the time I start feeling capable of anything more than eating or sleeping, they’ve got me in the clouds again.”\n\nShe cringed a little inside; losing Merlian had put more pressure on the already overworked riders and hawks alike. But she forced a smile. “It doesn’t look like you’re going to be any less busy now.”\n\n“Nor you,” he waggled a finger at her, then reached out, took an apple, and tossed it to her. Then he took two more for himself. “Better save that. They’ll be giving everyone their orders tonight and who knows when we’ll be able to find any time to eat a proper meal.”\n\nShe nodded and stowed the fruit away in a pocket of her leather flight coat. This high up the mountain it was cool enough, especially with the wind coming from the north, that she habitually wore it hanging open about the camp. “What do you think the Prince-General’s plan will be?”\n\n“Same thing it always is. Harry them from above, use the cavalry to cut off any deep thrusts, and use the infantry to destroy them. Then hope that they get bored dying the death of a thousand pinpricks and go home.”\n\n“That many orcs, they can take a lot more than a thousand pinpricks.”\n\nTwo hours and one very cold immersion in a mountain stream later, she was standing in between Lassarian and another raider, listening to Lord Oakenheart give them their flying orders. As Lassarian had predicted, Prince Hoelion wasn’t going to try to stop them cold, merely make their march south unpleasant.\n\n### NOTES\nSeven small white stones as elven regiments north; Malchderas’s White Oak–heavy regiment in the fore.\nGoblin light cavalry expected to be no match for elven horse; warboars are the line-breakers.\nAerial triads dive on a count; second triad waits a ten-count.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nOakenheart names the real targets—shamans, officers, warboars—and the magister hedges on why killing a summoner banished a demon from a hawk. She listens, unsatisfied, then the field resolves into white-stone regiments and a stretching orc advance. Malchderas’s horse shows; wolfriders angle in; the plan is somehow still holding as the first triad furls and falls and the second waits its ten-count. The scene lands on that brink, as her own dive is about to be called.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2450 words. Doctrinal briefing into battle geometry; keep her stress under the plan. Land on the triad tip-over, not the ground fight.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“The most important targets are their shamans, their officers, and their mounts. And by mounts I mean the boars, don’t bother with the wolves. The goblins are no match for our cavalry, but their warboars are not only heavy enough to defeat our cavalry if they can catch it, they’re heavy enough to break our infantry line. They’re going to be protected, of course, but I want to know where they are at all times. We can pick off a few from the air here and there, but our real focus is going to be taking out entire corrals any time they get sloppy or careless.”\n\n“What about their magic,” Lassarian called out. “Have we seen any more of whatever it was that happened to Rhian’s bird?”\n\nTheir commander looked back and nodded to an elf wearing the gold-threaded robes of a Collegium magister. The magister stepped forward and answered for the prince. “It is our considered opinion that it was a form of daemonology. The hawk was most likely possessed, momentarily, by some form of demon summoned and held captive, then forced into the bird by the demon’s summoner.”\n\n“If the bird was possessed, how did it get away?” another raider asked. They had all been briefed on the orc’s new defensive tactic already.\n\nBecause I killed the summoner, Bereth wanted to say, but she held her tongue. If the bird was already possessed, then how would killing its summoner have banished the demon possessing it? She recalled enough daemonology from her weeks at the Collegium Occludum to know that wasn’t likely.\n\n“I’m afraid we can’t be certain,” the magister admitted. “While we have conducted several successful experiments inserting a demon into a hawk from similar distances, I regret to say we were unable to test the effects of killing the summoner due to a lack of the volunteers required.”\n\nThe raiders laughed, assuming the magister was joking, although Bereth had the impression that he was speaking sincerely. Lassarian nudged her. “I don’t see why not?” he murmured. “We brought them a shaman, didn’t we?” She grinned. Lasri might try the patience of a devil, but he was good company and he made her laugh.\n\n“Our assumption is that the demon had no interest in the hawk, but was under a compulsion. The compulsion being broken by the summoner’s death, the demon was therefore free to abandon the bird and did so at the earliest opportunity.” Bereth nodded. That made as much sense as anything else she’d heard bruited about.\n\nLord Oakenheart cleared his throat and the magister bowed to the assembled raiders and returned to his place. “Today you’re going to stay high and out of range of this new sorcery. Is everyone clear on that? We don’t know what other tricks they have in store for us, but considering that they’ve shown us one new tactic, we have to conclude there will be others. You are to withdraw at the first sign a bird has been possessed and make no attempt to either kill the possessing shaman or rescue the bird’s rider. Bad enough to lose one; we simply can’t risk losing more.”\n\nThere were some rumblings and grumblings amidst the raiders, but they all knew that the prince was right. The raid to obtain prisoners had caught the orcs by surprise, but now that they were on the move again, they would be keeping a wary eye on the skies.\n\n“Remember, those of you who are flying second saddle, your primary job is to be the general’s eyes. You’re not there to hunt orcs. If you don’t have a gweldbel crystal, see the Magister here and get one. Stay attuned and let your rider know that you’re in rapport so he can show the prince-general what he needs to see if he calls upon you.”\n\nA raider raised a hand. “Commander, what is the point of hitting them now? Even if we bloody their nose, they’re hardly likely to give up right away.”\n\n“They’ve already taken one bloody nose from the Men in the west. We’re going to give them another one. This war isn’t going to be won by a single battle, that army is too big. Prince Hoelion is going to bleed them, and slow them down, until they’re too weak to even think about climbing Minith Eleb.”\n\n“What if they go for Merithaim instead?” another raider asked.\n\n“Then we will adjust our plans accordingly. The Merithaimi regiments have been assembled and are prepared for that eventuality. But according to the prisoners who have been interrogated, and whose information has thus far proven accurate, Elebrion is the Great Orc’s objective. It is our duty, and it is our honor, to ensure that he does not get there!”\n\n“Byth y corachod ymlath!” most of the raiders, knowing a cue when they heard one, called out in response. The elves will fight!\n\n“Byth y corachod yn sefyll!” The elves will stand!\n\n“Byth y corachod futhugoliaeth!” The elves will triumph!\n\nThey were arrayed in triads of three. Her triad was typical, three birds and five elves. Tywyllas, as the triad leader, flew alone, Rhian carried a mage whose name Bereth did not know, and she flew with Lassarian. Aside from the four hawks of Prince Hoelion’s escort, were nine other triads, which represented a disturbingly large portion of the High Guard. They would act as the prince-general’s eyes when needed, allowing him to swiftly give orders to his officers, all of whom were accomplished adepts capable of hearing his orders, and in some cases, reporting in to him, through the gweldbel crystals. It was the only way their paltry numbers could even think to engage with the massive number of orcs marching towards them.\n\nAnd that was the other, even more important reason Prince Hoelion, who flew a huge tawny-feathered hawk named Fflyd-Adenyth, had ordered more than 30 hawks and ten mages aloft with him. If, through some unfortunate turn of fate or unexpected enterprise of an orc commander, either the infantry or the cavalry was cut off and found itself unable to retreat, the prince-general could rapidly summon sufficient archery and spellcraft to create an opening for them.\n\nShe knew their squadron of sky cavalry must have made for an impressive sight. But there was a time, long ago, when the warhawks of the High Guard would have numbered in the thousands.\n\nThe prince-general could certainly have used a thousand skyriders now. Seen from on high, the orc army on the move was an awesome and intimidating sight. What she knew was all disorder and chaos closer to the ground looked almost organic from her current height. The army spilled out from the forest like a flooded lake overflowing its banks, a rising dark green tide so large that it seemed impossible anything could stand before it. Smaller rivulets stretched out before it, growing longer and thinner as the lead units spotted the seven small white stones that were the elven regiments that had ridden north two days before. The largest regiment, nearly twice the size of the others and forty White Oak Knights strong, was in the fore, commanded by the Horse Lord Malchderas.\n\nShe couldn’t see their infantry anywhere, but she suspected they were concealed behind a line of hills lying to the south.\n\nBereth slipped her bow from where she’d tucked it in the saddle and quickly strung it with a brand new string.\n\n“You brought that? I thought you were supposed to leave them behind.”\n\n“Didn’t say we had to,” she reminded Lassarian. She held up the translucent red crystal hanging suspended from a silver chain around her neck. “I’ll feel it if the prince wants me. Until then, well, I can hardly miss, can I.”\n\nHe snorted. “From this height, you could probably kill one with an apple core.”\n\n“No, their skulls are too thick.” Then she frowned. Actually, bringing along a bag of rocks or two wasn’t a bad idea. With such a mass of orcs below, she could probably kill nearly as many as a bolt hurled by a mage simply by emptying out the sack over their heads. She made a mental note to cadge some sacks from the quartermaster next time.\n\nTwo of the larger rivulets reached out for the closest white stone, which abruptly transformed its shape into a small triangle and leaped forward at a much faster pace. The rivulets tried to shift from columns into lines, but before they could manage the trick, the white wedge smashed though the left rivulet once, neatly turned, then smashed through it again before slashing through the right one. She saw intense bursts of red and golden light erupt in the midst of the forward edge of the giant lake, as the mages in the cavalry hurled spells so hellishly powerful that they actually arrested the flooding for a few brief moments.\n\nShe knew that hundreds of orcs were screaming and dying under the lances, swords, hooves, and spells of the royal knights, but from her present vantage point, it looked more like living art, like a painting come to life. The death and destruction taking place before her eyes simply did not seem real.\n\nNow the other white rocks had similarly taken more lethal forms and were moving too, slashing repeatedly through the disintegrating ends of the rivulets. Their movements almost seemed choreographed, they were choreographed, she corrected herself, through the orders being given by the prince-general, whose distinctive bird she could see below and in front of her. Flanked by two warhawks on either side, the giant Fflyd-Adenyth soared serenely over the battle raging furiously below.\n\nAlthough the huge army’s central advance had slowed down, the southward motion of both its flanks was unimpeded, and particularly on the left, a sizable force began to angle inward, moving at a rapid pace nearly equal to the elven cavalry. Wolfriders, she knew, goblin light cavalry that was normally no match for the powerful horses and magically reinforced armor worn by the knights. But there were hundreds of them, thousands, and they did not need to defeat their bigger, faster, and heavier counterparts, they only needed to entangle them and slow them down long enough for the orc infantry to come to grips with them.\n\nThree sharp horn blasts echoed through the sky, accompanied by a bright green flash from below. That was their sign to descend and engage. Only four other triads would be making the attack with them; blue referred to the other five that would be remaining on high, and yellow indicated everyone. Red, which she devoutly prayed never to see, meant an immediate retreat to the most recent encampment.\n\n“See, I told you this would come in handy,” she shouted at Lassarian as she felt about the saddle for her quiver. She’d brought two of them, each holding forty arrows. She hoped they would be enough.\n\n“You said nothing of the sort!” he protested. He was fumbling awkwardly around the saddle, looking for the roll of darts he’d stowed in one of the pockets. She retrieved them for him and received a pat on her leg by way of thanks. Like most sky riders who weren’t particularly good archers, Lassarian preferred the lethal, iron-tipped darts that were half the length and three times the weight of her arrows. Thrown from above by a descending raider, they could crush even an orc’s heavy skull, or pierce both a wolfrider and his wolf alike.\n\nThe darts also left one hand free to guide the raider’s hawk, which even a confirmed archer like Bereth had to admit was an advantage. Their horizontal range was considerably shorter, but on days like today, that was unlikely to matter. And three could be hurled in the time that it took to nock and loose a single arrow.\n\nTywyllas held up a fist, indicating that they should follow him and await his signal to dive. Lassarian and Rhian both pumped their fists, acknowledging it. Bereth tightened her straps, then checked Lassarian’s as well. Her stomach tightened and her palms began sweating, so she consoled herself with the thought that at least this time they wouldn’t be flirting with the ground. Also, there weren’t likely to be any shamans worth worrying about in the middle of the goblin cavalry.\n\nIt didn’t really help. She looked at her hands and saw they were actually shaking. She closed her eyes, closed her hands tightly around her bow, and tried to clear her mind. One deep breath. Then two. Then a third. She felt Mellt’s wings beat one, twice, three times in powerful strokes, then felt him angle to the left, drifting in the wake of two of the preceding triads.\n\nDown below, the goblin cavalry was arcing in towards Lord Malchderas and his regiment, who had reformed into a wedge again, as if to charge. Only they were not moving, they had come entirely to a halt despite the fact that they had enemies to fore and right flank. The other elven regiments were continuing to pursue the scattered central elements, but they were starting to fall back before the forward elements of the orc left wing that were now beginning to angle in to the center could come anywhere close to them.\n\nWhat could the Horse Lord be thinking? Then she realized that he was probably acting on orders from the prince-general and waiting for the High Guard’s aerial attack. She glanced back, and sure enough, saw that the elven infantry had emerged from behind the hill and was marching north, towards what was now the goblin cavalry’s right flank. Despite the apparent chaos, it was evident to her that the battle was proceeding more or less to the prince-general’s plan.\n\nUnfortunately, the knowledge did not make her feel any less stressed about the incipient dive. She saw the first triad leader lower his arm; his hawk furled its wings and fell, and was promptly followed by the other two hawks in the triad. The second triad waited a ten-count, then did the same.\n", "completion": "“The most important targets are their shamans, their officers, and their mounts. And by mounts I mean the boars, don’t bother with the wolves. The goblins are no match for our cavalry, but their warboars are not only heavy enough to defeat our cavalry if they can catch it, they’re heavy enough to break our infantry line. They’re going to be protected, of course, but I want to know where they are at all times. We can pick off a few from the air here and there, but our real focus is going to be taking out entire corrals any time they get sloppy or careless.”\n\n“What about their magic,” Lassarian called out. “Have we seen any more of whatever it was that happened to Rhian’s bird?”\n\nTheir commander looked back and nodded to an elf wearing the gold-threaded robes of a Collegium magister. The magister stepped forward and answered for the prince. “It is our considered opinion that it was a form of daemonology. The hawk was most likely possessed, momentarily, by some form of demon summoned and held captive, then forced into the bird by the demon’s summoner.”\n\n“If the bird was possessed, how did it get away?” another raider asked. They had all been briefed on the orc’s new defensive tactic already.\n\nBecause I killed the summoner, Bereth wanted to say, but she held her tongue. If the bird was already possessed, then how would killing its summoner have banished the demon possessing it? She recalled enough daemonology from her weeks at the Collegium Occludum to know that wasn’t likely.\n\n“I’m afraid we can’t be certain,” the magister admitted. “While we have conducted several successful experiments inserting a demon into a hawk from similar distances, I regret to say we were unable to test the effects of killing the summoner due to a lack of the volunteers required.”\n\nThe raiders laughed, assuming the magister was joking, although Bereth had the impression that he was speaking sincerely. Lassarian nudged her. “I don’t see why not?” he murmured. “We brought them a shaman, didn’t we?” She grinned. Lasri might try the patience of a devil, but he was good company and he made her laugh.\n\n“Our assumption is that the demon had no interest in the hawk, but was under a compulsion. The compulsion being broken by the summoner’s death, the demon was therefore free to abandon the bird and did so at the earliest opportunity.” Bereth nodded. That made as much sense as anything else she’d heard bruited about.\n\nLord Oakenheart cleared his throat and the magister bowed to the assembled raiders and returned to his place. “Today you’re going to stay high and out of range of this new sorcery. Is everyone clear on that? We don’t know what other tricks they have in store for us, but considering that they’ve shown us one new tactic, we have to conclude there will be others. You are to withdraw at the first sign a bird has been possessed and make no attempt to either kill the possessing shaman or rescue the bird’s rider. Bad enough to lose one; we simply can’t risk losing more.”\n\nThere were some rumblings and grumblings amidst the raiders, but they all knew that the prince was right. The raid to obtain prisoners had caught the orcs by surprise, but now that they were on the move again, they would be keeping a wary eye on the skies.\n\n“Remember, those of you who are flying second saddle, your primary job is to be the general’s eyes. You’re not there to hunt orcs. If you don’t have a gweldbel crystal, see the Magister here and get one. Stay attuned and let your rider know that you’re in rapport so he can show the prince-general what he needs to see if he calls upon you.”\n\nA raider raised a hand. “Commander, what is the point of hitting them now? Even if we bloody their nose, they’re hardly likely to give up right away.”\n\n“They’ve already taken one bloody nose from the Men in the west. We’re going to give them another one. This war isn’t going to be won by a single battle, that army is too big. Prince Hoelion is going to bleed them, and slow them down, until they’re too weak to even think about climbing Minith Eleb.”\n\n“What if they go for Merithaim instead?” another raider asked.\n\n“Then we will adjust our plans accordingly. The Merithaimi regiments have been assembled and are prepared for that eventuality. But according to the prisoners who have been interrogated, and whose information has thus far proven accurate, Elebrion is the Great Orc’s objective. It is our duty, and it is our honor, to ensure that he does not get there!”\n\n“Byth y corachod ymlath!” most of the raiders, knowing a cue when they heard one, called out in response. The elves will fight!\n\n“Byth y corachod yn sefyll!” The elves will stand!\n\n“Byth y corachod futhugoliaeth!” The elves will triumph!\n\nThey were arrayed in triads of three. Her triad was typical, three birds and five elves. Tywyllas, as the triad leader, flew alone, Rhian carried a mage whose name Bereth did not know, and she flew with Lassarian. Aside from the four hawks of Prince Hoelion’s escort, were nine other triads, which represented a disturbingly large portion of the High Guard. They would act as the prince-general’s eyes when needed, allowing him to swiftly give orders to his officers, all of whom were accomplished adepts capable of hearing his orders, and in some cases, reporting in to him, through the gweldbel crystals. It was the only way their paltry numbers could even think to engage with the massive number of orcs marching towards them.\n\nAnd that was the other, even more important reason Prince Hoelion, who flew a huge tawny-feathered hawk named Fflyd-Adenyth, had ordered more than 30 hawks and ten mages aloft with him. If, through some unfortunate turn of fate or unexpected enterprise of an orc commander, either the infantry or the cavalry was cut off and found itself unable to retreat, the prince-general could rapidly summon sufficient archery and spellcraft to create an opening for them.\n\nShe knew their squadron of sky cavalry must have made for an impressive sight. But there was a time, long ago, when the warhawks of the High Guard would have numbered in the thousands.\n\nThe prince-general could certainly have used a thousand skyriders now. Seen from on high, the orc army on the move was an awesome and intimidating sight. What she knew was all disorder and chaos closer to the ground looked almost organic from her current height. The army spilled out from the forest like a flooded lake overflowing its banks, a rising dark green tide so large that it seemed impossible anything could stand before it. Smaller rivulets stretched out before it, growing longer and thinner as the lead units spotted the seven small white stones that were the elven regiments that had ridden north two days before. The largest regiment, nearly twice the size of the others and forty White Oak Knights strong, was in the fore, commanded by the Horse Lord Malchderas.\n\nShe couldn’t see their infantry anywhere, but she suspected they were concealed behind a line of hills lying to the south.\n\nBereth slipped her bow from where she’d tucked it in the saddle and quickly strung it with a brand new string.\n\n“You brought that? I thought you were supposed to leave them behind.”\n\n“Didn’t say we had to,” she reminded Lassarian. She held up the translucent red crystal hanging suspended from a silver chain around her neck. “I’ll feel it if the prince wants me. Until then, well, I can hardly miss, can I.”\n\nHe snorted. “From this height, you could probably kill one with an apple core.”\n\n“No, their skulls are too thick.” Then she frowned. Actually, bringing along a bag of rocks or two wasn’t a bad idea. With such a mass of orcs below, she could probably kill nearly as many as a bolt hurled by a mage simply by emptying out the sack over their heads. She made a mental note to cadge some sacks from the quartermaster next time.\n\nTwo of the larger rivulets reached out for the closest white stone, which abruptly transformed its shape into a small triangle and leaped forward at a much faster pace. The rivulets tried to shift from columns into lines, but before they could manage the trick, the white wedge smashed though the left rivulet once, neatly turned, then smashed through it again before slashing through the right one. She saw intense bursts of red and golden light erupt in the midst of the forward edge of the giant lake, as the mages in the cavalry hurled spells so hellishly powerful that they actually arrested the flooding for a few brief moments.\n\nShe knew that hundreds of orcs were screaming and dying under the lances, swords, hooves, and spells of the royal knights, but from her present vantage point, it looked more like living art, like a painting come to life. The death and destruction taking place before her eyes simply did not seem real.\n\nNow the other white rocks had similarly taken more lethal forms and were moving too, slashing repeatedly through the disintegrating ends of the rivulets. Their movements almost seemed choreographed, they were choreographed, she corrected herself, through the orders being given by the prince-general, whose distinctive bird she could see below and in front of her. Flanked by two warhawks on either side, the giant Fflyd-Adenyth soared serenely over the battle raging furiously below.\n\nAlthough the huge army’s central advance had slowed down, the southward motion of both its flanks was unimpeded, and particularly on the left, a sizable force began to angle inward, moving at a rapid pace nearly equal to the elven cavalry. Wolfriders, she knew, goblin light cavalry that was normally no match for the powerful horses and magically reinforced armor worn by the knights. But there were hundreds of them, thousands, and they did not need to defeat their bigger, faster, and heavier counterparts, they only needed to entangle them and slow them down long enough for the orc infantry to come to grips with them.\n\nThree sharp horn blasts echoed through the sky, accompanied by a bright green flash from below. That was their sign to descend and engage. Only four other triads would be making the attack with them; blue referred to the other five that would be remaining on high, and yellow indicated everyone. Red, which she devoutly prayed never to see, meant an immediate retreat to the most recent encampment.\n\n“See, I told you this would come in handy,” she shouted at Lassarian as she felt about the saddle for her quiver. She’d brought two of them, each holding forty arrows. She hoped they would be enough.\n\n“You said nothing of the sort!” he protested. He was fumbling awkwardly around the saddle, looking for the roll of darts he’d stowed in one of the pockets. She retrieved them for him and received a pat on her leg by way of thanks. Like most sky riders who weren’t particularly good archers, Lassarian preferred the lethal, iron-tipped darts that were half the length and three times the weight of her arrows. Thrown from above by a descending raider, they could crush even an orc’s heavy skull, or pierce both a wolfrider and his wolf alike.\n\nThe darts also left one hand free to guide the raider’s hawk, which even a confirmed archer like Bereth had to admit was an advantage. Their horizontal range was considerably shorter, but on days like today, that was unlikely to matter. And three could be hurled in the time that it took to nock and loose a single arrow.\n\nTywyllas held up a fist, indicating that they should follow him and await his signal to dive. Lassarian and Rhian both pumped their fists, acknowledging it. Bereth tightened her straps, then checked Lassarian’s as well. Her stomach tightened and her palms began sweating, so she consoled herself with the thought that at least this time they wouldn’t be flirting with the ground. Also, there weren’t likely to be any shamans worth worrying about in the middle of the goblin cavalry.\n\nIt didn’t really help. She looked at her hands and saw they were actually shaking. She closed her eyes, closed her hands tightly around her bow, and tried to clear her mind. One deep breath. Then two. Then a third. She felt Mellt’s wings beat one, twice, three times in powerful strokes, then felt him angle to the left, drifting in the wake of two of the preceding triads.\n\nDown below, the goblin cavalry was arcing in towards Lord Malchderas and his regiment, who had reformed into a wedge again, as if to charge. Only they were not moving, they had come entirely to a halt despite the fact that they had enemies to fore and right flank. The other elven regiments were continuing to pursue the scattered central elements, but they were starting to fall back before the forward elements of the orc left wing that were now beginning to angle in to the center could come anywhere close to them.\n\nWhat could the Horse Lord be thinking? Then she realized that he was probably acting on orders from the prince-general and waiting for the High Guard’s aerial attack. She glanced back, and sure enough, saw that the elven infantry had emerged from behind the hill and was marching north, towards what was now the goblin cavalry’s right flank. Despite the apparent chaos, it was evident to her that the battle was proceeding more or less to the prince-general’s plan.\n\nUnfortunately, the knowledge did not make her feel any less stressed about the incipient dive. She saw the first triad leader lower his arm; his hawk furled its wings and fell, and was promptly followed by the other two hawks in the triad. The second triad waited a ten-count, then did the same.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2412, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch24_bereth-P3", "chapter": "ch24_bereth", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nGatrawd, atal! / Gatrawd, paratoi eich gwaywffyn! / Gatrawd, ymlaen llaw! / Gatrawd, codi tâl! — elven infantry commands; accents and punctuation as written.\nAnfon gyd i uffern! — Lassarian’s curse; keep form.\nlathaid — distance measure; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nIlriathas lifts her, hears Merlian is dead, cannot spare a near clutch egg, and sends her to Oakenheart’s mage-snatch with Rhian, Lassarian, and Daeledeth under protect-the-mage orders.\n\nShe rides Lassarian’s snatch-dive, binds stunned officers, and climbs clear; then Rhian’s hawk, mage aboard, furls into an unexplained dive with no wound she can see.\n\nBereth watches Rhian’s demon-touched dive, helps secure prisoners, receives Ilriathas’s third-clutch egg promise without yielding marriage, and stands in Oakenheart’s briefing for Prince Hoelion’s pinprick battle.\n\nOakenheart prioritizes shamans, officers, and warboars; a magister hedges on demon compulsion; the field resolves into white-stone regiments and wolfriders as the first aerial triad tips into its dive.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth\nAlive behind Lassarian in the diving triad; eyes open against the wind this time. Looses arrows into goblin chaos; watches Malchderas smash the light cavalry; hears artillery booms she cannot stop. Ends knowing the host still looks unbroken as it tromps south over the dead.\n\nLassarian\nPilots Mellt; laughs at something she does not find funny near the end.\n\nLord Malchderas\nLeads the heavy horse through the goblin right.\n\nElven infantry\nHalberd line advancing on command; reforming as orc artillery speaks.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe darts also left one hand free to guide the raider’s hawk, which even a confirmed archer like Bereth had to admit was an advantage. Their horizontal range was considerably shorter, but on days like today, that was unlikely to matter. And three could be hurled in the time that it took to nock and loose a single arrow.\n\nTywyllas held up a fist, indicating that they should follow him and await his signal to dive. Lassarian and Rhian both pumped their fists, acknowledging it. Bereth tightened her straps, then checked Lassarian’s as well. Her stomach tightened and her palms began sweating, so she consoled herself with the thought that at least this time they wouldn’t be flirting with the ground. Also, there weren’t likely to be any shamans worth worrying about in the middle of the goblin cavalry.\n\nIt didn’t really help. She looked at her hands and saw they were actually shaking. She closed her eyes, closed her hands tightly around her bow, and tried to clear her mind. One deep breath. Then two. Then a third. She felt Mellt’s wings beat one, twice, three times in powerful strokes, then felt him angle to the left, drifting in the wake of two of the preceding triads.\n\nDown below, the goblin cavalry was arcing in towards Lord Malchderas and his regiment, who had reformed into a wedge again, as if to charge. Only they were not moving, they had come entirely to a halt despite the fact that they had enemies to fore and right flank. The other elven regiments were continuing to pursue the scattered central elements, but they were starting to fall back before the forward elements of the orc left wing that were now beginning to angle in to the center could come anywhere close to them.\n\nWhat could the Horse Lord be thinking? Then she realized that he was probably acting on orders from the prince-general and waiting for the High Guard’s aerial attack. She glanced back, and sure enough, saw that the elven infantry had emerged from behind the hill and was marching north, towards what was now the goblin cavalry’s right flank. Despite the apparent chaos, it was evident to her that the battle was proceeding more or less to the prince-general’s plan.\n\nUnfortunately, the knowledge did not make her feel any less stressed about the incipient dive. She saw the first triad leader lower his arm; his hawk furled its wings and fell, and was promptly followed by the other two hawks in the triad. The second triad waited a ten-count, then did the same.\n\n### NOTES\nAfternoon battle over/among goblin light cavalry and approaching orc infantry with drum-boomed artillery.\nFirst orc infantry line ~twenty-five deep; second ~fifteen with artillery between.\nAfter casualties, the mass still marches south as if no battle were fought.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nLassarian shouts hold on and they fall; she keeps her eyes open through fire-bursts and arrow work while Malchderas’s horse carves the wolfriders and the halberd line pushes into disorder. Artillery booms; ranks of orc foot and engines fill the ground between; the infantry reform too late to make the mass look beaten. From above, by afternoon’s end, the host still looks as imposing as at dawn as it marches south over the slain. The scene lands on that unbroken southward tramp.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2250 words. Battle concrete, unsentimental; no victory hymn. Land on the host marching on as if untouched.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Hold on!” Lassarian shouted unnecessarily. She already had both arms wrapped around his waist. Then Tywyllas brought his arm down and they were falling, falling, falling, towards the battlefield below.\n\nThis time, she managed to keep her eyes open, although she had to squint against the force of the wind. She saw a pair of fiery explosions erupt at the very front of the onrushing goblins as the first triad’s mage hurled two fireballs, and then she was suddenly engulfed in a sea of screams and bloodshed and madness as the peaceful detachment she’d known above abruptly vanished as they hurtled down towards the ground.\n\nThe first triad had blunted the tip of the goblin cavalry’s charge, but hadn’t even slowed it down. The grey river of wolves simply flowed at first around, then over, the dozen or so bodies that lay strewn about the point of impact. Then the second mage struck just as the second triad pulled out of its dive and swept over the goblins about thirty lathaid above their heads, detonating a thunderbolt so powerful that it not only sent a score of wolves and goblins flying through the air, but actually cracked the earth.\n\nThat was enough to disrupt the elongated wedge and divide it into two, as wolves shied away from their howling, snapping brethren whose fur was on fire and goblins that were running every which way like shrieking torches. And yet, they were only slowed, they were far from stopped. The two sides of the shattered wedge continued charging forward, wolves slavering, goblins shouting in fear and rage.\n\nBereth braced herself for the moment when Mellt would spread his wings as Tywyllas brought his hawk out of its dive and began rapidly hurling darts, one after another, into the teeming mass of cavalry below. She focused on one big goblin who was standing near the place where the second mage had struck; he was mounted on a wolf nearly twice the size of the others and was clearly attempting to get a group of riders milling about to rejoin the attack.\n\nShe felt Mellt’s wings unfold and leaned back, rolling with the force of gravity pushing her down rather than fighting it, then flexed her stomach muscles to sit up, nocked, pulled and loosed the arrow at the big goblin all in a single motion. She didn’t see if it struck, and then her vision was blinded momentarily by a bright flash as the mage on Rhian’s hawk incinerated the wolfriders almost directly in front of them.\n\n“Anfon gyd i uffern!” Lassarian swore savagely. Bereth blinked, seeing mostly stars and all but useless, until her sight returned to normal. They had already swept past the goblin cavalry by the time she could see properly, so she turned in the saddle and loosed an arrow that struck a goblin in the back and sent him sprawling, arms flying high, from the back of his wolf.\n\n“Are you all right?” Lassarian shouted at her as he urged Mellt to regain the altitude for a second sweep. “What the devil was he thinking?”\n\nShe didn’t say anything, as she was lining up a long shot at a goblin below. Missed! The arrow flew just wide. The fourth triad targeted the northern of the two prongs that survived of the original wedge, while the fifth one focused on the southern. But Tywyllas didn’t lead them on the second pass she’d anticipated, as the sound of horns from behind and below were echoed by the one sounded by Lord Malchderas’s standard bearer.\n\nThey could not have had a better vantage point from which to watch the royal elven cavalry smash into the reeling wolfriders. As they soared over the heads of the embattled goblins, the heavily armored elves spitted goblins on lances, slashed heads from shoulders, crushed lupine bodies beneath silver-shod hooves, and left a wide trail of green, gray, and red devastation in their wake.\n\nAs Lord Malchderas’s regiment plowed over and through the near-helpless light cavalry, the elven infantry was rapidly advancing. They were armored less heavily than the knights, but they were armed with halberds that would allow them to impale a wolf or cleave a goblin with equal ease. A few of the wolfriders saw them approaching, but the few officers who realized their danger were unable to redirect their undisciplined riders and Bereth, after asking Lassarian to guide Mellt close enough to bring one goblin officer within range, put an end to his efforts to reform the southern flank by putting an arrow through his throat.\n\n“Devil of a shot!” Lassarian praised her.\n\n“Your darts are probably better on days like these,” she admitted. An arrow would kill, but it wouldn’t cause a goblin’s head to explode like a green grapefruit being struck by a dwarven warhammer. “But nothing beats a bow for selective slaughter.”\n\n“Can’t argue with that,” Lassarian called back as he guided the hawk back into formation. Tywyllas gestured angrily at them, but made a gesture of acceptance after Bereth raised her bow.\n\nThey were almost directly over the infantry now. Their conical white helmets gleamed blindingly in the sun, and rays of light reflected from the polished steel of their large halberd blades. They advanced in grim silence except for the occasional shouts of their captains, tall, haughty, and utterly merciless. They were a sight to stir emotion in any elven breast, and Bereth felt her own swell with pride. Their white surcoats were embroidered with the Sun-and-Mountain of the High King; they were the catrodau brenhinol, the royal regiments of Elebrion and in more than a thousand years, they had never been defeated in battle. Six banners, each denoting a regimental insignia, fluttered brightly in the breeze.\n\n“Gatrawd, atal!”\n\nLess than fifty lathaid from the goblin right flank, they came to an abrupt halt. Even above the din of battle, she could hear the dull thudding sound of eight hundred wooden butts striking the earth at precisely the same time.\n\n“Gatrawd, paratoi eich gwaywffyn!” Eight hundred halberds were lowered, their deadly, gleaming spear-points aimed at the foe. A few scattered shortbows loosed arrows, but to little avail. Bereth and the two other archers immediately responded, and by the time she’d loosed six arrows, any goblin who still had a bow was unwilling to reveal it.\n\n“Gatrawd, ymlaen llaw!” The regiments advanced in line, two hundred wide and four deep. The surviving goblins in the front were doing their best to wheel about and attack the elven right flank, but they were still in so much disarray from the aerial assaults and the crushing charge of the heavy cavalry that it was obviously a hopeless task. Even reduced as they were, their numbers were simply too great to easily manage and lacking Bereth’s vantage point, very few of them could have had any idea what was happening.\n\n“Gatrawd, codi tâl!” Twenty lathaid from the teeming mass of the confused enemy, the elves responded to the shout with a thunderous roar and broke into a run. As they crashed into the wolfriders, the first rank speared, the second rank raised their blades and chopped. They moved forward methodically; it was more butchery than combat and Bereth did not see a single elf fall.\n\nThe cacophony was horrendous. Wolves screaming, goblins shrieking, elves shouting, the clash of metal on metal, and the duller, more ominous thudding of metal on flesh and bone all combined to create a terrible music that was simultaneously horrifying and enthralling. But before long, Bereth saw the rear ranks of the wolfriders begin melting away, falling back and turning tail for the north and east. There were no horns, or whistles, or any sign that it was purposeful, but the rout was on and the goblin cavalry fled before the dripping halberds of the infantry.\n\nLord Malchderas rode up with his regiment in three neat columns behind him, and as far as Bereth could tell, not a single knight missing. The infantry had suffered five or six wounded, but there were no tall white-surcoated bodies on the ground amidst the hundreds of slaughtered wolves and goblins. There were three dead goblins for every wolf, for like Bereth herself, the infantry were trained to focus on the rider, not the steed. There were dozens of wounded goblins too, who cried out and shrieked in their bestial tongues, but they were ignored. The elves knew, as did the goblins themselves, that there was no need to finish them off. Their cruel masters would devour them soon enough.\n\nThen a booming sound echoed across the battlefield. First one, then twice, then a third time. It was the war drums of the Great Orc. As the last of the defeated goblins disappeared to the right flank of the massive army, the almost-countless battalions of the orc infantry approached in a line that from the ground must have looked as if it stretched across the horizon. As the drums boomed out, again and again, the orcs advanced behind banners made of bone and topped with skulls.\n\nEven from above, it was a fearsome sight. The first line went twenty-five deep, each rank comprised of big, crudely armored orcs carrying thick wooden spears tipped with stone that were three times bigger in diameter than an elven spear. Their shields were triangular in shape, made from scrap metal beaten flat over hardwood and painted with clan and tribal runes. Their bulging muscular arms were strong enough to drive one of those stone-tipped spears right through elven mail as if it were made of silk, not steel.\n\nThe second line was only fifteen deep, but what concerned Bereth was what she saw between them. There were at least 20 large ballistae on rollers, each angled at the sky, being pulled by teams of ten bare-chested orcs and the occasional blue-skinned troll. The crews were heavily armored, presumably against arrows, and Bereth squinted in a futile attempt to spot any obvious openings she might be able to target. To either side of each ballista, a pair of orcs dragged sledges containing huge bolts of the kind that had slain Merlian. It was evident that the Great Orc had devoted no little thought for the High Guard.\n\nShe wasn’t the only one concerned about the approaching artillery. She heard four horn blasts and looked up to see a purple burst of light in the direction of the Prince-General’s quintad. Fall back. She felt Mellt begin to rise and arc away from the approaching artillery and saw that the other triads were also retreating.\n\nShe could hear shouts coming from the infantry below and saw they were reforming and turning their backs on the great mass of the approaching orcs. Victorious once more, the catrodau brenhinol began marching south, their long legs setting a pace that would soon leave the orcs far behind. Wolfriders might have caught them, but the enemy light cavalry was shattered and Lord Malchderas’s heavy cavalry still held the blood-soaked field littered with dead and dying goblins.\n\nThey rose about one hundred lathaid then circled around, lazily holding a position where they could still strike if ordered. She rather hoped they would not, though. The orcs were too obviously prepared for them.\n\n“What is he waiting for?” she asked Lassarian anxiously. The cavalry commander was still calmly holding his ground, his oversized regiment arrayed in perfect order, lances high, behind him. Were it not for their blood-spattered surcoats and the corpses surrounding them on every side, they might have been on review in Elebrion’s central square.\n\nThe drums continued to boom and the orcs marched on. Now she could hear the roar of their angry shouting. The slaughter had enraged them, and the sight of the small body of elven horse responsible only seemed to inflame them further. But just as they were approaching within what Bereth considered to be the effective range of the orc bows, Malchderas’s standard bearer raised and lowered the Sun-and-Mountain banner and the knights kicked their horses into a gallop, riding east across the face of their furious foe in one last mocking gesture of defiance before turning south and abandoning the field to the Great Orc.\n\nShe could feel Lassarian shaking as he laughed. She didn’t see much humor in it, though. For as the big warhawk rose higher into the reddening sky, she looked down and saw that despite all of the casualties inflicted upon it over the course of the afternoon, the massive army below looked every bit as imposing as it had before the battle began. And as it marched inexorably southward over what had been the battlefield, with the hooves of warboars and the booted feet of orcs tromping carelessly over the broken bodies of the slain, it looked as if no battle had been fought there at all.\n", "completion": "“Hold on!” Lassarian shouted unnecessarily. She already had both arms wrapped around his waist. Then Tywyllas brought his arm down and they were falling, falling, falling, towards the battlefield below.\n\nThis time, she managed to keep her eyes open, although she had to squint against the force of the wind. She saw a pair of fiery explosions erupt at the very front of the onrushing goblins as the first triad’s mage hurled two fireballs, and then she was suddenly engulfed in a sea of screams and bloodshed and madness as the peaceful detachment she’d known above abruptly vanished as they hurtled down towards the ground.\n\nThe first triad had blunted the tip of the goblin cavalry’s charge, but hadn’t even slowed it down. The grey river of wolves simply flowed at first around, then over, the dozen or so bodies that lay strewn about the point of impact. Then the second mage struck just as the second triad pulled out of its dive and swept over the goblins about thirty lathaid above their heads, detonating a thunderbolt so powerful that it not only sent a score of wolves and goblins flying through the air, but actually cracked the earth.\n\nThat was enough to disrupt the elongated wedge and divide it into two, as wolves shied away from their howling, snapping brethren whose fur was on fire and goblins that were running every which way like shrieking torches. And yet, they were only slowed, they were far from stopped. The two sides of the shattered wedge continued charging forward, wolves slavering, goblins shouting in fear and rage.\n\nBereth braced herself for the moment when Mellt would spread his wings as Tywyllas brought his hawk out of its dive and began rapidly hurling darts, one after another, into the teeming mass of cavalry below. She focused on one big goblin who was standing near the place where the second mage had struck; he was mounted on a wolf nearly twice the size of the others and was clearly attempting to get a group of riders milling about to rejoin the attack.\n\nShe felt Mellt’s wings unfold and leaned back, rolling with the force of gravity pushing her down rather than fighting it, then flexed her stomach muscles to sit up, nocked, pulled and loosed the arrow at the big goblin all in a single motion. She didn’t see if it struck, and then her vision was blinded momentarily by a bright flash as the mage on Rhian’s hawk incinerated the wolfriders almost directly in front of them.\n\n“Anfon gyd i uffern!” Lassarian swore savagely. Bereth blinked, seeing mostly stars and all but useless, until her sight returned to normal. They had already swept past the goblin cavalry by the time she could see properly, so she turned in the saddle and loosed an arrow that struck a goblin in the back and sent him sprawling, arms flying high, from the back of his wolf.\n\n“Are you all right?” Lassarian shouted at her as he urged Mellt to regain the altitude for a second sweep. “What the devil was he thinking?”\n\nShe didn’t say anything, as she was lining up a long shot at a goblin below. Missed! The arrow flew just wide. The fourth triad targeted the northern of the two prongs that survived of the original wedge, while the fifth one focused on the southern. But Tywyllas didn’t lead them on the second pass she’d anticipated, as the sound of horns from behind and below were echoed by the one sounded by Lord Malchderas’s standard bearer.\n\nThey could not have had a better vantage point from which to watch the royal elven cavalry smash into the reeling wolfriders. As they soared over the heads of the embattled goblins, the heavily armored elves spitted goblins on lances, slashed heads from shoulders, crushed lupine bodies beneath silver-shod hooves, and left a wide trail of green, gray, and red devastation in their wake.\n\nAs Lord Malchderas’s regiment plowed over and through the near-helpless light cavalry, the elven infantry was rapidly advancing. They were armored less heavily than the knights, but they were armed with halberds that would allow them to impale a wolf or cleave a goblin with equal ease. A few of the wolfriders saw them approaching, but the few officers who realized their danger were unable to redirect their undisciplined riders and Bereth, after asking Lassarian to guide Mellt close enough to bring one goblin officer within range, put an end to his efforts to reform the southern flank by putting an arrow through his throat.\n\n“Devil of a shot!” Lassarian praised her.\n\n“Your darts are probably better on days like these,” she admitted. An arrow would kill, but it wouldn’t cause a goblin’s head to explode like a green grapefruit being struck by a dwarven warhammer. “But nothing beats a bow for selective slaughter.”\n\n“Can’t argue with that,” Lassarian called back as he guided the hawk back into formation. Tywyllas gestured angrily at them, but made a gesture of acceptance after Bereth raised her bow.\n\nThey were almost directly over the infantry now. Their conical white helmets gleamed blindingly in the sun, and rays of light reflected from the polished steel of their large halberd blades. They advanced in grim silence except for the occasional shouts of their captains, tall, haughty, and utterly merciless. They were a sight to stir emotion in any elven breast, and Bereth felt her own swell with pride. Their white surcoats were embroidered with the Sun-and-Mountain of the High King; they were the catrodau brenhinol, the royal regiments of Elebrion and in more than a thousand years, they had never been defeated in battle. Six banners, each denoting a regimental insignia, fluttered brightly in the breeze.\n\n“Gatrawd, atal!”\n\nLess than fifty lathaid from the goblin right flank, they came to an abrupt halt. Even above the din of battle, she could hear the dull thudding sound of eight hundred wooden butts striking the earth at precisely the same time.\n\n“Gatrawd, paratoi eich gwaywffyn!” Eight hundred halberds were lowered, their deadly, gleaming spear-points aimed at the foe. A few scattered shortbows loosed arrows, but to little avail. Bereth and the two other archers immediately responded, and by the time she’d loosed six arrows, any goblin who still had a bow was unwilling to reveal it.\n\n“Gatrawd, ymlaen llaw!” The regiments advanced in line, two hundred wide and four deep. The surviving goblins in the front were doing their best to wheel about and attack the elven right flank, but they were still in so much disarray from the aerial assaults and the crushing charge of the heavy cavalry that it was obviously a hopeless task. Even reduced as they were, their numbers were simply too great to easily manage and lacking Bereth’s vantage point, very few of them could have had any idea what was happening.\n\n“Gatrawd, codi tâl!” Twenty lathaid from the teeming mass of the confused enemy, the elves responded to the shout with a thunderous roar and broke into a run. As they crashed into the wolfriders, the first rank speared, the second rank raised their blades and chopped. They moved forward methodically; it was more butchery than combat and Bereth did not see a single elf fall.\n\nThe cacophony was horrendous. Wolves screaming, goblins shrieking, elves shouting, the clash of metal on metal, and the duller, more ominous thudding of metal on flesh and bone all combined to create a terrible music that was simultaneously horrifying and enthralling. But before long, Bereth saw the rear ranks of the wolfriders begin melting away, falling back and turning tail for the north and east. There were no horns, or whistles, or any sign that it was purposeful, but the rout was on and the goblin cavalry fled before the dripping halberds of the infantry.\n\nLord Malchderas rode up with his regiment in three neat columns behind him, and as far as Bereth could tell, not a single knight missing. The infantry had suffered five or six wounded, but there were no tall white-surcoated bodies on the ground amidst the hundreds of slaughtered wolves and goblins. There were three dead goblins for every wolf, for like Bereth herself, the infantry were trained to focus on the rider, not the steed. There were dozens of wounded goblins too, who cried out and shrieked in their bestial tongues, but they were ignored. The elves knew, as did the goblins themselves, that there was no need to finish them off. Their cruel masters would devour them soon enough.\n\nThen a booming sound echoed across the battlefield. First one, then twice, then a third time. It was the war drums of the Great Orc. As the last of the defeated goblins disappeared to the right flank of the massive army, the almost-countless battalions of the orc infantry approached in a line that from the ground must have looked as if it stretched across the horizon. As the drums boomed out, again and again, the orcs advanced behind banners made of bone and topped with skulls.\n\nEven from above, it was a fearsome sight. The first line went twenty-five deep, each rank comprised of big, crudely armored orcs carrying thick wooden spears tipped with stone that were three times bigger in diameter than an elven spear. Their shields were triangular in shape, made from scrap metal beaten flat over hardwood and painted with clan and tribal runes. Their bulging muscular arms were strong enough to drive one of those stone-tipped spears right through elven mail as if it were made of silk, not steel.\n\nThe second line was only fifteen deep, but what concerned Bereth was what she saw between them. There were at least 20 large ballistae on rollers, each angled at the sky, being pulled by teams of ten bare-chested orcs and the occasional blue-skinned troll. The crews were heavily armored, presumably against arrows, and Bereth squinted in a futile attempt to spot any obvious openings she might be able to target. To either side of each ballista, a pair of orcs dragged sledges containing huge bolts of the kind that had slain Merlian. It was evident that the Great Orc had devoted no little thought for the High Guard.\n\nShe wasn’t the only one concerned about the approaching artillery. She heard four horn blasts and looked up to see a purple burst of light in the direction of the Prince-General’s quintad. Fall back. She felt Mellt begin to rise and arc away from the approaching artillery and saw that the other triads were also retreating.\n\nShe could hear shouts coming from the infantry below and saw they were reforming and turning their backs on the great mass of the approaching orcs. Victorious once more, the catrodau brenhinol began marching south, their long legs setting a pace that would soon leave the orcs far behind. Wolfriders might have caught them, but the enemy light cavalry was shattered and Lord Malchderas’s heavy cavalry still held the blood-soaked field littered with dead and dying goblins.\n\nThey rose about one hundred lathaid then circled around, lazily holding a position where they could still strike if ordered. She rather hoped they would not, though. The orcs were too obviously prepared for them.\n\n“What is he waiting for?” she asked Lassarian anxiously. The cavalry commander was still calmly holding his ground, his oversized regiment arrayed in perfect order, lances high, behind him. Were it not for their blood-spattered surcoats and the corpses surrounding them on every side, they might have been on review in Elebrion’s central square.\n\nThe drums continued to boom and the orcs marched on. Now she could hear the roar of their angry shouting. The slaughter had enraged them, and the sight of the small body of elven horse responsible only seemed to inflame them further. But just as they were approaching within what Bereth considered to be the effective range of the orc bows, Malchderas’s standard bearer raised and lowered the Sun-and-Mountain banner and the knights kicked their horses into a gallop, riding east across the face of their furious foe in one last mocking gesture of defiance before turning south and abandoning the field to the Great Orc.\n\nShe could feel Lassarian shaking as he laughed. She didn’t see much humor in it, though. For as the big warhawk rose higher into the reddening sky, she looked down and saw that despite all of the casualties inflicted upon it over the course of the afternoon, the massive army below looked every bit as imposing as it had before the battle began. And as it marched inexorably southward over what had been the battlefield, with the hooves of warboars and the booted feet of orcs tromping carelessly over the broken bodies of the slain, it looked as if no battle had been fought there at all.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2185, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch25_bessarias-P1", "chapter": "ch25_bessarias", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nBessarias — keep spelling.\nCaitlys Shadowsong / Lady Shadowsong — both forms as written.\nMagistras Gnossi — title form; keep spelling.\nCollegium Occludum — mage college; both words capitalized.\nMastema — his familiar; keep spelling.\nElebrion / Merithaim / Kir Donas — elven realms; keep spellings.\nHigh King — Mael’s office; capitals when titled.\nFather Waleran — dead Man friend in memory; both names.\nBlack Harvester — Death epithet; capitals.\nNether Hells — curse geography; capitals as written.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBessarias\nFormer Magistras Gnossi of the Collegium Occludum; more than six hundred years old, deliberately aged after forswearing magic. Alive in a solitary aerie garden, staff now only a walking stick. Feels Earth and Sky magic as temptation; will not take it back. Looking toward death as Truth; remembers debates with Father Waleran. Does not yet know why Mael wants him—only that Caitlys will not leave him be.\n\nCaitlys Shadowsong\nPrincess of the House of Shadow; Collegium-trained; brings his provisions and thus can starve him. Alive in flight leathers with her warhawk behind her. Sent by the High King; blunt to the point of grabbing his robe. Reports ~150,000 orcs under a Great Orc, most moving on Elebrion.\n\nMael\nHigh King of Elebrion; not yet on stage; “requests” Bessarias at earliest convenience.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nMorning sun on Bessarias’s isolated aerie garden; chair faced to the light; white flower with a pollen-heavy bee.\nHe keeps three scrolls only; bare feet on grass.\nCaitlys arrives by warhawk; sky bright enough to blind his aged eyes.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bessarias.\n\nHe rises into pain and sun, blesses a bee he can no longer decode, and savors the nearness of death while refusing the temptation to seize magic and whip his decadent people awake. Dozing toward Waleran’s fire-side arguments, he is shouted awake by Caitlys Shadowsong: Mael “requests” him now because a Great Orc’s hundred-and-fifty thousand are moving on Elebrion. He needles her numbers; she manhandles his robe and threatens to haul him cold; he yields with a dry promise that desperation may change even kings. The scene lands as he takes staff and goes, before Mael’s eyes find him.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1950 words. Aged ironic register; theological calm under provocation. Land on his consent to walk, not the throne-room.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The aged elf rose carefully from the chair that he had placed to face the morning sun. A mild jolt of pain shot through the underside of his too-slender thighs, which brought a thin smile to his lips. Not that there was anyone to look at his legs underneath his robes, not anymore, but if there had been, they would have been surprised to be informed that there were still any muscles there to ache.\n\nThe pain was a blessing, though. It was one more reminder that he was, against all his expectations, still alive. He could still feel the magic all around him, feel the force of the life emanating from the grass underneath his bare feet, feel the exuberant spirits of the wind as they danced about his face and ran their invisible fingers through his white, thinning hair. It called to him, the magic of Earth and Sky, tempting him to open himself up to its sweet, siren song and let it fill him, heal him, and rejuvenate him with the mighty power of Nature herself.\n\nBut it was not the prospect of renewed youth and strength that he found hardest to resist. Even the daily pain and indignities that age inflicted upon him now were little more than petty annoyances. After more than 600 years, he was content to do little more than sit in the sun, potter about the little garden he maintained, and if he was feeling particularly energetic, read a section or two of the three scrolls he had permitted to accompany him on his final journey into the unknown.\n\nHe saw movement near the center of a white flower and leaned over to peer more closely to see what sort of insect it was. It was a little black-and-yellow bee, its legs and hairy belly marked with clumps of pale yellow pollen, and it crawled about the carpels as if it was looking for something. What that might be remained a mystery, but after a short time the bee gave up its futile search and rose into the air.\n\n“I wish you well, little friend,” the elf told the bee solemnly. It buzzed off, first to his left, then circled around again towards his right before disappearing behind a tree. He smiled, and traced the path the small insect had taken in the air with his finger. The dance of the bees was not impenetrable to him; centuries ago he had cracked the code of their voiceless communication, but now he lacked the wherewithal to comprehend it. That he could no longer fathom their purposes did not perturb him in the slightest; he still took pleasure in seeing them go about their vital business in their striped uniforms.\n\nHow sweet life had become as his last days drew nigh. At last he understood, truly understood, the fierce urgency that drove the race of Man to build empires and sow its seeds and send its armies tramping in every direction, north, south, east and west. Even the furious rage of the Orc made sense, burning all the brighter and intense for the shortness of its years. More importantly, it had given him insight into the roots that underlay the decadence of Elvenkind, the insidious weakness that had reduced the once-great race that ruled Selenoth with a cruel and haughty hand to its present straits.\n\nThere, too, lay temptation. It stirred in him, the desire to wake up his people, by force if necessary, and compel them to again take up the greatness that was their ancestral right. It lay within his power, if only he would reach out his hand and accept the mantle that fate offered him. But no, he would not forswear himself, nor would he forsake the God for whom he was walking, ever more haltingly, this painful path that would soon lead him to the grave. He smiled again, pleased that he had once more mastered the seductive ambitions that fluttered, unwanted, through his mind.\n\nO Grave, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting? At this point, so near the end, he feared the little bee’s sting more than that of the Black Harvester. Not that he had ever feared it much; an accomplished necromancer, he had spoken with the dead on too many occasions to be persuaded by the fear-filled fancies of those who declared that there was but one life, after which came either the Void, the Eternal Slumber, or the Ever-nothingness, depending upon the philosophical school.\n\nHe found that he was rather looking forward to this next adventure, to walk through the one-way door and discover what lay waiting on the other side. Not for him the eternal battles of the savage Men of the North, or the endless orgies of rape and slaughter of the even-more savage Orc. His idea of Heaven was to experience Truth, to see it in its fullness instead of the mere glimmerings he had been fortunate to glimpse from time to time over the last six centuries.\n\nAnd if he was also vouchsafed the opportunity to discuss what he learned there with the likes of dear Father Waleran, so much the better. Though the years had passed, it seemed as if it had only been yesterday that he’d been sitting in front of the fire with his old friend, drinking that wretched Man wine as they plumbed the unknown depths of Creation with their minds. Smiling, he closed his eyes and turned his face towards the sun, drifting off as he recalled a long-ago argument with the Man who had preceded him through the last door so many years ago.\n\nEven if he hadn’t closed them, his eyes were too dim with age to have spotted the distant speck in the Western sky that was growing larger as it approached his solitary domain.\n\n“Bessarias! Bessarias!”\n\nHe blinked against the blinding brilliance of the sky, and raised a hand to shield his sun-dazzled eyes. Someone was shouting at him. Why were they shouting?\n\n“Bessarias, wake up!”\n\nIt was a voice he recognized. A female voice. He rubbed his eyes, and sat up to see Caitlys Shadowsong standing over him. She was wearing her flight leathers, and behind her loomed the giant figure of her warhawk. “Why are you shouting, my dear? And why are you calling me by my former name. I left it behind when I came to this place, as I expect to leave everything else behind, if God is willing.”\n\n“Don’t be such an old fool, Bessarias.” There were very, very few elves in Elebrion, and none at all in Merithaim or Kir Donas, who would dare to speak to him in such manner, but the princess of the House of Shadow was one of them. She was of the royal blood, a Collegium-trained sorceress in her own right, and perhaps more importantly, since her return she had taken on the responsibility for seeing to his provisions here on his isolated aerie. One need not be overly polite to those one can starve at will, however lofty their past reputations. “I come at the High King’s command. He requests the honor of your presence and he requests it at your earliest convenience!”\n\n“That hardly sounds like a request.”\n\n“It isn’t. He’s being unnecessarily polite to an addle-pated sorcerer in the hopes that you’ll stop killing yourself and take up your magic again to aid your people in their hour of need.”\n\nBessarias sighed. “And what is it this time, Caitlys? Orcs, Dwarves, or Men?”\n\n“Don’t make light of it. There are over one hundred and fifty thousand orcs gathered under a single Great Orc, and most of them are moving on Elebrion!”\n\n“Most of them?”\n\n“Does it matter?”\n\n“Not necessarily,” he said. “I merely found it interesting that you thought it important to inform me some of them were not involved in the march south. What are the rest of them doing?”\n\n“That’s the part you found interesting?” Her face was a portrait in perfect exasperation. “The scouts say about twenty thousand were marching on the Man lands to the West.”\n\nHe smiled. “You see? That is interesting. Tell Mael he should investigate the reason behind the division. I imagine he will find it profitable.”\n\nWith that, he nodded pleasantly to her, closed his eyes, and leaned back again in his reclining chair.\n\nA moment later, he felt two small fists grasp the lapel of his robe. Unperturbed, he opened one eye. She shook him roughly before pulling him towards her so that her nose was very nearly touching his own.\n\n“Bessarias, if you don’t get up and find something warmer to wear so you don’t freeze to death on the way, I swear by the Wyrms of Mount Pelinothassas that I will get on Vengirasse’s back and he’ll carry you to the High King in his claws!”\n\nShe released him and he fell back.\n\n“There was a time, my dear, when no elf would have dared to lay hands on me so rudely.”\n\n“That was when you were Magistras Gnossi of the Collegium Occludum. And that was before I was born! Without your magic, what are you, Bessarias? A withered husk! A dessicated corpse! Don’t you understand? We need you as you were! We need the sorcerer, not this time-withered follower of a dead Man-god!”\n\n“You sound disturbingly like Mastema,” he told her. “Are you certain he didn’t put you up to this? He usually wears the body of a cat, his preference is for grays, but he has been known to take other forms.”\n\n“I haven’t spoken to your damned familiar!” Caitlys snapped. “And he certainly didn’t put me up to it. Aren’t you listening? The High King did!”\n\n“Ah, yes. Of course, it is a matter of long-standing tradition that the Magistrae of the Collegium do not answer to any of the seven kings.”\n\n“You’re going to try to hide behind the Collegium when you won’t even do magic anymore!” she shrieked. A murderous look entered her bright green eyes. “Get dressed, Bessarias. Now!”\n\nHe sighed. “Is there nothing I can say to convince you to leave me here in peace?”\n\nShe bared her teeth and he raised his hand.\n\n“Very well, my dear. But I assure you, it will serve no purpose. The king will in nowise be inclined to heed my words. Neither he nor his father ever has before.”\n\n“Things change, Bessarias. Given enough time, even kings may change their ways.”\n\nOr given sufficient desperation. He smiled. The lady had a point, he had to admit. Did he not know an exceedingly prideful sorcerer who had changed his ways? He reached out for his staff, once a thing of might, now nothing more than a support to help him walk, and grunted as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “Very well, Lady Shadowsong. As a humble servant of the High King, I shall mind the summons, and perhaps we shall see if this miracle of which you speak has, in fact, taken place.\n", "completion": "The aged elf rose carefully from the chair that he had placed to face the morning sun. A mild jolt of pain shot through the underside of his too-slender thighs, which brought a thin smile to his lips. Not that there was anyone to look at his legs underneath his robes, not anymore, but if there had been, they would have been surprised to be informed that there were still any muscles there to ache.\n\nThe pain was a blessing, though. It was one more reminder that he was, against all his expectations, still alive. He could still feel the magic all around him, feel the force of the life emanating from the grass underneath his bare feet, feel the exuberant spirits of the wind as they danced about his face and ran their invisible fingers through his white, thinning hair. It called to him, the magic of Earth and Sky, tempting him to open himself up to its sweet, siren song and let it fill him, heal him, and rejuvenate him with the mighty power of Nature herself.\n\nBut it was not the prospect of renewed youth and strength that he found hardest to resist. Even the daily pain and indignities that age inflicted upon him now were little more than petty annoyances. After more than 600 years, he was content to do little more than sit in the sun, potter about the little garden he maintained, and if he was feeling particularly energetic, read a section or two of the three scrolls he had permitted to accompany him on his final journey into the unknown.\n\nHe saw movement near the center of a white flower and leaned over to peer more closely to see what sort of insect it was. It was a little black-and-yellow bee, its legs and hairy belly marked with clumps of pale yellow pollen, and it crawled about the carpels as if it was looking for something. What that might be remained a mystery, but after a short time the bee gave up its futile search and rose into the air.\n\n“I wish you well, little friend,” the elf told the bee solemnly. It buzzed off, first to his left, then circled around again towards his right before disappearing behind a tree. He smiled, and traced the path the small insect had taken in the air with his finger. The dance of the bees was not impenetrable to him; centuries ago he had cracked the code of their voiceless communication, but now he lacked the wherewithal to comprehend it. That he could no longer fathom their purposes did not perturb him in the slightest; he still took pleasure in seeing them go about their vital business in their striped uniforms.\n\nHow sweet life had become as his last days drew nigh. At last he understood, truly understood, the fierce urgency that drove the race of Man to build empires and sow its seeds and send its armies tramping in every direction, north, south, east and west. Even the furious rage of the Orc made sense, burning all the brighter and intense for the shortness of its years. More importantly, it had given him insight into the roots that underlay the decadence of Elvenkind, the insidious weakness that had reduced the once-great race that ruled Selenoth with a cruel and haughty hand to its present straits.\n\nThere, too, lay temptation. It stirred in him, the desire to wake up his people, by force if necessary, and compel them to again take up the greatness that was their ancestral right. It lay within his power, if only he would reach out his hand and accept the mantle that fate offered him. But no, he would not forswear himself, nor would he forsake the God for whom he was walking, ever more haltingly, this painful path that would soon lead him to the grave. He smiled again, pleased that he had once more mastered the seductive ambitions that fluttered, unwanted, through his mind.\n\nO Grave, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting? At this point, so near the end, he feared the little bee’s sting more than that of the Black Harvester. Not that he had ever feared it much; an accomplished necromancer, he had spoken with the dead on too many occasions to be persuaded by the fear-filled fancies of those who declared that there was but one life, after which came either the Void, the Eternal Slumber, or the Ever-nothingness, depending upon the philosophical school.\n\nHe found that he was rather looking forward to this next adventure, to walk through the one-way door and discover what lay waiting on the other side. Not for him the eternal battles of the savage Men of the North, or the endless orgies of rape and slaughter of the even-more savage Orc. His idea of Heaven was to experience Truth, to see it in its fullness instead of the mere glimmerings he had been fortunate to glimpse from time to time over the last six centuries.\n\nAnd if he was also vouchsafed the opportunity to discuss what he learned there with the likes of dear Father Waleran, so much the better. Though the years had passed, it seemed as if it had only been yesterday that he’d been sitting in front of the fire with his old friend, drinking that wretched Man wine as they plumbed the unknown depths of Creation with their minds. Smiling, he closed his eyes and turned his face towards the sun, drifting off as he recalled a long-ago argument with the Man who had preceded him through the last door so many years ago.\n\nEven if he hadn’t closed them, his eyes were too dim with age to have spotted the distant speck in the Western sky that was growing larger as it approached his solitary domain.\n\n“Bessarias! Bessarias!”\n\nHe blinked against the blinding brilliance of the sky, and raised a hand to shield his sun-dazzled eyes. Someone was shouting at him. Why were they shouting?\n\n“Bessarias, wake up!”\n\nIt was a voice he recognized. A female voice. He rubbed his eyes, and sat up to see Caitlys Shadowsong standing over him. She was wearing her flight leathers, and behind her loomed the giant figure of her warhawk. “Why are you shouting, my dear? And why are you calling me by my former name. I left it behind when I came to this place, as I expect to leave everything else behind, if God is willing.”\n\n“Don’t be such an old fool, Bessarias.” There were very, very few elves in Elebrion, and none at all in Merithaim or Kir Donas, who would dare to speak to him in such manner, but the princess of the House of Shadow was one of them. She was of the royal blood, a Collegium-trained sorceress in her own right, and perhaps more importantly, since her return she had taken on the responsibility for seeing to his provisions here on his isolated aerie. One need not be overly polite to those one can starve at will, however lofty their past reputations. “I come at the High King’s command. He requests the honor of your presence and he requests it at your earliest convenience!”\n\n“That hardly sounds like a request.”\n\n“It isn’t. He’s being unnecessarily polite to an addle-pated sorcerer in the hopes that you’ll stop killing yourself and take up your magic again to aid your people in their hour of need.”\n\nBessarias sighed. “And what is it this time, Caitlys? Orcs, Dwarves, or Men?”\n\n“Don’t make light of it. There are over one hundred and fifty thousand orcs gathered under a single Great Orc, and most of them are moving on Elebrion!”\n\n“Most of them?”\n\n“Does it matter?”\n\n“Not necessarily,” he said. “I merely found it interesting that you thought it important to inform me some of them were not involved in the march south. What are the rest of them doing?”\n\n“That’s the part you found interesting?” Her face was a portrait in perfect exasperation. “The scouts say about twenty thousand were marching on the Man lands to the West.”\n\nHe smiled. “You see? That is interesting. Tell Mael he should investigate the reason behind the division. I imagine he will find it profitable.”\n\nWith that, he nodded pleasantly to her, closed his eyes, and leaned back again in his reclining chair.\n\nA moment later, he felt two small fists grasp the lapel of his robe. Unperturbed, he opened one eye. She shook him roughly before pulling him towards her so that her nose was very nearly touching his own.\n\n“Bessarias, if you don’t get up and find something warmer to wear so you don’t freeze to death on the way, I swear by the Wyrms of Mount Pelinothassas that I will get on Vengirasse’s back and he’ll carry you to the High King in his claws!”\n\nShe released him and he fell back.\n\n“There was a time, my dear, when no elf would have dared to lay hands on me so rudely.”\n\n“That was when you were Magistras Gnossi of the Collegium Occludum. And that was before I was born! Without your magic, what are you, Bessarias? A withered husk! A dessicated corpse! Don’t you understand? We need you as you were! We need the sorcerer, not this time-withered follower of a dead Man-god!”\n\n“You sound disturbingly like Mastema,” he told her. “Are you certain he didn’t put you up to this? He usually wears the body of a cat, his preference is for grays, but he has been known to take other forms.”\n\n“I haven’t spoken to your damned familiar!” Caitlys snapped. “And he certainly didn’t put me up to it. Aren’t you listening? The High King did!”\n\n“Ah, yes. Of course, it is a matter of long-standing tradition that the Magistrae of the Collegium do not answer to any of the seven kings.”\n\n“You’re going to try to hide behind the Collegium when you won’t even do magic anymore!” she shrieked. A murderous look entered her bright green eyes. “Get dressed, Bessarias. Now!”\n\nHe sighed. “Is there nothing I can say to convince you to leave me here in peace?”\n\nShe bared her teeth and he raised his hand.\n\n“Very well, my dear. But I assure you, it will serve no purpose. The king will in nowise be inclined to heed my words. Neither he nor his father ever has before.”\n\n“Things change, Bessarias. Given enough time, even kings may change their ways.”\n\nOr given sufficient desperation. He smiled. The lady had a point, he had to admit. Did he not know an exceedingly prideful sorcerer who had changed his ways? He reached out for his staff, once a thing of might, now nothing more than a support to help him walk, and grunted as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “Very well, Lady Shadowsong. As a humble servant of the High King, I shall mind the summons, and perhaps we shall see if this miracle of which you speak has, in fact, taken place.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1880, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch25_bessarias-P2", "chapter": "ch25_bessarias", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMael — High King of Elebrion; keep spelling.\nCrown Prince — Mael’s son; chambers named as destination.\nWitchkings — prior war reference; one word capital W.\nKingsguard — twenty-four knights so styled; capitalized.\nMagistrae — college plural; keep form.\n\n### STORY\nBessarias potters in his aerie garden refusing magic’s siren; Caitlys Shadowsong lands, reports a Great Orc’s hundred-and-fifty thousand moving on Elebrion, and drags the forswearing Magistras toward Mael’s summons.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBessarias\nAlive, stooped, entering Mael’s chamber; magic forsaken and visible in his ruin. Will not resume power; will accuse king and virgin Magistrae of breeding the race into a white kingdom of bones; will offer only conscience-bound counsel and urgency.\n\nMael\nHigh King; shaken by Bessarias’s decrepitude; needs magic or wisdom against the host. Sent three fake Magistrae with thirty-three knights; they failed. Ends staring at ivory figurines after dismissing them to the Crown Prince’s chambers.\n\nCaitlys\nPresent; cannot make Bessarias soft; escort out at the end, cold-armed but courtly.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Bessarias, if you don’t get up and find something warmer to wear so you don’t freeze to death on the way, I swear by the Wyrms of Mount Pelinothassas that I will get on Vengirasse’s back and he’ll carry you to the High King in his claws!”\n\nShe released him and he fell back.\n\n“There was a time, my dear, when no elf would have dared to lay hands on me so rudely.”\n\n“That was when you were Magistras Gnossi of the Collegium Occludum. And that was before I was born! Without your magic, what are you, Bessarias? A withered husk! A dessicated corpse! Don’t you understand? We need you as you were! We need the sorcerer, not this time-withered follower of a dead Man-god!”\n\n“You sound disturbingly like Mastema,” he told her. “Are you certain he didn’t put you up to this? He usually wears the body of a cat, his preference is for grays, but he has been known to take other forms.”\n\n“I haven’t spoken to your damned familiar!” Caitlys snapped. “And he certainly didn’t put me up to it. Aren’t you listening? The High King did!”\n\n“Ah, yes. Of course, it is a matter of long-standing tradition that the Magistrae of the Collegium do not answer to any of the seven kings.”\n\n“You’re going to try to hide behind the Collegium when you won’t even do magic anymore!” she shrieked. A murderous look entered her bright green eyes. “Get dressed, Bessarias. Now!”\n\nHe sighed. “Is there nothing I can say to convince you to leave me here in peace?”\n\nShe bared her teeth and he raised his hand.\n\n“Very well, my dear. But I assure you, it will serve no purpose. The king will in nowise be inclined to heed my words. Neither he nor his father ever has before.”\n\n“Things change, Bessarias. Given enough time, even kings may change their ways.”\n\nOr given sufficient desperation. He smiled. The lady had a point, he had to admit. Did he not know an exceedingly prideful sorcerer who had changed his ways? He reached out for his staff, once a thing of might, now nothing more than a support to help him walk, and grunted as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “Very well, Lady Shadowsong. As a humble servant of the High King, I shall mind the summons, and perhaps we shall see if this miracle of which you speak has, in fact, taken place.\n\n### NOTES\nKing’s chamber with large oaken table and map/figurines of forces.\nElebrion horse: about eight hundred knights plus twenty-four Kingsguard; numbers an order of magnitude below what Bessarias first assumes from the map.\nThree mages in Magistrae robes already sent with an honor guard and lost or failed to awe the orcs.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bessarias.\n\nMael recoils from his ruined body and asks what he has done; Bessarias recommends mortality. The map’s truth comes out: elven horse is hundreds, not thousands, and three false Magistrae already failed to frighten the host. Mael wants Bessarias’s magic; Bessarias refuses and turns the knife on a people too decadent to marry and bear defenders, including Caitlys’s virgin womb and the king’s own failure. When Mael asks for wisdom instead, Bessarias offers only what conscience allows—beginning with urgency and truth. He is sent to the Crown Prince’s chambers on Caitlys’s arm while Mael stares at the ivory figurines. The scene lands on that slow exit and the king’s silent gaze.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2100 words. Court confrontation cold and unsentimental; no redeemed-king swell. Land on the walk-out and Mael at the figurines.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Mael, High King of Elebrion, was visibly shaken by the sight of Bessarias’s appearance upon the sorcerer’s entrance. Unlike Caitlys, the king had not laid eyes upon him for decades and was unaware of his rapid descent into decrepitude. The Elven king now towered over the ancient sorcerer, whose back was stooped with age.\n\n“What in the Nether Hells have you done to yourself, Magistras?”\n\n“I merely go the way of all flesh, Majesty. I highly recommend it as an efficacious antidote to overweening pride.”\n\n“Overweening or not, the pride suited you considerably better, Bessarias. Now, as your king, I command you to stop this nonsense and restore yourself to a reasonable state at once. You cannot possibly expect to serve the Three Kingdoms in your current condition, and I have need of you and your particular powers.”\n\nBessarias glanced at Caitlys, who had accompanied him to the chamber in which the king had received them, which appeared to be the heart of the High King’s martial preparations. Even the guards had been excused; this was not a conversation to which even the most loyal ears could be privy. The king’s niece-by-marriage had closed her eyes and was shaking her head slowly in dismay. She, at least, understood that he was not to be commanded.\n\n“Perhaps you do and perhaps you don’t. That is not for you to say, my dear Mael. You may bluster, and you may issue orders to your heart’s content, my friend, but you know perfectly well that you do not command the Collegium or its members. Perhaps more to the point, you may not tell me to do anything at all. I’m too old and too near death to be impressed by your splendid crown and your royal visage. Let us talk, rather, as one friend to another, of these troublesome orcs I am told are of concern to you.”\n\nThe High King looked at Caitlys, who shrugged. “I can’t help you, Majesty. I only managed to bring him here by threatening him with an involuntary ride under the bird.”\n\n“At least you’re not in a hurry to commit suicide, at any rate,” the king said sourly. “Very well, old friend, let us talk of these orcs. They trouble me indeed. One might even say the problem they pose is vexing.”\n\nHe beckoned Bessarias towards the large oaken table in the center of the room, upon which was displayed a map of eastern Selenoth. Scattered around the map were a number of figures carved from wood and ivory. It did not take a military genius to see straight to the heart of the problem; the squat wooden pieces considerably outnumbered the eight slender ivory ones.\n\n“You hardly need me to perform basic mathematics for you. It would appear there are around thirteen, no fourteen, of them for each of yours. Difficult, I suppose, but hardly odds you have not faced before.”\n\nThe king smiled grimly. “That would be true were you not incorrect by an order of magnitude. Each of those ivory figures represents a company of knights, not a regiment.”\n\n“There are only eight hundred knights in all of Elebrion?”\n\n“Other than the twenty-four in the Kingsguard, yes. And we have another three hundred combatants of one form or another, raiders, scouts, and sorcerers.”\n\nBessarias shook his head. “I warned your father after the war with the Witchkings. We’d lost so many knights, we were down to five thousand then, half the number of when your grandfather ruled over the Seven Kingdoms. How could you let it come to this, Mael?”\n\nThe High King’s white face flushed momentarily and he looked away. “Our numbers always seemed sufficient,” he said stiffly.\n\n“Sufficient? For what purpose? You relied upon the Magistrae and fear of the Collegium’s magic!”\n\n“Yes, well, it seems that is no longer enough to dissuade this particular orc.”\n\n“Why not?” Bessarias eyed the king suspiciously. “Mael, don’t tell me you tried to bluff them!”\n\n“The Council of Magistrae agreed! What else were we to do?”\n\n“What did you do?”\n\n“I sent out three mages in the robes of the Magistrae, with an honor guard of 33 knights under the command of Prince Lelwithas, to confront them. I thought… well, the scouts told me they slew more than five hundred orcs, including more than thirty-five gwrachod, before they fell.”\n\nBessarias sighed. Now he understood why he’d been summoned. There was one thing, and one thing only, that he and no other mage or magistras of the college could do. There was a single spell he had reserved for himself, one that he had arrogantly refused to share with his fellows of the college. And he knew very well that it was a secret that remained kept, for the unleashing of the power held locked within the calengalad was not a spell that one could cast without leaving evidence behind. A considerable quantity of evidence, as it happened, as Dasaltha-Muran still testified mutely today, hundreds of years since he’d cast the spell. Dasaltha-Muran, the ruinous waste now better known throughout Selenoth as the Glass Desert.\n\n“I have given up my magic. You can see that, Mael. I am hardly going to break my vow and take it up again so that I can re-enact my greatest crime. Of all my sins, and over six hundred years there have been many, that was by far the worst! And you ask me to repeat it?”\n\n“It may not be necessary–”\n\n“If it wasn’t necessary you would not have dragged me here. No, Mael. I warned you a century ago that we could not proceed in this manner. How many children have been born in the last year. In the last decade! You ask me to forswear myself on behalf of a people who are too sunk into decadence and self-absorption to marry, let alone bear and raise knights who will defend the kingdoms in the years to come? There is nothing to save! We are a dead people and you reign over a white and barren kingdom of bones!”\n\n“How many children did you have, Magistras?” the High King, his face coldly furious, replied.\n\n“I, too, am to blame. I do not excuse myself from this charge. There may have been a few elves more decadent than me, but certainly none more arrogant or self-absorbed. At least you and the Queen fulfilled your duties in that regard. It is as a king, not as an elf, that you have failed, Mael.”\n\n“What was I to do?”\n\n“Whatever was necessary. Your responsibility was, your responsibility is, to the Elven race, to all the peoples of Elebrion, Merithaim, and Kir Donas. To protect them and ensure that they not only survived, but thrived! But if a people does not thrive, they will not survive long.” He pointed to Caitlys. “How old are you?”\n\n“Eighty-seven,” she said, her voice wary.\n\n“And yet you remain a maiden untouched, more wedded to your magic than you will ever be to an elf.”\n\n“How dare you!” Her green eyes flashed with feminine rage.\n\n“How dare I speak the truth? Had you married at your majority, you might have born one, two, even ten sons by now. Not all of them would be old enough to bear a sword yet, but what about your cousins, your aunts, to say nothing of your nonexistent sisters?”\n\n“That’s not fair–”\n\n“It is the truth! Look at your young sorceress there, Mael. In her virgin womb, in the virgin wombs of every sorceress in the kingdom for the last five hundred years, is your army. Did you ever drag them here to your castle and make of them the demands you now make of me? Did you ever tell them, even once, that it was their duty to their king, to their people, to their very race, to give Elebrion the warriors she would one day need? Or do you think to make warriors of them now, to see virgin bellies never swollen with child raped with spears and swords instead?”\n\nThe High King looked at his niece and sighed. “What’s done is done, Bessarias. There is no point in engaging in recriminations of past errors. See, I will admit it. You were right. Does that give you joy, to know that your proclamations of doom are upon us at last?”\n\n“Even now you seek to shirk your duty! You inquire as to my feelings? The only feeling of mine that needs concern you is my answer! It is no! Absolutely and unequivocally no! All the abuse of my accursed powers will buy you is time, and what use is a few more years to a king who has wasted centuries? No, Mael, the Collegium will not save you from your misrule this time; better you humble yourself in the sight of the Most High God and perhaps the King of High Kings will grace you with the wisdom you require. I have a higher allegiance than you now, and I will not betray it as you betrayed our race!”\n\nIf the king’s face had been crimson before, it was deep scarlet now, filled with pure, unadulterated rage.\n\n“I could have your head for that!”\n\nBessarias laughed. “Look at me! Look at this broken body! Do you think I fear death?”\n\n“I have not failed our race! Not yet!”\n\n“Have you not?”\n\nThe furious High King locked eyes with the decrepit Magistras, and it was the king who looked away first. There was a long moment of silence, and when the king finally spoke again, his voice was subdued. If it was not humble, it was at least conciliatory.\n\n“If you will not serve me with your magic, then perhaps you will consent to serve me with your wisdom, Bessarias. Our need is dire, and I do not exaggerate the danger. The day that you foresaw is now upon us, and so perhaps you will be able to see another answer, one that I cannot.”\n\n“Wisdom?” Bessarias snorted dismissively. “I have none to give. But I will do for you, and for our kind, what conscience allows, Majesty. And my first counsel is this: do not give into despair, my friend! Elebrion is not the Elves. If the Elves must flee the White City, then you must be at the forefront of their flight. Fly to Merithaim, or to Kir Donas, and over the seas to the lands beyond if need be. To preserve and protect your people is your first and foremost duty, High King. Do not let pride or shame tell you otherwise. Ignominy is not death, it merely feels like it to one who knows nothing of death’s cold touch. You were right to say that what is done is done. There is no need to dwell upon the past. All that matters now is what you do next.”\n\nThe High King nodded absently. His eyes were unfocused, as if he gazed upon something distant in time as well as space. Then he blinked, and stepped forward to take Bessarias’s hands in his own. “Forgive me, old friend. You speak truths that are hard to hear.”\n\n“The truth usually is.” When the king released him, Bessarias stepped back and bowed, to the crown, if not the younger elf. “As you have need of me, I shall be at your service for whatever days remain to me, High King.”\n\nMael nodded curtly and turned to Caitlys. “Take him to the Crown Prince’s chambers. My son will not be needing them now that he is in the field.”\n\n“As you wish, Majesty.” She offered her arm to Bessarias, a little coldly. “My lord Magistras, if you will come with me?”\n\nAngry or not, Lady Shadowsong had not forgotten her place as a lady of the court. They walked slowly from the chamber together. Bessarias looked back over his shoulder and saw the High King staring silently at the little ivory figurines as if he could multiply them by the sheer intensity of his gaze.\n", "completion": "Mael, High King of Elebrion, was visibly shaken by the sight of Bessarias’s appearance upon the sorcerer’s entrance. Unlike Caitlys, the king had not laid eyes upon him for decades and was unaware of his rapid descent into decrepitude. The Elven king now towered over the ancient sorcerer, whose back was stooped with age.\n\n“What in the Nether Hells have you done to yourself, Magistras?”\n\n“I merely go the way of all flesh, Majesty. I highly recommend it as an efficacious antidote to overweening pride.”\n\n“Overweening or not, the pride suited you considerably better, Bessarias. Now, as your king, I command you to stop this nonsense and restore yourself to a reasonable state at once. You cannot possibly expect to serve the Three Kingdoms in your current condition, and I have need of you and your particular powers.”\n\nBessarias glanced at Caitlys, who had accompanied him to the chamber in which the king had received them, which appeared to be the heart of the High King’s martial preparations. Even the guards had been excused; this was not a conversation to which even the most loyal ears could be privy. The king’s niece-by-marriage had closed her eyes and was shaking her head slowly in dismay. She, at least, understood that he was not to be commanded.\n\n“Perhaps you do and perhaps you don’t. That is not for you to say, my dear Mael. You may bluster, and you may issue orders to your heart’s content, my friend, but you know perfectly well that you do not command the Collegium or its members. Perhaps more to the point, you may not tell me to do anything at all. I’m too old and too near death to be impressed by your splendid crown and your royal visage. Let us talk, rather, as one friend to another, of these troublesome orcs I am told are of concern to you.”\n\nThe High King looked at Caitlys, who shrugged. “I can’t help you, Majesty. I only managed to bring him here by threatening him with an involuntary ride under the bird.”\n\n“At least you’re not in a hurry to commit suicide, at any rate,” the king said sourly. “Very well, old friend, let us talk of these orcs. They trouble me indeed. One might even say the problem they pose is vexing.”\n\nHe beckoned Bessarias towards the large oaken table in the center of the room, upon which was displayed a map of eastern Selenoth. Scattered around the map were a number of figures carved from wood and ivory. It did not take a military genius to see straight to the heart of the problem; the squat wooden pieces considerably outnumbered the eight slender ivory ones.\n\n“You hardly need me to perform basic mathematics for you. It would appear there are around thirteen, no fourteen, of them for each of yours. Difficult, I suppose, but hardly odds you have not faced before.”\n\nThe king smiled grimly. “That would be true were you not incorrect by an order of magnitude. Each of those ivory figures represents a company of knights, not a regiment.”\n\n“There are only eight hundred knights in all of Elebrion?”\n\n“Other than the twenty-four in the Kingsguard, yes. And we have another three hundred combatants of one form or another, raiders, scouts, and sorcerers.”\n\nBessarias shook his head. “I warned your father after the war with the Witchkings. We’d lost so many knights, we were down to five thousand then, half the number of when your grandfather ruled over the Seven Kingdoms. How could you let it come to this, Mael?”\n\nThe High King’s white face flushed momentarily and he looked away. “Our numbers always seemed sufficient,” he said stiffly.\n\n“Sufficient? For what purpose? You relied upon the Magistrae and fear of the Collegium’s magic!”\n\n“Yes, well, it seems that is no longer enough to dissuade this particular orc.”\n\n“Why not?” Bessarias eyed the king suspiciously. “Mael, don’t tell me you tried to bluff them!”\n\n“The Council of Magistrae agreed! What else were we to do?”\n\n“What did you do?”\n\n“I sent out three mages in the robes of the Magistrae, with an honor guard of 33 knights under the command of Prince Lelwithas, to confront them. I thought… well, the scouts told me they slew more than five hundred orcs, including more than thirty-five gwrachod, before they fell.”\n\nBessarias sighed. Now he understood why he’d been summoned. There was one thing, and one thing only, that he and no other mage or magistras of the college could do. There was a single spell he had reserved for himself, one that he had arrogantly refused to share with his fellows of the college. And he knew very well that it was a secret that remained kept, for the unleashing of the power held locked within the calengalad was not a spell that one could cast without leaving evidence behind. A considerable quantity of evidence, as it happened, as Dasaltha-Muran still testified mutely today, hundreds of years since he’d cast the spell. Dasaltha-Muran, the ruinous waste now better known throughout Selenoth as the Glass Desert.\n\n“I have given up my magic. You can see that, Mael. I am hardly going to break my vow and take it up again so that I can re-enact my greatest crime. Of all my sins, and over six hundred years there have been many, that was by far the worst! And you ask me to repeat it?”\n\n“It may not be necessary–”\n\n“If it wasn’t necessary you would not have dragged me here. No, Mael. I warned you a century ago that we could not proceed in this manner. How many children have been born in the last year. In the last decade! You ask me to forswear myself on behalf of a people who are too sunk into decadence and self-absorption to marry, let alone bear and raise knights who will defend the kingdoms in the years to come? There is nothing to save! We are a dead people and you reign over a white and barren kingdom of bones!”\n\n“How many children did you have, Magistras?” the High King, his face coldly furious, replied.\n\n“I, too, am to blame. I do not excuse myself from this charge. There may have been a few elves more decadent than me, but certainly none more arrogant or self-absorbed. At least you and the Queen fulfilled your duties in that regard. It is as a king, not as an elf, that you have failed, Mael.”\n\n“What was I to do?”\n\n“Whatever was necessary. Your responsibility was, your responsibility is, to the Elven race, to all the peoples of Elebrion, Merithaim, and Kir Donas. To protect them and ensure that they not only survived, but thrived! But if a people does not thrive, they will not survive long.” He pointed to Caitlys. “How old are you?”\n\n“Eighty-seven,” she said, her voice wary.\n\n“And yet you remain a maiden untouched, more wedded to your magic than you will ever be to an elf.”\n\n“How dare you!” Her green eyes flashed with feminine rage.\n\n“How dare I speak the truth? Had you married at your majority, you might have born one, two, even ten sons by now. Not all of them would be old enough to bear a sword yet, but what about your cousins, your aunts, to say nothing of your nonexistent sisters?”\n\n“That’s not fair–”\n\n“It is the truth! Look at your young sorceress there, Mael. In her virgin womb, in the virgin wombs of every sorceress in the kingdom for the last five hundred years, is your army. Did you ever drag them here to your castle and make of them the demands you now make of me? Did you ever tell them, even once, that it was their duty to their king, to their people, to their very race, to give Elebrion the warriors she would one day need? Or do you think to make warriors of them now, to see virgin bellies never swollen with child raped with spears and swords instead?”\n\nThe High King looked at his niece and sighed. “What’s done is done, Bessarias. There is no point in engaging in recriminations of past errors. See, I will admit it. You were right. Does that give you joy, to know that your proclamations of doom are upon us at last?”\n\n“Even now you seek to shirk your duty! You inquire as to my feelings? The only feeling of mine that needs concern you is my answer! It is no! Absolutely and unequivocally no! All the abuse of my accursed powers will buy you is time, and what use is a few more years to a king who has wasted centuries? No, Mael, the Collegium will not save you from your misrule this time; better you humble yourself in the sight of the Most High God and perhaps the King of High Kings will grace you with the wisdom you require. I have a higher allegiance than you now, and I will not betray it as you betrayed our race!”\n\nIf the king’s face had been crimson before, it was deep scarlet now, filled with pure, unadulterated rage.\n\n“I could have your head for that!”\n\nBessarias laughed. “Look at me! Look at this broken body! Do you think I fear death?”\n\n“I have not failed our race! Not yet!”\n\n“Have you not?”\n\nThe furious High King locked eyes with the decrepit Magistras, and it was the king who looked away first. There was a long moment of silence, and when the king finally spoke again, his voice was subdued. If it was not humble, it was at least conciliatory.\n\n“If you will not serve me with your magic, then perhaps you will consent to serve me with your wisdom, Bessarias. Our need is dire, and I do not exaggerate the danger. The day that you foresaw is now upon us, and so perhaps you will be able to see another answer, one that I cannot.”\n\n“Wisdom?” Bessarias snorted dismissively. “I have none to give. But I will do for you, and for our kind, what conscience allows, Majesty. And my first counsel is this: do not give into despair, my friend! Elebrion is not the Elves. If the Elves must flee the White City, then you must be at the forefront of their flight. Fly to Merithaim, or to Kir Donas, and over the seas to the lands beyond if need be. To preserve and protect your people is your first and foremost duty, High King. Do not let pride or shame tell you otherwise. Ignominy is not death, it merely feels like it to one who knows nothing of death’s cold touch. You were right to say that what is done is done. There is no need to dwell upon the past. All that matters now is what you do next.”\n\nThe High King nodded absently. His eyes were unfocused, as if he gazed upon something distant in time as well as space. Then he blinked, and stepped forward to take Bessarias’s hands in his own. “Forgive me, old friend. You speak truths that are hard to hear.”\n\n“The truth usually is.” When the king released him, Bessarias stepped back and bowed, to the crown, if not the younger elf. “As you have need of me, I shall be at your service for whatever days remain to me, High King.”\n\nMael nodded curtly and turned to Caitlys. “Take him to the Crown Prince’s chambers. My son will not be needing them now that he is in the field.”\n\n“As you wish, Majesty.” She offered her arm to Bessarias, a little coldly. “My lord Magistras, if you will come with me?”\n\nAngry or not, Lady Shadowsong had not forgotten her place as a lady of the court. They walked slowly from the chamber together. Bessarias looked back over his shoulder and saw the High King staring silently at the little ivory figurines as if he could multiply them by the sheer intensity of his gaze.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2039, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch26_bereth-P1", "chapter": "ch26_bereth", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMellt — Lassarian’s warhawk; keep spelling.\nLassarian / Lasri — sky-rider; Lasri in familiar address.\nRhian — sky-rider partner; keep spelling.\nIlriathas / Ilri / Lord Kelethan — absent suitor; forms as used.\nTir Diffaith — fortress name; keep spelling.\nLord Oakenheart — High Guard commander; both words.\nTerfielon — mage of the delayed poison; keep spelling.\nElder Sister / Little Sister — moons; capitalize as written.\nSplit Rock River — warband name in roster find; keep form.\ncatrodau brenhinol — royal infantry; keep Welsh form.\nwolfrider — goblin wolf-cavalry; one word.\n\n### STORY\nAfter Merlian dies to a bolt during her mercy-shot on captive Gelrinas, Bereth abandons gear and flees canopy to canopy with wolfriders hunting her scent.\nShe wakes to orcs under her oak, escapes through the trees, and is lifted out by Lassarian and Rhian on warhawks before shamans seize Rhian’s bird mid-flight.\nShe breaks the possession by finding the casting shaman; the High Guard rejoins a running fight of royal foot and Malchderas’s horse against the Great Orc’s host.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nHigh Guard sky-archer, Merlian dead, now riding behind Lassarian on Mellt. Alive, emaciated from weeks of patrol, contributions narrowed to spotting and archery. Bored enough to sport with Lassarian in the air though she will neither bond nor grant the Seventh Pleasure. Knows Ilriathas bought her an egg and is seldom in camp. Sees flayed sentries and concludes the Horse Lord will not risk cavalry on the boars; Prince-General will fall back on Tir Diffaith unless the boars can be hurt.\n\nLassarian\nDevil-may-care sky-rider; accepts her in-flight teasing without camp talk. Present on Mellt for the night poison mission.\n\nRhian\nLead rider of the two-hawk patrol; knows about the affair; flies them to the pond with Terfielon.\n\nTerfielon\nMage she finds for delayed poison; polite then interested; proposes moonrise-triggered inert-to-poison transmutation; present at the pond with his bottles.\n\nLord Oakenheart\nHigh Guard commander; approved the pond plan without hesitation; not present at the water.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe wasn’t the only one concerned about the approaching artillery. She heard four horn blasts and looked up to see a purple burst of light in the direction of the Prince-General’s quintad. Fall back. She felt Mellt begin to rise and arc away from the approaching artillery and saw that the other triads were also retreating.\n\nShe could hear shouts coming from the infantry below and saw they were reforming and turning their backs on the great mass of the approaching orcs. Victorious once more, the catrodau brenhinol began marching south, their long legs setting a pace that would soon leave the orcs far behind. Wolfriders might have caught them, but the enemy light cavalry was shattered and Lord Malchderas’s heavy cavalry still held the blood-soaked field littered with dead and dying goblins.\n\nThey rose about one hundred lathaid then circled around, lazily holding a position where they could still strike if ordered. She rather hoped they would not, though. The orcs were too obviously prepared for them.\n\n“What is he waiting for?” she asked Lassarian anxiously. The cavalry commander was still calmly holding his ground, his oversized regiment arrayed in perfect order, lances high, behind him. Were it not for their blood-spattered surcoats and the corpses surrounding them on every side, they might have been on review in Elebrion’s central square.\n\nThe drums continued to boom and the orcs marched on. Now she could hear the roar of their angry shouting. The slaughter had enraged them, and the sight of the small body of elven horse responsible only seemed to inflame them further. But just as they were approaching within what Bereth considered to be the effective range of the orc bows, Malchderas’s standard bearer raised and lowered the Sun-and-Mountain banner and the knights kicked their horses into a gallop, riding east across the face of their furious foe in one last mocking gesture of defiance before turning south and abandoning the field to the Great Orc.\n\nShe could feel Lassarian shaking as he laughed. She didn’t see much humor in it, though. For as the big warhawk rose higher into the reddening sky, she looked down and saw that despite all of the casualties inflicted upon it over the course of the afternoon, the massive army below looked every bit as imposing as it had before the battle began. And as it marched inexorably southward over what had been the battlefield, with the hooves of warboars and the booted feet of orcs tromping carelessly over the broken bodies of the slain, it looked as if no battle had been fought there at all.\n\n### NOTES\nTwo weeks of patrol and skirmish after the last set-piece; royal archers’ massed late-day shot mostly wasted.\nEnemy erects boar corrals nightly with ballistae and shaman night-guards; sleepers are flayed and impaled.\nPond lies on the enemy march line beside an embankment suited as two sides of a corral; stream west is fresher for the main host.\nGreat Orc fields about seven thousand five hundred heavy boar cavalry.\nNight mission; Little Sister not yet risen when they land.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nTwo weeks of ragged patrol leave the High Guard spotting banners and wasting arrows; she kills a shaman and goblin officer for a worthless Split Rock roster and watches flayed sentries prove why the boars stay untouchable. Boredom pulls her into midair sport with Lassarian while Ilriathas stays busy at the White City. She spots a pond-and-embankment corral site, argues past Lassarian’s horror of poisoning the Land, and finds Terfielon, who offers an inert brew that becomes poison at Elder Sister’s rise. Oakenheart approves at once. Exhausted, she eats and sleeps while the mage prepares, then flies night with Rhian, Lassarian, and Terfielon to the rock wall. She confirms the site and three-to-four hundred boars’ worth of ground. Terfielon kneels with his bottles and dismisses them until Little Sister rises. The scene ends on that dismissal at the water’s edge.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2000 words. Patrol weariness and practical cruelty; no romance yet. Land on the mage dismissing them at the pond — do not start the wait-apart beat.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "For the next two weeks, there were no more battles as such. Instead, the High Guard found themselves flown ragged in a seemingly endless routine of patrolling and skirmishing. The only engagement permitted by the prince-general was a surprise attack conducted by all ten regiments of the royal archers in the late afternoon when the enemy’s daily march was coming to an end and the orcs had grown tired and careless. They poured hundreds of arrows into the massed enemy before the Great Orc responded by sending out his wolfriders to drive them off, but the attack was brief, limited and to little avail. By Bereth’s account, between the wooden shields of the infantry, the metal armor of the elite troops, and the occasional shaman’s spell, seven in ten of their arrows had been wasted.\n\nShe had been riding on the back of Mellt high over the chaotic mass of orcs and goblins below when the attack was launched, with orders to ascertain how effective it was. And, although it pained her as one whose useful contributions were now essentially limited to spotting and archery, she was forced to conclude that the royal archers’ attack was almost entirely ineffective. Even aside from the risks that had been run, the attack had not been not worth the number of arrows loosed and lost, and which would now require replacement.\n\nMost of their patrols were without incident, and involved little more than flying back and forth around the perimeter of the enemy army, keeping track of the various tribal banners and seeing if any targets of opportunity presented themselves in a sufficiently low-risk manner. Bereth herself killed one orc shaman she’d spotted surreptitiously separating himself from the march as he disappeared into a nearby woods with a goblin officer, presumably intending to slake an illicit appetite.\n\nBut before they’d managed to do so, Lassarian landed Mellt on a sturdy tree branch nearby, Bereth climbed down low enough to obtain an unobstructed shot, and promptly put two arrows through the shaman and one through the officer. Neither of them turned out to have much of value on their bodies, but she did find a tattered skin covered with crude orcish runes on it. The next day, she was informed that it was a duty roster belonging to the Split Rock River warband, which unfortunately told Lord Oakenheart little more than the fact that such a warband existed. And, presumably, was in need of a new captain.\n\nBut every shaman they could kill now was one less to imperil their own mages come the inevitable day of battle. Such opportunities were rare, however, as the sky hunters were themselves hunted from the ground. Rare was the day that bolts were not launched into the air at them, more as a warning not to come any closer than as an actual attack. No more attempts at possessing a hawk were made, though whether that was because the elves were maintaining a sufficient distance or because the first attempt failed was impossible to say.\n\nIt was out of boredom, more than anything, that she began to sport with Lassarian. She wasn’t particularly attracted to him, and he knew as well as anyone that she would neither bond with him nor grant him the Seventh Pleasure. But it passed the time, she found his devil-may-care attitude to be contagious, and it amused her to reach around and start caressing him when they were flying close enough for Rhian, or whoever was flying lead in the two-hawk patrol at the time, to see them.\n\nHe would curse at her and break formation, but she could tell by the way he relaxed and leaned back against her that he wasn’t about to tell her to stop. They never spoke about it back at camp, nor did he treat her any differently than before, but once or twice she saw Ilriathas staring at Lassarian suspiciously, as if he had some inkling of what was happening up in the sky.\n\nWell, it wasn’t Ilri’s affair anyhow, she reminded herself. He didn’t own her simply because he’d bought her an egg and it wasn’t as if she was doing anything wrong. She didn’t see him often now anyhow, as he was seldom in the camp, being caught up in various other aspects of the defense preparations back at the White City.\n\nIt was becoming increasingly clear that those preparations would be needed, because try as they might, they could not spot any obvious weak links in the Great Orc’s defenses. The crude boar corrals were erected each evening, with one ballista pointing at the sky in each cardinal direction and at least one goblin shaman assigned to the night guards, who were, for orcs, uncommonly vigilant. They learned why one clear morning, when Mellt flew over a corral that was just being dismantled, and they saw two orcs, both of which had been flayed of every fragment of their green skin, being impaled upon a pair of spears. Given that the impalements were taking place in front of at least a battalion of orcs being actively harangued by a large officer wearing the armor of a boar rider, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened.\n\n“I’ve never seen orcs that disciplined before,” Lassarian commented as they circled above the bloody scene below. “Do you think they fell asleep at their posts or something?”\n\nBereth nodded thoughtfully. “No wonder we haven’t been able to get at their damned boars. And if we can’t, the Horse Lord won’t risk his cavalry against them. The prince-general will have no choice but to fall back inside Tir Diffaith.”\n\nTwo days later, however, Bereth noticed a moderately sized pond that was not only in the path of the enemy’s line of march, but was near a large embankment that would readily serve as two sides of an oversized corral.\n\n“Lasri, look at that,” she pointed it out to him. “Doesn’t that look like the sort of place the orcs would put their boars for the night?”\n\n“Yeah, so?”\n\n“So that pond is where the boars will be watered. The stream to the west is where most of the army will drink because it’s moving and fresher. But can you imagine the boarherds bothering to do that with a closer supply right there?”\n\n“What about it? They always make a couple of goblins taste the water, so poisoning it wouldn’t work even if Lord Oakenheart would agree to it.” Lasri’s voice dripped with disdain. As was the case with most elves, the thought of intentionally fouling and defiling the Land as if they were no better than orcs or men was utterly abhorrent to him. Moreover, while poisoning the water supplies might be an effective tactic against some armies, it was known that the orcs would simply make do in the absence of water by drinking the blood of their allies.\n\nConsidering that every previous orc invasion had been eventually turned back, it was strongly felt that poisoning the waters for years in return for reducing the number of goblins by one-quarter was not a reasonable exchange. But poisoning one specific body of water might well be worth it, particularly if it could whittle down the number of warboars available to the Great Orc. But how to do it? It was possible that the orcs wouldn’t bother to check that particular pond, but that seemed highly unlikely considering the heightened level of discipline to which those watching over the boars were subjected.\n\nWhat if the effects of the poison could be delayed a little? A smaller dose wouldn’t work, she knew, because anything that was sufficient to harm one of the huge boars, even over time, would outright kill a goblin. She shrugged and decided to ask one of mages about it when they got back to camp.\n\nIt took her nearly until sundown to find a mage who wasn’t too busy to talk to her. She hadn’t met him before, but he was easy to identify as he was the only elf in the vicinity who wasn’t wearing either armor or flying leathers. He listened to her with polite indifference at first, but as she described the problem, his eyes gradually brightened with interest.\n\n“You need a way to keep the poison inert until it can be undetectably administered to the beasts,” he commented. “It’s not a delay, to be precise, although I suppose you could describe it that way if you insist.”\n\n“It’s not a delay?”\n\n“Let us call it an effectual delay. To be more precise, the poison will not actually be a poison until it is transmuted. Would you prefer to trigger the transmutation at the time of your choosing? Or would you prefer the spell to be linked to the heavens? I would recommend basing it upon the rising of Elder Sister.”\n\n“You can do that?”\n\n“Most certainly. The moons are a most potent and reliable triggering element. There are those who utilize certain stars and occultations, and there are advantages to that approach, but since your only real concern is that the beasts can safely be assumed to have drunk their fill before the transmutation, a moonrise should admirably serve the purpose. What poison did you have in mind?”\n\nBereth confessed that she didn’t know what her options might be, but to forestall what she anticipated would be a long-winded lecture on various alternatives, she suggested that they find Lord Oakenheart and ask him to make the decision. Upon being approached, the High Guard commander immediately grasped the potential strategic benefit to be gained, and approved her plan to magically poison the pond without hesitation.\n\nIt took the mage, whose name was Terfielon, until sundown to complete his preparations. Bereth, who was exhausted and so emaciated from day after day of flying that she could now count her ribs when she took her blouse off, took advantage of the delay to eat a hearty lunch, then sleep. She was much refreshed by the time Rhian and Lassarian flew her and Terfielon through the night sky and landed next to the small body of water.\n\n“Is this it?” The mage wasn’t dubious, he simply wanted confirmation.\n\n“Yes, I’m sure,” she called back, running her hand along the rock wall that would so tempt the boar herders, as it would save them time erecting their nightly corral. She estimated that they could probably fit 350 boars in the area, perhaps 400. That wouldn’t account for even one-in-ten of the Great Orc’s seven thousand, five hundred-strong heavy cavalry force, but it would be the first real blow inflicted upon his army since the march began.\n\nIt was hard, she thought, to defeat an enemy who devoured more of its own soldiers in a single day than it lost in week of skirmishes. Despite being nearly devoid of elven casualties, even Lord Malchderas’s remarkable victory had accomplished little more than save the orcs the trouble of chasing down their smaller allies in order to make stew of them.\n\nTerfielon had brought a small wicker basket of sorts, and he kneeled down by the pond before withdrawing several bottles, each of which he examined closely before turning to the others to dismiss them.\n", "completion": "For the next two weeks, there were no more battles as such. Instead, the High Guard found themselves flown ragged in a seemingly endless routine of patrolling and skirmishing. The only engagement permitted by the prince-general was a surprise attack conducted by all ten regiments of the royal archers in the late afternoon when the enemy’s daily march was coming to an end and the orcs had grown tired and careless. They poured hundreds of arrows into the massed enemy before the Great Orc responded by sending out his wolfriders to drive them off, but the attack was brief, limited and to little avail. By Bereth’s account, between the wooden shields of the infantry, the metal armor of the elite troops, and the occasional shaman’s spell, seven in ten of their arrows had been wasted.\n\nShe had been riding on the back of Mellt high over the chaotic mass of orcs and goblins below when the attack was launched, with orders to ascertain how effective it was. And, although it pained her as one whose useful contributions were now essentially limited to spotting and archery, she was forced to conclude that the royal archers’ attack was almost entirely ineffective. Even aside from the risks that had been run, the attack had not been not worth the number of arrows loosed and lost, and which would now require replacement.\n\nMost of their patrols were without incident, and involved little more than flying back and forth around the perimeter of the enemy army, keeping track of the various tribal banners and seeing if any targets of opportunity presented themselves in a sufficiently low-risk manner. Bereth herself killed one orc shaman she’d spotted surreptitiously separating himself from the march as he disappeared into a nearby woods with a goblin officer, presumably intending to slake an illicit appetite.\n\nBut before they’d managed to do so, Lassarian landed Mellt on a sturdy tree branch nearby, Bereth climbed down low enough to obtain an unobstructed shot, and promptly put two arrows through the shaman and one through the officer. Neither of them turned out to have much of value on their bodies, but she did find a tattered skin covered with crude orcish runes on it. The next day, she was informed that it was a duty roster belonging to the Split Rock River warband, which unfortunately told Lord Oakenheart little more than the fact that such a warband existed. And, presumably, was in need of a new captain.\n\nBut every shaman they could kill now was one less to imperil their own mages come the inevitable day of battle. Such opportunities were rare, however, as the sky hunters were themselves hunted from the ground. Rare was the day that bolts were not launched into the air at them, more as a warning not to come any closer than as an actual attack. No more attempts at possessing a hawk were made, though whether that was because the elves were maintaining a sufficient distance or because the first attempt failed was impossible to say.\n\nIt was out of boredom, more than anything, that she began to sport with Lassarian. She wasn’t particularly attracted to him, and he knew as well as anyone that she would neither bond with him nor grant him the Seventh Pleasure. But it passed the time, she found his devil-may-care attitude to be contagious, and it amused her to reach around and start caressing him when they were flying close enough for Rhian, or whoever was flying lead in the two-hawk patrol at the time, to see them.\n\nHe would curse at her and break formation, but she could tell by the way he relaxed and leaned back against her that he wasn’t about to tell her to stop. They never spoke about it back at camp, nor did he treat her any differently than before, but once or twice she saw Ilriathas staring at Lassarian suspiciously, as if he had some inkling of what was happening up in the sky.\n\nWell, it wasn’t Ilri’s affair anyhow, she reminded herself. He didn’t own her simply because he’d bought her an egg and it wasn’t as if she was doing anything wrong. She didn’t see him often now anyhow, as he was seldom in the camp, being caught up in various other aspects of the defense preparations back at the White City.\n\nIt was becoming increasingly clear that those preparations would be needed, because try as they might, they could not spot any obvious weak links in the Great Orc’s defenses. The crude boar corrals were erected each evening, with one ballista pointing at the sky in each cardinal direction and at least one goblin shaman assigned to the night guards, who were, for orcs, uncommonly vigilant. They learned why one clear morning, when Mellt flew over a corral that was just being dismantled, and they saw two orcs, both of which had been flayed of every fragment of their green skin, being impaled upon a pair of spears. Given that the impalements were taking place in front of at least a battalion of orcs being actively harangued by a large officer wearing the armor of a boar rider, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened.\n\n“I’ve never seen orcs that disciplined before,” Lassarian commented as they circled above the bloody scene below. “Do you think they fell asleep at their posts or something?”\n\nBereth nodded thoughtfully. “No wonder we haven’t been able to get at their damned boars. And if we can’t, the Horse Lord won’t risk his cavalry against them. The prince-general will have no choice but to fall back inside Tir Diffaith.”\n\nTwo days later, however, Bereth noticed a moderately sized pond that was not only in the path of the enemy’s line of march, but was near a large embankment that would readily serve as two sides of an oversized corral.\n\n“Lasri, look at that,” she pointed it out to him. “Doesn’t that look like the sort of place the orcs would put their boars for the night?”\n\n“Yeah, so?”\n\n“So that pond is where the boars will be watered. The stream to the west is where most of the army will drink because it’s moving and fresher. But can you imagine the boarherds bothering to do that with a closer supply right there?”\n\n“What about it? They always make a couple of goblins taste the water, so poisoning it wouldn’t work even if Lord Oakenheart would agree to it.” Lasri’s voice dripped with disdain. As was the case with most elves, the thought of intentionally fouling and defiling the Land as if they were no better than orcs or men was utterly abhorrent to him. Moreover, while poisoning the water supplies might be an effective tactic against some armies, it was known that the orcs would simply make do in the absence of water by drinking the blood of their allies.\n\nConsidering that every previous orc invasion had been eventually turned back, it was strongly felt that poisoning the waters for years in return for reducing the number of goblins by one-quarter was not a reasonable exchange. But poisoning one specific body of water might well be worth it, particularly if it could whittle down the number of warboars available to the Great Orc. But how to do it? It was possible that the orcs wouldn’t bother to check that particular pond, but that seemed highly unlikely considering the heightened level of discipline to which those watching over the boars were subjected.\n\nWhat if the effects of the poison could be delayed a little? A smaller dose wouldn’t work, she knew, because anything that was sufficient to harm one of the huge boars, even over time, would outright kill a goblin. She shrugged and decided to ask one of mages about it when they got back to camp.\n\nIt took her nearly until sundown to find a mage who wasn’t too busy to talk to her. She hadn’t met him before, but he was easy to identify as he was the only elf in the vicinity who wasn’t wearing either armor or flying leathers. He listened to her with polite indifference at first, but as she described the problem, his eyes gradually brightened with interest.\n\n“You need a way to keep the poison inert until it can be undetectably administered to the beasts,” he commented. “It’s not a delay, to be precise, although I suppose you could describe it that way if you insist.”\n\n“It’s not a delay?”\n\n“Let us call it an effectual delay. To be more precise, the poison will not actually be a poison until it is transmuted. Would you prefer to trigger the transmutation at the time of your choosing? Or would you prefer the spell to be linked to the heavens? I would recommend basing it upon the rising of Elder Sister.”\n\n“You can do that?”\n\n“Most certainly. The moons are a most potent and reliable triggering element. There are those who utilize certain stars and occultations, and there are advantages to that approach, but since your only real concern is that the beasts can safely be assumed to have drunk their fill before the transmutation, a moonrise should admirably serve the purpose. What poison did you have in mind?”\n\nBereth confessed that she didn’t know what her options might be, but to forestall what she anticipated would be a long-winded lecture on various alternatives, she suggested that they find Lord Oakenheart and ask him to make the decision. Upon being approached, the High Guard commander immediately grasped the potential strategic benefit to be gained, and approved her plan to magically poison the pond without hesitation.\n\nIt took the mage, whose name was Terfielon, until sundown to complete his preparations. Bereth, who was exhausted and so emaciated from day after day of flying that she could now count her ribs when she took her blouse off, took advantage of the delay to eat a hearty lunch, then sleep. She was much refreshed by the time Rhian and Lassarian flew her and Terfielon through the night sky and landed next to the small body of water.\n\n“Is this it?” The mage wasn’t dubious, he simply wanted confirmation.\n\n“Yes, I’m sure,” she called back, running her hand along the rock wall that would so tempt the boar herders, as it would save them time erecting their nightly corral. She estimated that they could probably fit 350 boars in the area, perhaps 400. That wouldn’t account for even one-in-ten of the Great Orc’s seven thousand, five hundred-strong heavy cavalry force, but it would be the first real blow inflicted upon his army since the march began.\n\nIt was hard, she thought, to defeat an enemy who devoured more of its own soldiers in a single day than it lost in week of skirmishes. Despite being nearly devoid of elven casualties, even Lord Malchderas’s remarkable victory had accomplished little more than save the orcs the trouble of chasing down their smaller allies in order to make stew of them.\n\nTerfielon had brought a small wicker basket of sorts, and he kneeled down by the pond before withdrawing several bottles, each of which he examined closely before turning to the others to dismiss them.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1925, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch26_bereth-P2", "chapter": "ch26_bereth", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMellt / Awyrllid — warhawks; keep spellings.\nLassarian / Lasri — keep forms.\nRhian — keep spelling.\nTerfielon — mage at the pond; keep spelling.\nLittle Sister — triggering moon; capitalize.\ncatrodau brenhinol — in Lasri’s joke; keep form.\nwolfrider — one word.\n\n### STORY\nAfter weeks of sky patrol and a failed royal-archer volley, Bereth kills a shaman for a poor roster, spots a pond-and-embankment corral site, and sells Terfielon and Oakenheart on a moonrise-triggered poison; they land at night and the mage dismisses them while he works.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nAt the night pond with Lassarian while Terfielon works and Rhian naps. Bow left on Mellt; knives only. Not bonded to Lasri; wartime affair only. Will use herself as bait for wolfriders when he asks.\n\nLassarian\nEager to finish the scouts rather than warn the mage; plans to draw them with her scent; kills the first goblin; fails to stop the second’s flight.\n\nRhian\nKnew about the affair; naps then wakes when Awyrllid scents wolves; kills the fleeing goblin from above and drops the corpses near them.\n\nTerfielon\nWorking the inert poison alone until Little Sister; vulgar when interrupted; still at the water.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Let us call it an effectual delay. To be more precise, the poison will not actually be a poison until it is transmuted. Would you prefer to trigger the transmutation at the time of your choosing? Or would you prefer the spell to be linked to the heavens? I would recommend basing it upon the rising of Elder Sister.”\n\n“You can do that?”\n\n“Most certainly. The moons are a most potent and reliable triggering element. There are those who utilize certain stars and occultations, and there are advantages to that approach, but since your only real concern is that the beasts can safely be assumed to have drunk their fill before the transmutation, a moonrise should admirably serve the purpose. What poison did you have in mind?”\n\nBereth confessed that she didn’t know what her options might be, but to forestall what she anticipated would be a long-winded lecture on various alternatives, she suggested that they find Lord Oakenheart and ask him to make the decision. Upon being approached, the High Guard commander immediately grasped the potential strategic benefit to be gained, and approved her plan to magically poison the pond without hesitation.\n\nIt took the mage, whose name was Terfielon, until sundown to complete his preparations. Bereth, who was exhausted and so emaciated from day after day of flying that she could now count her ribs when she took her blouse off, took advantage of the delay to eat a hearty lunch, then sleep. She was much refreshed by the time Rhian and Lassarian flew her and Terfielon through the night sky and landed next to the small body of water.\n\n“Is this it?” The mage wasn’t dubious, he simply wanted confirmation.\n\n“Yes, I’m sure,” she called back, running her hand along the rock wall that would so tempt the boar herders, as it would save them time erecting their nightly corral. She estimated that they could probably fit 350 boars in the area, perhaps 400. That wouldn’t account for even one-in-ten of the Great Orc’s seven thousand, five hundred-strong heavy cavalry force, but it would be the first real blow inflicted upon his army since the march began.\n\nIt was hard, she thought, to defeat an enemy who devoured more of its own soldiers in a single day than it lost in week of skirmishes. Despite being nearly devoid of elven casualties, even Lord Malchderas’s remarkable victory had accomplished little more than save the orcs the trouble of chasing down their smaller allies in order to make stew of them.\n\nTerfielon had brought a small wicker basket of sorts, and he kneeled down by the pond before withdrawing several bottles, each of which he examined closely before turning to the others to dismiss them.\n\n### NOTES\nNight at the rock wall beside the target pond; Little Sister not yet risen.\nTwo hawks tethered on the bank; Bereth’s bow on Mellt.\nTwo goblin wolfriders approach from the northwest with the wind toward them.\nBodies must not be left for the morning orc column.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nTerfielon wants them gone until Little Sister; Rhian admits he knew about her and Lasri and shoos them off while the mage swears filth. Behind the wall Lasri kisses her hard; she stops him for running paws—wolves. Bow still on Mellt, she lets him set her as scent-bait east while he waits. Two goblin riders come; he guts the first; the second flees when she shows herself too soon. Rhian’s hawk takes the runner from above and dumps corpse and dying wolf on the rock; she makes Lasri cut the wolf’s throat. Rhian mocks the thick plan, they agree the birds will haul the bodies clear, and they turn back toward the mage before second moonrise. The scene ends on Rhian’s laugh about scaring Lasri — not yet the next day’s return.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1900 words. Night tension and crude banter; kill concrete. Land on the body-disposal beat; do not cut to the next day’s flight.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“This will take me some time to prepare. I can’t cast the spell until Little Sister rises and I’d prefer not to work with the three of you looking over my shoulder, or worse, asking questions.”\n\nLassarian glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. Bereth narrowed her eyes and shook her head. Was he mad? They were on a mission, and roving night scouts or a scavenging party could catch their scent at any time.\n\nRhian stretched and yawned. “I was on patrol last night and this afternoon, so I’m going to take a nap. Go far enough away so I don’t have to listen to you two, will you?”\n\n“What?” Bereth stared at him. “You knew?”\n\n“You were hardly subtle about it, my dear. Now do go on and wipe that damned smirk off Lasri’s face.”\n\n“Just because we got friendly a time or two doesn’t mean we’re going to run off to the shadows every time we happen to–”\n\nThe mage interrupted her with an unexpectedly vulgar invitation for all three of them to be alternatively raped by boars, cooked by orcs, or devoured by wolves, as they happened to see fit. Rhian shooed them off with a gesture and Bereth took Lassarian’s hand as he led her, stifling his laughter, away from the irritated mage. The handsome raider managed to control himself until they were on the other side of the rock wall, when he burst out into a fit of laughter.\n\nShe didn’t see what was so funny, but the sight of him laughing made her laugh, until Lassarian finally got himself under control.\n\n“Oh, I’m sorry. It was just that I didn’t expect Lord Magister stick-up-his-arse there to have such a filthy mouth on him! I think he may have missed his true calling as a sergeant in the catrodau brenhinol.”\n\n“He wasn’t very nice.”\n\n“Unlike me,” Lassarian murmured as he pulled her to him. “I can be very nice indeed.” He kissed her hard, forcibly, urgently, and she let herself melt into him. He meant nothing to her, well, not precisely nothing, but she knew very well that theirs was just a wartime affair, the inevitable product of time and proximity. But he was tall and forceful and sure of himself, and he inflamed her senses in a way that Ilriathas, Lord Kelethan, for all his noble heart and staunch loyalty, never had.\n\n“Stop,” she said suddenly, trying to pull back from Lassarian. “Stop!”\n\n“Now why would I do that?”\n\n“Listen!” she hissed. Something in her voice broke though his focused passion and she felt him tense as he leaned back from her and cocked his head. “You hear that?”\n\nIt was a soft, distant sound, but the repetitive nature of it was unmistakable. Something, or rather several somethings, was running. Then she knew what it was.\n\n“Wolves!” they both said at the same time.\n\n“We should warn Rhian and the mage,” she said.\n\n“We can’t let them get away,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “No time. And if they catch our scent then turn around to head back north, that might ruin your plan. The orcs might suspect something is up.”\n\n“My bow is back on Mellt!” she said, panicked. The two hawks were tethered on the banks of the pond.\n\n“Relax,” he urged her, running his hands over her backside, then squeezing her hips. “You have your daggers. I have a sword. What more do we need?”\n\n“Depends how many there are. Shhh!”\n\n“I make two,” he said after a moment of silence.\n\n“Me too.” She pointed to the northwest. “That way. With the wind, they’ll have our scent soon.”\n\nHe nodded and pointed east. “Go that way, just a little ways. Stay close enough that you’ll be able to see me. I’ll climb up on the wall and jump them from behind.”\n\n“How do you know they’ll go after me? They might scent you.”\n\nLassarian chuckled. “You’re female and you haven’t bathed in three days. They’ve been without their she-gobbos and dodging randy orcs for months. I could probably stand here waving my magic wand at them and they’d ride right past.”\n\nShe sighed, then couldn’t help laughing. It was ridiculous, but no doubt he was right. No matter what the species, males tended to become single-minded when deprived. She watched as Lasri clambered easily up the rock wall, then drew her blades and began jogging in the direction he’d indicated. She could just about see him in the light of Big Sister when he waved and abruptly disappeared. For a moment, her heart leaped into her mouth, then she realized he’d probably just dropped to his belly so the goblins wouldn’t spy him as they approached. If she squinted, she could see a glint of light reflecting from metal that was almost surely his drawn sword.\n\nBereth still couldn’t see the wolfriders, but she could hear the beat of the wolves’ paws getting louder. Then they must have caught her scent on the night wind, because there was a howl that sounded disturbingly close, followed by sound of the footfalls picking up their pace. She finally caught a glimpse of them less than a half-bowshot beyond the rock wall, ghosting towards her like something out of a nightmare.\n\nThe gray fur of the wolves and the sickly yellow-green skin of the goblins made them hard to see in the dark, but they came into focus as they approached the rock. The wolves were sizable, but thin, and their ribs were showing. The goblins weren’t much better, and their faces were gaunt and stretched into rictus grins of bestial excitement. Whether it was lust or hunger that drove them, she could not tell, but even in the darkness and at a distance, their desperation was palpable in their every movement.\n\nAnd, as Lassarian anticipated, their desperation made them blind to their danger. He rose silently to his feet as the pair of wolves approached his position, then leaped lightly down from the rocks, swinging his sword as he dropped on the right side of the closer wolf. His timing was perfect; the drop gave his sword additional force, and its sharp blade sliced cleanly through the neck of the beast, eliciting a scream from its rider at the sudden appearance of this deadly apparition.\n\nThe scream caused the other rider to veer to its left, away from its companion, who was tumbling side-over-side, its feet still entangled in the rope stirrups on the headless wolf’s body. Before it could disentangle itself, Lassarian was already on top of it, and with a quick slash followed by a back-handed thrust, the goblin’s throat was opened before its mouth was filled with elvish steel. Lassarian placed his boot on the dying goblin’s chest and jerked his sword out of its head.\n\nThe goblin circled around, its yellow eyes filled with uncertainty. Lassarian beckoned to it with his free hand, but his long sword dripping blood was enough to dissuade it from attacking. The wolf whined and took a step towards her, but the goblin took one look at the daggers in her hands and clearly decided it was in over its head. It yanked at the crude leather reins to pull the wolf’s head around and kicked the beast into a galloping retreat.\n\n“Dammit!” Lassarian swore, watching helplessly as the wolfrider disappeared into the darkness, fleeing to the dubious safety of the north.\n\n“Do something!” Bereth shouted.\n\n“Like what?”\n\nNeither of them noticed the momentary flicker as a dark shape briefly obscured the risen moon. Bereth sheathed her daggers and stomped over towards Lassarian, who was cleaning his sword on the rags worn by the goblin he’d killed.\n\n“We’d better hope they weren’t part of a larger patrol. What if they come back here before that mage is finished with his cursed spell. The other moon ain’t risen yet.”\n\n“Oh, no!” Bereth hadn’t thought of that. She’d been thinking about the orcs being warned off the water. The idea that they might actually be in danger tonight didn’t cross her mind. “We’d better go tell him to hurry up, if he can!”\n\n“Watch out!”\n\nThey both jumped at the sound of a voice calling out from above them. A moment later, a pair of thickly wet thumps were accompanied by a cracking sound as something, two somethings, struck the ground right in front of them.\n\nIt was a goblin and his wolf. Or rather, the corpse of a goblin and his dying wolf. The beast, bleeding from three massive puncture wounds in its side, bared its teeth at them and tried to push itself up, but whimpered in pain as its broken forelegs couldn’t bear its weight.\n\n“Kill the poor thing!” Bereth put her hand over her mouth in horror.\n\n“You kill it. I just cleaned my damn blade!”\n\n“Just put it out of its misery, will you?”\n\nGrumbling under his breath, Lassarian drew his sword and flicked it across the dying animal’s throat. Blood spilled out darkly onto the ground as the wolf tried one last time to rise, then finally collapsed into death. Still grumbling, Lassarian walked over to the body of its former rider and wiped off his sword for the second time that evening.\n\n“Satisfied?”\n\n“Was that so hard? You saw how much pain the poor brute was in.”\n\nThere was a rush of strongly-scented wind, the loud ruffling of feathers, and then Rhian landed his big hawk on the rock wall above them. “Tough bastards, they are,” he called down to them. “I can’t believe the cursed thing survived the fall.”\n\n“You’re the bastard, Rhian! You nearly hit us!”\n\nHis high-pitched laughter echoed off the rocks. “I wish I could have seen your faces when that goblin hit the ground. Lassarian leaped farther than I’ve ever seen an elf jump at the Queen’s Games. And he did it backwards!”\n\n“How did you get here so fast?”\n\n“Awyrllid must have caught their scent. He was so agitated that he woke me up. Considering the two of you weren’t likely to be on your guard, I thought we’d see go up and what was out there. Not much of a plan, there, Lassarian. You shouldn’t have killed the first one right away.”\n\n“It would have worked if the other one went for Bereth like I thought he would.”\n\n“They’re goblins and scouts, my thick-headed friend. In my experience, they’re not generally known for standing and fighting to the death.”\n\n“Well, he didn’t get away, anyhow,” Lassarian said in a surly voice. “Come on, Bereth, let’s see how that blasted mage is getting on with his spell. It can’t be too much longer before second moonrise.”\n\n“What about the bodies? We can’t leave them here!”\n\n“We’ll have the birds pick them up and drop them somewhere decently far away when we leave.” Rhian laughed again. “If that won’t scare you too badly, Lasri.”\n", "completion": "“This will take me some time to prepare. I can’t cast the spell until Little Sister rises and I’d prefer not to work with the three of you looking over my shoulder, or worse, asking questions.”\n\nLassarian glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. Bereth narrowed her eyes and shook her head. Was he mad? They were on a mission, and roving night scouts or a scavenging party could catch their scent at any time.\n\nRhian stretched and yawned. “I was on patrol last night and this afternoon, so I’m going to take a nap. Go far enough away so I don’t have to listen to you two, will you?”\n\n“What?” Bereth stared at him. “You knew?”\n\n“You were hardly subtle about it, my dear. Now do go on and wipe that damned smirk off Lasri’s face.”\n\n“Just because we got friendly a time or two doesn’t mean we’re going to run off to the shadows every time we happen to–”\n\nThe mage interrupted her with an unexpectedly vulgar invitation for all three of them to be alternatively raped by boars, cooked by orcs, or devoured by wolves, as they happened to see fit. Rhian shooed them off with a gesture and Bereth took Lassarian’s hand as he led her, stifling his laughter, away from the irritated mage. The handsome raider managed to control himself until they were on the other side of the rock wall, when he burst out into a fit of laughter.\n\nShe didn’t see what was so funny, but the sight of him laughing made her laugh, until Lassarian finally got himself under control.\n\n“Oh, I’m sorry. It was just that I didn’t expect Lord Magister stick-up-his-arse there to have such a filthy mouth on him! I think he may have missed his true calling as a sergeant in the catrodau brenhinol.”\n\n“He wasn’t very nice.”\n\n“Unlike me,” Lassarian murmured as he pulled her to him. “I can be very nice indeed.” He kissed her hard, forcibly, urgently, and she let herself melt into him. He meant nothing to her, well, not precisely nothing, but she knew very well that theirs was just a wartime affair, the inevitable product of time and proximity. But he was tall and forceful and sure of himself, and he inflamed her senses in a way that Ilriathas, Lord Kelethan, for all his noble heart and staunch loyalty, never had.\n\n“Stop,” she said suddenly, trying to pull back from Lassarian. “Stop!”\n\n“Now why would I do that?”\n\n“Listen!” she hissed. Something in her voice broke though his focused passion and she felt him tense as he leaned back from her and cocked his head. “You hear that?”\n\nIt was a soft, distant sound, but the repetitive nature of it was unmistakable. Something, or rather several somethings, was running. Then she knew what it was.\n\n“Wolves!” they both said at the same time.\n\n“We should warn Rhian and the mage,” she said.\n\n“We can’t let them get away,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “No time. And if they catch our scent then turn around to head back north, that might ruin your plan. The orcs might suspect something is up.”\n\n“My bow is back on Mellt!” she said, panicked. The two hawks were tethered on the banks of the pond.\n\n“Relax,” he urged her, running his hands over her backside, then squeezing her hips. “You have your daggers. I have a sword. What more do we need?”\n\n“Depends how many there are. Shhh!”\n\n“I make two,” he said after a moment of silence.\n\n“Me too.” She pointed to the northwest. “That way. With the wind, they’ll have our scent soon.”\n\nHe nodded and pointed east. “Go that way, just a little ways. Stay close enough that you’ll be able to see me. I’ll climb up on the wall and jump them from behind.”\n\n“How do you know they’ll go after me? They might scent you.”\n\nLassarian chuckled. “You’re female and you haven’t bathed in three days. They’ve been without their she-gobbos and dodging randy orcs for months. I could probably stand here waving my magic wand at them and they’d ride right past.”\n\nShe sighed, then couldn’t help laughing. It was ridiculous, but no doubt he was right. No matter what the species, males tended to become single-minded when deprived. She watched as Lasri clambered easily up the rock wall, then drew her blades and began jogging in the direction he’d indicated. She could just about see him in the light of Big Sister when he waved and abruptly disappeared. For a moment, her heart leaped into her mouth, then she realized he’d probably just dropped to his belly so the goblins wouldn’t spy him as they approached. If she squinted, she could see a glint of light reflecting from metal that was almost surely his drawn sword.\n\nBereth still couldn’t see the wolfriders, but she could hear the beat of the wolves’ paws getting louder. Then they must have caught her scent on the night wind, because there was a howl that sounded disturbingly close, followed by sound of the footfalls picking up their pace. She finally caught a glimpse of them less than a half-bowshot beyond the rock wall, ghosting towards her like something out of a nightmare.\n\nThe gray fur of the wolves and the sickly yellow-green skin of the goblins made them hard to see in the dark, but they came into focus as they approached the rock. The wolves were sizable, but thin, and their ribs were showing. The goblins weren’t much better, and their faces were gaunt and stretched into rictus grins of bestial excitement. Whether it was lust or hunger that drove them, she could not tell, but even in the darkness and at a distance, their desperation was palpable in their every movement.\n\nAnd, as Lassarian anticipated, their desperation made them blind to their danger. He rose silently to his feet as the pair of wolves approached his position, then leaped lightly down from the rocks, swinging his sword as he dropped on the right side of the closer wolf. His timing was perfect; the drop gave his sword additional force, and its sharp blade sliced cleanly through the neck of the beast, eliciting a scream from its rider at the sudden appearance of this deadly apparition.\n\nThe scream caused the other rider to veer to its left, away from its companion, who was tumbling side-over-side, its feet still entangled in the rope stirrups on the headless wolf’s body. Before it could disentangle itself, Lassarian was already on top of it, and with a quick slash followed by a back-handed thrust, the goblin’s throat was opened before its mouth was filled with elvish steel. Lassarian placed his boot on the dying goblin’s chest and jerked his sword out of its head.\n\nThe goblin circled around, its yellow eyes filled with uncertainty. Lassarian beckoned to it with his free hand, but his long sword dripping blood was enough to dissuade it from attacking. The wolf whined and took a step towards her, but the goblin took one look at the daggers in her hands and clearly decided it was in over its head. It yanked at the crude leather reins to pull the wolf’s head around and kicked the beast into a galloping retreat.\n\n“Dammit!” Lassarian swore, watching helplessly as the wolfrider disappeared into the darkness, fleeing to the dubious safety of the north.\n\n“Do something!” Bereth shouted.\n\n“Like what?”\n\nNeither of them noticed the momentary flicker as a dark shape briefly obscured the risen moon. Bereth sheathed her daggers and stomped over towards Lassarian, who was cleaning his sword on the rags worn by the goblin he’d killed.\n\n“We’d better hope they weren’t part of a larger patrol. What if they come back here before that mage is finished with his cursed spell. The other moon ain’t risen yet.”\n\n“Oh, no!” Bereth hadn’t thought of that. She’d been thinking about the orcs being warned off the water. The idea that they might actually be in danger tonight didn’t cross her mind. “We’d better go tell him to hurry up, if he can!”\n\n“Watch out!”\n\nThey both jumped at the sound of a voice calling out from above them. A moment later, a pair of thickly wet thumps were accompanied by a cracking sound as something, two somethings, struck the ground right in front of them.\n\nIt was a goblin and his wolf. Or rather, the corpse of a goblin and his dying wolf. The beast, bleeding from three massive puncture wounds in its side, bared its teeth at them and tried to push itself up, but whimpered in pain as its broken forelegs couldn’t bear its weight.\n\n“Kill the poor thing!” Bereth put her hand over her mouth in horror.\n\n“You kill it. I just cleaned my damn blade!”\n\n“Just put it out of its misery, will you?”\n\nGrumbling under his breath, Lassarian drew his sword and flicked it across the dying animal’s throat. Blood spilled out darkly onto the ground as the wolf tried one last time to rise, then finally collapsed into death. Still grumbling, Lassarian walked over to the body of its former rider and wiped off his sword for the second time that evening.\n\n“Satisfied?”\n\n“Was that so hard? You saw how much pain the poor brute was in.”\n\nThere was a rush of strongly-scented wind, the loud ruffling of feathers, and then Rhian landed his big hawk on the rock wall above them. “Tough bastards, they are,” he called down to them. “I can’t believe the cursed thing survived the fall.”\n\n“You’re the bastard, Rhian! You nearly hit us!”\n\nHis high-pitched laughter echoed off the rocks. “I wish I could have seen your faces when that goblin hit the ground. Lassarian leaped farther than I’ve ever seen an elf jump at the Queen’s Games. And he did it backwards!”\n\n“How did you get here so fast?”\n\n“Awyrllid must have caught their scent. He was so agitated that he woke me up. Considering the two of you weren’t likely to be on your guard, I thought we’d see go up and what was out there. Not much of a plan, there, Lassarian. You shouldn’t have killed the first one right away.”\n\n“It would have worked if the other one went for Bereth like I thought he would.”\n\n“They’re goblins and scouts, my thick-headed friend. In my experience, they’re not generally known for standing and fighting to the death.”\n\n“Well, he didn’t get away, anyhow,” Lassarian said in a surly voice. “Come on, Bereth, let’s see how that blasted mage is getting on with his spell. It can’t be too much longer before second moonrise.”\n\n“What about the bodies? We can’t leave them here!”\n\n“We’ll have the birds pick them up and drop them somewhere decently far away when we leave.” Rhian laughed again. “If that won’t scare you too badly, Lasri.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1894, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch26_bereth-P3", "chapter": "ch26_bereth", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMellt — Lassarian’s hawk; keep spelling.\nLassarian / Lasri — keep forms.\nTerfielon — mage aboard another bird; keep spelling.\nAwyrllid — Rhian’s hawk; name only if present in thought.\nFeysie Sword — legendary comparison; keep spelling.\nElder Sister — moon trigger already used; capitalize.\nprince-general — lowercase title form as in narrative.\n\n### STORY\nBereth’s pond plan wins Oakenheart’s leave; at night Terfielon works a Little-Sister trigger while Rhian sends her off with Lassarian; wolfriders interrupt, Lasri kills one, Rhian takes the other from the air, and they clear the bodies before moonrise.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nFifth in a full wing returning to the watering hole with the prince-general leading. Expects success and still is not ready for the smell. Proud of the blow and sickened by it; already thinking of next tricks while her stomach turns.\n\nLassarian\nCounting corpses cheerfully; unbothered by the reek; angry when she asks if it bothers him—glad the pigs and riders are dead.\n\nprince-general\nFlying lead on a giant hawk to see if the plan worked; signals cautious descent.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nIt was a goblin and his wolf. Or rather, the corpse of a goblin and his dying wolf. The beast, bleeding from three massive puncture wounds in its side, bared its teeth at them and tried to push itself up, but whimpered in pain as its broken forelegs couldn’t bear its weight.\n\n“Kill the poor thing!” Bereth put her hand over her mouth in horror.\n\n“You kill it. I just cleaned my damn blade!”\n\n“Just put it out of its misery, will you?”\n\nGrumbling under his breath, Lassarian drew his sword and flicked it across the dying animal’s throat. Blood spilled out darkly onto the ground as the wolf tried one last time to rise, then finally collapsed into death. Still grumbling, Lassarian walked over to the body of its former rider and wiped off his sword for the second time that evening.\n\n“Satisfied?”\n\n“Was that so hard? You saw how much pain the poor brute was in.”\n\nThere was a rush of strongly-scented wind, the loud ruffling of feathers, and then Rhian landed his big hawk on the rock wall above them. “Tough bastards, they are,” he called down to them. “I can’t believe the cursed thing survived the fall.”\n\n“You’re the bastard, Rhian! You nearly hit us!”\n\nHis high-pitched laughter echoed off the rocks. “I wish I could have seen your faces when that goblin hit the ground. Lassarian leaped farther than I’ve ever seen an elf jump at the Queen’s Games. And he did it backwards!”\n\n“How did you get here so fast?”\n\n“Awyrllid must have caught their scent. He was so agitated that he woke me up. Considering the two of you weren’t likely to be on your guard, I thought we’d see go up and what was out there. Not much of a plan, there, Lassarian. You shouldn’t have killed the first one right away.”\n\n“It would have worked if the other one went for Bereth like I thought he would.”\n\n“They’re goblins and scouts, my thick-headed friend. In my experience, they’re not generally known for standing and fighting to the death.”\n\n“Well, he didn’t get away, anyhow,” Lassarian said in a surly voice. “Come on, Bereth, let’s see how that blasted mage is getting on with his spell. It can’t be too much longer before second moonrise.”\n\n“What about the bodies? We can’t leave them here!”\n\n“We’ll have the birds pick them up and drop them somewhere decently far away when we leave.” Rhian laughed again. “If that won’t scare you too badly, Lasri.”\n\n### NOTES\nNearly a full day after the poisoning; last patrol saw boar riders near the pond and withdrew as ordered.\nCarrion birds over the site before the wing breaks cloud.\nCorral holds four hundred-plus dead warboars and about one hundred twenty riders; goblins and orcs among the smaller dead; one goblin still alive in grief until a hawk ends it.\nBlack-armored orcs approach and point upward as the wing climbs away.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nA full wing returns with the prince-general to the pond; carrion birds tip them before the smell does. Below, hundreds of warboars and riders lie bloated and torn where the brew took them after watering—four hundred twelve by Lasri’s count, plus goblins and orcs around the rim. One living goblin kneels in grief until a hawk ends it; black-armored orcs point up and the wing climbs. Lasri is proud and hungry-mouthed about the work; she is green and asks how he can cheer. He snaps that he is glad they are dead. She owns the necessity, he calls it legend-work, she notes seven thousand boars remain, and her mind runs next tricks—elementals, reverse possession—while the death-count overwhelms her. The scene ends as she leans out and her stomach violently convulses.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1800 words. Aftermath without glory; smell and numbers concrete. Land on the convulsion over the side — do not cut away to camp.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It was nearly a full day later when they returned to the watering hole, this time as the fifth in a full wing of fliers. The prince-general himself was flying lead, in the hopes of seeing if their plan had come to pass. The last patrol to return had reported that a large group of boar riders had been seen in the vicinity of the pond, but as ordered, they’d retreated before the orcs got too near and became suspicious about the lingering eyes in the sky.\n\nThe mage, Terfielon, was on one of the other birds, but Rhian and Awyrllid were finally getting some much-needed rest. Bereth was a little worried about Mellt being overworked, but Lassarian reassured her that his hawk was in fine fettle.\n\n“If he doesn’t fly everyday, he starts to get bad-tempered. He’s the happiest soldier in this war.”\n\nEven so, it was hard for Mellt and the other birds to keep pace with the prince-general’s giant, with its wingspan that was a third again broader than any of the four hawks escorting him.\n\nThey were flying high above the clouds, in case there were any more surprises in store for them. Only this morning had Bereth heard that two nights ago, the orcs had moved four ballistae under cover of darkness and hidden them on a hilltop over which they knew the elven scouts would be flying upon their return from the morning patrol. Thinking that they were safe, the patrol had been flying low over the treetops and only an instinctive reaction on the part of one bird had saved both hawk and rider. Even so, one of the large bolts passed through its left wing, and even with the assistance of the other hawk, the wounded bird had barely made it back to camp. And while it would live, the High Guard would have to do without the hawk until it mended.\n\n“Look!” Lassarian shouted, pointing ahead. There was a veritable swarm of black birds intermittently visible through the clouds below them, their cries echoing through the skies. “That looks like a good sign!”\n\nIt did look rather like a sight Bereth had often seen before a battlefield, as crows, ravens, vultures, and other birds of waited impatiently for the slaughter to begin, knowing that they would eat well by evening.\n\n“They might only be there because of the camp!”\n\n“Not that many. We haven’t seen flocks like this since the Horse Lord butchered the goblin cavalry!”\n\nThe prince-general had noticed the birds too, and he raised his arm, giving the signal to descend with caution. They followed him in a gentle arc towards the ground, and Bereth slipped her bow out from the saddle and selected an arrow from her quiver. She didn’t bother to nock it yet, she just wanted to be prepared in case the orcs had placed artillery, or worse, a shaman, on top of the rock wall near the pond.\n\nThe smell hit them as they emerged from the clouds, even before their eyes took in the extent of the carnage below. Whatever lethal hellbrew of toxins Terfielon had concocted caused the boars to vomit and void their bowels before expiring, and there were scores, no hundreds, of dead animals below. Bereth choked at the dreadful odor; she couldn’t fathom how terrible it must be on the ground. She could feel Lassarian heaving, and it was only with an iron effort of will that she managed to keep herself from spewing the contents of her stomach.\n\nOne elf didn’t succeed, and he broke formation to tilt his hawk to the left and send a thin rope of vomit down to splatter amid the stinking morass of death below. The orc encampment stretched out to the north, east, and west, but there were less than a score of boar riders standing up on the rock wall, staring in helpless horror over the lifeless corral. Bereth could only imagine the horrific scene that must have ensued last night when Little Sister rose and awakened the poisons already lodged in the bellies of the beasts.\n\nAround the periphery of the corral were a surprising number of smaller bodies. There were only a few near the pond itself; the lethal spell had not struck until well after both beasts and riders had drunk their fill. Although their main target had been the boars, it looked as if about half the riders had also been afflicted.\n\n“Mother of Hell,” Bereth swore under her breath. She had seen carnage before. She had flown over Iron Mountain during the great siege and witnessed the vast piles of corpses that were swiftly stripped of flesh and turned into boneyards. She had witnessed dozens of violent skirmishes and more than twenty full-fledged battles, but never before had she seen the cruel and implacable face of death so clearly. It seemed to mock her and her elven mortality, reminding her that no matter how many years an elf might lead, one day she too would find herself silenced by the grave.\n\n“Ninety-nine, two hundred…” Lassarian was counting.\n\nA pair of orcs in black metal armor were approaching the corral, and one pointed up at them. One of the other sky riders waved down at them with mock-friendly cheerfulness, but Bereth was too shocked by the devastation below to put the arrow she was already holding in her hand to her bow. It was strange. She had killed hundreds of greenskins before, and more than a few wolves, although she had never previously slain a boar. And never before had those deaths bothered her in the slightest, let alone appalled and upset her. But whether it was the sheer scale of the slaughter or her own culpability for it, she simply could not cope with the thought of taking another life, not today.\n\n“Four hundred and twelve boars,” Lassarian said proudly. “I’d guess around one hundred twenty riders. It’s too hard to count them exactly, they’re not as big. And do you see that one there? Doesn’t that look like it might be a shaman?”\n\nBereth dutifully looked to see where he was pointing. And, she had to admit, the crumpled figure lying in a pool of yellowish filth did seem to be wearing the sort of headdress that she’d seen shamans wear before.\n\n“It’s a pity that mage couldn’t have concocted something that made them die in their sleep or something. Or at least something that didn’t make such a horrific mess. Then they might have eaten the boars and we’d have gotten two-for-one.”\n\n“God, Lasri, do you have to talk about eating right now?” Bereth clutched at her stomach. The smell was really getting to her. “Can you take Mellt up higher?”\n\n“Why?” Something in her voice made him turn around. “Dammit, Bereth, you’re as green as an orc yourself!”\n\nHe pulled back on the reins and Mellt obediently beat his wings and took them higher. The cool air helped, and more importantly their increased height combined with the wind of their passage took most of the dreadful stink away. Her eyes were still watering and her stomach was sour, but at least she could finally breathe freely now.\n\n“How can you be so cheerful?” she demanded. “That was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen! Doesn’t it bother you at all?”\n\nHe looked back at her again, but this time there was no sympathy on his face. He glared at her angrily. “Not a whit! Damned glad I am, Bereth, and you know why? Because every cursed boar that died there last night, every whorespawn orc, is one less that we have to kill once they enter our lands. You’ve seen what they’ve done to the forests up north. What do you think they’ll do to ours? Every boar that we killed is one that won’t be fed on the ground-up bones of dead elf children!”\n\n“I know, I know, I know,” Bereth admitted. “Lasri, I’d do it again, I would. It had to be done. We should do it again and again, if they give us the chance. But just because what we’re doing is necessary, that doesn’t make it any less terrible. And it doesn’t make it any easier for me.”\n\n“You should be proud of yourself. This is like something out of the legends! Not even the Feysie Sword was supposed to be able to kill four hundred foes with a single blow.”\n\n“They’ve still got more than seven thousand boars left. The Horse Lord has less than a thousand horse. It’s not enough.”\n\n“No, but it’s a start!”\n\n“They won’t fall for it again.”\n\n“So think of something else!”\n\nShe nodded. He was right. The orcs wouldn’t fall for the same thing twice. They’d have their shamans carefully testing every spring and watering hole, and probably riding ahead to do it. And that would not only slow down the daily march a little, but might even give the High Guard the chance to take out more of the Great Orc’s most dangerous assets if they were careless enough to get too far out in front of the main body of troops.\n\nAnd there were other ways to catch the orcs by surprise. She remembered the rock wall from which Lassarian had jumped. What if a mage could summon a rock elemental, or even two or three, and keep them bound until the boars were pegged down for the night? How many could the elementals kill if goaded into a fury before the Great Orc’s shamans managed to dispel them? Or perhaps it would be possible for their mages to reverse the orcs’ possession scheme, and to seed their herd of boars with a few raging, murderous demons from one of the deeper bits of Hell.\n\nNone of these tricks would be enough, in itself, to stop the Great Orc. But it was clear that there were many ways of bleeding his army without meeting it in battle, many, many ways. So many ways to kill. So many ways to die. So much death. So very much death.\n\nShe leaned as far as she could over the side of the great warhawk, and her stomach violently convulsed.\n", "completion": "It was nearly a full day later when they returned to the watering hole, this time as the fifth in a full wing of fliers. The prince-general himself was flying lead, in the hopes of seeing if their plan had come to pass. The last patrol to return had reported that a large group of boar riders had been seen in the vicinity of the pond, but as ordered, they’d retreated before the orcs got too near and became suspicious about the lingering eyes in the sky.\n\nThe mage, Terfielon, was on one of the other birds, but Rhian and Awyrllid were finally getting some much-needed rest. Bereth was a little worried about Mellt being overworked, but Lassarian reassured her that his hawk was in fine fettle.\n\n“If he doesn’t fly everyday, he starts to get bad-tempered. He’s the happiest soldier in this war.”\n\nEven so, it was hard for Mellt and the other birds to keep pace with the prince-general’s giant, with its wingspan that was a third again broader than any of the four hawks escorting him.\n\nThey were flying high above the clouds, in case there were any more surprises in store for them. Only this morning had Bereth heard that two nights ago, the orcs had moved four ballistae under cover of darkness and hidden them on a hilltop over which they knew the elven scouts would be flying upon their return from the morning patrol. Thinking that they were safe, the patrol had been flying low over the treetops and only an instinctive reaction on the part of one bird had saved both hawk and rider. Even so, one of the large bolts passed through its left wing, and even with the assistance of the other hawk, the wounded bird had barely made it back to camp. And while it would live, the High Guard would have to do without the hawk until it mended.\n\n“Look!” Lassarian shouted, pointing ahead. There was a veritable swarm of black birds intermittently visible through the clouds below them, their cries echoing through the skies. “That looks like a good sign!”\n\nIt did look rather like a sight Bereth had often seen before a battlefield, as crows, ravens, vultures, and other birds of waited impatiently for the slaughter to begin, knowing that they would eat well by evening.\n\n“They might only be there because of the camp!”\n\n“Not that many. We haven’t seen flocks like this since the Horse Lord butchered the goblin cavalry!”\n\nThe prince-general had noticed the birds too, and he raised his arm, giving the signal to descend with caution. They followed him in a gentle arc towards the ground, and Bereth slipped her bow out from the saddle and selected an arrow from her quiver. She didn’t bother to nock it yet, she just wanted to be prepared in case the orcs had placed artillery, or worse, a shaman, on top of the rock wall near the pond.\n\nThe smell hit them as they emerged from the clouds, even before their eyes took in the extent of the carnage below. Whatever lethal hellbrew of toxins Terfielon had concocted caused the boars to vomit and void their bowels before expiring, and there were scores, no hundreds, of dead animals below. Bereth choked at the dreadful odor; she couldn’t fathom how terrible it must be on the ground. She could feel Lassarian heaving, and it was only with an iron effort of will that she managed to keep herself from spewing the contents of her stomach.\n\nOne elf didn’t succeed, and he broke formation to tilt his hawk to the left and send a thin rope of vomit down to splatter amid the stinking morass of death below. The orc encampment stretched out to the north, east, and west, but there were less than a score of boar riders standing up on the rock wall, staring in helpless horror over the lifeless corral. Bereth could only imagine the horrific scene that must have ensued last night when Little Sister rose and awakened the poisons already lodged in the bellies of the beasts.\n\nAround the periphery of the corral were a surprising number of smaller bodies. There were only a few near the pond itself; the lethal spell had not struck until well after both beasts and riders had drunk their fill. Although their main target had been the boars, it looked as if about half the riders had also been afflicted.\n\n“Mother of Hell,” Bereth swore under her breath. She had seen carnage before. She had flown over Iron Mountain during the great siege and witnessed the vast piles of corpses that were swiftly stripped of flesh and turned into boneyards. She had witnessed dozens of violent skirmishes and more than twenty full-fledged battles, but never before had she seen the cruel and implacable face of death so clearly. It seemed to mock her and her elven mortality, reminding her that no matter how many years an elf might lead, one day she too would find herself silenced by the grave.\n\n“Ninety-nine, two hundred…” Lassarian was counting.\n\nA pair of orcs in black metal armor were approaching the corral, and one pointed up at them. One of the other sky riders waved down at them with mock-friendly cheerfulness, but Bereth was too shocked by the devastation below to put the arrow she was already holding in her hand to her bow. It was strange. She had killed hundreds of greenskins before, and more than a few wolves, although she had never previously slain a boar. And never before had those deaths bothered her in the slightest, let alone appalled and upset her. But whether it was the sheer scale of the slaughter or her own culpability for it, she simply could not cope with the thought of taking another life, not today.\n\n“Four hundred and twelve boars,” Lassarian said proudly. “I’d guess around one hundred twenty riders. It’s too hard to count them exactly, they’re not as big. And do you see that one there? Doesn’t that look like it might be a shaman?”\n\nBereth dutifully looked to see where he was pointing. And, she had to admit, the crumpled figure lying in a pool of yellowish filth did seem to be wearing the sort of headdress that she’d seen shamans wear before.\n\n“It’s a pity that mage couldn’t have concocted something that made them die in their sleep or something. Or at least something that didn’t make such a horrific mess. Then they might have eaten the boars and we’d have gotten two-for-one.”\n\n“God, Lasri, do you have to talk about eating right now?” Bereth clutched at her stomach. The smell was really getting to her. “Can you take Mellt up higher?”\n\n“Why?” Something in her voice made him turn around. “Dammit, Bereth, you’re as green as an orc yourself!”\n\nHe pulled back on the reins and Mellt obediently beat his wings and took them higher. The cool air helped, and more importantly their increased height combined with the wind of their passage took most of the dreadful stink away. Her eyes were still watering and her stomach was sour, but at least she could finally breathe freely now.\n\n“How can you be so cheerful?” she demanded. “That was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen! Doesn’t it bother you at all?”\n\nHe looked back at her again, but this time there was no sympathy on his face. He glared at her angrily. “Not a whit! Damned glad I am, Bereth, and you know why? Because every cursed boar that died there last night, every whorespawn orc, is one less that we have to kill once they enter our lands. You’ve seen what they’ve done to the forests up north. What do you think they’ll do to ours? Every boar that we killed is one that won’t be fed on the ground-up bones of dead elf children!”\n\n“I know, I know, I know,” Bereth admitted. “Lasri, I’d do it again, I would. It had to be done. We should do it again and again, if they give us the chance. But just because what we’re doing is necessary, that doesn’t make it any less terrible. And it doesn’t make it any easier for me.”\n\n“You should be proud of yourself. This is like something out of the legends! Not even the Feysie Sword was supposed to be able to kill four hundred foes with a single blow.”\n\n“They’ve still got more than seven thousand boars left. The Horse Lord has less than a thousand horse. It’s not enough.”\n\n“No, but it’s a start!”\n\n“They won’t fall for it again.”\n\n“So think of something else!”\n\nShe nodded. He was right. The orcs wouldn’t fall for the same thing twice. They’d have their shamans carefully testing every spring and watering hole, and probably riding ahead to do it. And that would not only slow down the daily march a little, but might even give the High Guard the chance to take out more of the Great Orc’s most dangerous assets if they were careless enough to get too far out in front of the main body of troops.\n\nAnd there were other ways to catch the orcs by surprise. She remembered the rock wall from which Lassarian had jumped. What if a mage could summon a rock elemental, or even two or three, and keep them bound until the boars were pegged down for the night? How many could the elementals kill if goaded into a fury before the Great Orc’s shamans managed to dispel them? Or perhaps it would be possible for their mages to reverse the orcs’ possession scheme, and to seed their herd of boars with a few raging, murderous demons from one of the deeper bits of Hell.\n\nNone of these tricks would be enough, in itself, to stop the Great Orc. But it was clear that there were many ways of bleeding his army without meeting it in battle, many, many ways. So many ways to kill. So many ways to die. So much death. So very much death.\n\nShe leaned as far as she could over the side of the great warhawk, and her stomach violently convulsed.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1753, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch27_marcus-P1", "chapter": "ch27_marcus", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nGaius Trebonius / Viscomte de Lechaire — tribune and Savondese cover-title; keep forms.\nÉtienne-Henri / Red Prince — not yet in this packet’s action; may be referenced.\nLutèce — capital; accent as written.\nequestrians — Amorran cavalry companions in the stands.\ngladiator — Savondese list fighter as Marcus sees him.\n\n### STORY\nAfter the forest fight the legion takes ears while marching; Marcus drives on toward the prince through wreckage and Savondese politics.\nIn pavilion audience Étienne-Henri’s mages strangle defaulting merchants until Marcus wins them shriving and forced delivery on reduced terms; the prince plays to the crowd.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nIn Lutèce for the prince’s festival, sitting a ribbon-strewn pavilion with Trebonius and four equestrians. Still thinking like a legate at war among games; elbows Trebonius off the décolletage; leaves three knights with orders against drink, unpaid virtue, and starting fights.\n\nGaius Trebonius\nViscomte de Lechaire for the day; eyes locked on freckled bosoms until corrected; grins that soldiers will fight if provoked and quotes Marcus’s father on unenforceable orders.\n\nAmorran equestrians / knights\nFour with them; three left in the stands under strict admonitions when Marcus and Trebonius are called down.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nMarcus hired Capitaine Renier’s night lore, struck the orc raiders, and later won Étienne-Henri’s leave for a permanent stone castra on condition of joining the Lutèce procession with the legion’s ear trophies.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAt the prince’s gesture, he continued. “I should like to prepare a permanent castra, one that is capable of serving as a stronghold, not only for the legion, but for your forces as well. When the orcs come again, and your Royal Highness, they will come again, they will come in greater numbers and they will not be wolfriders and, what do you call them?”\n\n“Pillards,” Trebonius prompted.\n\n“Yes, Pillards. They will not be pillards. They will come with their heavy infantry, their warboars and their trolls. You have won a great victory, your Royal Highness, but all it has given you is time. I wish to use that time to improve the kingdom’s defenses here.”\n\n“You want to build a castle?”\n\n“No, a castra. A fortification in the style of our march forts, only in a more secure fashion, with stone walls rather than wood. We require it as a base to anchor the defense of the Eastmarch against the next army to invade.”\n\n“Ah, those sort of walled wooden villages you’ve built. Yes, I saw one on my way here. Damned impressive, they are, although I don’t suppose they can be held more than a few days given how many mouths you have to feed.”\n\n“Exactly, your Royal Highness. It would pose no threat to you after we are gone, and it might save your army in the event of a reversal.”\n\n“This can be done in your absence?”\n\n“Begun, at any rate. I am not skilled in the arts of fortification. One of the other tribunes is the architectus who will oversee the construction.”\n\n“Then again, what is to prevent you from building a castle, then breaking faith with the crown and declaring yourself sovereign?”\n\n“What prevents me now?” Aside, Marcus belatedly thought, from your archers. “Your Royal Highness, may I not remind you that I refused the king’s gracious offer of land and title? I do not wish for a castle, nor will I break faith with those who do not break faith with me. I am honor-bound, no, I am duty-bound, to defend your lands. I ask for nothing more than your permission to permit me and my men to do so in the way we know best.”\n\nÉtienne-Henri glanced at the shorter man and grinned wryly. “It seems to me I would have to be a fool to deny you, Légat. As I hope I am not a fool, I will grant your request, with the caveat that you return here before noon tomorrow and join me in my triumphant procession to Lutèce. And seeing as my father awaits us there, I should encourage you to bring along what I hear is your astonishing collection of ears.”\n\nThe prince grinned openly at Marcus’s discomfiture. “Have no fear, Légat. My father promised me no similar bounty. You may as well collect on them.”\n\n### NOTES\nFestival day in Lutèce; narrow-lane mounted and foot combats before a crowded stand.\nYoung women in pale green and light blue sit ahead of the Amorrans.\nPrince’s man approaches after a downed fighter rises; summons toward the royal box is imminent at the cut.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nHe and Trebonius sit a festival pavilion among equestrians and low necklines; he elbows the tribune back to the lists as trumpets open a narrow-lane tilt of shell-armored horseman against a lighter fighter. Metal men fall and rise, the crowd loves blood without legionary purpose, and Marcus measures courage inside the turtle shells while Trebonius measures bosoms. A young man from the prince waves them down. They leave three knights with orders against drink, unpaid virtue, and starting fights; Trebonius argues you cannot order men not to defend themselves and quotes never giving an order that will not be obeyed. Marcus agrees he has the right of it. The scene ends on that agreement — before they learn the royal box was waiting.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2100 words. Festival eye and dry command voice; keep foreign titles exact. Land on agreeing with Trebonius — do not enter the royal box yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The two Amorrans sat on the ribbon-strewn pavilion in front of four of the equestrians who had accompanied them and behind a pair of young women who had distractingly low necklines on their colorful dresses. One was wearing pale green, the other light blue, but Marcus doubted Gaius Trebonius could have told him what color the dresses were if he asked him. The tribune’s eyes were locked on one deliciously freckled white bosom as its owner leaned forward to whisper something into her companion’s ear.\n\nTrebonius started as Marcus elbowed him savagely in the ribs. “What?”\n\n“The combat, the whatever-they-call-it, is about to begin.”\n\nTrebonius’s gaze had already begun to drift downward, but as the trumpets blew a fanfare, he shook his head and looked out at the strange little arena before them. A pair of men were at each end of a narrow lane, one mounted and heavily armored to such an extent that the Amorrans couldn’t figure out how he was expected to fight, the other dressed more or less like a well-appointed slave and clearly charged with assisting him in preparing for the combat. Both of the armored men were armed with a giant lance that was comically long and thick; it looked more like a battering ram than a proper spear.\n\n“Is this some sort of ritual before the real games start?” Trebonius asked.\n\n“I don’t see how they’re even going to scratch each other wearing that much armor,” Marcus commented. “No wonder their horses are so big!”\n\nThey had seen Savondese knights before, but the knights had invariably been wearing either leather armor, chainmail, or at the most, a steel cuirass. Of course, the cavalry they had seen was border cavalry, whose lords did not outfit them in the expensive style of the royal knights, which entirely encased the man from head to toe in shining steel plate. Whether their lords could afford to do so or not, Marcus guessed that the real reason was that the border knights had more need for speed and freedom of movement than the additional protection afforded by the plate. After all, even the heaviest armor couldn’t be expected to save one from an elven arrow aimed at an eye-slit or a chain-covered joint.\n\n“No, these are the real games,” Vitalis said. The half-Savondese decurion was visibly excited to finally have the chance to see the combats of which he’d heard since he was a boy. “All the contestants are free men-at-arms, and most of those who ride today will be the flower of the Savondese nobility. They don’t fight to the death here.”\n\n“Really?” Marcus and Trebonius said in chorus, legitimately surprised. Marcus was rather glad; he did not approve of the vulgar and violent arena games, but they were a familiar aspect of daily life in Amorr. “What do they bet on, then?” Trebonius added.\n\n“You can’t gamble,” Marcus said in a low voice as he leaned towards his second-in-command. “It’s not good for the men to see their officers gamble.”\n\n“Why on Earth not?”\n\n“If they know you for a gambler, you run the risk of them thinking you don’t know what you’re doing if you lose. And they’ll think you’re gambling with their lives.”\n\nTrebonius glanced back at the knights behind them. None of them were paying attention. “But we do gamble with their lives!”\n\n“They don’t know that! That’s the point.”\n\n“Your father’s advice?”\n\n“Saturnius, actually. But I expect Corvus felt much the same way. I never saw him place any bets when he took me to the games when I was a boy.”\n\n“When you were a boy?”\n\n“Once I decided I had a vocation, I no longer attended. My tutor taught me that it doesn’t behoove a man of God to take pleasure in such a base and violent pastime.”\n\n“Says the legate with two thousand pairs of severed ears,” Trebonius said, grinning, but then a thought struck him. “Wait, I don’t understand. The primus pilus is one of the biggest gamblers I know! How come he can gamble if we can’t?”\n\nMarcus grinned, keeping half an eye on the young woman in the blue dress below him. She had taken a deep breath, for some reason, and he found it distracting. “Because centurions aren’t proper officers. They’re men. Or rather, the men consider them to be a higher form of themselves. They can imagine one day becoming an optio or a centurion. They know some of them will in time. We, on the other hand, are different creatures altogether. We aren’t bound to the legion for twenty years. It’s not our family the way it is theirs. They’ll never sit in the Senate, or command a legion, or hold office, and they know it. So, quite naturally, they don’t trust us.”\n\n“Even though they obey us.”\n\n“Did you trust every officer who gave you orders?”\n\n“I don’t trust the officer who gives them to me now!” Trebonius cackled and Marcus mock-shoved him. The young tribune turned and indicated a group of women who were standing off to the right of the pavilion. It was hard to know with any degree of certainty at such a distance, but on the basis of their attire, it appeared their affections might be negotiable. “Is that why you never go to the second city?”\n\nMarcus knew the tribune was referring to the small army of merchants and camp-followers who made a living by following the legion around. Legio XVII had lost their previous whorestown when they’d traveled through the dwarf tunnels, but already a motley collection of Savondese volunteers had replaced the larger part of it. The women were taller, fairer, and spoke a different language, but for all intents and purposes, life outside the castra was the same as it had always been.\n\n“I have my reasons,” he said, his tone making it clear he had no intention of entertaining further questions. Trebonius stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged and pointed at the mounted gladiators. “It looks like they’re ready!”\n\nThe loud buzz of conversation filling the crowded wooden stands abruptly stopped as a herald wearing the royal crimson stepped out onto the red dirt track that served as the arena sands and blew a fanfare. To the Amorrans’ mystified amazement, the herald was followed by a strange little man wearing a bizarrely colorful outfit and a strange green-and-yellow hat who first capered stupidly about, then abruptly bent over and exposed his bottom at the crowd.\n\nThis provoked a gale of laughter from the Savondese around them, and the two young officers, astonished, looked at each other, wondering what the northerners could possibly find so funny. The little man wiggled his bottom, then stood up and capered off, which met with further cheers and applause.\n\n“Either there is something we’re missing or they are a very stupid people,” Trebonius concluded. Marcus wasn’t so sure. He’d seen what passed for humor in the Amorran arena, and at least the Savondese version was considerably less bloody and cruel.\n\nAn official-looking personage now stepped out onto the track. He was holding a staff with a bit of ribbon tied to the end, although neither Marcus nor Trebonius understood what it signified. He turned to one gladiator and raised it; after the gesture was acknowledged by the dipping of the massive lance, he turned and saluted the other rider. The crowd seemed to hold its collective breath as he then stepped back from the track, away from the pavilion and raised it a third time.\n\nThe people in the stands erupted when the staff struck the earth, followed by the slow thudding of the hooves as the knights urged their steeds forward and the giant horses gradually built up speed. The beasts were ponderous, and they were far from quick off the mark, but they were big, powerful creatures, and soon the thudding transformed into rhythmic thunder. And just as they were hitting their full speed, the two gladiators came together with violent force.\n\nEncased in metal or not, there were most certainly brave men inside those shining turtle shells, Marcus found himself thinking. Neither gladiator slowed, and each man aimed his lance at the breastplate of his onrushing opponent. There was a tremendous metallic crash, accompanied by a sharp crack like a tree falling, and then the warrior who had been riding from the left reeled and fell heavily to the ground like a knight pierced through the skull by a crossbow bolt. The other gladiator swayed a little as the other’s lance struck his painted shield and shattered, but he managed to stay in the saddle and gallop on.\n\nSomewhat to his surprise, Marcus found himself on his feet and shouting, although he wasn’t entirely sure for what, or for whom, he was shouting. Trebonius was standing right beside him, one fist raised, screaming in triumph as if they were in Amorr, watching an underdog score an unexpected kill.\n\n“Damn, but that was better than the arena!” one of the knights behind them enthused.\n\n“Can’t feel good hitting the ground that hard.”\n\n“Ah, he’s fine. He’s fine! Look, he’s getting up already.” True enough, several young men had come out to help the downed gladiator get back on his feet in his heavy armor as another man caught his riderless horse and passed its reins to the assistant who had come galloping down on a much smaller horse. The crowd cheered politely as the defeated man raised a hand to them, but they cheered much more loudly as the victor rode past in returning to his starting place and dipped his lance to them.\n\nThe crowd noise mostly subsided, but now its blood was up, the discussions were louder and more animated, and the sense of energy and anticipation filling it was palpable to the Amorrans. Marcus found himself wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a skin of wine with him, or even water, as he had the impression that his throat was going to be well-parched by the end of the day’s games.\n\n“Say, isn’t that lord high-and-mighty’s boy?” Trebonius pointed to a young man wearing the prince’s red, who looked vaguely familiar. He was walking down along the front of the stands, peering up into it as if he was looking for someone.\n\n“That’s His Royal High-and-Mighty to you, viscomte,” Marcus corrected him. Neither of them had found themselves overly impressed with Étienne-Henri or his courtiers on the long ride to Lutèce. The Red Prince was sharp enough, and he could be amusingly witty at times, but his sly arrogance and pompous bearing grew quickly grew tiresome.\n\n“Think he might be looking for us?” Trebonius glanced down at what they were wearing. In an attempt not to stand out, they were both dressed in tunics and pantalons cut in the Savondese style that one of the prince’s men had given them. They also wore ridiculous blue floppy hats made out of a strange, soft material that were apparently now in fashion, although they only did so under advisement, to protect themselves from the hot spring sun.\n\n“Get his attention and see.”\n\nTrebonius dutifully stood up and waved his hat, prompting the young man to gesture to them that they should come down from the stands. They left the three knights where they were, with strict admonitions not to get drunk, not to pursue any woman whose virtue was not for sale, and not to start any fights.\n\n“Shouldn’t you have told them not to get into any fights?” he asked Trebonius.\n\nThe tribune grinned. “And you’re worried they won’t trust us if we gamble? They’re soldiers in a strange city on a festival day. Chances are one in three that some fools will attempt to start something with them. You can’t tell them not to defend themselves.” He reconsidered. “Well, you can tell them, but they won’t listen. Didn’t your father say to never give an order you know won’t be obeyed?”\n\nMarcus had to agree that Trebonius had the right of it.\n", "completion": "The two Amorrans sat on the ribbon-strewn pavilion in front of four of the equestrians who had accompanied them and behind a pair of young women who had distractingly low necklines on their colorful dresses. One was wearing pale green, the other light blue, but Marcus doubted Gaius Trebonius could have told him what color the dresses were if he asked him. The tribune’s eyes were locked on one deliciously freckled white bosom as its owner leaned forward to whisper something into her companion’s ear.\n\nTrebonius started as Marcus elbowed him savagely in the ribs. “What?”\n\n“The combat, the whatever-they-call-it, is about to begin.”\n\nTrebonius’s gaze had already begun to drift downward, but as the trumpets blew a fanfare, he shook his head and looked out at the strange little arena before them. A pair of men were at each end of a narrow lane, one mounted and heavily armored to such an extent that the Amorrans couldn’t figure out how he was expected to fight, the other dressed more or less like a well-appointed slave and clearly charged with assisting him in preparing for the combat. Both of the armored men were armed with a giant lance that was comically long and thick; it looked more like a battering ram than a proper spear.\n\n“Is this some sort of ritual before the real games start?” Trebonius asked.\n\n“I don’t see how they’re even going to scratch each other wearing that much armor,” Marcus commented. “No wonder their horses are so big!”\n\nThey had seen Savondese knights before, but the knights had invariably been wearing either leather armor, chainmail, or at the most, a steel cuirass. Of course, the cavalry they had seen was border cavalry, whose lords did not outfit them in the expensive style of the royal knights, which entirely encased the man from head to toe in shining steel plate. Whether their lords could afford to do so or not, Marcus guessed that the real reason was that the border knights had more need for speed and freedom of movement than the additional protection afforded by the plate. After all, even the heaviest armor couldn’t be expected to save one from an elven arrow aimed at an eye-slit or a chain-covered joint.\n\n“No, these are the real games,” Vitalis said. The half-Savondese decurion was visibly excited to finally have the chance to see the combats of which he’d heard since he was a boy. “All the contestants are free men-at-arms, and most of those who ride today will be the flower of the Savondese nobility. They don’t fight to the death here.”\n\n“Really?” Marcus and Trebonius said in chorus, legitimately surprised. Marcus was rather glad; he did not approve of the vulgar and violent arena games, but they were a familiar aspect of daily life in Amorr. “What do they bet on, then?” Trebonius added.\n\n“You can’t gamble,” Marcus said in a low voice as he leaned towards his second-in-command. “It’s not good for the men to see their officers gamble.”\n\n“Why on Earth not?”\n\n“If they know you for a gambler, you run the risk of them thinking you don’t know what you’re doing if you lose. And they’ll think you’re gambling with their lives.”\n\nTrebonius glanced back at the knights behind them. None of them were paying attention. “But we do gamble with their lives!”\n\n“They don’t know that! That’s the point.”\n\n“Your father’s advice?”\n\n“Saturnius, actually. But I expect Corvus felt much the same way. I never saw him place any bets when he took me to the games when I was a boy.”\n\n“When you were a boy?”\n\n“Once I decided I had a vocation, I no longer attended. My tutor taught me that it doesn’t behoove a man of God to take pleasure in such a base and violent pastime.”\n\n“Says the legate with two thousand pairs of severed ears,” Trebonius said, grinning, but then a thought struck him. “Wait, I don’t understand. The primus pilus is one of the biggest gamblers I know! How come he can gamble if we can’t?”\n\nMarcus grinned, keeping half an eye on the young woman in the blue dress below him. She had taken a deep breath, for some reason, and he found it distracting. “Because centurions aren’t proper officers. They’re men. Or rather, the men consider them to be a higher form of themselves. They can imagine one day becoming an optio or a centurion. They know some of them will in time. We, on the other hand, are different creatures altogether. We aren’t bound to the legion for twenty years. It’s not our family the way it is theirs. They’ll never sit in the Senate, or command a legion, or hold office, and they know it. So, quite naturally, they don’t trust us.”\n\n“Even though they obey us.”\n\n“Did you trust every officer who gave you orders?”\n\n“I don’t trust the officer who gives them to me now!” Trebonius cackled and Marcus mock-shoved him. The young tribune turned and indicated a group of women who were standing off to the right of the pavilion. It was hard to know with any degree of certainty at such a distance, but on the basis of their attire, it appeared their affections might be negotiable. “Is that why you never go to the second city?”\n\nMarcus knew the tribune was referring to the small army of merchants and camp-followers who made a living by following the legion around. Legio XVII had lost their previous whorestown when they’d traveled through the dwarf tunnels, but already a motley collection of Savondese volunteers had replaced the larger part of it. The women were taller, fairer, and spoke a different language, but for all intents and purposes, life outside the castra was the same as it had always been.\n\n“I have my reasons,” he said, his tone making it clear he had no intention of entertaining further questions. Trebonius stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged and pointed at the mounted gladiators. “It looks like they’re ready!”\n\nThe loud buzz of conversation filling the crowded wooden stands abruptly stopped as a herald wearing the royal crimson stepped out onto the red dirt track that served as the arena sands and blew a fanfare. To the Amorrans’ mystified amazement, the herald was followed by a strange little man wearing a bizarrely colorful outfit and a strange green-and-yellow hat who first capered stupidly about, then abruptly bent over and exposed his bottom at the crowd.\n\nThis provoked a gale of laughter from the Savondese around them, and the two young officers, astonished, looked at each other, wondering what the northerners could possibly find so funny. The little man wiggled his bottom, then stood up and capered off, which met with further cheers and applause.\n\n“Either there is something we’re missing or they are a very stupid people,” Trebonius concluded. Marcus wasn’t so sure. He’d seen what passed for humor in the Amorran arena, and at least the Savondese version was considerably less bloody and cruel.\n\nAn official-looking personage now stepped out onto the track. He was holding a staff with a bit of ribbon tied to the end, although neither Marcus nor Trebonius understood what it signified. He turned to one gladiator and raised it; after the gesture was acknowledged by the dipping of the massive lance, he turned and saluted the other rider. The crowd seemed to hold its collective breath as he then stepped back from the track, away from the pavilion and raised it a third time.\n\nThe people in the stands erupted when the staff struck the earth, followed by the slow thudding of the hooves as the knights urged their steeds forward and the giant horses gradually built up speed. The beasts were ponderous, and they were far from quick off the mark, but they were big, powerful creatures, and soon the thudding transformed into rhythmic thunder. And just as they were hitting their full speed, the two gladiators came together with violent force.\n\nEncased in metal or not, there were most certainly brave men inside those shining turtle shells, Marcus found himself thinking. Neither gladiator slowed, and each man aimed his lance at the breastplate of his onrushing opponent. There was a tremendous metallic crash, accompanied by a sharp crack like a tree falling, and then the warrior who had been riding from the left reeled and fell heavily to the ground like a knight pierced through the skull by a crossbow bolt. The other gladiator swayed a little as the other’s lance struck his painted shield and shattered, but he managed to stay in the saddle and gallop on.\n\nSomewhat to his surprise, Marcus found himself on his feet and shouting, although he wasn’t entirely sure for what, or for whom, he was shouting. Trebonius was standing right beside him, one fist raised, screaming in triumph as if they were in Amorr, watching an underdog score an unexpected kill.\n\n“Damn, but that was better than the arena!” one of the knights behind them enthused.\n\n“Can’t feel good hitting the ground that hard.”\n\n“Ah, he’s fine. He’s fine! Look, he’s getting up already.” True enough, several young men had come out to help the downed gladiator get back on his feet in his heavy armor as another man caught his riderless horse and passed its reins to the assistant who had come galloping down on a much smaller horse. The crowd cheered politely as the defeated man raised a hand to them, but they cheered much more loudly as the victor rode past in returning to his starting place and dipped his lance to them.\n\nThe crowd noise mostly subsided, but now its blood was up, the discussions were louder and more animated, and the sense of energy and anticipation filling it was palpable to the Amorrans. Marcus found himself wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a skin of wine with him, or even water, as he had the impression that his throat was going to be well-parched by the end of the day’s games.\n\n“Say, isn’t that lord high-and-mighty’s boy?” Trebonius pointed to a young man wearing the prince’s red, who looked vaguely familiar. He was walking down along the front of the stands, peering up into it as if he was looking for someone.\n\n“That’s His Royal High-and-Mighty to you, viscomte,” Marcus corrected him. Neither of them had found themselves overly impressed with Étienne-Henri or his courtiers on the long ride to Lutèce. The Red Prince was sharp enough, and he could be amusingly witty at times, but his sly arrogance and pompous bearing grew quickly grew tiresome.\n\n“Think he might be looking for us?” Trebonius glanced down at what they were wearing. In an attempt not to stand out, they were both dressed in tunics and pantalons cut in the Savondese style that one of the prince’s men had given them. They also wore ridiculous blue floppy hats made out of a strange, soft material that were apparently now in fashion, although they only did so under advisement, to protect themselves from the hot spring sun.\n\n“Get his attention and see.”\n\nTrebonius dutifully stood up and waved his hat, prompting the young man to gesture to them that they should come down from the stands. They left the three knights where they were, with strict admonitions not to get drunk, not to pursue any woman whose virtue was not for sale, and not to start any fights.\n\n“Shouldn’t you have told them not to get into any fights?” he asked Trebonius.\n\nThe tribune grinned. “And you’re worried they won’t trust us if we gamble? They’re soldiers in a strange city on a festival day. Chances are one in three that some fools will attempt to start something with them. You can’t tell them not to defend themselves.” He reconsidered. “Well, you can tell them, but they won’t listen. Didn’t your father say to never give an order you know won’t be obeyed?”\n\nMarcus had to agree that Trebonius had the right of it.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2090, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch27_marcus-P2", "chapter": "ch27_marcus", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nÉtienne-Henri / Red Prince / His Royal Highness — heir; forms as used.\nLégat — prince’s address for Marcus; accent as written.\nViscomte de Lechaire — Trebonius’s cover title.\nde Beaumille — Maréchal to whom Marcus is summoned; keep spelling.\nLa Fortune — fortune as named in the prince’s toast-voice; keep form.\nLutèce — keep accent.\n\n### STORY\nIn Lutèce Marcus and Trebonius watch festival lists from a common pavilion, leave three knights under tight orders, and agree unenforceable commands are worthless just as a prince’s man arrives to collect them.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nGuest in the royal box after mistaking suggestion for option. Watches Étienne-Henri’s betrothed with dangerous attention; reassesses the prince as more than a peacock when the lists turn savage. Leaves a silver purse with Trebonius for wagers when summoned to de Beaumille.\n\nGaius Trebonius\nAmused he was right about the invitation; stays to watch and wager as Marcus exits.\n\nÉtienne-Henri\nRed Prince in the royal box; amused predator when Marcus offers the purse; promises to shepherd Trebonius like a cherished sheep.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe crowd noise mostly subsided, but now its blood was up, the discussions were louder and more animated, and the sense of energy and anticipation filling it was palpable to the Amorrans. Marcus found himself wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a skin of wine with him, or even water, as he had the impression that his throat was going to be well-parched by the end of the day’s games.\n\n“Say, isn’t that lord high-and-mighty’s boy?” Trebonius pointed to a young man wearing the prince’s red, who looked vaguely familiar. He was walking down along the front of the stands, peering up into it as if he was looking for someone.\n\n“That’s His Royal High-and-Mighty to you, viscomte,” Marcus corrected him. Neither of them had found themselves overly impressed with Étienne-Henri or his courtiers on the long ride to Lutèce. The Red Prince was sharp enough, and he could be amusingly witty at times, but his sly arrogance and pompous bearing grew quickly grew tiresome.\n\n“Think he might be looking for us?” Trebonius glanced down at what they were wearing. In an attempt not to stand out, they were both dressed in tunics and pantalons cut in the Savondese style that one of the prince’s men had given them. They also wore ridiculous blue floppy hats made out of a strange, soft material that were apparently now in fashion, although they only did so under advisement, to protect themselves from the hot spring sun.\n\n“Get his attention and see.”\n\nTrebonius dutifully stood up and waved his hat, prompting the young man to gesture to them that they should come down from the stands. They left the three knights where they were, with strict admonitions not to get drunk, not to pursue any woman whose virtue was not for sale, and not to start any fights.\n\n“Shouldn’t you have told them not to get into any fights?” he asked Trebonius.\n\nThe tribune grinned. “And you’re worried they won’t trust us if we gamble? They’re soldiers in a strange city on a festival day. Chances are one in three that some fools will attempt to start something with them. You can’t tell them not to defend themselves.” He reconsidered. “Well, you can tell them, but they won’t listen. Didn’t your father say to never give an order you know won’t be obeyed?”\n\nMarcus had to agree that Trebonius had the right of it.\n\n### NOTES\nRoyal box elevated mid-stands; ten guards in king’s livery on the stair.\nFestival combats continue below while court talk runs.\nMessenger brings summons to old de Beaumille; Marcus must leave at once.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nThe prince’s man collects them for the royal box they failed to claim; Trebonius had read the invitation correctly. Among courtiers and the betrothed princess, Marcus forces his eyes to the lists and quietly upgrades his read of Étienne-Henri when blood and theater mix under royal pleasure. Talk, more tilts, and the press of ceremony hold until a messenger calls him to de Beaumille. He passes Trebonius a half-purse of silver for wagers, endures the prince’s shepherd-and-sheep joke, and smiles knowing the tribune will return shorn but whole. The scene ends on that small price for bonhomie — before he leaves the box.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2300 words. Court manners over war judgment; desire noted without soft focus. Land on the sheep-and-bonhomie line; do not follow the messenger out yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The prince’s man greeted them. “Seigneur Valerius, Viscomte de Lechaire, did you not know you are guests in the royal box?”\n\nThe two Amorrans looked at each other. “No,” Marcus answered. “The prince suggested that we should see the combats, so we made our way here after breakfast.”\n\nThe young man was too polite to say anything about their faux pas, but he did blink several times and stare at them with a fixed smile before managing to decide what to say. “His Royal Highness will be pleased to have you join him now, I’m sure. If you will come with me?”\n\nTrebonius chuckled and Marcus shook his head. They’d argued over whether the Red Prince’s suggestion had been an invitation or not, and it appeared Trebonius had been correct. They made their way towards the center of the stands, and right in the middle was an elevated area large enough for twenty or thirty people, accessible by a wooden staircase that was guarded by no less than ten armed guards wearing the king’s livery.\n\n“You can hardly expect me to have assumed we were to sit here,” Marcus muttered in a low voice.\n\n“My mother always told me patricians had beautiful manners and I must emulate them if I was to advance myself. I rather look forward to returning to Amorr one day and disabusing her of the notion.”\n\n“You do recall the fate of my dear cousin?”\n\n“Even he never spurned a prince’s invitation,” Trebonius pointed out accurately.\n\nFortunately, Étienne-Henri was in far too festive spirits to mind, or even notice, that they were attending upon him. He greeted them effusively, with kisses on both cheeks, his dark eyes sparkling with good humor. Marcus did his best to smile broadly as he tried to surreptitiously wipe his cheeks dry with the back of his hand.\n\n“My friends, my friends, how pleased I am to see you are here after all! Have you seen the jousts before?”\n\nWhen Marcus admitted they had not, the prince cheerfully launched into an explanation that was sufficiently detailed to reveal that he was not merely an enthusiast, but had taken part in what was apparently called “the lists” from time to time himself.\n\n“Today, however, I do not ride. As the combats are being given in the honor of my victory—what do I say, I mean, of course, to say our mutual victory—over the miserable verdards, it would not be proper for me to take up the lance this day.”\n\nMarcus found himself forced to silently re-evaluate the arrogant heir to the Savondese throne. He might not be worth a damn as a general or much inclined to take the field, that much Marcus had gleaned from their conversations on the road, but it was clear he was no coward. Armor or no armor, there was no man alive who could ride headlong towards a lance aimed at his chest without possessing an ample quantity of courage. Marcus certainly had no intention of trying it himself, as it seemed a good way to break one’s back even if one escaped impalement.\n\nThe fanfare blew and the herald announced that one sieur whose name Marcus didn’t catch was riding against another sieur whose name meant absolutely nothing to him. He did, however, now grasp that these riders were no slaves nor even common soldiers, but equestrians, and even lords, and he gathered that the king himself had been a champion of the lists in his day.\n\nBets were flying back and forth between the various men in the room, and even some of the ladies were getting involved, wagering kisses against gold, or in one case, a silver necklace against a fine dagger. Trebonius looked at him with pleading eyes; it hadn’t escaped Marcus’s attention that this was very nearly the last place they needed to worry about their knights seeing anything they did.\n\n“If you must, viscomte,” he said, laying particular stress on the tribune’s strange foreign title.\n\nTrebonius beamed and immediately stuck his head out the open side of the structure, attempting to survey the two knights, although how he was going to make a determination between the one and the other, Marcus could not imagine. Did the size of the horse matter? Was it the size or the skill of the man that counted more, and how could the latter be ascertained? One could hardly come to a conclusion based on the way the men sat their mounts; he had seen stuffed saddlebags that rode a horse more easily than the heavily armored knights.\n\nIt wasn’t long before the crowd was roaring and the two horsemen were galloping towards each other, lances high. This time, both men stayed upright following their collision, although one shattered his lance while the other merely broke the tip of his. Marcus was a little confused by the shouts of triumph and disappointment, until one of the prince’s men explained that there were bets on broken lances as well as certain desirable strikes of one sort or another.\n\nThen three women entered the already-crowded box, and Marcus caught his breath. All three of the women were fair, but the tallest one, the second to enter, had skin so pale and unblemished that she might have been a half-elf. Not since Caitlys departed for Elebrion had female beauty made such an impression on him.\n\nShe wore a dark blue dress that was striking against her fair skin, and when she glanced at him, he saw that it very nearly matched the color of her eyes. Her cheekbones were high, but her face was wider than an elf’s, and her jaw was shorter and stronger. Her deep-set eyes were wide and her pale lips were full and slightly parted. She was nearly as tall as Caitlys, but her shoulders were broader and her breasts were larger than the elf maiden’s, although smaller and higher than most of the bovine Savondese women who serviced the legionaries.\n\nHer eyes passed over him, unseeing. Then she must have seen someone for whom she was looking, for her eyes all but disappeared as she smiled broadly in unaffected pleasure. Marcus whipped his head around to see who she was so happy to see, and he felt a cold hand of jealousy grip his heart as he saw that the beautiful fair-haired girl was looking at the prince. What was she to him? Was she one of Étienne-Henri’s lovers? Or worse, his mistress?\n\nMarcus tried not to watch as the tall girl made her way to the prince’s side, and courtiers and nobles alike parted before her like water under a proud keel. Étienne-Henri favored her with a nod and a wry smile; Marcus relaxed a little at the prince’s seeming indifference to her.\n\nAn elbow dug into his ribs.\n\n“Are you crazy? Stop staring at her like a starving dog!”\n\n“Who is she?” Marcus ignored Trebonius’s hissed demand. “She’s beautiful!”\n\n“She’s the northern girl, the one they call the Wolf Princess. That’s the prince’s future bride!”\n\nMarcus bit back the curse that very nearly leaped from his mouth. The beautiful girl—surely she was half-elven—was affianced to the little Savondese princeling? For the first time in his life, he understood the purpose of the Ninth Commandment; hitherto he had felt no more need to be cautioned against coveting wives than against coveting oxen or donkeys. He shook his head, though whether it was in disgust, dismay, or simply denial, he did not know.\n\n“Did you not see her last night?”\n\n“No!” Marcus wondered how he could have missed her, and then he remembered he had left before the dancing, being concerned to ensure that the chests of silver he’d received from the king were safely secured and placed under legionary guard. The queen had been absent during the banquet as well, so presumably the princess would have entered with her, after his departure.\n\nHe shook his head regretfully; while the evening had been well-spent in the company of three Michelards from L’École Militaire, who had answered many of his questions relating to the battlefield tactics and maneuvers he could expect to see from the orcs, he would have liked to have had the opportunity to be properly presented to the lovely northern girl. Then he laughed. Who was he, once very nearly a priest, now a soldier who lived like one, to moon over another man’s promised?\n\nHe did his best to put her out of his mind, which was somewhat easier than it might have been given the excitement of the spectacle before him. Trebonius lost his first bet when a knight wearing yellow and black was adjudicated the loser for reasons that neither of the two Amorrans understood, but he collected both a silver coin and a kiss from a pretty red-haired young woman when a knight with three wolves heads painted on his shield managed to unhorse a knight whose sigil was a blue rose.\n\n“What sort of soldier goes into battle under the symbol of a flower?” a jubilant Trebonius demanded. “It only stands to reason that the wolf-rider would defeat him!”\n\nThe unruly young nobles found their new viscomte’s enthusiasm for the lists to be amusing, and the obvious fact of their being strangers seemed to pique the interest of some of the ladies as well. Marcus had to extricate himself politely, but firmly, from the embrace of one plump young woman, who, as near as he could tell, was under the impression that Amorr was located to the west and was comprised of a collection of barbarian tribes.\n\nHe was somewhat relieved to be called over by the prince, whose face betrayed his irritation at the importunities of a young man with the appearance of a messenger. However, not even the obvious royal displeasure was sufficient to dissuade the young man, as he was clearly unmoved with the Red Prince’s protests.\n\n“My dear general, it seems your presence is demanded elsewhere. At once, if I am given to understand this ill-mannered messenger boy of the Maréchal correctly.”\n\n“Has the main body of the orcs been spotted?”\n\n“No, nothing like that.” Étienne-Henri sipped at his silver goblet and shook his head. “I expect he wants to discuss with you what level of supplies and so forth you’ll be able to bring back to the marches with you. It’s not like you and your men are going to carry it all in your saddlebags, after all. I told him to arrange the wagons and drivers you’ll be needing the day we arrived here.”\n\nMarcus stifled a smile. He knew the prince was not entirely unaware of the importance of logistics, but he had never expected to be anticipated on the subject.\n\n“I shall be sorry to miss the bouts to come, but as you know, it is a matter of some import.” He turned to the messenger. “Where am I to meet Monseigneur le Maréchal?”\n\n“He said I should bring you to Notre Dame des Eaux, on the Rue du Divin, at your soonest convenience.”\n\nMarcus looked at the prince, who spread his hands and shrugged indifferently. He thought quickly. If there was a plot unfolding, it seemed improbable that Étienne-Henri was involved, as the prince could have had him and his men killed at any time during their travels here. Or, if he so desired, he could simply poison Marcus’s goblet or have one of his courtiers slip a dagger into him right here at the games. The press inside the royal box was such that even a murder might well escape notice until one or more bouts had passed.\n\nIn any event, making eyes at the prince’s betrothed was sure to be the fastest way to find himself on the wrong end of a sword. Marcus had no wish to upset the young man who was his most important ally in the kingdom, and furthermore, the beautiful northern girl’s presence was too unsettling to permit him to concentrate on, much less enjoy, the spectacle. He decided to take his chances and assume the meeting was nothing more than it seemed.\n\n“Will you excuse me, then, your Royal Highness?” He fished into his unfamiliar vestments and withdrew a small purse half-filled with silver and shook it. “By your leave, I shall leave this with my tribune to place wagers on my behalf.”\n\nÉtienne-Henri smiled, amused, and looking rather like a hungry predator suddenly scenting crippled prey. “You are too kind, Légat. Let us pray La Fortune will favor your man! Go to de Beaumille, see what the old man requires, and in the meantime, rest assured we shall watch over the dear comte like a shepherd with his most cherished sheep.”\n\nMarcus smiled back, knowing full well the chances of Trebonius returning to the palace with so much as a single copper coin were negligible. He did not care if the sheep was well-shorn, so long as it remained in good health. It was a small price to pay for bonhomie.\n", "completion": "The prince’s man greeted them. “Seigneur Valerius, Viscomte de Lechaire, did you not know you are guests in the royal box?”\n\nThe two Amorrans looked at each other. “No,” Marcus answered. “The prince suggested that we should see the combats, so we made our way here after breakfast.”\n\nThe young man was too polite to say anything about their faux pas, but he did blink several times and stare at them with a fixed smile before managing to decide what to say. “His Royal Highness will be pleased to have you join him now, I’m sure. If you will come with me?”\n\nTrebonius chuckled and Marcus shook his head. They’d argued over whether the Red Prince’s suggestion had been an invitation or not, and it appeared Trebonius had been correct. They made their way towards the center of the stands, and right in the middle was an elevated area large enough for twenty or thirty people, accessible by a wooden staircase that was guarded by no less than ten armed guards wearing the king’s livery.\n\n“You can hardly expect me to have assumed we were to sit here,” Marcus muttered in a low voice.\n\n“My mother always told me patricians had beautiful manners and I must emulate them if I was to advance myself. I rather look forward to returning to Amorr one day and disabusing her of the notion.”\n\n“You do recall the fate of my dear cousin?”\n\n“Even he never spurned a prince’s invitation,” Trebonius pointed out accurately.\n\nFortunately, Étienne-Henri was in far too festive spirits to mind, or even notice, that they were attending upon him. He greeted them effusively, with kisses on both cheeks, his dark eyes sparkling with good humor. Marcus did his best to smile broadly as he tried to surreptitiously wipe his cheeks dry with the back of his hand.\n\n“My friends, my friends, how pleased I am to see you are here after all! Have you seen the jousts before?”\n\nWhen Marcus admitted they had not, the prince cheerfully launched into an explanation that was sufficiently detailed to reveal that he was not merely an enthusiast, but had taken part in what was apparently called “the lists” from time to time himself.\n\n“Today, however, I do not ride. As the combats are being given in the honor of my victory—what do I say, I mean, of course, to say our mutual victory—over the miserable verdards, it would not be proper for me to take up the lance this day.”\n\nMarcus found himself forced to silently re-evaluate the arrogant heir to the Savondese throne. He might not be worth a damn as a general or much inclined to take the field, that much Marcus had gleaned from their conversations on the road, but it was clear he was no coward. Armor or no armor, there was no man alive who could ride headlong towards a lance aimed at his chest without possessing an ample quantity of courage. Marcus certainly had no intention of trying it himself, as it seemed a good way to break one’s back even if one escaped impalement.\n\nThe fanfare blew and the herald announced that one sieur whose name Marcus didn’t catch was riding against another sieur whose name meant absolutely nothing to him. He did, however, now grasp that these riders were no slaves nor even common soldiers, but equestrians, and even lords, and he gathered that the king himself had been a champion of the lists in his day.\n\nBets were flying back and forth between the various men in the room, and even some of the ladies were getting involved, wagering kisses against gold, or in one case, a silver necklace against a fine dagger. Trebonius looked at him with pleading eyes; it hadn’t escaped Marcus’s attention that this was very nearly the last place they needed to worry about their knights seeing anything they did.\n\n“If you must, viscomte,” he said, laying particular stress on the tribune’s strange foreign title.\n\nTrebonius beamed and immediately stuck his head out the open side of the structure, attempting to survey the two knights, although how he was going to make a determination between the one and the other, Marcus could not imagine. Did the size of the horse matter? Was it the size or the skill of the man that counted more, and how could the latter be ascertained? One could hardly come to a conclusion based on the way the men sat their mounts; he had seen stuffed saddlebags that rode a horse more easily than the heavily armored knights.\n\nIt wasn’t long before the crowd was roaring and the two horsemen were galloping towards each other, lances high. This time, both men stayed upright following their collision, although one shattered his lance while the other merely broke the tip of his. Marcus was a little confused by the shouts of triumph and disappointment, until one of the prince’s men explained that there were bets on broken lances as well as certain desirable strikes of one sort or another.\n\nThen three women entered the already-crowded box, and Marcus caught his breath. All three of the women were fair, but the tallest one, the second to enter, had skin so pale and unblemished that she might have been a half-elf. Not since Caitlys departed for Elebrion had female beauty made such an impression on him.\n\nShe wore a dark blue dress that was striking against her fair skin, and when she glanced at him, he saw that it very nearly matched the color of her eyes. Her cheekbones were high, but her face was wider than an elf’s, and her jaw was shorter and stronger. Her deep-set eyes were wide and her pale lips were full and slightly parted. She was nearly as tall as Caitlys, but her shoulders were broader and her breasts were larger than the elf maiden’s, although smaller and higher than most of the bovine Savondese women who serviced the legionaries.\n\nHer eyes passed over him, unseeing. Then she must have seen someone for whom she was looking, for her eyes all but disappeared as she smiled broadly in unaffected pleasure. Marcus whipped his head around to see who she was so happy to see, and he felt a cold hand of jealousy grip his heart as he saw that the beautiful fair-haired girl was looking at the prince. What was she to him? Was she one of Étienne-Henri’s lovers? Or worse, his mistress?\n\nMarcus tried not to watch as the tall girl made her way to the prince’s side, and courtiers and nobles alike parted before her like water under a proud keel. Étienne-Henri favored her with a nod and a wry smile; Marcus relaxed a little at the prince’s seeming indifference to her.\n\nAn elbow dug into his ribs.\n\n“Are you crazy? Stop staring at her like a starving dog!”\n\n“Who is she?” Marcus ignored Trebonius’s hissed demand. “She’s beautiful!”\n\n“She’s the northern girl, the one they call the Wolf Princess. That’s the prince’s future bride!”\n\nMarcus bit back the curse that very nearly leaped from his mouth. The beautiful girl—surely she was half-elven—was affianced to the little Savondese princeling? For the first time in his life, he understood the purpose of the Ninth Commandment; hitherto he had felt no more need to be cautioned against coveting wives than against coveting oxen or donkeys. He shook his head, though whether it was in disgust, dismay, or simply denial, he did not know.\n\n“Did you not see her last night?”\n\n“No!” Marcus wondered how he could have missed her, and then he remembered he had left before the dancing, being concerned to ensure that the chests of silver he’d received from the king were safely secured and placed under legionary guard. The queen had been absent during the banquet as well, so presumably the princess would have entered with her, after his departure.\n\nHe shook his head regretfully; while the evening had been well-spent in the company of three Michelards from L’École Militaire, who had answered many of his questions relating to the battlefield tactics and maneuvers he could expect to see from the orcs, he would have liked to have had the opportunity to be properly presented to the lovely northern girl. Then he laughed. Who was he, once very nearly a priest, now a soldier who lived like one, to moon over another man’s promised?\n\nHe did his best to put her out of his mind, which was somewhat easier than it might have been given the excitement of the spectacle before him. Trebonius lost his first bet when a knight wearing yellow and black was adjudicated the loser for reasons that neither of the two Amorrans understood, but he collected both a silver coin and a kiss from a pretty red-haired young woman when a knight with three wolves heads painted on his shield managed to unhorse a knight whose sigil was a blue rose.\n\n“What sort of soldier goes into battle under the symbol of a flower?” a jubilant Trebonius demanded. “It only stands to reason that the wolf-rider would defeat him!”\n\nThe unruly young nobles found their new viscomte’s enthusiasm for the lists to be amusing, and the obvious fact of their being strangers seemed to pique the interest of some of the ladies as well. Marcus had to extricate himself politely, but firmly, from the embrace of one plump young woman, who, as near as he could tell, was under the impression that Amorr was located to the west and was comprised of a collection of barbarian tribes.\n\nHe was somewhat relieved to be called over by the prince, whose face betrayed his irritation at the importunities of a young man with the appearance of a messenger. However, not even the obvious royal displeasure was sufficient to dissuade the young man, as he was clearly unmoved with the Red Prince’s protests.\n\n“My dear general, it seems your presence is demanded elsewhere. At once, if I am given to understand this ill-mannered messenger boy of the Maréchal correctly.”\n\n“Has the main body of the orcs been spotted?”\n\n“No, nothing like that.” Étienne-Henri sipped at his silver goblet and shook his head. “I expect he wants to discuss with you what level of supplies and so forth you’ll be able to bring back to the marches with you. It’s not like you and your men are going to carry it all in your saddlebags, after all. I told him to arrange the wagons and drivers you’ll be needing the day we arrived here.”\n\nMarcus stifled a smile. He knew the prince was not entirely unaware of the importance of logistics, but he had never expected to be anticipated on the subject.\n\n“I shall be sorry to miss the bouts to come, but as you know, it is a matter of some import.” He turned to the messenger. “Where am I to meet Monseigneur le Maréchal?”\n\n“He said I should bring you to Notre Dame des Eaux, on the Rue du Divin, at your soonest convenience.”\n\nMarcus looked at the prince, who spread his hands and shrugged indifferently. He thought quickly. If there was a plot unfolding, it seemed improbable that Étienne-Henri was involved, as the prince could have had him and his men killed at any time during their travels here. Or, if he so desired, he could simply poison Marcus’s goblet or have one of his courtiers slip a dagger into him right here at the games. The press inside the royal box was such that even a murder might well escape notice until one or more bouts had passed.\n\nIn any event, making eyes at the prince’s betrothed was sure to be the fastest way to find himself on the wrong end of a sword. Marcus had no wish to upset the young man who was his most important ally in the kingdom, and furthermore, the beautiful northern girl’s presence was too unsettling to permit him to concentrate on, much less enjoy, the spectacle. He decided to take his chances and assume the meeting was nothing more than it seemed.\n\n“Will you excuse me, then, your Royal Highness?” He fished into his unfamiliar vestments and withdrew a small purse half-filled with silver and shook it. “By your leave, I shall leave this with my tribune to place wagers on my behalf.”\n\nÉtienne-Henri smiled, amused, and looking rather like a hungry predator suddenly scenting crippled prey. “You are too kind, Légat. Let us pray La Fortune will favor your man! Go to de Beaumille, see what the old man requires, and in the meantime, rest assured we shall watch over the dear comte like a shepherd with his most cherished sheep.”\n\nMarcus smiled back, knowing full well the chances of Trebonius returning to the palace with so much as a single copper coin were negligible. He did not care if the sheep was well-shorn, so long as it remained in good health. It was a small price to pay for bonhomie.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2229, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch27_marcus-P3", "chapter": "ch27_marcus", "packet": "P3", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nLa Citadelle — church-fortress name; keep form.\nChancelier du Moulin — royal chancellor; keep spelling.\nWarin — slim assassin from the confessional; keep spelling.\nde Beaumille — named in the summons path; may be referenced.\nDalarn — historical raiders in the Citadelle’s past; keep spelling.\nAmorr — Marcus’s city; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nCalled from the festival lists into Étienne-Henri’s royal box, Marcus reassesses the prince, leaves Trebonius a wager-purse under a shepherd joke, and follows a messenger toward old de Beaumille.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nWalking under four household guards to La Citadelle, still half on the princess. Expects a trap; counts crossbows in the dark sanctuary; will not shed blood on holy ground; drops belt and sword before the confessionals.\n\nChancelier du Moulin\nWaiting in the sanctuary; laughs genuinely when Marcus names the ambush; dismisses Warin to wait outside.\n\nWarin\nSlim nondescript man from the third confessional; assassin; bows to both and exits to an annex.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nMarcus stifled a smile. He knew the prince was not entirely unaware of the importance of logistics, but he had never expected to be anticipated on the subject.\n\n“I shall be sorry to miss the bouts to come, but as you know, it is a matter of some import.” He turned to the messenger. “Where am I to meet Monseigneur le Maréchal?”\n\n“He said I should bring you to Notre Dame des Eaux, on the Rue du Divin, at your soonest convenience.”\n\nMarcus looked at the prince, who spread his hands and shrugged indifferently. He thought quickly. If there was a plot unfolding, it seemed improbable that Étienne-Henri was involved, as the prince could have had him and his men killed at any time during their travels here. Or, if he so desired, he could simply poison Marcus’s goblet or have one of his courtiers slip a dagger into him right here at the games. The press inside the royal box was such that even a murder might well escape notice until one or more bouts had passed.\n\nIn any event, making eyes at the prince’s betrothed was sure to be the fastest way to find himself on the wrong end of a sword. Marcus had no wish to upset the young man who was his most important ally in the kingdom, and furthermore, the beautiful northern girl’s presence was too unsettling to permit him to concentrate on, much less enjoy, the spectacle. He decided to take his chances and assume the meeting was nothing more than it seemed.\n\n“Will you excuse me, then, your Royal Highness?” He fished into his unfamiliar vestments and withdrew a small purse half-filled with silver and shook it. “By your leave, I shall leave this with my tribune to place wagers on my behalf.”\n\nÉtienne-Henri smiled, amused, and looking rather like a hungry predator suddenly scenting crippled prey. “You are too kind, Légat. Let us pray La Fortune will favor your man! Go to de Beaumille, see what the old man requires, and in the meantime, rest assured we shall watch over the dear comte like a shepherd with his most cherished sheep.”\n\nMarcus smiled back, knowing full well the chances of Trebonius returning to the palace with so much as a single copper coin were negligible. He did not care if the sheep was well-shorn, so long as it remained in good health. It was a small price to pay for bonhomie.\n\n### NOTES\nLa Citadelle: dark grey marble church that once sheltered Lutèce from a Dalarn raid; stained glass; open floor; altar; four confessionals; ring balcony.\nMarcus arrives with two decurions held outside and four royal guards in trail.\nHoly ground; he refuses bloodshed there.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nHe bows out of the box, whispers Trebonius instructions, and follows the messenger through weasel-eyed courtiers while the princess still rides his mind. Four household guards and two decurions take him across Lutèce to La Citadelle’s heavy marble and dim glass. Inside, space, altar, confessionals, balcony—he tells du Moulin not to insult his intelligence about crossbows and swordsmen, unbuckles, and drops blade on holy stone. Du Moulin laughs without superiority. Warin steps from the third confessional, sheepish and ordinary, and is sent to wait outside. The scene ends as the assassin disappears into the annex — before the true bargaining begins.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1600 words. Suspicious arrival; sacred ground respected. Land on Warin’s exit; do not open the political interrogation yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Marcus bowed, made his excuses to the courtiers and ladies in his immediate vicinity, whispered instructions to Trebonius, and followed the messenger out the box and down the wooden steps. Judging by the excited stir that followed his passing the purse of coins he’d given to Trebonius, any bad feelings that might have been caused by his abrupt exit appeared to have been preemptively allayed. By the time he’d reached the exit, the prince’s lordlings and petty parasites were already eyeing the remaining Amorran like weasels staring at an unaccompanied chick.\n\nHe was still having problems getting the lovely princess out of his mind as four royal household guards followed him, the young messenger, and the two decurions he’d dragged out of the stands to accompany him through the streets of Lutèce towards the palace that had replaced the Citadelle des Enfants as the royal residence. He’d left Vitalis and the other knight to rescue Trebonius from the prince’s courtiers, if need be, but mostly because he didn’t think two more men would make much difference if he was walking into a trap.\n\nLa Citadelle, as the name suggested, had once protected all the children of Lutèce from the largest Dalarn raid recorded by the royal chroniclers, although now its massive walls enclosed the royal library as well as the city arsenal. Its two towers were just visible over the trees and building tops to the west, but then his escorts turned right onto what they informed him was la Rue du Divin, so called for the three famous churches, each larger and more ornately decorated than its predecessor, culminating in the cathedral of Notre Dame des Eaux, which his scholarly instincts suggested to him had probably once been a pagan shrine to a long-forgotten Savondese river goddess. But the citadel’s defenses had not been required for many years, as the open courtyards, visible behind gates that were, more often than not, also left open, were ample testimony to the safety and security the people of Savondir’s capital city had known for generations.\n\nHow much longer would that last now that there were two foreign armies established inside the realm, a rebellion brewing in the south, and a massive orc-and-goblin army on the march to the east? He shrugged. The king could simply return to La Citadelle if need be. It was a formidable fortification, and one that would provide a challenge even to his own architecti, although he had no doubt they could take it if need be.\n\nThe messenger’s steps slowed and finally came to a halt as they approached the marble-covered building. The dark grey structure lacked the something of the grandeur, as well as the size, of the great cathedrals in Amorr, but it nevertheless captured something of the glory of the triumphant God who had conquered both the waters and the dark spirits that once ruled over them. He could see there was a statue at the top of the steps, and when he shot an inquiring glance at the messenger, the man indicated that Marcus should precede him. The seven men followed him up the wide, granite staircase, and he noticed, as he walked up the steps, that the stone was lightened and worn away in the middle from many previous footsteps over many years.\n\nUpon reaching the top, he peered at the statue that was set inside a fountain. It was a statue of a woman, and although he assumed she was nominally supposed to be the Holy Mother, her stone robes were rather too water-logged and clinging to hide her curves, which might have done credit to a camp whore. Most of the symbols were conventional enough, but there were a few he did not recognize, and several that he guessed had nothing to do with the Church proper.\n\n“Why the waters?” he asked the messenger.\n\n“Mon Seigneur?”\n\n“The Lady of the Waters,” he said, indicating the statue of the woman, who looked as if she had water pouring out of both her sleeves; presumably there were some sort of pipes cunningly concealed in the stone. “Why is she of particular significance to Lutèce?”\n\nThe man looked uneasy. “I don’t know much about such things, Seigneur Valerie. Perhaps you could ask one of the priests?”\n\nMarcus nodded. The maréchal was nowhere to be seen; presumably he was inside. He signaled the equestrians to stay where they were and mounted the three broad steps in front of the huge double doors alone; the wooden doors, too, were carved with animals and people, and symbols of dubious theological antecedence. They were well-oiled, and made virtually no noise when he entered.\n\nIt took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, as there were only four windows on each side of the sanctuary, and all eight were made of a heavy stained glass that obscured more light than they let in. There were no pews or benches. The sanctuary was merely a large open space with an altar on a platform at the far end and four wooden confessionals on the right side near the front of the sanctuary. Stairs on all four corners led to a wooden balcony that ringed the huge room on three sides, constructed in a manner that did not obscure the brightly colored paintings that decorated the ceiling with parables, scenes of Scriptural accounts, and other religious iconography. Most of it was more or less recognizable to him, but it was all painted in a style that was somewhat alien to his eye.\n\nThe confessionals were screened more heavily than was the Amorran manner, heavily enough that it was impossible to see if there was anyone in them or not. And yet, the sight of the familiar structures was enough to inspire him with a wave of homesickness combined with guilt and remorse; it was as if the consciousness of his many sins, too many of them unconfessed and unforgiven, suddenly landed upon his shoulders with a palpable sensation of weight.\n\nHe heard footsteps behind him and recognized one of the members of the royal Haut Conseil. But it was not the conseiller he had expected to see, the man he had been told would be meeting him. Instead of the white-mustached Maréchal de Savonne, it was the smooth-faced Chancelier, François du Moulin, who was emerging from the shadows at the other end of the sanctuary.\n\n“Should you wish to avail yourself of the confessional, General Valerius, I understand Father Alain makes himself available to all who seek absolution here from the ninth bell until the twelfth.”\n\nMarcus smiled faintly at the older man. “I fear I have much to do and little time to do it, Monseigneur Chancelier. My sins will have to keep for the present. Do you think to add to your own?”\n\n“My own?” Du Moulin affected to look surprised.\n\n“You lured me here under false pretenses. But if you think to kill me as a threat to the throne, I assure you, you will be making a dreadful mistake.”\n\n“I am unarmed, General. You have the advantage of me. And I doubt that sword is your only weapon.”\n\nMarcus smiled, unamused. “Please don’t insult my intelligence, Chancelier. I would be astonished if there were less than two crossbows aimed at me right now. And I should not be surprised if there were not one or more swordsmen in the confessionals there as well.”\n\nHe undid the buckle of his belt, and held up the well-worn leather, with his scabbarded sword hanging from it. “I would not shed blood on holy ground, monseigneur. Not even yours.” He dropped the belt, and the sword, to the marble floor.\n\nDu Moulin laughed. But it was a genuine laugh of good humor, not a superior one. “Three crossbows, but only one swordsman. He’s very good, you see. Warin, you may come out now, if you please!”\n\nThe door of the third confessional opened and a slim man of modest stature came out, looking rather sheepish. He looked more nondescript than dangerous, and the sword he was wearing looked slender and toy-like, but Marcus had learned better than to judge a man by his appearance. The most dangerous swordsman in the legion was a balding veteran of fifteen years’ service, who gave up more than a hands’ worth of reach to Marcus, but was an absolute demon with a blade.\n\nWarin ducked his head twice, first to du Moulin, then to Marcus. “Will that be all, monseigneur?”\n\nThe chancelier looked at Marcus. “That remains to be seen. I expect so. You may wait outside.”\n\nThe assassin bowed again, then walked past du Moulin and into an annex on the other side of the sanctuary, where he disappeared from view. The chancelier watched him go, then turned back to Marcus and spread his hands apologetically.\n", "completion": "Marcus bowed, made his excuses to the courtiers and ladies in his immediate vicinity, whispered instructions to Trebonius, and followed the messenger out the box and down the wooden steps. Judging by the excited stir that followed his passing the purse of coins he’d given to Trebonius, any bad feelings that might have been caused by his abrupt exit appeared to have been preemptively allayed. By the time he’d reached the exit, the prince’s lordlings and petty parasites were already eyeing the remaining Amorran like weasels staring at an unaccompanied chick.\n\nHe was still having problems getting the lovely princess out of his mind as four royal household guards followed him, the young messenger, and the two decurions he’d dragged out of the stands to accompany him through the streets of Lutèce towards the palace that had replaced the Citadelle des Enfants as the royal residence. He’d left Vitalis and the other knight to rescue Trebonius from the prince’s courtiers, if need be, but mostly because he didn’t think two more men would make much difference if he was walking into a trap.\n\nLa Citadelle, as the name suggested, had once protected all the children of Lutèce from the largest Dalarn raid recorded by the royal chroniclers, although now its massive walls enclosed the royal library as well as the city arsenal. Its two towers were just visible over the trees and building tops to the west, but then his escorts turned right onto what they informed him was la Rue du Divin, so called for the three famous churches, each larger and more ornately decorated than its predecessor, culminating in the cathedral of Notre Dame des Eaux, which his scholarly instincts suggested to him had probably once been a pagan shrine to a long-forgotten Savondese river goddess. But the citadel’s defenses had not been required for many years, as the open courtyards, visible behind gates that were, more often than not, also left open, were ample testimony to the safety and security the people of Savondir’s capital city had known for generations.\n\nHow much longer would that last now that there were two foreign armies established inside the realm, a rebellion brewing in the south, and a massive orc-and-goblin army on the march to the east? He shrugged. The king could simply return to La Citadelle if need be. It was a formidable fortification, and one that would provide a challenge even to his own architecti, although he had no doubt they could take it if need be.\n\nThe messenger’s steps slowed and finally came to a halt as they approached the marble-covered building. The dark grey structure lacked the something of the grandeur, as well as the size, of the great cathedrals in Amorr, but it nevertheless captured something of the glory of the triumphant God who had conquered both the waters and the dark spirits that once ruled over them. He could see there was a statue at the top of the steps, and when he shot an inquiring glance at the messenger, the man indicated that Marcus should precede him. The seven men followed him up the wide, granite staircase, and he noticed, as he walked up the steps, that the stone was lightened and worn away in the middle from many previous footsteps over many years.\n\nUpon reaching the top, he peered at the statue that was set inside a fountain. It was a statue of a woman, and although he assumed she was nominally supposed to be the Holy Mother, her stone robes were rather too water-logged and clinging to hide her curves, which might have done credit to a camp whore. Most of the symbols were conventional enough, but there were a few he did not recognize, and several that he guessed had nothing to do with the Church proper.\n\n“Why the waters?” he asked the messenger.\n\n“Mon Seigneur?”\n\n“The Lady of the Waters,” he said, indicating the statue of the woman, who looked as if she had water pouring out of both her sleeves; presumably there were some sort of pipes cunningly concealed in the stone. “Why is she of particular significance to Lutèce?”\n\nThe man looked uneasy. “I don’t know much about such things, Seigneur Valerie. Perhaps you could ask one of the priests?”\n\nMarcus nodded. The maréchal was nowhere to be seen; presumably he was inside. He signaled the equestrians to stay where they were and mounted the three broad steps in front of the huge double doors alone; the wooden doors, too, were carved with animals and people, and symbols of dubious theological antecedence. They were well-oiled, and made virtually no noise when he entered.\n\nIt took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, as there were only four windows on each side of the sanctuary, and all eight were made of a heavy stained glass that obscured more light than they let in. There were no pews or benches. The sanctuary was merely a large open space with an altar on a platform at the far end and four wooden confessionals on the right side near the front of the sanctuary. Stairs on all four corners led to a wooden balcony that ringed the huge room on three sides, constructed in a manner that did not obscure the brightly colored paintings that decorated the ceiling with parables, scenes of Scriptural accounts, and other religious iconography. Most of it was more or less recognizable to him, but it was all painted in a style that was somewhat alien to his eye.\n\nThe confessionals were screened more heavily than was the Amorran manner, heavily enough that it was impossible to see if there was anyone in them or not. And yet, the sight of the familiar structures was enough to inspire him with a wave of homesickness combined with guilt and remorse; it was as if the consciousness of his many sins, too many of them unconfessed and unforgiven, suddenly landed upon his shoulders with a palpable sensation of weight.\n\nHe heard footsteps behind him and recognized one of the members of the royal Haut Conseil. But it was not the conseiller he had expected to see, the man he had been told would be meeting him. Instead of the white-mustached Maréchal de Savonne, it was the smooth-faced Chancelier, François du Moulin, who was emerging from the shadows at the other end of the sanctuary.\n\n“Should you wish to avail yourself of the confessional, General Valerius, I understand Father Alain makes himself available to all who seek absolution here from the ninth bell until the twelfth.”\n\nMarcus smiled faintly at the older man. “I fear I have much to do and little time to do it, Monseigneur Chancelier. My sins will have to keep for the present. Do you think to add to your own?”\n\n“My own?” Du Moulin affected to look surprised.\n\n“You lured me here under false pretenses. But if you think to kill me as a threat to the throne, I assure you, you will be making a dreadful mistake.”\n\n“I am unarmed, General. You have the advantage of me. And I doubt that sword is your only weapon.”\n\nMarcus smiled, unamused. “Please don’t insult my intelligence, Chancelier. I would be astonished if there were less than two crossbows aimed at me right now. And I should not be surprised if there were not one or more swordsmen in the confessionals there as well.”\n\nHe undid the buckle of his belt, and held up the well-worn leather, with his scabbarded sword hanging from it. “I would not shed blood on holy ground, monseigneur. Not even yours.” He dropped the belt, and the sword, to the marble floor.\n\nDu Moulin laughed. But it was a genuine laugh of good humor, not a superior one. “Three crossbows, but only one swordsman. He’s very good, you see. Warin, you may come out now, if you please!”\n\nThe door of the third confessional opened and a slim man of modest stature came out, looking rather sheepish. He looked more nondescript than dangerous, and the sword he was wearing looked slender and toy-like, but Marcus had learned better than to judge a man by his appearance. The most dangerous swordsman in the legion was a balding veteran of fifteen years’ service, who gave up more than a hands’ worth of reach to Marcus, but was an absolute demon with a blade.\n\nWarin ducked his head twice, first to du Moulin, then to Marcus. “Will that be all, monseigneur?”\n\nThe chancelier looked at Marcus. “That remains to be seen. I expect so. You may wait outside.”\n\nThe assassin bowed again, then walked past du Moulin and into an annex on the other side of the sanctuary, where he disappeared from view. The chancelier watched him go, then turned back to Marcus and spread his hands apologetically.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1499, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch27_marcus-P4", "chapter": "ch27_marcus", "packet": "P4", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nChancelier du Moulin — keep spelling.\nHaut Conseil — royal high council; keep form.\nMaréchal de Savonne / Antoine de Beaumille — bursts in; keep forms.\nVallyria — Valerian province; double l.\nLegio XVII — Marcus’s legion; Roman numeral.\nSainte Jorac — prior meeting place named in dialogue; keep spelling.\nGrand Duchy — southwestern rebels’ offer; capitalize as used.\n\n### STORY\nMarcus leaves the royal box for La Citadelle, drops his sword on holy ground rather than shed blood, and watches du Moulin dismiss the confessional assassin Warin before they speak alone.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAlone with du Moulin in the sanctuary. Will serve the king while Legio XVII is welcome; refuses rebel horse and crowns; answers carefully on cousins and the Red Prince; does not take bait about becoming close to Étienne-Henri.\n\nChancelier du Moulin\nPlain-speaking after the priest-philosophe jab; probes rebel offers, Vallyria, and Marcus’s loyalty; means Marcus to like him.\n\nAntoine de Beaumille\nMaréchal de Savonne; bursts in with ten men to summon du Moulin and Marcus to the Haut Conseil at the palace.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nAt Sainte Jorac Marcus told the crown he would serve so long as the legion was welcome; du Moulin already knows that line.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Should you wish to avail yourself of the confessional, General Valerius, I understand Father Alain makes himself available to all who seek absolution here from the ninth bell until the twelfth.”\n\nMarcus smiled faintly at the older man. “I fear I have much to do and little time to do it, Monseigneur Chancelier. My sins will have to keep for the present. Do you think to add to your own?”\n\n“My own?” Du Moulin affected to look surprised.\n\n“You lured me here under false pretenses. But if you think to kill me as a threat to the throne, I assure you, you will be making a dreadful mistake.”\n\n“I am unarmed, General. You have the advantage of me. And I doubt that sword is your only weapon.”\n\nMarcus smiled, unamused. “Please don’t insult my intelligence, Chancelier. I would be astonished if there were less than two crossbows aimed at me right now. And I should not be surprised if there were not one or more swordsmen in the confessionals there as well.”\n\nHe undid the buckle of his belt, and held up the well-worn leather, with his scabbarded sword hanging from it. “I would not shed blood on holy ground, monseigneur. Not even yours.” He dropped the belt, and the sword, to the marble floor.\n\nDu Moulin laughed. But it was a genuine laugh of good humor, not a superior one. “Three crossbows, but only one swordsman. He’s very good, you see. Warin, you may come out now, if you please!”\n\nThe door of the third confessional opened and a slim man of modest stature came out, looking rather sheepish. He looked more nondescript than dangerous, and the sword he was wearing looked slender and toy-like, but Marcus had learned better than to judge a man by his appearance. The most dangerous swordsman in the legion was a balding veteran of fifteen years’ service, who gave up more than a hands’ worth of reach to Marcus, but was an absolute demon with a blade.\n\nWarin ducked his head twice, first to du Moulin, then to Marcus. “Will that be all, monseigneur?”\n\nThe chancelier looked at Marcus. “That remains to be seen. I expect so. You may wait outside.”\n\nThe assassin bowed again, then walked past du Moulin and into an annex on the other side of the sanctuary, where he disappeared from view. The chancelier watched him go, then turned back to Marcus and spread his hands apologetically.\n\n### NOTES\nSanctuary remains dim until both doors crash open.\nHaut Conseil called at the palace immediately.\nDecurions and the young messenger trail the Maréchal’s party.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nDu Moulin opens on the combats and the cheap victory over orcs; Marcus will not be flattered into ease. Plain speech follows: southwestern rebels will offer horse and a path that cannot restore Corvus or the empire; Marcus says they have nothing he wants. He affirms service to the king while the legion is welcome, hedges on Vallyria and Magnus’s reach, and refuses the suggestion that he and the Red Prince have become close. He is beginning to like the chancelier and knows that is intended. Doors crash; Beaumille fills the silhouette and roars that the king has summoned the Haut Conseil now—General Valerie wanted. The scene ends on that summons into the light.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2200 words. Political coldness without speechifying; liking noted as hazard. Land on the Haut Conseil summons; do not stage the council.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Did you find the combats much to your liking?”\n\n“As it happened, I found them rather artificial and of limited utility in war. Though admittedly more civil than our own games.”\n\nDu Moulin smiled, although no hint of amusement touched his eyes. “The king was most impressed with the ease with which you defeated the orcs. Am I correct in understanding you lost less than twenty men?”\n\nMarcus ignored the question. “I am pleased to have been of service to His Majesty. Now tell me, Monseigneur Chancelier, why you have arranged to bring me here under false pretenses?”\n\n“This world is corrupt, besmirched, and fallen, my son. A man of responsibility often discovers that there is no right choice before him, and that he must choose between two evils. This does not mean he does not sin when he chooses the lesser, it means that the evil is not in him, rather, it is in the world around him.”\n\n“You must to take that up with God, monseigneur, not with me. You have lied to me, set assassins to lie in wait for me, and now think to lecture me on philosophy. And of those three offenses, it is the third I find the most grievous, and to which I take the most exception. If you would speak with me, speak plain!”\n\n“Ah, so the priest and philosophe is now the plain-speaking soldier? Very well, I will speak plain. I do what I must, General, in the interest of crown and throne, and I do so without apology. My intent was not to deceive you, but rather, the eyes that have been upon you since you came to this city in the company of the heir to the throne, while in possession of the largest army in the land. I do not fear you, my sole concern is with those who seek to turn you, and your army, against king, crown, and throne. They are silent now. They hide behind the king’s shield while the danger from without threatens the whole realm. But once the danger is gone, they will emerge, as they always do, whispering their promises, and offering their enticements.”\n\n“And you wished to warn me of this?” Marcus snorted. “Chancelier, I fear I have considerably more pressing concerns on my mind. It is my dearest wish that I should survive to be troubled by such dangers!”\n\n“I do not seek to warn you. Rather, I seek to understand if you will prove amenable when they come calling.”\n\n“I have heard of your rebels. In the southwest, yes? The Grand Duchy? They have nothing to offer me.”\n\n“No? They cannot bring back your father, they cannot restore the peace of your empire, but they can offer you an army. And they will! Hundreds of horse and mounted men-at-arms, all armed in the knightly style. The right to make legionaries of the serfs belonging to other lords, if only you will help them conquer their lands. Can you truly say that there would be no appeal for a general in such things? Especially should he be in desperate need of additional troops as he prepares to take his depleted legion home, to where his nemesis lies waiting?”\n\nMarcus blinked. He had not considered any such thing, indeed, he had not thought much beyond the battle that was soon to come. “No, I cannot,” he admitted slowly. “Are you making a preemptive offer?”\n\n“Of course not. It would be irresponsible, and false, and anyone but a complete innocent would see right through it. General.”\n\nMarcus instinctively bristled at the insult implicit in du Moulin’s words, but he controlled his temper. The Savonder was right. He would not have seen past the bait; he was, in Savondese terms, an innocent when it came to their alien politics.\n\n“You have an evil mind, Chancelier.”\n\n“Is evil born in the hearts of men, or are its seeds planted there by the prince of this world?”\n\n“Both, of course.” Marcus snorted. “I presume you don’t actually wish to bandy theology with me, Chancelier, although I am certainly capable of accommodating you if you wish.”\n\n“It would be a pleasure, General, had we only the time. Believe it or not, I was once like you. I, too, was intended for the Church. I, too, might well have taken vows. Beware, my son, even the most sacred duty can prove corrupting over time. The more wholly you devote yourself to your duty, the more it will corrupt you.”\n\n“You serve a man. I serve Amorr itself!”\n\n“Come now! Are you so poor a philosophe that you have failed to discover that the crown is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestral House, and more to be regarded in the eyes of God as well as men of understanding?”\n\nMarcus discovered, to his dismay, that he was beginning to like the man. But that instinctive liking was tempered by the knowledge that it was du Moulin’s intention for him to feel that way.\n\n“I am duly warned, Chancelier. You may set your mind at ease. As I told you at Sainte Jorac, I will serve His Royal Majesty so long as Legio XVII is welcome in His Royal Majesty’s realm. House Valerius is loyal to its friends and does not truck with whisperers.”\n\n“I am pleased to hear it. And, of course, if they do come whispering in your ears, I should be most glad if you would let me know.”\n\n“Said the man who whispers in the king’s ear.” The chancelier only chuckled.\n\n“Mon cher General, I could hardly meet you in the open, nor could we speak frankly in front of an audience. I assure you, the maréchal was entirely willing to play the stalking horse and the young man who brought you here is indeed in his service.”\n\n“Then why the assassins?” Marcus did not mean to betray his outrage, but he could not help himself, the words came out rather more heated than he intended.\n\n“You are young. I did arrange for you to be deceived. And you Amorrans are rather famously violent. You cannot blame me for taking precautions.”\n\nMarcus nodded. It was sensible enough. He certainly didn’t have any trouble imagining Magnus, or even Falconius Buteo, taking murderous exception to a similar deception. A thought struck him.\n\n“What about Theuderic, the mage. Is he one of yours?”\n\n“Theuderic? Ah, yes, the kingsmage, who is also the Comte de Thôneaux. No, he is one of D’Arseille’s men, my colleague on the Haut Conseil, the Grandmagicien of l’Académie.”\n\n“And the liaison, de Forbonnais?”\n\nDu Moulin nodded complacently. “Yes, of course, as you must have expected.”\n\nGood, Marcus thought with satisfaction. At least he had spotted the chancelier’s spy. It seemed he was not quite as innocent as the Savonder imagined.\n\n“As long as I am here, I have some questions for you. Can you tell me anything about Amorr? Has the Senate purged House Valerius over Magnus’s treachery?”\n\n“My sources have suffered in the wake of the expulsions last winter, as you can imagine, but I am given to understand that while there is an amount of suspicion concerning your cousins, your mother and your siblings remain untainted. It is generally believed that your uncle intends to make himself king of Vallyria and as many allied cities as he can win over. It is said that he has eight legions sworn to him, but that number strikes me as an exaggeration.”\n\nMarcus nodded. Eight was impossible, especially since he was in possession of one of the three House legions. Four was the most he could imagine. “Does the Senate know the legion is here?”\n\n“They must by now. Before that, the general belief was that you’d surrendered it to your uncle after being defeated.” The chancelier chuckled at the expression on Marcus’s face. “It rankles, does it?”\n\n“More than you can know.”\n\n“I imply no criticism, General. Considering what you have accomplished in the King’s name since your arrival, I shudder to imagine the general who defeated you. I imagine he must give the Senate many a sleepless night.”\n\nMarcus grinned despite himself. “I have no doubt of that. Have they found my father’s killer?”\n\n“No. Nor that of the Sanctified Father.”\n\nMarcus nodded. He wondered if he would ever know the truth of Corvus’s death. “That is all I need to know. And before I go, Chancelier, will you not tell me the real reason you arranged for us to meet this way? A man of your subtlety is seldom given to confessing the truth on the first question.”\n\nNow it was the chancelier who smiled. “You flatter me, Marcus Valerius. Very well. In truth, I wish to know your opinion of Étienne-Henri.”\n\nMarcus’s first instinct was to dissemble, but after quickly rethinking the wisdom of attempting to deceive a man who lied as readily as he breathed, he decided that if he was going to set himself at odds with du Moulin, it would have to be over something more significant than his opinion of a man to whom he owed nothing.\n\n“He is clever. Those who are inclined to underestimate him are likely to be surprised, I think. He is ambitious, he is anxious for glory, but he is not eager for the throne. From what I have seen, he respects his father, he both loves and envies his late brother, and if I am not mistaken, he seems to fear one of his younger brothers. He is not a trusting man, though he does seem to keep his own word when it suits him.”\n\n“I noticed you hesitated to answer…” The chancelier’s voice trailed off suggestively, but Marcus declined to take the bait. The older man smiled a little, and continued. “I understand it is not uncommon for men who have fought together to become close.”\n\n“We did not fight together,” Marcus corrected him. “Nor have we become close. We traveled here together, that is all. The Crown Prince is not a soldier. Nor, in my estimation, is he a leader of men. But I do not think you need question his loyalties.”\n\nDu Moulin nodded, as if in agreement. “Charles-Phillippe would have been a great king, but I sometimes wonder if Étienne-Henri would have proven restive under his rule. Under his father, no, he will wait his turn. Which brother does he fear?”\n\n“The one closest to him in age. He never mentioned his name, and there was something in the way that he avoided even speaking it that caused me to notice. He has considerably more fondness for the youngest.”\n\n“That makes sense. The Comte d’Ainme was closer to Charles-Phillippe than to him, and some have even said that the comte shows considerable promise as a general.”\n\n“I could not say.”\n\n“No, of course not. Just one more question, General, and then I will take my leave. The orcs. Can you win?”\n\n“I will certainly do my utmost.”\n\n“That’s not an answer.”\n\n“No, it is not.” Marcus paused, and looked up at one of the stained glass windows. “In my considered and educated opinion, I do not see how we can, monseigneur. We will buy you time, and reduce their numbers. But do not rely upon us to turn them back.”\n\nDu Moulin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, Marcus saw, for the first time, the merest flicker of genuine emotion flash across the chancelier’s face. Was it fear? Was it doubt? Was it resignation? Whatever it was, it vanished in an instant as the older man mastered himself. He smiled tightly, and gave Marcus a formal little bow.\n\n“I thank you for your candor, General. And I will fervently pray, every morning and every night, that your considered and educated opinion is mistaken.”\n\n“D’accord, Monseigneur Chancelier.” In this, at least, they were agreed.\n\nThen light shattered the dim gloom and both Marcus and du Moulin whirled around, startled, as both doors to the dark sanctuary abruptly burst open and the urgent clatter of boots echoed over the marble floor. The tall figure with a rigid military bearing cast in silhouette soon revealed itself to be Antoine de Beaumille, the Maréchal de Savonne, followed by no less than ten of his men, all wearing the royal blue-and-gold livery. Behind them, Marcus’s two decurions trailed, as well as the young messenger who had found him at the tournament.\n\n“Du Moulin, the king has summoned the Haut Conseil at the palace, now!” the elderly soldier roared. “General Valerie, you’ll be wanting to ride back to the Eastmarch at once! The damned verdards are on the move!”\n", "completion": "“Did you find the combats much to your liking?”\n\n“As it happened, I found them rather artificial and of limited utility in war. Though admittedly more civil than our own games.”\n\nDu Moulin smiled, although no hint of amusement touched his eyes. “The king was most impressed with the ease with which you defeated the orcs. Am I correct in understanding you lost less than twenty men?”\n\nMarcus ignored the question. “I am pleased to have been of service to His Majesty. Now tell me, Monseigneur Chancelier, why you have arranged to bring me here under false pretenses?”\n\n“This world is corrupt, besmirched, and fallen, my son. A man of responsibility often discovers that there is no right choice before him, and that he must choose between two evils. This does not mean he does not sin when he chooses the lesser, it means that the evil is not in him, rather, it is in the world around him.”\n\n“You must to take that up with God, monseigneur, not with me. You have lied to me, set assassins to lie in wait for me, and now think to lecture me on philosophy. And of those three offenses, it is the third I find the most grievous, and to which I take the most exception. If you would speak with me, speak plain!”\n\n“Ah, so the priest and philosophe is now the plain-speaking soldier? Very well, I will speak plain. I do what I must, General, in the interest of crown and throne, and I do so without apology. My intent was not to deceive you, but rather, the eyes that have been upon you since you came to this city in the company of the heir to the throne, while in possession of the largest army in the land. I do not fear you, my sole concern is with those who seek to turn you, and your army, against king, crown, and throne. They are silent now. They hide behind the king’s shield while the danger from without threatens the whole realm. But once the danger is gone, they will emerge, as they always do, whispering their promises, and offering their enticements.”\n\n“And you wished to warn me of this?” Marcus snorted. “Chancelier, I fear I have considerably more pressing concerns on my mind. It is my dearest wish that I should survive to be troubled by such dangers!”\n\n“I do not seek to warn you. Rather, I seek to understand if you will prove amenable when they come calling.”\n\n“I have heard of your rebels. In the southwest, yes? The Grand Duchy? They have nothing to offer me.”\n\n“No? They cannot bring back your father, they cannot restore the peace of your empire, but they can offer you an army. And they will! Hundreds of horse and mounted men-at-arms, all armed in the knightly style. The right to make legionaries of the serfs belonging to other lords, if only you will help them conquer their lands. Can you truly say that there would be no appeal for a general in such things? Especially should he be in desperate need of additional troops as he prepares to take his depleted legion home, to where his nemesis lies waiting?”\n\nMarcus blinked. He had not considered any such thing, indeed, he had not thought much beyond the battle that was soon to come. “No, I cannot,” he admitted slowly. “Are you making a preemptive offer?”\n\n“Of course not. It would be irresponsible, and false, and anyone but a complete innocent would see right through it. General.”\n\nMarcus instinctively bristled at the insult implicit in du Moulin’s words, but he controlled his temper. The Savonder was right. He would not have seen past the bait; he was, in Savondese terms, an innocent when it came to their alien politics.\n\n“You have an evil mind, Chancelier.”\n\n“Is evil born in the hearts of men, or are its seeds planted there by the prince of this world?”\n\n“Both, of course.” Marcus snorted. “I presume you don’t actually wish to bandy theology with me, Chancelier, although I am certainly capable of accommodating you if you wish.”\n\n“It would be a pleasure, General, had we only the time. Believe it or not, I was once like you. I, too, was intended for the Church. I, too, might well have taken vows. Beware, my son, even the most sacred duty can prove corrupting over time. The more wholly you devote yourself to your duty, the more it will corrupt you.”\n\n“You serve a man. I serve Amorr itself!”\n\n“Come now! Are you so poor a philosophe that you have failed to discover that the crown is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestral House, and more to be regarded in the eyes of God as well as men of understanding?”\n\nMarcus discovered, to his dismay, that he was beginning to like the man. But that instinctive liking was tempered by the knowledge that it was du Moulin’s intention for him to feel that way.\n\n“I am duly warned, Chancelier. You may set your mind at ease. As I told you at Sainte Jorac, I will serve His Royal Majesty so long as Legio XVII is welcome in His Royal Majesty’s realm. House Valerius is loyal to its friends and does not truck with whisperers.”\n\n“I am pleased to hear it. And, of course, if they do come whispering in your ears, I should be most glad if you would let me know.”\n\n“Said the man who whispers in the king’s ear.” The chancelier only chuckled.\n\n“Mon cher General, I could hardly meet you in the open, nor could we speak frankly in front of an audience. I assure you, the maréchal was entirely willing to play the stalking horse and the young man who brought you here is indeed in his service.”\n\n“Then why the assassins?” Marcus did not mean to betray his outrage, but he could not help himself, the words came out rather more heated than he intended.\n\n“You are young. I did arrange for you to be deceived. And you Amorrans are rather famously violent. You cannot blame me for taking precautions.”\n\nMarcus nodded. It was sensible enough. He certainly didn’t have any trouble imagining Magnus, or even Falconius Buteo, taking murderous exception to a similar deception. A thought struck him.\n\n“What about Theuderic, the mage. Is he one of yours?”\n\n“Theuderic? Ah, yes, the kingsmage, who is also the Comte de Thôneaux. No, he is one of D’Arseille’s men, my colleague on the Haut Conseil, the Grandmagicien of l’Académie.”\n\n“And the liaison, de Forbonnais?”\n\nDu Moulin nodded complacently. “Yes, of course, as you must have expected.”\n\nGood, Marcus thought with satisfaction. At least he had spotted the chancelier’s spy. It seemed he was not quite as innocent as the Savonder imagined.\n\n“As long as I am here, I have some questions for you. Can you tell me anything about Amorr? Has the Senate purged House Valerius over Magnus’s treachery?”\n\n“My sources have suffered in the wake of the expulsions last winter, as you can imagine, but I am given to understand that while there is an amount of suspicion concerning your cousins, your mother and your siblings remain untainted. It is generally believed that your uncle intends to make himself king of Vallyria and as many allied cities as he can win over. It is said that he has eight legions sworn to him, but that number strikes me as an exaggeration.”\n\nMarcus nodded. Eight was impossible, especially since he was in possession of one of the three House legions. Four was the most he could imagine. “Does the Senate know the legion is here?”\n\n“They must by now. Before that, the general belief was that you’d surrendered it to your uncle after being defeated.” The chancelier chuckled at the expression on Marcus’s face. “It rankles, does it?”\n\n“More than you can know.”\n\n“I imply no criticism, General. Considering what you have accomplished in the King’s name since your arrival, I shudder to imagine the general who defeated you. I imagine he must give the Senate many a sleepless night.”\n\nMarcus grinned despite himself. “I have no doubt of that. Have they found my father’s killer?”\n\n“No. Nor that of the Sanctified Father.”\n\nMarcus nodded. He wondered if he would ever know the truth of Corvus’s death. “That is all I need to know. And before I go, Chancelier, will you not tell me the real reason you arranged for us to meet this way? A man of your subtlety is seldom given to confessing the truth on the first question.”\n\nNow it was the chancelier who smiled. “You flatter me, Marcus Valerius. Very well. In truth, I wish to know your opinion of Étienne-Henri.”\n\nMarcus’s first instinct was to dissemble, but after quickly rethinking the wisdom of attempting to deceive a man who lied as readily as he breathed, he decided that if he was going to set himself at odds with du Moulin, it would have to be over something more significant than his opinion of a man to whom he owed nothing.\n\n“He is clever. Those who are inclined to underestimate him are likely to be surprised, I think. He is ambitious, he is anxious for glory, but he is not eager for the throne. From what I have seen, he respects his father, he both loves and envies his late brother, and if I am not mistaken, he seems to fear one of his younger brothers. He is not a trusting man, though he does seem to keep his own word when it suits him.”\n\n“I noticed you hesitated to answer…” The chancelier’s voice trailed off suggestively, but Marcus declined to take the bait. The older man smiled a little, and continued. “I understand it is not uncommon for men who have fought together to become close.”\n\n“We did not fight together,” Marcus corrected him. “Nor have we become close. We traveled here together, that is all. The Crown Prince is not a soldier. Nor, in my estimation, is he a leader of men. But I do not think you need question his loyalties.”\n\nDu Moulin nodded, as if in agreement. “Charles-Phillippe would have been a great king, but I sometimes wonder if Étienne-Henri would have proven restive under his rule. Under his father, no, he will wait his turn. Which brother does he fear?”\n\n“The one closest to him in age. He never mentioned his name, and there was something in the way that he avoided even speaking it that caused me to notice. He has considerably more fondness for the youngest.”\n\n“That makes sense. The Comte d’Ainme was closer to Charles-Phillippe than to him, and some have even said that the comte shows considerable promise as a general.”\n\n“I could not say.”\n\n“No, of course not. Just one more question, General, and then I will take my leave. The orcs. Can you win?”\n\n“I will certainly do my utmost.”\n\n“That’s not an answer.”\n\n“No, it is not.” Marcus paused, and looked up at one of the stained glass windows. “In my considered and educated opinion, I do not see how we can, monseigneur. We will buy you time, and reduce their numbers. But do not rely upon us to turn them back.”\n\nDu Moulin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, Marcus saw, for the first time, the merest flicker of genuine emotion flash across the chancelier’s face. Was it fear? Was it doubt? Was it resignation? Whatever it was, it vanished in an instant as the older man mastered himself. He smiled tightly, and gave Marcus a formal little bow.\n\n“I thank you for your candor, General. And I will fervently pray, every morning and every night, that your considered and educated opinion is mistaken.”\n\n“D’accord, Monseigneur Chancelier.” In this, at least, they were agreed.\n\nThen light shattered the dim gloom and both Marcus and du Moulin whirled around, startled, as both doors to the dark sanctuary abruptly burst open and the urgent clatter of boots echoed over the marble floor. The tall figure with a rigid military bearing cast in silhouette soon revealed itself to be Antoine de Beaumille, the Maréchal de Savonne, followed by no less than ten of his men, all wearing the royal blue-and-gold livery. Behind them, Marcus’s two decurions trailed, as well as the young messenger who had found him at the tournament.\n\n“Du Moulin, the king has summoned the Haut Conseil at the palace, now!” the elderly soldier roared. “General Valerie, you’ll be wanting to ride back to the Eastmarch at once! The damned verdards are on the move!”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2157, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch28_bereth-P1", "chapter": "ch28_bereth", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nKurs-Magog — wasteland; keep spelling.\nTir Diffaith — fortress; keep spelling.\nIlriathas / Ilri / Lord Kelethan — suitor; forms as used.\nBessarias — magister named by mother; keep spelling.\nCollegium — mage college; capitalize.\nDanneth uffernyn — Bereth’s curse; keep form.\nfirain — proper elven woman ideal in mother’s later speech may appear; not required here.\nHigh Guard — capitalize both words.\nElder Sister — moon; may be referenced.\n\n### STORY\nAfter weeks of sky patrol Bereth sells Oakenheart on a moonrise-triggered pond poison; at the water Terfielon works while Rhian sends her off with Lassarian.\nWolfriders interrupt the wait; Lassarian kills one goblin, Rhian takes the fleeing second from the air, and they clear the bodies before Little Sister rises.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nOn leave in her parents’ residence after Merlian’s death and the boar-poisoning. Alive, bathing for the first time in a month, minor hydromancer. Has not told her parents how close the goblins came. Knows Ilriathas bought her an egg by selling stables; not affianced.\n\nBereth’s mother\nPretty elf of two hundred fifty; unshaken confidence that invasions pass; name-drops Bessarias; pushes Ilriathas; reddens and goes icy when Bereth names wealth and influence as mother’s true interest.\n\nIlriathas / Lord Kelethan\nAbsent; sold over a thousand horses to fund Bereth’s warhawk egg; has proposed in his habitual way without securing her.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nMerlian died after the Gelrinas mercy shot; Bereth fled wolfriders, was lifted by Lassarian and Rhian, and later rode the High Guard’s fighting retreat as Malchderas mocked the unbroken orc host.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHe looked back at her again, but this time there was no sympathy on his face. He glared at her angrily. “Not a whit! Damned glad I am, Bereth, and you know why? Because every cursed boar that died there last night, every whorespawn orc, is one less that we have to kill once they enter our lands. You’ve seen what they’ve done to the forests up north. What do you think they’ll do to ours? Every boar that we killed is one that won’t be fed on the ground-up bones of dead elf children!”\n\n“I know, I know, I know,” Bereth admitted. “Lasri, I’d do it again, I would. It had to be done. We should do it again and again, if they give us the chance. But just because what we’re doing is necessary, that doesn’t make it any less terrible. And it doesn’t make it any easier for me.”\n\n“You should be proud of yourself. This is like something out of the legends! Not even the Feysie Sword was supposed to be able to kill four hundred foes with a single blow.”\n\n“They’ve still got more than seven thousand boars left. The Horse Lord has less than a thousand horse. It’s not enough.”\n\n“No, but it’s a start!”\n\n“They won’t fall for it again.”\n\n“So think of something else!”\n\nShe nodded. He was right. The orcs wouldn’t fall for the same thing twice. They’d have their shamans carefully testing every spring and watering hole, and probably riding ahead to do it. And that would not only slow down the daily march a little, but might even give the High Guard the chance to take out more of the Great Orc’s most dangerous assets if they were careless enough to get too far out in front of the main body of troops.\n\nAnd there were other ways to catch the orcs by surprise. She remembered the rock wall from which Lassarian had jumped. What if a mage could summon a rock elemental, or even two or three, and keep them bound until the boars were pegged down for the night? How many could the elementals kill if goaded into a fury before the Great Orc’s shamans managed to dispel them? Or perhaps it would be possible for their mages to reverse the orcs’ possession scheme, and to seed their herd of boars with a few raging, murderous demons from one of the deeper bits of Hell.\n\nNone of these tricks would be enough, in itself, to stop the Great Orc. But it was clear that there were many ways of bleeding his army without meeting it in battle, many, many ways. So many ways to kill. So many ways to die. So much death. So very much death.\n\nShe leaned as far as she could over the side of the great warhawk, and her stomach violently convulsed.\n\n### NOTES\nParents’ residence; pink-veined white marble tub; clean white robe waiting.\nMorning; she has slept past dawn for the first time since joining the forward camp.\nMother downstairs with food offer; marble stairs slick under damp feet.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nShe luxuriates in the marble tub on leave, almost glad Oakenheart sent her home, and still owns the boar-killing as necessary even when one grieving orc stays in her mind’s eye. Robed, she comes down to her mother’s third welcome and soft pressure to stay; she will not—the Guard needs her, the host is larger than story. Mother yawns through Bessarias and Collegium comforts until Ilriathas’s sold stables surface; Bereth admits the egg. Mother forbids accepting such a gift without betrothal; Bereth says she is affianced to no one. When she names Ilri’s wealth and court weight as mother’s real calculus, the older elf reddens, ears twitch, and turns back icy-calm. The scene ends on that icy expression — before the open order to leave the Guard.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2100 words. Domestic heat under war fatigue; elven forms exact. Land on the mother’s icy calm; do not open the Guard-ban speech yet.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Bereth lay back in the pink-veined white marble of the tub and sighed with pleasure. It was the first time in more than a month she’d had a proper bath, and this morning was the first time she’d been able to sleep in past dawn since the day she’d flown to the High Guard’s forward encampment north of the Kurs-Magog. Perhaps she should have returned sooner, she thought, perhaps she should have let Lord Oakenheart send her home after losing Merlian, as he’d threatened.\n\nWell, she was glad he’d sent her home now. At least here, in the familiarity and comfort of her parent’s residence in Elebrion, the sights and smells of death and decay that had overwhelmed her seemed to be less something she’d experienced herself than a tale of something that happened to someone else, of horrors that had taken place in another time, and in another distant, alien land. After falling ill, she had begun crying, helplessly weeping, overcome by the sheer quantity of blood on her hands.\n\nNo, she decided. As awful as the assault on her senses had been, she had done the right thing in helping the High Guard cut down the number of boars the king would have to face in the field. On her flight back to the city, she had seen the defenseless estates, the vineyards and the cultivated lands, that would be devastated even if the city walls proved impervious to the Great Orc’s rage. And if they were not, well, that was something that did not even bear thinking about.\n\nShe had done the right thing. And yet, the thought of the one orc who was too lost in its grief to shake its fist at them, to even bother looking up at them, troubled her. Did it—did he—like her mourn the loss of a faithful steed? Whatever pity she momentarily felt disappeared in the flash of anger at the reminder of her beloved hawk and the knowledge that she would never ride through the sky on his back again. She looked down at the water and shuddered. It was grey, and there were bits of flotsam floating in it; her mother would not be pleased with the sight of a thin crust of filth lining the sides and bottom of the tub. With another sigh that was more regret than pleasure, she pushed down the lever that opened the drain, then stood, letting the water drip from her before banishing the last drops from her skin with a murmured spell. Her minor gift for hydromancy served little purpose in the High Guard, but it was occasionally useful at times.\n\nA clean white robe had been left there for her, and she slipped her arms inside it, then ran her hands through her wet hair and tucked it behind her ears. She could have banished the water in her hair as well, but she’d learned decades ago that doing so tended to leave her hair brittle and dry.\n\n“Are you hungry?” she heard her mother call from downstairs.\n\n“Not particularly.” She descended the circular staircase carefully; even with her feet being dry, the marble was slick under them and she had fallen on these very stairs more than a few times over the years. Her mother was seated in what she called her “interior veranda”, an open room adjacent to the kitchen with a large window that overlooked one of the four artificial lakes inside the city walls. Her parents were not rich; her father Eulenarias was a second-rank royal adjudicator, and her mother was presently occupying herself with painting flowers, although it took her about three years to complete a single painting. Bereth thought the paintings were rather good, but her mother absolutely refused to let anyone outside the family see them.\n\n“It’s so good to have you back again,” her mother told her for the third time this morning. “It’s just not the same without you here.”\n\nBereth smiled at her mother. She was a pretty elf of two hundred fifty, but except for a few very faint lines around her eyes, she might have been no older than Bereth. Her dark golden hair betrayed her Kir Donasian origins; she lacked the alabaster features of the true high elf, but were she a little more fair, they might have passed for sisters.\n\n“I wish I didn’t have to, but I can’t stay more than another night or two. The High Guard needs me.”\n\n“Of course you can!” Her mother smiled sympathetically, but she had the good sense not to mention Merlian. “I worry about you, Bereth, and I know perfectly well that you’re not telling me everything. The High Lord himself said you needed rest in his note.”\n\nBereth shook her head and snorted to herself. She wasn’t mad. Of course she hadn’t told her parents more than the barest details. If they’d had any idea how close she’d come to providing an early lunch to a goblin cavalry patrol, they’d put chains on her feet and ensorcel every door and window in the residence.\n\n“You don’t understand, mother. There is no running away from this. This army, it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever even read about. I can’t believe no one is doing anything here! It’s as if no one is aware that we’re all in mortal peril.”\n\n“When you live as long as we have, darling, you eventually learn that there is seldom a need to panic. Very often, if you simply ignore the problem, you’ll find it goes away on its own accord before long.”\n\n“The Great Orc is not going away, mother. He’s coming here and he’s bringing over one hundred thousand orcs and goblins and sky knows what else with him!”\n\nHer mother yawned behind her hand. “I know, darling. He’s not the first, and I find it hard to imagine he will be the last. But these things have a way of sorting themselves out.”\n\n“Like what?”\n\n“I don’t know. It’s always something different. There was the time that a large army of Men marched all the way to the lower slopes of the mountain. Everyone was very excited, I was only a child, but I remember it very well because my mother and I were flown from our family estate here to the city by a sky rider. It was very exciting!”\n\n“I can imagine,” Bereth said dryly.\n\n“Yes, well, I suppose you can. In any event, I remember my mother was absolutely terrified and everyone was convinced that we were in dreadful peril because it was said these awful Men possessed engines of war that could destroy the walls. But then one of the princes dispelled the supports for one of the bridges that crossed a gorge while the army was crossing it, and that was enough to send the Men running home.”\n\nBereth sighed. “Those particular Men were southerners and they were unfamiliar with magic. That’s not the case with the Great Orc. He has a considerable number of mages, both orc and goblin, and they’ve been utilizing spells and artifices that not even Lord Oakenheart has seen before. And he’s more than a thousand years old!”\n\n“You’re missing my point.”\n\n“Which is what?”\n\n“Every invasion is different, of course. But regardless of whatever the particulars might be, it’s nothing that the High King and his commanders haven’t seen before. That’s one of the advantages of being long-lived, darling. It provides a certain familiarity in any given situation. You’re so young that it’s not surprising that you can’t see that yet.”\n\n“Lord Oakenheart and the Prince-General are hardly young, mother. And I can assure you, they are very concerned about the possibility we won’t be able to stop them.”\n\n“If the High King can’t, the Collegium will,” her mother’s confidence was unshaken. “Indeed, I’ve even heard that Bessarias has been summoned from his seclusion. Perhaps that is why.”\n\n“Who is Bessarias?” Bereth had never heard of the elf. “He’s a mage?”\n\n“He is the greatest magister in the history of the Collegium. In the history of the Seven Kingdoms. Do you mean to tell me that in all of your flying about, you’ve never seen the Glass Desert?”\n\n“There’s not much to see. It’s deep in the wastes of Kurs-Magog. It’s just a flat patch of sand and brush, pretty much like any other.”\n\n“Yes, I suppose the Mother always claims her own in time.”\n\n“I don’t understand.”\n\n“Well, I have never been there myself, but I expect that if you dig a little beneath that sand, you’ll find that underneath it lies a vast sheet of glass. It’s said that as a young magister, Bessarias created a spell that broke the very fabric of Creation. It turned the sand to glass for as far as the eye could see.”\n\n“Danneth uffernyn!” Bereth’s own sorceries were barely sufficient to light a candle if she concentrated hard enough; she couldn’t fathom possessing such unvarnished power.\n\n“Language, dear. He disappeared for decades about a century ago, and some said he was dead, but it seems he was only in retirement. Or perhaps he simply preferred more solitary studies; I imagine the scholarly life can become rather tiresome when one is constantly at the mercy of students who wish to pester one.”\n\nBereth nodded. She wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about yet another acquaintance of her mother’s she’d never even met. She let her mind wander, thinking about which birds and riders would be returning from the morning patrol about now. She had no intention of doing much more than bathe and sleep while she was on leave; that would give her a reserve that would make the inevitable exhaustion of the brutally repetitive sky patrols easier to endure. Then a name caught her attention and she began to listen more closely.\n\n“And so naturally I thought of you, given the close attention he has paid you over the years.”\n\n“Wait, did you say something about Ilri?”\n\n“Why yes, weren’t you listening? It seems Lord Kelethan sold his stables recently.”\n\n“His stables! So that’s where he found the money,” Bereth mused aloud. Her words didn’t escape her mother’s notice.\n\n“The money for what?”\n\nBereth sighed. “He bought me an egg.”\n\n“An egg?” Her mother frowned for a moment before comprehension dawned. “He bought you a warhawk?”\n\n“Not exactly. I suppose you could say that he allowed me to move up a few clutches. I’ll still have to wait another year or two.”\n\n“Bereth, you can’t possibly accept that sort of gift from Ilriathas! Are you affianced? Did he propose marriage to you?” Her mother had half-risen from the divan on which she was sitting and her eyes were flashing as if she was furious.\n\n“What? I don’t understand!”\n\n“Ilriathas had over one thousand horses in his stable. He’s been breeding them for over a century; no one could believe he sold them off so quickly. And now you tell me that he did this for you?”\n\n“Mother, I’m not affianced to Ilri. Or to anyone. And he didn’t propose marriage, I mean, not anymore than he always does.”\n\n“Bereth, you cannot treat him so lightly! It is cruel to toy with his affections as you do. Would it be so terrible, to be married to such an elf? He is young, he is handsome, and you have told me yourself how brave he is!”\n\n“And he is wealthy and influential at court, Mother. I find it difficult to imagine that somehow slipped your mind!”\n\nHer mother’s pale face reddened ever so slightly and the tips of her long ears twitched. For an elf as normally self-controlled as she was, Bereth knew this indicated a severe state of irritation. She rose gracefully to her feet and turned her back on her daughter, and walked over to the window to look out over the placid waters of the lake.\n\nWhen she turned around, she was calm again, but there was something icy about her expression.\n", "completion": "Bereth lay back in the pink-veined white marble of the tub and sighed with pleasure. It was the first time in more than a month she’d had a proper bath, and this morning was the first time she’d been able to sleep in past dawn since the day she’d flown to the High Guard’s forward encampment north of the Kurs-Magog. Perhaps she should have returned sooner, she thought, perhaps she should have let Lord Oakenheart send her home after losing Merlian, as he’d threatened.\n\nWell, she was glad he’d sent her home now. At least here, in the familiarity and comfort of her parent’s residence in Elebrion, the sights and smells of death and decay that had overwhelmed her seemed to be less something she’d experienced herself than a tale of something that happened to someone else, of horrors that had taken place in another time, and in another distant, alien land. After falling ill, she had begun crying, helplessly weeping, overcome by the sheer quantity of blood on her hands.\n\nNo, she decided. As awful as the assault on her senses had been, she had done the right thing in helping the High Guard cut down the number of boars the king would have to face in the field. On her flight back to the city, she had seen the defenseless estates, the vineyards and the cultivated lands, that would be devastated even if the city walls proved impervious to the Great Orc’s rage. And if they were not, well, that was something that did not even bear thinking about.\n\nShe had done the right thing. And yet, the thought of the one orc who was too lost in its grief to shake its fist at them, to even bother looking up at them, troubled her. Did it—did he—like her mourn the loss of a faithful steed? Whatever pity she momentarily felt disappeared in the flash of anger at the reminder of her beloved hawk and the knowledge that she would never ride through the sky on his back again. She looked down at the water and shuddered. It was grey, and there were bits of flotsam floating in it; her mother would not be pleased with the sight of a thin crust of filth lining the sides and bottom of the tub. With another sigh that was more regret than pleasure, she pushed down the lever that opened the drain, then stood, letting the water drip from her before banishing the last drops from her skin with a murmured spell. Her minor gift for hydromancy served little purpose in the High Guard, but it was occasionally useful at times.\n\nA clean white robe had been left there for her, and she slipped her arms inside it, then ran her hands through her wet hair and tucked it behind her ears. She could have banished the water in her hair as well, but she’d learned decades ago that doing so tended to leave her hair brittle and dry.\n\n“Are you hungry?” she heard her mother call from downstairs.\n\n“Not particularly.” She descended the circular staircase carefully; even with her feet being dry, the marble was slick under them and she had fallen on these very stairs more than a few times over the years. Her mother was seated in what she called her “interior veranda”, an open room adjacent to the kitchen with a large window that overlooked one of the four artificial lakes inside the city walls. Her parents were not rich; her father Eulenarias was a second-rank royal adjudicator, and her mother was presently occupying herself with painting flowers, although it took her about three years to complete a single painting. Bereth thought the paintings were rather good, but her mother absolutely refused to let anyone outside the family see them.\n\n“It’s so good to have you back again,” her mother told her for the third time this morning. “It’s just not the same without you here.”\n\nBereth smiled at her mother. She was a pretty elf of two hundred fifty, but except for a few very faint lines around her eyes, she might have been no older than Bereth. Her dark golden hair betrayed her Kir Donasian origins; she lacked the alabaster features of the true high elf, but were she a little more fair, they might have passed for sisters.\n\n“I wish I didn’t have to, but I can’t stay more than another night or two. The High Guard needs me.”\n\n“Of course you can!” Her mother smiled sympathetically, but she had the good sense not to mention Merlian. “I worry about you, Bereth, and I know perfectly well that you’re not telling me everything. The High Lord himself said you needed rest in his note.”\n\nBereth shook her head and snorted to herself. She wasn’t mad. Of course she hadn’t told her parents more than the barest details. If they’d had any idea how close she’d come to providing an early lunch to a goblin cavalry patrol, they’d put chains on her feet and ensorcel every door and window in the residence.\n\n“You don’t understand, mother. There is no running away from this. This army, it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever even read about. I can’t believe no one is doing anything here! It’s as if no one is aware that we’re all in mortal peril.”\n\n“When you live as long as we have, darling, you eventually learn that there is seldom a need to panic. Very often, if you simply ignore the problem, you’ll find it goes away on its own accord before long.”\n\n“The Great Orc is not going away, mother. He’s coming here and he’s bringing over one hundred thousand orcs and goblins and sky knows what else with him!”\n\nHer mother yawned behind her hand. “I know, darling. He’s not the first, and I find it hard to imagine he will be the last. But these things have a way of sorting themselves out.”\n\n“Like what?”\n\n“I don’t know. It’s always something different. There was the time that a large army of Men marched all the way to the lower slopes of the mountain. Everyone was very excited, I was only a child, but I remember it very well because my mother and I were flown from our family estate here to the city by a sky rider. It was very exciting!”\n\n“I can imagine,” Bereth said dryly.\n\n“Yes, well, I suppose you can. In any event, I remember my mother was absolutely terrified and everyone was convinced that we were in dreadful peril because it was said these awful Men possessed engines of war that could destroy the walls. But then one of the princes dispelled the supports for one of the bridges that crossed a gorge while the army was crossing it, and that was enough to send the Men running home.”\n\nBereth sighed. “Those particular Men were southerners and they were unfamiliar with magic. That’s not the case with the Great Orc. He has a considerable number of mages, both orc and goblin, and they’ve been utilizing spells and artifices that not even Lord Oakenheart has seen before. And he’s more than a thousand years old!”\n\n“You’re missing my point.”\n\n“Which is what?”\n\n“Every invasion is different, of course. But regardless of whatever the particulars might be, it’s nothing that the High King and his commanders haven’t seen before. That’s one of the advantages of being long-lived, darling. It provides a certain familiarity in any given situation. You’re so young that it’s not surprising that you can’t see that yet.”\n\n“Lord Oakenheart and the Prince-General are hardly young, mother. And I can assure you, they are very concerned about the possibility we won’t be able to stop them.”\n\n“If the High King can’t, the Collegium will,” her mother’s confidence was unshaken. “Indeed, I’ve even heard that Bessarias has been summoned from his seclusion. Perhaps that is why.”\n\n“Who is Bessarias?” Bereth had never heard of the elf. “He’s a mage?”\n\n“He is the greatest magister in the history of the Collegium. In the history of the Seven Kingdoms. Do you mean to tell me that in all of your flying about, you’ve never seen the Glass Desert?”\n\n“There’s not much to see. It’s deep in the wastes of Kurs-Magog. It’s just a flat patch of sand and brush, pretty much like any other.”\n\n“Yes, I suppose the Mother always claims her own in time.”\n\n“I don’t understand.”\n\n“Well, I have never been there myself, but I expect that if you dig a little beneath that sand, you’ll find that underneath it lies a vast sheet of glass. It’s said that as a young magister, Bessarias created a spell that broke the very fabric of Creation. It turned the sand to glass for as far as the eye could see.”\n\n“Danneth uffernyn!” Bereth’s own sorceries were barely sufficient to light a candle if she concentrated hard enough; she couldn’t fathom possessing such unvarnished power.\n\n“Language, dear. He disappeared for decades about a century ago, and some said he was dead, but it seems he was only in retirement. Or perhaps he simply preferred more solitary studies; I imagine the scholarly life can become rather tiresome when one is constantly at the mercy of students who wish to pester one.”\n\nBereth nodded. She wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about yet another acquaintance of her mother’s she’d never even met. She let her mind wander, thinking about which birds and riders would be returning from the morning patrol about now. She had no intention of doing much more than bathe and sleep while she was on leave; that would give her a reserve that would make the inevitable exhaustion of the brutally repetitive sky patrols easier to endure. Then a name caught her attention and she began to listen more closely.\n\n“And so naturally I thought of you, given the close attention he has paid you over the years.”\n\n“Wait, did you say something about Ilri?”\n\n“Why yes, weren’t you listening? It seems Lord Kelethan sold his stables recently.”\n\n“His stables! So that’s where he found the money,” Bereth mused aloud. Her words didn’t escape her mother’s notice.\n\n“The money for what?”\n\nBereth sighed. “He bought me an egg.”\n\n“An egg?” Her mother frowned for a moment before comprehension dawned. “He bought you a warhawk?”\n\n“Not exactly. I suppose you could say that he allowed me to move up a few clutches. I’ll still have to wait another year or two.”\n\n“Bereth, you can’t possibly accept that sort of gift from Ilriathas! Are you affianced? Did he propose marriage to you?” Her mother had half-risen from the divan on which she was sitting and her eyes were flashing as if she was furious.\n\n“What? I don’t understand!”\n\n“Ilriathas had over one thousand horses in his stable. He’s been breeding them for over a century; no one could believe he sold them off so quickly. And now you tell me that he did this for you?”\n\n“Mother, I’m not affianced to Ilri. Or to anyone. And he didn’t propose marriage, I mean, not anymore than he always does.”\n\n“Bereth, you cannot treat him so lightly! It is cruel to toy with his affections as you do. Would it be so terrible, to be married to such an elf? He is young, he is handsome, and you have told me yourself how brave he is!”\n\n“And he is wealthy and influential at court, Mother. I find it difficult to imagine that somehow slipped your mind!”\n\nHer mother’s pale face reddened ever so slightly and the tips of her long ears twitched. For an elf as normally self-controlled as she was, Bereth knew this indicated a severe state of irritation. She rose gracefully to her feet and turned her back on her daughter, and walked over to the window to look out over the placid waters of the lake.\n\nWhen she turned around, she was calm again, but there was something icy about her expression.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2092, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch28_bereth-P2", "chapter": "ch28_bereth", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHigh Guard — capitalize.\nIlriathas / Lord Kelethan / Ilri — forms as used.\nThree Kingdoms — mother’s defense phrase; keep form.\nMother — the goddess gift in mother’s speech; capitalize when divine.\nfirain — may appear in mother’s mouth; keep spelling if present.\n\n### STORY\nOn leave Bereth bathes in her parents’ marble tub, sparring with her mother’s invasion-calm and Bessarias-talk until Ilriathas’s sold stables and the warhawk egg bring a fight; Bereth names wealth as mother’s true interest and the older elf turns icy.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nQuarreling at home. No place left in the Guard by her mother’s decree after Merlian’s loss; accused of selfishness. Curious about her mother’s last spell; refuses to treat Ilri lightly yet will not promise marriage. Thinking of Lassarian and camp permissions she cannot confess.\n\nBereth’s mother\nEnds tolerance for High Guard service; reveals she never regretted giving up spellweaving for a child; urges love as choice and warns against taking Ilri’s gifts without intent; extracts a dutiful nod.\n\nLassarian\nReferenced only; wartime lover Bereth will not name to her mother.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nBereth nodded. She wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about yet another acquaintance of her mother’s she’d never even met. She let her mind wander, thinking about which birds and riders would be returning from the morning patrol about now. She had no intention of doing much more than bathe and sleep while she was on leave; that would give her a reserve that would make the inevitable exhaustion of the brutally repetitive sky patrols easier to endure. Then a name caught her attention and she began to listen more closely.\n\n“And so naturally I thought of you, given the close attention he has paid you over the years.”\n\n“Wait, did you say something about Ilri?”\n\n“Why yes, weren’t you listening? It seems Lord Kelethan sold his stables recently.”\n\n“His stables! So that’s where he found the money,” Bereth mused aloud. Her words didn’t escape her mother’s notice.\n\n“The money for what?”\n\nBereth sighed. “He bought me an egg.”\n\n“An egg?” Her mother frowned for a moment before comprehension dawned. “He bought you a warhawk?”\n\n“Not exactly. I suppose you could say that he allowed me to move up a few clutches. I’ll still have to wait another year or two.”\n\n“Bereth, you can’t possibly accept that sort of gift from Ilriathas! Are you affianced? Did he propose marriage to you?” Her mother had half-risen from the divan on which she was sitting and her eyes were flashing as if she was furious.\n\n“What? I don’t understand!”\n\n“Ilriathas had over one thousand horses in his stable. He’s been breeding them for over a century; no one could believe he sold them off so quickly. And now you tell me that he did this for you?”\n\n“Mother, I’m not affianced to Ilri. Or to anyone. And he didn’t propose marriage, I mean, not anymore than he always does.”\n\n“Bereth, you cannot treat him so lightly! It is cruel to toy with his affections as you do. Would it be so terrible, to be married to such an elf? He is young, he is handsome, and you have told me yourself how brave he is!”\n\n“And he is wealthy and influential at court, Mother. I find it difficult to imagine that somehow slipped your mind!”\n\nHer mother’s pale face reddened ever so slightly and the tips of her long ears twitched. For an elf as normally self-controlled as she was, Bereth knew this indicated a severe state of irritation. She rose gracefully to her feet and turned her back on her daughter, and walked over to the window to look out over the placid waters of the lake.\n\nWhen she turned around, she was calm again, but there was something icy about her expression.\n\n### NOTES\nSame morning in the family residence after the icy turn.\nMother’s last spell before motherhood remains unnamed.\nPossible royal marriage decree for knighted nobles is court rumor mother reports.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nMother declares the High Guard nonsense over—without Merlian Bereth has no place. Bereth flares; mother answers with the cost of her own abandoned sorcery and swears she never regretted the last spell she cast before the child. Talk turns to Ilriathas, a rumored marriage decree, and love as chosen commitment rather than flutter. Bereth will not accept the egg as a chain she does not mean to wear, yet she cannot tell her mother about Lasri or the camp’s short permissions born of blood and fear. She nods dutifully and will not meet her mother’s eyes, not knowing what she will do about Lassarian if the war even allows a future. The scene ends on that nod — before the next day’s summons.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1800 words. Family pressure without softening Bereth’s war-hardening. Land on the dutiful nod about Lassarian; do not cut to the captain at the door.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Your father and I have tolerated this High Guard nonsense long enough. You are young, that is true, and one has to make allowances for the stupidity and selfishness of youth. We were willing to accept that you had won a place in the Guard on your merit, and that you had important contributions to make to the defense of the Three Kingdoms. But you have no more place in the Guard, Bereth, not anymore.”\n\nBereth glared at her mother in silence. She was too angry, too furious, to find the words to even begin. It was with some difficulty that she prevented herself from raising her voice.\n\n“I am not the first sky rider to lose her mount,” she hissed from between her teeth. “And the High Guard is my place!”\n\n“No, your place is here, in a civilized home, not gallivanting across the northern wastes treating orcs like pincushions! You should be providing your father and me with grandchildren, not playing at being a proper sorceress. You’ve never had the aptitude or the scholarly interest!”\n\n“Is that what this is all about?” Bereth shouted at her. “You regret giving up your precious sorcery to have me, so now you want me to be miserable by making me give up the one thing I love most as well? Well, guess what, mother. I already lost it! I already lost him! They shot him and they murdered him and even though he was dying he still gave everything he had to save me and I killed him and it was all my fault!”\n\nShe burst into tears and covered her eyes with her hands. A moment later, she felt her mother’s arms embracing her, pulling her in, and holding her tight.\n\n“Shh, it’s all right, darling. It’s all right.”\n\nBereth didn’t know how long she cried, but her mother’s green tunic was soaked through with tears by the time she finally stopped. She wiped at her eyes and then at her nose with her hands, then stared at her mother in silent, rueful apology.\n\n“Never think that I regret giving up my magic for you, my dear, most darling daughter.” Her mother smiled, and a dreamy look entered her eyes. “The truth is that I gave it up for your father. That was more than a hundred years ago, and I can still remember that very last spell, knowing perfectly well that it was going to be the last one I ever would cast.”\n\n“What was it?” Bereth asked, genuinely curious.\n\n“It is absolutely no business of yours,” her mother replied archly, stoking her curiosity even more. “But I will say this. For all that I loved, truly loved, spellweaving and spellcasting, I have never once regretted my decision.”\n\n“Truly?”\n\n“Truly. Not for one single moment.” Her mother frowned unexpectedly and a thoughtful expression appeared on her face. “I had debated over whether I should tell you this or not. Your father didn’t think anything would come of it, but now that I know the extent of Lord Kelethan’s interest in you, I really think you had better know.”\n\n“Know what?” Bereth asked, suspicious at the mention of Ilri’s title.\n\n“Your father was helping one of the Lord Magistrates with some research into the archives a few days ago. The magistrate had been charged by the High King to delve into some rather arcane areas of law, most of which were related to the king’s ancient rights concerning his subjects. Specifically, his right to demand subjects from them.”\n\n“I don’t understand. Demand what from them?”\n\n“As the king’s subjects, we all have duties as well as rights. And one of those duties, as a royal subject, is to provide the king with future subjects.”\n\n“Children,” Bereth said, carefully navigating her way through her mother’s words. “But why is the king concerned with old laws like that? Surely he isn’t going to demand that every elf simply drop what she is doing and bear him children? Does he plan to father them all himself?”\n\n“I rather doubt the queen would permit that.” Her mother smiled. “No, your father said the Lord Magistrate was primarily interested in the laws as they related to marriage. It seems that some of the older lords have been pressing the king to announce a decree ordering certain elves to marry.”\n\n“He can’t do that, can he?”\n\n“According to your father, he absolutely can. Whether he will, though, is entirely another matter. He’s never been inclined to listen to most of those particular lords before, that much is certain.”\n\n“Why are you telling me this. Do you think I might be one of those ordered to marry?”\n\nHer mother shrugged. “It’s possible. I don’t know. But I don’t think so. And that’s not my thought. Your father suggested, on the basis of one of the documents, that the king might be thinking of ordering all of his knighted nobles to marry as a condition of their vassalage. It’s no secret that he’s concerned about the number of knights he can put in the field. If that’s the case, you would do well to consider accepting Lord Kelethan’s offer.”\n\n“Why?”\n\n“Because Ilriathas will be one of those at whom the decree is directed. And he is almost surely the best offer you’re ever going to get, Bereth, even if you live to be five hundred. Among his other advantages is the fact that he happens to love you.”\n\n“But I don’t want to marry him! I don’t want to marry anyone!”\n\n“The stars do seem to be aligning, my dear. What I don’t understand is why you’re being so stubborn. Is there someone else?”\n\n“No!” Bereth protested hotly. Too hotly, it seemed, as her mother’s ears twitched and her finely plucked eyebrows rose with suspicion. “I mean, not really. No one serious.”\n\nHer mother sighed and shook her head. “Let me guess. He’s dashing, he’s frivolous, he’s amusing, and he’s someone you know perfectly well is never going to demand anything from you, make any sort of impression on your heart, or be troubled when you decide to put an end to it.”\n\nBereth stared at her mother. Short of adding a physical description, she could hardly have described Lassarian better. “How did you know?”\n\n“Because you’re doing exactly what morwynion ifanc have done for generations. You’re putting off any chance of developing a real relationship, the sort of relationship that frightens you, by hiding behind impossible ones you know will never go anywhere.”\n\n“If everyone does it, what is wrong with it?”\n\nHer mother smiled grimly. “Once you start down that path, my dear, its very hard to know when to leave it. There are seven-hundred-year-old sorceresses at the Collegium who fully intended to marry one day, but with every year that passed, they found it harder to change their ways, and, of course, fewer elves who were interested in them. I have friends like that. It’s a lonely way to live, Bereth, and it doesn’t get easier with time.”\n\n“So what are you saying, I should just marry Ilri even though I don’t love him?”\n\n“I am saying that if you marry Lord Kelethan, you will almost certainly come to love him in time. It is the Mother’s great gift to us, to compensate for the sacrifices we must make and the burdens we must carry. Love is a choice, Bereth, it is commitment, not magic or coincidence. That flutter of excitement for which you are waiting is ephemeral; even when it comes, it disappears again in the blink of an eye.”\n\n“And if I don’t intend to marry him, I shouldn’t accept his gifts?”\n\nHer mother made a face. “Normally, considering the extravagance and the expense, I would say you should not. But this is a different matter. The nature of the gift is such that it precludes you marrying him. So, he’s making it clear that he intends to wait for you. And he is, after all, nearly three hundred years old, so it’s obvious that he is not in a hurry. His heart is true. But true or not, Lord Kelethan will not deny the decree of the king. And young as he is, he may see giving you up as a noble gesture or some other such nonsense.”\n\n“Why do you call him young when he’s fifty years older than you are?”\n\n“Males age much more slowly than we do, darling. And motherhood ages an elf; I expect I learned more wisdom in your first year than in the one hundred I’d lived before.”\n\n“I don’t understand.”\n\nHer mother laughed. “I discovered how many of my ideas about the world were utterly and ridiculously wrong. When you have children of your own, you will understand too. Now, does Ilriathas know about this other elf?”\n\nBereth blushed. This was simply not a conversation she wanted to be having with her mother. “Ah, no, I don’t think so. It’s nothing serious, I swear!”\n\n“And yet it is serious enough that you’re not comfortable telling him about it. That should tell you something right there, my dear. I very much recommend you put an end to it at once, or else decline Lord Kelethan’s gift. Males can be very possessive, especially of those they do not actually possess. You’re playing with fire there, Bereth.”\n\nIt was true. Bereth wanted to tell her mother how it was different at the camp, and in the sky, how the combination of fear, exhaustion, and the knowledge that every patrol might be her last gave her the sense that anything was possible and everything was permissible. But how could she tell her that and not drive her mother mad with worry? And even she knew it was foolishness, a short-sighted madness that stemmed from being constantly drenched in battle, blood, and death. It was easier to stop thinking and lose herself in momentary pleasures than face her fears… or the terrible things she had done.\n\nSo she nodded dutifully and avoided meeting her mother’s eyes. What she would do about Lassarian, she did not know, but then, if this war had taught her anything, it was to not worry overmuch about a tomorrow that might never come.\n", "completion": "“Your father and I have tolerated this High Guard nonsense long enough. You are young, that is true, and one has to make allowances for the stupidity and selfishness of youth. We were willing to accept that you had won a place in the Guard on your merit, and that you had important contributions to make to the defense of the Three Kingdoms. But you have no more place in the Guard, Bereth, not anymore.”\n\nBereth glared at her mother in silence. She was too angry, too furious, to find the words to even begin. It was with some difficulty that she prevented herself from raising her voice.\n\n“I am not the first sky rider to lose her mount,” she hissed from between her teeth. “And the High Guard is my place!”\n\n“No, your place is here, in a civilized home, not gallivanting across the northern wastes treating orcs like pincushions! You should be providing your father and me with grandchildren, not playing at being a proper sorceress. You’ve never had the aptitude or the scholarly interest!”\n\n“Is that what this is all about?” Bereth shouted at her. “You regret giving up your precious sorcery to have me, so now you want me to be miserable by making me give up the one thing I love most as well? Well, guess what, mother. I already lost it! I already lost him! They shot him and they murdered him and even though he was dying he still gave everything he had to save me and I killed him and it was all my fault!”\n\nShe burst into tears and covered her eyes with her hands. A moment later, she felt her mother’s arms embracing her, pulling her in, and holding her tight.\n\n“Shh, it’s all right, darling. It’s all right.”\n\nBereth didn’t know how long she cried, but her mother’s green tunic was soaked through with tears by the time she finally stopped. She wiped at her eyes and then at her nose with her hands, then stared at her mother in silent, rueful apology.\n\n“Never think that I regret giving up my magic for you, my dear, most darling daughter.” Her mother smiled, and a dreamy look entered her eyes. “The truth is that I gave it up for your father. That was more than a hundred years ago, and I can still remember that very last spell, knowing perfectly well that it was going to be the last one I ever would cast.”\n\n“What was it?” Bereth asked, genuinely curious.\n\n“It is absolutely no business of yours,” her mother replied archly, stoking her curiosity even more. “But I will say this. For all that I loved, truly loved, spellweaving and spellcasting, I have never once regretted my decision.”\n\n“Truly?”\n\n“Truly. Not for one single moment.” Her mother frowned unexpectedly and a thoughtful expression appeared on her face. “I had debated over whether I should tell you this or not. Your father didn’t think anything would come of it, but now that I know the extent of Lord Kelethan’s interest in you, I really think you had better know.”\n\n“Know what?” Bereth asked, suspicious at the mention of Ilri’s title.\n\n“Your father was helping one of the Lord Magistrates with some research into the archives a few days ago. The magistrate had been charged by the High King to delve into some rather arcane areas of law, most of which were related to the king’s ancient rights concerning his subjects. Specifically, his right to demand subjects from them.”\n\n“I don’t understand. Demand what from them?”\n\n“As the king’s subjects, we all have duties as well as rights. And one of those duties, as a royal subject, is to provide the king with future subjects.”\n\n“Children,” Bereth said, carefully navigating her way through her mother’s words. “But why is the king concerned with old laws like that? Surely he isn’t going to demand that every elf simply drop what she is doing and bear him children? Does he plan to father them all himself?”\n\n“I rather doubt the queen would permit that.” Her mother smiled. “No, your father said the Lord Magistrate was primarily interested in the laws as they related to marriage. It seems that some of the older lords have been pressing the king to announce a decree ordering certain elves to marry.”\n\n“He can’t do that, can he?”\n\n“According to your father, he absolutely can. Whether he will, though, is entirely another matter. He’s never been inclined to listen to most of those particular lords before, that much is certain.”\n\n“Why are you telling me this. Do you think I might be one of those ordered to marry?”\n\nHer mother shrugged. “It’s possible. I don’t know. But I don’t think so. And that’s not my thought. Your father suggested, on the basis of one of the documents, that the king might be thinking of ordering all of his knighted nobles to marry as a condition of their vassalage. It’s no secret that he’s concerned about the number of knights he can put in the field. If that’s the case, you would do well to consider accepting Lord Kelethan’s offer.”\n\n“Why?”\n\n“Because Ilriathas will be one of those at whom the decree is directed. And he is almost surely the best offer you’re ever going to get, Bereth, even if you live to be five hundred. Among his other advantages is the fact that he happens to love you.”\n\n“But I don’t want to marry him! I don’t want to marry anyone!”\n\n“The stars do seem to be aligning, my dear. What I don’t understand is why you’re being so stubborn. Is there someone else?”\n\n“No!” Bereth protested hotly. Too hotly, it seemed, as her mother’s ears twitched and her finely plucked eyebrows rose with suspicion. “I mean, not really. No one serious.”\n\nHer mother sighed and shook her head. “Let me guess. He’s dashing, he’s frivolous, he’s amusing, and he’s someone you know perfectly well is never going to demand anything from you, make any sort of impression on your heart, or be troubled when you decide to put an end to it.”\n\nBereth stared at her mother. Short of adding a physical description, she could hardly have described Lassarian better. “How did you know?”\n\n“Because you’re doing exactly what morwynion ifanc have done for generations. You’re putting off any chance of developing a real relationship, the sort of relationship that frightens you, by hiding behind impossible ones you know will never go anywhere.”\n\n“If everyone does it, what is wrong with it?”\n\nHer mother smiled grimly. “Once you start down that path, my dear, its very hard to know when to leave it. There are seven-hundred-year-old sorceresses at the Collegium who fully intended to marry one day, but with every year that passed, they found it harder to change their ways, and, of course, fewer elves who were interested in them. I have friends like that. It’s a lonely way to live, Bereth, and it doesn’t get easier with time.”\n\n“So what are you saying, I should just marry Ilri even though I don’t love him?”\n\n“I am saying that if you marry Lord Kelethan, you will almost certainly come to love him in time. It is the Mother’s great gift to us, to compensate for the sacrifices we must make and the burdens we must carry. Love is a choice, Bereth, it is commitment, not magic or coincidence. That flutter of excitement for which you are waiting is ephemeral; even when it comes, it disappears again in the blink of an eye.”\n\n“And if I don’t intend to marry him, I shouldn’t accept his gifts?”\n\nHer mother made a face. “Normally, considering the extravagance and the expense, I would say you should not. But this is a different matter. The nature of the gift is such that it precludes you marrying him. So, he’s making it clear that he intends to wait for you. And he is, after all, nearly three hundred years old, so it’s obvious that he is not in a hurry. His heart is true. But true or not, Lord Kelethan will not deny the decree of the king. And young as he is, he may see giving you up as a noble gesture or some other such nonsense.”\n\n“Why do you call him young when he’s fifty years older than you are?”\n\n“Males age much more slowly than we do, darling. And motherhood ages an elf; I expect I learned more wisdom in your first year than in the one hundred I’d lived before.”\n\n“I don’t understand.”\n\nHer mother laughed. “I discovered how many of my ideas about the world were utterly and ridiculously wrong. When you have children of your own, you will understand too. Now, does Ilriathas know about this other elf?”\n\nBereth blushed. This was simply not a conversation she wanted to be having with her mother. “Ah, no, I don’t think so. It’s nothing serious, I swear!”\n\n“And yet it is serious enough that you’re not comfortable telling him about it. That should tell you something right there, my dear. I very much recommend you put an end to it at once, or else decline Lord Kelethan’s gift. Males can be very possessive, especially of those they do not actually possess. You’re playing with fire there, Bereth.”\n\nIt was true. Bereth wanted to tell her mother how it was different at the camp, and in the sky, how the combination of fear, exhaustion, and the knowledge that every patrol might be her last gave her the sense that anything was possible and everything was permissible. But how could she tell her that and not drive her mother mad with worry? And even she knew it was foolishness, a short-sighted madness that stemmed from being constantly drenched in battle, blood, and death. It was easier to stop thinking and lose herself in momentary pleasures than face her fears… or the terrible things she had done.\n\nSo she nodded dutifully and avoided meeting her mother’s eyes. What she would do about Lassarian, she did not know, but then, if this war had taught her anything, it was to not worry overmuch about a tomorrow that might never come.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1765, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch28_bereth-P3", "chapter": "ch28_bereth", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTir Diffaith — fortress; keep spelling.\nKurs-Magog — wasteland beyond; keep spelling.\nElebrion — elven land proper; keep spelling.\nPrince-General / prince-general / Hoelion — royal commander; forms as in text.\nLord Oakenheart — orders the secondment; may be named.\nelfenwy — elven woman cant; keep spelling.\nValrond — staff elf with siege math; keep spelling.\nCollegium — capitalize.\nElder Sister — moon on the approach; capitalize.\nHigh Guard — capitalize.\n\n### STORY\nBereth’s mother forbids further High Guard service after Merlian’s loss and presses Ilriathas as duty and choice; Bereth nods without meeting her eyes, still undecided about Lassarian and unable to confess camp truths.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nSeconded from leave to the Prince-General’s staff at Tir Diffaith. Alive, arriving by hawk with saddlebags of home comforts; expected to produce ideas against impossible numbers. Answers that they need all the Collegium’s magisters.\n\nPrince-General\nTall, golden-eyed, nearly brushing the beam; wants new ideas from the witch-brew elfenwy; cannot meet the host in open field; hoping she beats Valrond’s seventy-two-day fall estimate.\n\nValrond\nStaff voice of the siege arithmetic; give-or-take two days; a trial to the prince.\n\nCaptain of the Prince’s Guard\nDelivers orders and escorts her in; barks less terrible than his reputation.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nHer moonrise pond-poison killed hundreds of warboars—the first real blow since the march—and the prince-general himself flew to see the corpses.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer mother made a face. “Normally, considering the extravagance and the expense, I would say you should not. But this is a different matter. The nature of the gift is such that it precludes you marrying him. So, he’s making it clear that he intends to wait for you. And he is, after all, nearly three hundred years old, so it’s obvious that he is not in a hurry. His heart is true. But true or not, Lord Kelethan will not deny the decree of the king. And young as he is, he may see giving you up as a noble gesture or some other such nonsense.”\n\n“Why do you call him young when he’s fifty years older than you are?”\n\n“Males age much more slowly than we do, darling. And motherhood ages an elf; I expect I learned more wisdom in your first year than in the one hundred I’d lived before.”\n\n“I don’t understand.”\n\nHer mother laughed. “I discovered how many of my ideas about the world were utterly and ridiculously wrong. When you have children of your own, you will understand too. Now, does Ilriathas know about this other elf?”\n\nBereth blushed. This was simply not a conversation she wanted to be having with her mother. “Ah, no, I don’t think so. It’s nothing serious, I swear!”\n\n“And yet it is serious enough that you’re not comfortable telling him about it. That should tell you something right there, my dear. I very much recommend you put an end to it at once, or else decline Lord Kelethan’s gift. Males can be very possessive, especially of those they do not actually possess. You’re playing with fire there, Bereth.”\n\nIt was true. Bereth wanted to tell her mother how it was different at the camp, and in the sky, how the combination of fear, exhaustion, and the knowledge that every patrol might be her last gave her the sense that anything was possible and everything was permissible. But how could she tell her that and not drive her mother mad with worry? And even she knew it was foolishness, a short-sighted madness that stemmed from being constantly drenched in battle, blood, and death. It was easier to stop thinking and lose herself in momentary pleasures than face her fears… or the terrible things she had done.\n\nSo she nodded dutifully and avoided meeting her mother’s eyes. What she would do about Lassarian, she did not know, but then, if this war had taught her anything, it was to not worry overmuch about a tomorrow that might never come.\n\n### NOTES\nOrders: Oakenheart seconds her to Prince-General’s staff; proceed at once to Tir Diffaith on the Kurs-Magog / Elebrion line.\nApproach at late afternoon; Elder Sister faint on the horizon; walls nearly empty—four patrol elves, one trebuchet crew.\nLow-ceilinged map room inside the fortress.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nA captain of the Prince’s Guard arrives with Oakenheart’s order seconding her to the Prince-General at Tir Diffaith; parents see her off with firain counsel that lands oddly after yesterday’s fight. She flies over villas and flower farms toward a fortress whose vast walls hold a skeleton watch—the whole royal host would barely garrison it. In the map room the prince-general wants the witch-brew elfenwy’s ideas because numbers forbid open battle; Valrond’s tally gives seventy-two days to fall without deeper cuts. They hope she can do better. Stunned, she asks for Collegium support; he will fly every magister in beak and talon if needed. How many? She thinks, then says all of them. The scene ends on that answer.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 3100 words. Strategic chill after domestic warmth; titles and place-names exact. Land on “all of them”; do not open the next operation.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "As it turned out, her worries were groundless. The next day, a captain of the Prince’s Guard appeared at the door of her parents’ home with orders from Lord Oakenheart seconding her to the Prince-General’s staff and instructing her to proceed immediately to Tir Diffaith, the great fortification that demarcated the wasteland of Kurs-Magog from the lands of Elebrion proper. The orders surprised her, both the staff transfer as well as the implication that the prince intended to make his stand at the Tir rather than continue with his plan for a more aggressive mobile defense.\n\nBoth her mother and father were there to see her off, as were several of their friends. Her father held her close for a long moment, but said nothing; his eyes spoke sufficiently of his love and concern for her. Her mother wept, rather more prettily than she herself had the day before, Bereth noted, before embracing her.\n\n“Now take care of yourself, and do mind your behavior, darling. Even if you must fight a war, you can do so as a proper firain, not a brwnmerch.” She smiled sweetly at her daughter’s astonished expression, and blew her a kiss.\n\nFeeling somewhat dazed at her mother’s unexpected choice of words, Bereth took her leave, bearing considerably more in her saddlebags than she had arrived with. The captain, a well-bred elf of moderate height, nodded to her father, then climbed the stairs that led to the garden where his rather small, dark-feathered hawk was chained to a post. Bereth felt her eyes prick slightly at the sight; it was the very same post to which she had chained Merlian so often in the past.\n\n“I hope you took the chance to rest rather than recreate while you were here,” the young captain said. “I’m Cangenhelas, by the way. I should warn you, the prince is liable to run his attachés rather ragged.”\n\n“Nothing but sleep, bathe, and be lectured by my mother,” Bereth assured him. “And thank you for coming to fetch me. Do you have any idea why the prince-general wants me on his staff?”\n\nThe young elf grinned as he expertly leaped up and caught the saddle horn, then swung himself gracefully up to the saddle. He couldn’t be in more than his sixth decade yet, and his bright-eyed smile made him seem even younger. “I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect of, ‘bring me that damned elfenwy who came up with the idea for the witch-brew, that’s the first useful idea anyone in this damned army has had since the Great Orc marched!’”\n\n“He sounds lovely,” she said dryly as she handed her saddlebags up to him. She wondered how long she’d be able to stand him shouting at her before she broke down and started crying.\n\n“Oh, he’s not so terrible. He barks at everyone. You just have to learn not to take it personally.” After stowing her saddlebags with a grunt and a mildly accusatory glance at her, he pointed to the chain. “Mind releasing that?”\n\nShe eyed the hawk uncertainly. Merlian would never have permitted anyone else to approach his feet so closely without at least considering a swipe with his talons, but every bird was different. Figuring that the captain must know his bird, she crossed her fingers, bent down, and unhooked the chain from the iron band around its right leg.\n\nThe hawk hopped once and gave out a loud, crow-like caw, which startled her and sent her stumbling back. The captain laughed, but not unkindly, and leaned over to extend a hand to her. She took it and clambered up the side of the bird, pleased that he hadn’t insulted her by tossing down a rope ladder. She might not be of the High Guard any longer, but she was still an experienced sky rider and it warmed her heart to be treated like one.\n\nCangenhelas clicked and shook the reins, and that was enough to inspire the hawk to leap skyward. His movements were neither as graceful as Merlian’s nor as powerful as Mellt’s, but they quickly climbed into the sky above Elebrion even so, and she knew a moment’s regret as she looked back at the white buildings and the spotless streets below. Tir Diffaith would be more comfortable than the forward camp at which she’d been living for the last three months, but there would be no hot baths or refined food for the foreseeable future.\n\nThen again, she wouldn’t be subject to a daily inquisition by her mother, so there were some benefits to living in a war zone.\n\nThey flew rapidly away from the capital mountain, and once they were clear of city walls, Cangenhelas let his hawk drop and they flew down along the angle of the slope, just over the treetops, then leveled out just before they reached the foothills. They flew over luxurious villas, ripening vineyards, and meticulous rows of plants that Bereth couldn’t possibly identify. A flower farm caught her attention, and she waved to a young elfenwy who was on her knees amidst the riot of color, presumably weeding, who waved back.\n\nIt made her angry to think how all of this beauty and hard work would be destroyed, the vineyards burned, the houses leveled, and the flowers trampled and torn, if the prince-general could not hold at Tir Diffaith. The situation must be dire if the royal commanders were seeking her advice; what did she know about military matters behind ambushes, archery, and sky raids?\n\nGradually, the pretty villas gave way to farms and the small fields were replaced by bigger ones where the grains were grown. Gradually, those too gave way to forests, although the occasional building or temple could be spotted in clearings as they flew by. Some elves found flying over the forests to be tedious, but Bereth always enjoyed it.\n\n“Look down there,” Cangenhelas called back to her.\n\nShe looked down. There was a long double column of elven troops marching below, clad in the seldom-seen green-and-white stripes of the Elebrion militia, followed by an even longer line of ox-drawn wagons. A few officers, wearing royal white, rode to the sides of the column urging it along. It was the first time in her lifetime that she could recall the militia being called out, and it was a worrisome reminder of how dangerous the situation was shaping up to be.\n\nAnd all too soon, they were past them. She didn’t like to think how long it took to fly over the Great Orc’s army in comparison. The militia would help, a little, but they were far too few to make any substantive difference, especially in light of their lesser capabilities. Perhaps that was why the prince-general had decided to make his stand behind the triple walls of Tir Diffaith, where he could make better use of the relatively inexperienced reinforcements.\n\nThey passed two more smaller parties on the way, one regiment of about one hundred horse wearing the colors of one of the eastern lords, and two regiments of foot marching haphazardly behind an unfamiliar blue-and-yellow banner. A levy of some sort, she guessed, although she had no idea whose it might be. But if they looked undisciplined, at least their shields gleamed bright silver in the late afternoon sunlight.\n\nFinally, as the sky was beginning to take on a rosy hue and the faint circle of Elder Sister could be seen low on the horizon waiting for her turn to shine, the towers of Tir Diffaith appeared in the distance.\n\nThe great eastern fortress rose from the floor of the narrow valley that provided a natural passageway into the mountains from the barren wastes of the Kurs-Magog. Unlike the shining white quartzite walls of Elebrion, it was built from dark ironstone mined from the north by dwarves, then reinforced with spells cast by generations of archmages who specialized in Thaearhudau, the magic of earth and stone. It was considered an ancient and esoteric art at the Collegium, and rather looked down upon by those who felt it was too dwarvish in nature, but as Bereth recalled from the lectures through which she’d been forced to sit, there was always an archmage-in-residence at Tir Diffaith who was responsible for maintaining its magical defenses.\n\nThe fortress was deemed impregnable, and indeed, it had never fallen. Even when the orcs had taken Kir Kalithael, they bypassed Tir Diffaith, a decision that had ultimately proved fatal to more than one orc king. It was less intended as a defense than a deterrent, and indeed, more than one orc army had turned back upon seeing the imposing sight of the fortress’s three walls, the arms of the twelve massive trebuchets that could throw massive one-tonne boulders further than any war engine, and the seven towers upon which eagle-eyed elven archers were stationed. There were more ballistae than she could easily count, and she could see at least three piles of the giant bolts they fired stacked strategically where they could be easily distributed.\n\nThe tallest tower, in the center of the fortress and three times wider than any of the others, was where they were headed. It was called the Nyth Tower and it was where the warhawks landed and were launched. It had nests for as many as ten of the big birds, although in times of war, the tops of several of the other towers were converted so that the greater portion of the High Guard could come and go without risking any peril from below.\n\nBut the problem the prince-general faced was apparent even as they approached the fortress. The vast battlements were being patrolled by a total of four elves, and with the exception of a crew working on one of the giant trebuchets, the walls were otherwise unoccupied. All the forces the High King had thrown against the Great Orc, including the High Guard as well as the royal horse and foot would barely suffice to serve the great complex as a skeleton garrison.\n\nThere were already six hawks tethered near the landing site marked out in black granite tiles. Two of them she knew; it would have been impossible not to recognize the prince-general’s monster and the other belonged to Lord Mathonwy, who commanded the largest infantry force besides the High King’s own. Cangenhelas brought them in rather faster and lower than she would have, but he was good with his bird and they landed without incident. There were two elves in plain brown tunics waiting to meet them, and they had a chain attached to the hawk’s leg ring before either Bereth or the captain managed to dismount.\n\n“Welcome to Tir Diffaith!” one of them called cheerfully as he led the warhawk, its head bobbing a little uneasily, over to a tethering post. “Captain, the prince wants you to go directly to the smaller meeting room. He’s there with the rest of the staff.”\n\nCangenhelas groaned and the other elf laughed.\n\n“What’s wrong?” Bereth asked.\n\n“I suppose a walk will help stretch our legs after a long day in the saddle. Do you see that tower there?”\n\nShe nodded. It was the second tower to the left.\n\n“That’s where we have to go.”\n\nAh. She groaned herself. Down the stairs, over, and then up again. Surely it would have been easier to simply fly over there!\n\n“We’re not allowed to do that.” Cangenhelas shook his head, seemingly reading her mind. “The prince is very clear on that.”\n\nIt took them longer to walk down the first tower, exit it at the level of the battlements, then walk along the walls to the other one than she would have expected. A pair of guards saluted Cangenhelas and confirmed that the prince and his advisers were in the room towards which they were headed. Unfortunately for her aching legs, the map room was more than halfway up the tower and she was beginning to breathe hard by the time the captain finally exited the winding stone staircase.\n\n“Ah, good, you’ve arrived,” the prince-general looked up from the ensorcelled map he was perusing when they entered the low-ceilinged room. He was a tall, imposing elf, and the top of his head very nearly touched the wooden beams above. “Thank you, captain.”\n\n“Not at all, your highness.”\n\nThe prince-general turned his attention to her. He looked very much like his cousin, the High King, but whereas King Mael’s expression was inclined to arrogance and cruelty, his was more relaxed, almost serene. His eyes were the pale gold of the royal family, and his hair was long and entirely white, as befitted the highest of the High Elves. There were elves who were known to bleach their hair, or even use sorcery to whiten it, but considering the purity of his blood, Bereth had no doubt that it was natural.\n\n“I have decided you will be my newest advisor, Bereth mer Eulenarias. I believe I have met your father. We hunted together once, many years ago. He was a fair shot with the bow, although I understand you are even better. He is well?”\n\n“Yes, your Highness. Thank you very much. I last saw him just this morning.”\n\n“Well and good.” He smiled and gestured towards the other elves, most of whom were at least a century older than her by the looks of it. “I suppose you may wish to understand why I have requested your transfer from the High Guard?”\n\n“Yes, your Highness. If it please your Highness.”\n\nHe raised a skeptical white eyebrow at her formality and sniffed in an amused manner. “I expect you are innocent of Balalwyf?”\n\n“Your Highness?”\n\n“One of the great tacticians of King Iomgywn’s day. And may I presume you know nothing of Linden?”\n\n“Nothing whatsoever, your Highness.”\n\n“That is as it should be,” he said approvingly, which mystified her. “It is meet that elfenwyd should study poetry and painting, not war. You see, every elf in this room can recite Balalwyf and Linden and Crewaldus, to say nothing of a dozen other great philosophers of war, be he Elf, Man, or Dwarf. And every elf in this room therefore knows that the answers we seek are not to be found in them, or in our collective centuries of experience in battle.”\n\n“Why not?” she asked, too intent on understanding him to remember to address him properly.\n\n“Because the weight of numbers involved makes it perfectly clear that we cannot defeat them in battle. Indeed, even to run the risk of meeting them in the open field is enough to flirt with complete disaster. We are too few. Too few by far.”\n\n“What do you expect from me?”\n\n“Ideas!” he said, with a cheerful sparkle in his golden eyes. “New ideas, the sorts of things that would not occur to us, ossified as we are by our collective millennia of knowledge concerning the way things are supposed to be.”\n\n“Like the poison spell,” one of the elves wearing a blue tabard with a silver cat head on it added. “Poisoning water supplies is nothing new, but the use of a time-delay to evade the goblins testing it was clever. It’s not just the idea itself that’s useful, you see, but the fact that it opens up whole new lines of tactics.”\n\n“The problem is that we have little time, very little time,” the prince-general said. “We need to come up with some new ideas to whittle them down, quickly, before we’re forced to fall back behind the walls.”\n\n“Whittle them down to what?” she asked.\n\n“About two-thirds their present numbers.”\n\nShe frowned. That seemed strangely specific. “Why that particular quantity?”\n\nThe prince-general glanced at one of the other elves towards the back who was rather less splendidly adorned than the rest of them. “Ah, Lady Bereth, the art of war has been transformed to a science of sorts, if you take my meaning. According to my calculations, which you must understand are very precise, we can quite reasonably estimate how long our garrison can be expected to hold out against various numbers of besieging forces.”\n\n“Really?” Bereth asked, too surprised to correct the elf’s misunderstanding of her rank.\n\n“Oh, most certainly! The details are considerable and complicated, but the basic concept is very simple. We might expect to hold out indefinitely against a single orc, for example, whereas an infinite number would be expected to overwhelm even these eminently well-fortified walls in a single day. Once the principle is accepted, it is but a matter of time to work through the relevant variables involved. And in fact-”\n\n“In fact, Valrond has worked through those variables in significantly more detail than we have time to discuss,” the prince-general interrupted. “To summarize, if we cannot reduce their forces to the extent suggested, then Tir Diffaith can be expected to fall in seventy-two days.”\n\n“Give or take two days on either side,” Valrond added.\n\nThe prince looked towards the ceiling and sighed. He clearly found the other elf a trial. “We have a few ideas. But we are hoping you might be able to produce some better options for us.”\n\nBereth stared at the royal elf in shock. Was he serious? How was she supposed to succeed where elves five times her age, with fifty times her knowledge, had not? For a moment, she didn’t know what to say; she felt so self-conscious that she thought she might faint, and she swayed upon her feet. But then her courage returned to her, and she nodded quickly.\n\n“I will do what I can. Will you have support from the Collegium?”\n\n“I’ll have the High Guard flying every magister and mage here, in their beaks and talons, if necessary. How many of them will we need?”\n\nShe thought about it for a moment. “All of them,” she said.\n", "completion": "As it turned out, her worries were groundless. The next day, a captain of the Prince’s Guard appeared at the door of her parents’ home with orders from Lord Oakenheart seconding her to the Prince-General’s staff and instructing her to proceed immediately to Tir Diffaith, the great fortification that demarcated the wasteland of Kurs-Magog from the lands of Elebrion proper. The orders surprised her, both the staff transfer as well as the implication that the prince intended to make his stand at the Tir rather than continue with his plan for a more aggressive mobile defense.\n\nBoth her mother and father were there to see her off, as were several of their friends. Her father held her close for a long moment, but said nothing; his eyes spoke sufficiently of his love and concern for her. Her mother wept, rather more prettily than she herself had the day before, Bereth noted, before embracing her.\n\n“Now take care of yourself, and do mind your behavior, darling. Even if you must fight a war, you can do so as a proper firain, not a brwnmerch.” She smiled sweetly at her daughter’s astonished expression, and blew her a kiss.\n\nFeeling somewhat dazed at her mother’s unexpected choice of words, Bereth took her leave, bearing considerably more in her saddlebags than she had arrived with. The captain, a well-bred elf of moderate height, nodded to her father, then climbed the stairs that led to the garden where his rather small, dark-feathered hawk was chained to a post. Bereth felt her eyes prick slightly at the sight; it was the very same post to which she had chained Merlian so often in the past.\n\n“I hope you took the chance to rest rather than recreate while you were here,” the young captain said. “I’m Cangenhelas, by the way. I should warn you, the prince is liable to run his attachés rather ragged.”\n\n“Nothing but sleep, bathe, and be lectured by my mother,” Bereth assured him. “And thank you for coming to fetch me. Do you have any idea why the prince-general wants me on his staff?”\n\nThe young elf grinned as he expertly leaped up and caught the saddle horn, then swung himself gracefully up to the saddle. He couldn’t be in more than his sixth decade yet, and his bright-eyed smile made him seem even younger. “I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect of, ‘bring me that damned elfenwy who came up with the idea for the witch-brew, that’s the first useful idea anyone in this damned army has had since the Great Orc marched!’”\n\n“He sounds lovely,” she said dryly as she handed her saddlebags up to him. She wondered how long she’d be able to stand him shouting at her before she broke down and started crying.\n\n“Oh, he’s not so terrible. He barks at everyone. You just have to learn not to take it personally.” After stowing her saddlebags with a grunt and a mildly accusatory glance at her, he pointed to the chain. “Mind releasing that?”\n\nShe eyed the hawk uncertainly. Merlian would never have permitted anyone else to approach his feet so closely without at least considering a swipe with his talons, but every bird was different. Figuring that the captain must know his bird, she crossed her fingers, bent down, and unhooked the chain from the iron band around its right leg.\n\nThe hawk hopped once and gave out a loud, crow-like caw, which startled her and sent her stumbling back. The captain laughed, but not unkindly, and leaned over to extend a hand to her. She took it and clambered up the side of the bird, pleased that he hadn’t insulted her by tossing down a rope ladder. She might not be of the High Guard any longer, but she was still an experienced sky rider and it warmed her heart to be treated like one.\n\nCangenhelas clicked and shook the reins, and that was enough to inspire the hawk to leap skyward. His movements were neither as graceful as Merlian’s nor as powerful as Mellt’s, but they quickly climbed into the sky above Elebrion even so, and she knew a moment’s regret as she looked back at the white buildings and the spotless streets below. Tir Diffaith would be more comfortable than the forward camp at which she’d been living for the last three months, but there would be no hot baths or refined food for the foreseeable future.\n\nThen again, she wouldn’t be subject to a daily inquisition by her mother, so there were some benefits to living in a war zone.\n\nThey flew rapidly away from the capital mountain, and once they were clear of city walls, Cangenhelas let his hawk drop and they flew down along the angle of the slope, just over the treetops, then leveled out just before they reached the foothills. They flew over luxurious villas, ripening vineyards, and meticulous rows of plants that Bereth couldn’t possibly identify. A flower farm caught her attention, and she waved to a young elfenwy who was on her knees amidst the riot of color, presumably weeding, who waved back.\n\nIt made her angry to think how all of this beauty and hard work would be destroyed, the vineyards burned, the houses leveled, and the flowers trampled and torn, if the prince-general could not hold at Tir Diffaith. The situation must be dire if the royal commanders were seeking her advice; what did she know about military matters behind ambushes, archery, and sky raids?\n\nGradually, the pretty villas gave way to farms and the small fields were replaced by bigger ones where the grains were grown. Gradually, those too gave way to forests, although the occasional building or temple could be spotted in clearings as they flew by. Some elves found flying over the forests to be tedious, but Bereth always enjoyed it.\n\n“Look down there,” Cangenhelas called back to her.\n\nShe looked down. There was a long double column of elven troops marching below, clad in the seldom-seen green-and-white stripes of the Elebrion militia, followed by an even longer line of ox-drawn wagons. A few officers, wearing royal white, rode to the sides of the column urging it along. It was the first time in her lifetime that she could recall the militia being called out, and it was a worrisome reminder of how dangerous the situation was shaping up to be.\n\nAnd all too soon, they were past them. She didn’t like to think how long it took to fly over the Great Orc’s army in comparison. The militia would help, a little, but they were far too few to make any substantive difference, especially in light of their lesser capabilities. Perhaps that was why the prince-general had decided to make his stand behind the triple walls of Tir Diffaith, where he could make better use of the relatively inexperienced reinforcements.\n\nThey passed two more smaller parties on the way, one regiment of about one hundred horse wearing the colors of one of the eastern lords, and two regiments of foot marching haphazardly behind an unfamiliar blue-and-yellow banner. A levy of some sort, she guessed, although she had no idea whose it might be. But if they looked undisciplined, at least their shields gleamed bright silver in the late afternoon sunlight.\n\nFinally, as the sky was beginning to take on a rosy hue and the faint circle of Elder Sister could be seen low on the horizon waiting for her turn to shine, the towers of Tir Diffaith appeared in the distance.\n\nThe great eastern fortress rose from the floor of the narrow valley that provided a natural passageway into the mountains from the barren wastes of the Kurs-Magog. Unlike the shining white quartzite walls of Elebrion, it was built from dark ironstone mined from the north by dwarves, then reinforced with spells cast by generations of archmages who specialized in Thaearhudau, the magic of earth and stone. It was considered an ancient and esoteric art at the Collegium, and rather looked down upon by those who felt it was too dwarvish in nature, but as Bereth recalled from the lectures through which she’d been forced to sit, there was always an archmage-in-residence at Tir Diffaith who was responsible for maintaining its magical defenses.\n\nThe fortress was deemed impregnable, and indeed, it had never fallen. Even when the orcs had taken Kir Kalithael, they bypassed Tir Diffaith, a decision that had ultimately proved fatal to more than one orc king. It was less intended as a defense than a deterrent, and indeed, more than one orc army had turned back upon seeing the imposing sight of the fortress’s three walls, the arms of the twelve massive trebuchets that could throw massive one-tonne boulders further than any war engine, and the seven towers upon which eagle-eyed elven archers were stationed. There were more ballistae than she could easily count, and she could see at least three piles of the giant bolts they fired stacked strategically where they could be easily distributed.\n\nThe tallest tower, in the center of the fortress and three times wider than any of the others, was where they were headed. It was called the Nyth Tower and it was where the warhawks landed and were launched. It had nests for as many as ten of the big birds, although in times of war, the tops of several of the other towers were converted so that the greater portion of the High Guard could come and go without risking any peril from below.\n\nBut the problem the prince-general faced was apparent even as they approached the fortress. The vast battlements were being patrolled by a total of four elves, and with the exception of a crew working on one of the giant trebuchets, the walls were otherwise unoccupied. All the forces the High King had thrown against the Great Orc, including the High Guard as well as the royal horse and foot would barely suffice to serve the great complex as a skeleton garrison.\n\nThere were already six hawks tethered near the landing site marked out in black granite tiles. Two of them she knew; it would have been impossible not to recognize the prince-general’s monster and the other belonged to Lord Mathonwy, who commanded the largest infantry force besides the High King’s own. Cangenhelas brought them in rather faster and lower than she would have, but he was good with his bird and they landed without incident. There were two elves in plain brown tunics waiting to meet them, and they had a chain attached to the hawk’s leg ring before either Bereth or the captain managed to dismount.\n\n“Welcome to Tir Diffaith!” one of them called cheerfully as he led the warhawk, its head bobbing a little uneasily, over to a tethering post. “Captain, the prince wants you to go directly to the smaller meeting room. He’s there with the rest of the staff.”\n\nCangenhelas groaned and the other elf laughed.\n\n“What’s wrong?” Bereth asked.\n\n“I suppose a walk will help stretch our legs after a long day in the saddle. Do you see that tower there?”\n\nShe nodded. It was the second tower to the left.\n\n“That’s where we have to go.”\n\nAh. She groaned herself. Down the stairs, over, and then up again. Surely it would have been easier to simply fly over there!\n\n“We’re not allowed to do that.” Cangenhelas shook his head, seemingly reading her mind. “The prince is very clear on that.”\n\nIt took them longer to walk down the first tower, exit it at the level of the battlements, then walk along the walls to the other one than she would have expected. A pair of guards saluted Cangenhelas and confirmed that the prince and his advisers were in the room towards which they were headed. Unfortunately for her aching legs, the map room was more than halfway up the tower and she was beginning to breathe hard by the time the captain finally exited the winding stone staircase.\n\n“Ah, good, you’ve arrived,” the prince-general looked up from the ensorcelled map he was perusing when they entered the low-ceilinged room. He was a tall, imposing elf, and the top of his head very nearly touched the wooden beams above. “Thank you, captain.”\n\n“Not at all, your highness.”\n\nThe prince-general turned his attention to her. He looked very much like his cousin, the High King, but whereas King Mael’s expression was inclined to arrogance and cruelty, his was more relaxed, almost serene. His eyes were the pale gold of the royal family, and his hair was long and entirely white, as befitted the highest of the High Elves. There were elves who were known to bleach their hair, or even use sorcery to whiten it, but considering the purity of his blood, Bereth had no doubt that it was natural.\n\n“I have decided you will be my newest advisor, Bereth mer Eulenarias. I believe I have met your father. We hunted together once, many years ago. He was a fair shot with the bow, although I understand you are even better. He is well?”\n\n“Yes, your Highness. Thank you very much. I last saw him just this morning.”\n\n“Well and good.” He smiled and gestured towards the other elves, most of whom were at least a century older than her by the looks of it. “I suppose you may wish to understand why I have requested your transfer from the High Guard?”\n\n“Yes, your Highness. If it please your Highness.”\n\nHe raised a skeptical white eyebrow at her formality and sniffed in an amused manner. “I expect you are innocent of Balalwyf?”\n\n“Your Highness?”\n\n“One of the great tacticians of King Iomgywn’s day. And may I presume you know nothing of Linden?”\n\n“Nothing whatsoever, your Highness.”\n\n“That is as it should be,” he said approvingly, which mystified her. “It is meet that elfenwyd should study poetry and painting, not war. You see, every elf in this room can recite Balalwyf and Linden and Crewaldus, to say nothing of a dozen other great philosophers of war, be he Elf, Man, or Dwarf. And every elf in this room therefore knows that the answers we seek are not to be found in them, or in our collective centuries of experience in battle.”\n\n“Why not?” she asked, too intent on understanding him to remember to address him properly.\n\n“Because the weight of numbers involved makes it perfectly clear that we cannot defeat them in battle. Indeed, even to run the risk of meeting them in the open field is enough to flirt with complete disaster. We are too few. Too few by far.”\n\n“What do you expect from me?”\n\n“Ideas!” he said, with a cheerful sparkle in his golden eyes. “New ideas, the sorts of things that would not occur to us, ossified as we are by our collective millennia of knowledge concerning the way things are supposed to be.”\n\n“Like the poison spell,” one of the elves wearing a blue tabard with a silver cat head on it added. “Poisoning water supplies is nothing new, but the use of a time-delay to evade the goblins testing it was clever. It’s not just the idea itself that’s useful, you see, but the fact that it opens up whole new lines of tactics.”\n\n“The problem is that we have little time, very little time,” the prince-general said. “We need to come up with some new ideas to whittle them down, quickly, before we’re forced to fall back behind the walls.”\n\n“Whittle them down to what?” she asked.\n\n“About two-thirds their present numbers.”\n\nShe frowned. That seemed strangely specific. “Why that particular quantity?”\n\nThe prince-general glanced at one of the other elves towards the back who was rather less splendidly adorned than the rest of them. “Ah, Lady Bereth, the art of war has been transformed to a science of sorts, if you take my meaning. According to my calculations, which you must understand are very precise, we can quite reasonably estimate how long our garrison can be expected to hold out against various numbers of besieging forces.”\n\n“Really?” Bereth asked, too surprised to correct the elf’s misunderstanding of her rank.\n\n“Oh, most certainly! The details are considerable and complicated, but the basic concept is very simple. We might expect to hold out indefinitely against a single orc, for example, whereas an infinite number would be expected to overwhelm even these eminently well-fortified walls in a single day. Once the principle is accepted, it is but a matter of time to work through the relevant variables involved. And in fact-”\n\n“In fact, Valrond has worked through those variables in significantly more detail than we have time to discuss,” the prince-general interrupted. “To summarize, if we cannot reduce their forces to the extent suggested, then Tir Diffaith can be expected to fall in seventy-two days.”\n\n“Give or take two days on either side,” Valrond added.\n\nThe prince looked towards the ceiling and sighed. He clearly found the other elf a trial. “We have a few ideas. But we are hoping you might be able to produce some better options for us.”\n\nBereth stared at the royal elf in shock. Was he serious? How was she supposed to succeed where elves five times her age, with fifty times her knowledge, had not? For a moment, she didn’t know what to say; she felt so self-conscious that she thought she might faint, and she swayed upon her feet. But then her courage returned to her, and she nodded quickly.\n\n“I will do what I can. Will you have support from the Collegium?”\n\n“I’ll have the High Guard flying every magister and mage here, in their beaks and talons, if necessary. How many of them will we need?”\n\nShe thought about it for a moment. “All of them,” she said.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 3055, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch29_bereth-P1", "chapter": "ch29_bereth", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTir Diffaith — fortress; keep spelling.\nLord Oakenheart — commander; both words.\ngwrachod — orc-mage/shaman type as elves name them; keep plural form.\ndragon arrows / dragon-killer — Collegium-forged shafts; forms as used.\nCollegium — capitalize.\ncaltrops — spiked orbs; keep spelling.\nKurs-Magog — wasteland; keep spelling.\nmer Eulenarias — surname form; keep spelling.\n\n### STORY\nOn leave in her parents’ marble house Bereth bathes, sparring with her mother’s invasion-calm until Ilriathas’s sold stables and the warhawk egg turn the talk icy.\nMother forbids further High Guard service and presses marriage as choice; Bereth nods without meeting her eyes, still undecided about Lassarian.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nIn Tir Diffaith’s armory under a bird-poor grey sky before the coming fight. Alive, selecting yellow-fletched shafts and discovering three garnet-and-opal dragon arrows plus a sack of caltrops. Intends to keep all three dragon-killers in one quiver.\n\nLord Oakenheart\nNot yet in the dive; expected to lead the sky strike she is arming for.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“The problem is that we have little time, very little time,” the prince-general said. “We need to come up with some new ideas to whittle them down, quickly, before we’re forced to fall back behind the walls.”\n\n“Whittle them down to what?” she asked.\n\n“About two-thirds their present numbers.”\n\nShe frowned. That seemed strangely specific. “Why that particular quantity?”\n\nThe prince-general glanced at one of the other elves towards the back who was rather less splendidly adorned than the rest of them. “Ah, Lady Bereth, the art of war has been transformed to a science of sorts, if you take my meaning. According to my calculations, which you must understand are very precise, we can quite reasonably estimate how long our garrison can be expected to hold out against various numbers of besieging forces.”\n\n“Really?” Bereth asked, too surprised to correct the elf’s misunderstanding of her rank.\n\n“Oh, most certainly! The details are considerable and complicated, but the basic concept is very simple. We might expect to hold out indefinitely against a single orc, for example, whereas an infinite number would be expected to overwhelm even these eminently well-fortified walls in a single day. Once the principle is accepted, it is but a matter of time to work through the relevant variables involved. And in fact-”\n\n“In fact, Valrond has worked through those variables in significantly more detail than we have time to discuss,” the prince-general interrupted. “To summarize, if we cannot reduce their forces to the extent suggested, then Tir Diffaith can be expected to fall in seventy-two days.”\n\n“Give or take two days on either side,” Valrond added.\n\nThe prince looked towards the ceiling and sighed. He clearly found the other elf a trial. “We have a few ideas. But we are hoping you might be able to produce some better options for us.”\n\nBereth stared at the royal elf in shock. Was he serious? How was she supposed to succeed where elves five times her age, with fifty times her knowledge, had not? For a moment, she didn’t know what to say; she felt so self-conscious that she thought she might faint, and she swayed upon her feet. But then her courage returned to her, and she nodded quickly.\n\n“I will do what I can. Will you have support from the Collegium?”\n\n“I’ll have the High Guard flying every magister and mage here, in their beaks and talons, if necessary. How many of them will we need?”\n\nShe thought about it for a moment. “All of them,” she said.\n\n### NOTES\nGrey cloudy sky nearly barren of birds except a starling flock—bad omen for scouting.\nArmory shelves hold mixed quivers; dragon arrows carved with the same spell, different sigil wear.\nCaltrops in rough canvas: small orbs with four spikes about a finger long.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nUnder a worrisomely empty grey sky she goes into the armory for what the High Guard will need when the Great Orc’s flanking horse comes on. Among painted and embroidered quivers she finds a garnet-and-opal case holding three dragon arrows—Collegium work, same death-spell carved differently on each—and she takes all three into one quiver with yellow-fletched ordinary shafts. Feeling back toward the light she nearly spikes her hand on a canvas sack of caltrops, four-spiked orbs heavy enough to matter. The scene ends on that find — before she hauls them out to the birds.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2300 words. Armory-practical; wonder without awe-speech. Land on discovering the caltrops; do not start the load-out debate.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The sky was grey and full of clouds, but it was worrisomely barren of birds. Not of all birds, exactly, as a large flock of starlings were whirling about to the west in one of their strange cabalistic sky-rituals, but of the sort of birds she was expecting. She had seen crows, buzzards, kites, and even an egret today, but since noon, not a single warhawk had arrived.\n\nShe heard someone emerge from the tower steps out onto the roof and call out to her. She turned and saw it was Lord Oakenheart.\n\n“There won’t be any more coming,” the elf lord told her as she stared at him, ashen-faced. She looked up at the sky in disbelief; it was empty of anything but clouds. Where were the hawks that were supposed to be bringing twenty more of the Collegium’s magisters she and the prince’s command staff had ultimately decided were necessary to their plan of attack?\n\n“He said he’d bring them all! He said he’d bring them in his bird’s beak if he had to!”\n\nThe commander of the High Guard laughed mirthlessly.\n\n“Prince Hoelion is not the king, Bereth. The Magistrae have decided we cannot afford to risk everything on a single throw. And the High King supports their decision, I regret to say.”\n\n“They’re cowards!” she cried.\n\n“Essentially. They may be powerful sorcerers, but they’re also old and set in their ways. I expect half of them are more frightened of being flown out here than they are of the Great Orc or his shamans. One hundred thousand orcs is a difficult concept to fathom if you haven’t seen it from on high. But falling off the back of a flying bird? That’s all too easy to imagine.”\n\n“So what are we going to do?”\n\nHe laughed, genuinely amused this time. “What choice do you think we have, Bereth? What we will do is follow the king’s orders to the full extent of our abilities. We will kill as many of them as we can, then we will hold these walls and hope that Valrond got his cursed calculations wrong. They’re all based on theory, after all. Personally, I don’t believe a word he says. What is the last siege he saw with his own eyes, Glaislael? That was centuries ago!”\n\n“Do you really think he is wrong, my lord?”\n\n“How would I know? I don’t know a cursed thing about sieges. But as long as orcs don’t sprout wings, I don’t see why we can’t keep them out. Our magecraft is considerably stronger than theirs. And the High Guard rules the skies.”\n\n“We are too few,” she muttered, looking at her feet.\n\n“Yes, we are. But it’s hardly your fault–”\n\n“It’s not going to work.” She looked up at the too-empty skies in despair. “We won’t have enough mages to do half what we were intending. And if we don’t have those traps or the illusions to conceal them, we may not be able to extricate the horse, let alone the foot, my lord!”\n\nThe tall elf smiled, a little indulgently. “I think we need not fear overmuch for them. Even if we cannot lay all the magical traps you envisioned, both the Horse Lord and the Foot Lord are well-versed in safely extricating their elves from the battlefield. Nor is the High Guard entirely helpless. A few timely fireballs thrown in the right place would permit forces much less disciplined than ours to retreat without meeting much in the way of resistance.”\n\n“Lord Commander!” They both looked up to see a skyrider circling over their heads. “The Horse Lord sends his compliments and asks if you would send out as many squadrons as you can spare to cover his retreat!”\n\n“Retreat?” the elf lord frowned. He glanced at Bereth. “They must be under more pressure than we expected.”\n\nHe cupped his hands around his mouth. “Retreat?” he queried loudly.\n\n“The Great Orc has sent a large cavalry force around them to the west! He’s trying to cut them off before they reach the walls.”\n\nLord Oakenheart held up his hand for a moment and looked down at the stones of the tower, thinking furiously. Then he held up his hands, palms together, to indicate a positive response, and waved both hands at the elf on the hawk. The skyrider raised a fist in acknowledgment, the giant bird beat its wings, and rapidly grew smaller as it flew north.\n\n“What are we going to do?”\n\n“Stop that cavalry from cutting off Lord Malchderas, and presumably, the infantry as well. There must be a considerable quantity of them if the Horse Lord fears being unable to reach these walls.”\n\n“Warboars?”\n\n“I should think so. I doubt wolfriders would concern him overmuch.”\n\nRemembering how easily the Horse Lord had slaughtered thousands of them the last time she’d been in battle, Bereth couldn’t argue with his conclusion. “I’ll go find Lassarian. Is he here?”\n\n“No, he was on patrol this morning.” He smiled at her. “Will you not ride with me? I could use your bow, and Ilriathas tells me there is no use in attempting to persuade you to stay here.”\n\n“I don’t have enough arrows.” She only had the one quiver.\n\n“Go to the armory. Take those with the biggest heads you can find. I’m going to tell the Prince-General the news; if he’s amenable, I’ll send two squadrons to reinforce the patrols and everyone else will fly northwest to delay their flanking action.”\n\n“Thank you, Lord Commander!” She’d never flown with him before, much less in battle. “I am honored.”\n\n“Just don’t fall off,” he said wryly. “Lord Kelethan will murder me if I let anything happen to you. Now go. Get your bow and meet me at the aerie.”\n\nHe turned away and preceded her down the stone stairs of the tower, taking them two at a time. But while he turned off to enter the central building, she continued to make her way down to the armory underground. It was a long way down the circular staircase by the time she reached the bottom, and her legs were already aching with the awareness that she would have to mount all of them again soon. But the torches flared to light as she walked through the open door that connected the staircase to the tower warehouse, and the two young elves set to guarding it had obviously heard her coming, as they were standing as straight-backed and motionless as if they were on public review. They’d probably thought she was an officer come to inspect them, she thought, and she nodded at them as she passed.\n\nThe elf in charge of the armory was considerably older, with the almost imperceptible stillness and distant air that tended to come with great age. He did not smile, but his eyes seemed to focus as she approached and bowed respectfully to him.\n\n“I am Bereth mer Eulenarias, a rider with the High Guard. I am in need of three quivers of arrows, preferably with heads that can pierce boarskin.”\n\nThe ancient elf nodded indifferently and waved her through. He gestured vaguely towards the back of the large, low-ceilinged chamber, and she saw a pair of flames erupt off to her right. “Over there.”\n\n“Thank you,” she said. The master of the armory only grunted and closed his eyes, returning to his reverie.\n\nShe made her way past wooden crates and boxes, past stacks of round painted shields made of oak and larger, more rectangular shields leafed in steel. There was row after row of metal breastpieces and vambraces for the infantry, piles of boiled leather armor for archers and militia, and a huge array of bows that caught her attention, and for a moment, made her forget what she’d come for. She ran her hand over one massive walnut bow, exquisitely carved, that must have belonged to a great elf lord now vanished into the depths of time. It would have too much pull for her, indeed, it might well be more than Lassarian or Ilriathas could manage, but it was a beautiful weapon and she marveled at the skill of its maker. It was a weapon for a hero, and as she knew all too well, there were no heroes to be found in Elebrion these days.\n\nUnfortunately, the bows were followed by large bundles of rods, which upon further investigation turned out to be pikes and spears. There must have been more than twenty thousand of them, she quickly calculated, ruefully reflecting upon the much smaller number of militia she’d seen marching towards the fortress while en route herself. How easy it would be to turn back the orcs, as his fathers had done so many times before, if only King Mael could send out even half as many elves as the Great Orc was hurling against them! Then she shrugged and patted the comforting rough surface of a nearby pillar. The magically-reinforced walls of Tir Diffaith were strong enough to break the Great Orc’s army like waves crashing harmlessly on stone.\n\nFinally, she came to the arrows. There were thousands, and they came in five different varieties. There were green-fletched needle-nosed arrows for target shooting, red-fletched arrows with small two-barbed arrowheads for hunting, red-and-green fletched arrows with heavier, three-barbed heads that would serve well for goblins, orange-fletched shafts that were the conventional elven war arrows, and yellow-fletched arrows with wicked heads made up of four sharpened edges specially designed to punch through leather armor or thick boarskin. There were also purple-fletched arrows, but after drawing one out, she saw a white, crumbled substance coating the arrowhead and swiftly slipped it back into the bundle. Poison could be effective, but in the heat of battle, when one rapidly drew and nocked one arrow after another without looking, it was much too easy to scratch oneself without even realizing it.\n\nShe gathered six bundles of the yellow-feathered shafts and stacked them neatly on the stone floor, then went in search of quivers in which to carry them aloft.\n\nShe found them nearby; there was a surprisingly wide variety of embroidered and painted quivers adorned with the signs and sigils of various lords and families. A few of them she recognized, but most were unfamiliar to her. She made a face as she examined one age-yellowed quiver on which had been painted, in cracked and fading colors, a spread-eagled goblin with its hands and feet pierced by spikes. There was little doubt about what leather had been used in its construction; there were some traditions that were better lost to time. She selected three plain leather quivers on the basis of size and the fact that they had long straps that would make them easier to secure to Lord Oakenheart’s saddle, when a gaudy quiver half-full of black-and-red fletched arrows caught her eye.\n\nUnlike the other decorated quivers, it was neither painted nor embroidered, but was encrusted with garnets and opals. They were arranged in a design that suggested flames, and when she drew out one of the long shafts, she gasped aloud at the unmistakable sense of an ancient magic radiating from the heavy, black-iron arrowhead on the end. She examined it more closely and saw that it was inscribed with a spell carved into the wood all along the length of the shaft, from the head to the fletching, while the iron head was stamped with sigils she did not recognize. The carven script was hard to read, but she was able to make out two words: laddais and nraigh.\n\nShe whistled softly in astonishment and withdrew another arrow. It, too, was carved with the same spell, although the sigils on the head appeared to be different. She quickly confirmed that the rest of the arrows were also imbued with spells; they were weapons from an age long past, dragon killers from a time when the great beasts filled the skies with lightning and fire. She began to slip the quiver back on the hook from which it had been suspended when it occurred to her that she might do very well to bring with her an arrow or two that was capable of defeating even dragon armor. After all, trolls had been spotted in the orc camp, and who knew what further surprises the Great Orc might have in store for them. She selected two of the arcane arrows, hesitated, then withdrew a third.\n\nShe carried the quivers and the three arrows over to where she’d stacked the yellow-fletched shafts and took the time to carefully fill all three of them. She thought momentarily about putting one dragon-killer in each quiver, but thought better of it and put all three in the same one before slipping the quivers over her shoulder. She was just feeling her way back towards the lights at the entrance when she placed her free hand on a rough canvas sack and felt something sharp nearly pierce her hand. She stifled a cry and felt at the sack, wondering what was inside. It felt like a small orb, but with four spikes protruding from it. Caltrops!\n", "completion": "The sky was grey and full of clouds, but it was worrisomely barren of birds. Not of all birds, exactly, as a large flock of starlings were whirling about to the west in one of their strange cabalistic sky-rituals, but of the sort of birds she was expecting. She had seen crows, buzzards, kites, and even an egret today, but since noon, not a single warhawk had arrived.\n\nShe heard someone emerge from the tower steps out onto the roof and call out to her. She turned and saw it was Lord Oakenheart.\n\n“There won’t be any more coming,” the elf lord told her as she stared at him, ashen-faced. She looked up at the sky in disbelief; it was empty of anything but clouds. Where were the hawks that were supposed to be bringing twenty more of the Collegium’s magisters she and the prince’s command staff had ultimately decided were necessary to their plan of attack?\n\n“He said he’d bring them all! He said he’d bring them in his bird’s beak if he had to!”\n\nThe commander of the High Guard laughed mirthlessly.\n\n“Prince Hoelion is not the king, Bereth. The Magistrae have decided we cannot afford to risk everything on a single throw. And the High King supports their decision, I regret to say.”\n\n“They’re cowards!” she cried.\n\n“Essentially. They may be powerful sorcerers, but they’re also old and set in their ways. I expect half of them are more frightened of being flown out here than they are of the Great Orc or his shamans. One hundred thousand orcs is a difficult concept to fathom if you haven’t seen it from on high. But falling off the back of a flying bird? That’s all too easy to imagine.”\n\n“So what are we going to do?”\n\nHe laughed, genuinely amused this time. “What choice do you think we have, Bereth? What we will do is follow the king’s orders to the full extent of our abilities. We will kill as many of them as we can, then we will hold these walls and hope that Valrond got his cursed calculations wrong. They’re all based on theory, after all. Personally, I don’t believe a word he says. What is the last siege he saw with his own eyes, Glaislael? That was centuries ago!”\n\n“Do you really think he is wrong, my lord?”\n\n“How would I know? I don’t know a cursed thing about sieges. But as long as orcs don’t sprout wings, I don’t see why we can’t keep them out. Our magecraft is considerably stronger than theirs. And the High Guard rules the skies.”\n\n“We are too few,” she muttered, looking at her feet.\n\n“Yes, we are. But it’s hardly your fault–”\n\n“It’s not going to work.” She looked up at the too-empty skies in despair. “We won’t have enough mages to do half what we were intending. And if we don’t have those traps or the illusions to conceal them, we may not be able to extricate the horse, let alone the foot, my lord!”\n\nThe tall elf smiled, a little indulgently. “I think we need not fear overmuch for them. Even if we cannot lay all the magical traps you envisioned, both the Horse Lord and the Foot Lord are well-versed in safely extricating their elves from the battlefield. Nor is the High Guard entirely helpless. A few timely fireballs thrown in the right place would permit forces much less disciplined than ours to retreat without meeting much in the way of resistance.”\n\n“Lord Commander!” They both looked up to see a skyrider circling over their heads. “The Horse Lord sends his compliments and asks if you would send out as many squadrons as you can spare to cover his retreat!”\n\n“Retreat?” the elf lord frowned. He glanced at Bereth. “They must be under more pressure than we expected.”\n\nHe cupped his hands around his mouth. “Retreat?” he queried loudly.\n\n“The Great Orc has sent a large cavalry force around them to the west! He’s trying to cut them off before they reach the walls.”\n\nLord Oakenheart held up his hand for a moment and looked down at the stones of the tower, thinking furiously. Then he held up his hands, palms together, to indicate a positive response, and waved both hands at the elf on the hawk. The skyrider raised a fist in acknowledgment, the giant bird beat its wings, and rapidly grew smaller as it flew north.\n\n“What are we going to do?”\n\n“Stop that cavalry from cutting off Lord Malchderas, and presumably, the infantry as well. There must be a considerable quantity of them if the Horse Lord fears being unable to reach these walls.”\n\n“Warboars?”\n\n“I should think so. I doubt wolfriders would concern him overmuch.”\n\nRemembering how easily the Horse Lord had slaughtered thousands of them the last time she’d been in battle, Bereth couldn’t argue with his conclusion. “I’ll go find Lassarian. Is he here?”\n\n“No, he was on patrol this morning.” He smiled at her. “Will you not ride with me? I could use your bow, and Ilriathas tells me there is no use in attempting to persuade you to stay here.”\n\n“I don’t have enough arrows.” She only had the one quiver.\n\n“Go to the armory. Take those with the biggest heads you can find. I’m going to tell the Prince-General the news; if he’s amenable, I’ll send two squadrons to reinforce the patrols and everyone else will fly northwest to delay their flanking action.”\n\n“Thank you, Lord Commander!” She’d never flown with him before, much less in battle. “I am honored.”\n\n“Just don’t fall off,” he said wryly. “Lord Kelethan will murder me if I let anything happen to you. Now go. Get your bow and meet me at the aerie.”\n\nHe turned away and preceded her down the stone stairs of the tower, taking them two at a time. But while he turned off to enter the central building, she continued to make her way down to the armory underground. It was a long way down the circular staircase by the time she reached the bottom, and her legs were already aching with the awareness that she would have to mount all of them again soon. But the torches flared to light as she walked through the open door that connected the staircase to the tower warehouse, and the two young elves set to guarding it had obviously heard her coming, as they were standing as straight-backed and motionless as if they were on public review. They’d probably thought she was an officer come to inspect them, she thought, and she nodded at them as she passed.\n\nThe elf in charge of the armory was considerably older, with the almost imperceptible stillness and distant air that tended to come with great age. He did not smile, but his eyes seemed to focus as she approached and bowed respectfully to him.\n\n“I am Bereth mer Eulenarias, a rider with the High Guard. I am in need of three quivers of arrows, preferably with heads that can pierce boarskin.”\n\nThe ancient elf nodded indifferently and waved her through. He gestured vaguely towards the back of the large, low-ceilinged chamber, and she saw a pair of flames erupt off to her right. “Over there.”\n\n“Thank you,” she said. The master of the armory only grunted and closed his eyes, returning to his reverie.\n\nShe made her way past wooden crates and boxes, past stacks of round painted shields made of oak and larger, more rectangular shields leafed in steel. There was row after row of metal breastpieces and vambraces for the infantry, piles of boiled leather armor for archers and militia, and a huge array of bows that caught her attention, and for a moment, made her forget what she’d come for. She ran her hand over one massive walnut bow, exquisitely carved, that must have belonged to a great elf lord now vanished into the depths of time. It would have too much pull for her, indeed, it might well be more than Lassarian or Ilriathas could manage, but it was a beautiful weapon and she marveled at the skill of its maker. It was a weapon for a hero, and as she knew all too well, there were no heroes to be found in Elebrion these days.\n\nUnfortunately, the bows were followed by large bundles of rods, which upon further investigation turned out to be pikes and spears. There must have been more than twenty thousand of them, she quickly calculated, ruefully reflecting upon the much smaller number of militia she’d seen marching towards the fortress while en route herself. How easy it would be to turn back the orcs, as his fathers had done so many times before, if only King Mael could send out even half as many elves as the Great Orc was hurling against them! Then she shrugged and patted the comforting rough surface of a nearby pillar. The magically-reinforced walls of Tir Diffaith were strong enough to break the Great Orc’s army like waves crashing harmlessly on stone.\n\nFinally, she came to the arrows. There were thousands, and they came in five different varieties. There were green-fletched needle-nosed arrows for target shooting, red-fletched arrows with small two-barbed arrowheads for hunting, red-and-green fletched arrows with heavier, three-barbed heads that would serve well for goblins, orange-fletched shafts that were the conventional elven war arrows, and yellow-fletched arrows with wicked heads made up of four sharpened edges specially designed to punch through leather armor or thick boarskin. There were also purple-fletched arrows, but after drawing one out, she saw a white, crumbled substance coating the arrowhead and swiftly slipped it back into the bundle. Poison could be effective, but in the heat of battle, when one rapidly drew and nocked one arrow after another without looking, it was much too easy to scratch oneself without even realizing it.\n\nShe gathered six bundles of the yellow-feathered shafts and stacked them neatly on the stone floor, then went in search of quivers in which to carry them aloft.\n\nShe found them nearby; there was a surprisingly wide variety of embroidered and painted quivers adorned with the signs and sigils of various lords and families. A few of them she recognized, but most were unfamiliar to her. She made a face as she examined one age-yellowed quiver on which had been painted, in cracked and fading colors, a spread-eagled goblin with its hands and feet pierced by spikes. There was little doubt about what leather had been used in its construction; there were some traditions that were better lost to time. She selected three plain leather quivers on the basis of size and the fact that they had long straps that would make them easier to secure to Lord Oakenheart’s saddle, when a gaudy quiver half-full of black-and-red fletched arrows caught her eye.\n\nUnlike the other decorated quivers, it was neither painted nor embroidered, but was encrusted with garnets and opals. They were arranged in a design that suggested flames, and when she drew out one of the long shafts, she gasped aloud at the unmistakable sense of an ancient magic radiating from the heavy, black-iron arrowhead on the end. She examined it more closely and saw that it was inscribed with a spell carved into the wood all along the length of the shaft, from the head to the fletching, while the iron head was stamped with sigils she did not recognize. The carven script was hard to read, but she was able to make out two words: laddais and nraigh.\n\nShe whistled softly in astonishment and withdrew another arrow. It, too, was carved with the same spell, although the sigils on the head appeared to be different. She quickly confirmed that the rest of the arrows were also imbued with spells; they were weapons from an age long past, dragon killers from a time when the great beasts filled the skies with lightning and fire. She began to slip the quiver back on the hook from which it had been suspended when it occurred to her that she might do very well to bring with her an arrow or two that was capable of defeating even dragon armor. After all, trolls had been spotted in the orc camp, and who knew what further surprises the Great Orc might have in store for them. She selected two of the arcane arrows, hesitated, then withdrew a third.\n\nShe carried the quivers and the three arrows over to where she’d stacked the yellow-fletched shafts and took the time to carefully fill all three of them. She thought momentarily about putting one dragon-killer in each quiver, but thought better of it and put all three in the same one before slipping the quivers over her shoulder. She was just feeling her way back towards the lights at the entrance when she placed her free hand on a rough canvas sack and felt something sharp nearly pierce her hand. She stifled a cry and felt at the sack, wondering what was inside. It felt like a small orb, but with four spikes protruding from it. Caltrops!\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2259, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch29_bereth-P2", "chapter": "ch29_bereth", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ncaltrops — keep spelling.\nwarboar / warboars — keep forms.\nLord Oakenheart — keep form.\nHigh Guard — capitalize.\nGreat Orc — capitalize both.\nTir Diffaith — fortress ahead of the flanking move.\n\n### STORY\nIn Tir Diffaith’s armory Bereth takes three Collegium dragon arrows into one quiver and finds a sack of spiked caltrops while feeling back toward the light.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nRiding behind Oakenheart with caltrops and dragon arrows aboard. Alive, counting how little two low sweeps actually kill while grateful no bolt has hit them yet.\n\nLord Oakenheart\nPiloting the steep assault; leading the High Guard’s attempt to stop the flanking cavalry.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe found them nearby; there was a surprisingly wide variety of embroidered and painted quivers adorned with the signs and sigils of various lords and families. A few of them she recognized, but most were unfamiliar to her. She made a face as she examined one age-yellowed quiver on which had been painted, in cracked and fading colors, a spread-eagled goblin with its hands and feet pierced by spikes. There was little doubt about what leather had been used in its construction; there were some traditions that were better lost to time. She selected three plain leather quivers on the basis of size and the fact that they had long straps that would make them easier to secure to Lord Oakenheart’s saddle, when a gaudy quiver half-full of black-and-red fletched arrows caught her eye.\n\nUnlike the other decorated quivers, it was neither painted nor embroidered, but was encrusted with garnets and opals. They were arranged in a design that suggested flames, and when she drew out one of the long shafts, she gasped aloud at the unmistakable sense of an ancient magic radiating from the heavy, black-iron arrowhead on the end. She examined it more closely and saw that it was inscribed with a spell carved into the wood all along the length of the shaft, from the head to the fletching, while the iron head was stamped with sigils she did not recognize. The carven script was hard to read, but she was able to make out two words: laddais and nraigh.\n\nShe whistled softly in astonishment and withdrew another arrow. It, too, was carved with the same spell, although the sigils on the head appeared to be different. She quickly confirmed that the rest of the arrows were also imbued with spells; they were weapons from an age long past, dragon killers from a time when the great beasts filled the skies with lightning and fire. She began to slip the quiver back on the hook from which it had been suspended when it occurred to her that she might do very well to bring with her an arrow or two that was capable of defeating even dragon armor. After all, trolls had been spotted in the orc camp, and who knew what further surprises the Great Orc might have in store for them. She selected two of the arcane arrows, hesitated, then withdrew a third.\n\nShe carried the quivers and the three arrows over to where she’d stacked the yellow-fletched shafts and took the time to carefully fill all three of them. She thought momentarily about putting one dragon-killer in each quiver, but thought better of it and put all three in the same one before slipping the quivers over her shoulder. She was just feeling her way back towards the lights at the entrance when she placed her free hand on a rough canvas sack and felt something sharp nearly pierce her hand. She stifled a cry and felt at the sack, wondering what was inside. It felt like a small orb, but with four spikes protruding from it. Caltrops!\n\n### NOTES\nSteep passenger assault across the front of the orc boar formation.\nCaltrops dumped from height; arrows into riders; formation horns and crossbows answer after the second pass.\nAt most ~200 orc-and-rider pairs out of action; flanking move arrested only briefly.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nShe hefts the caltrop sack for warhawk work—skulls, hooves, stunned riders—and carries it to the birds. Behind Oakenheart on a steep run she dumps spikes and looses into the massed boar cavalry; the first shock freezes them, then horns and crossbows crack as the hawks claw for height. No bolts land; the damage is maybe two hundred pairs against the host. Still, the flanking movement is stopped for a short span. The scene ends on that brief arrest — before they hunt the gwrachod.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2300 words. Dive kinetics and casualty math; no triumph. Land on the formation briefly stopped; do not open the gwrachod hunt.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Would they work on boar hooves, she wondered? Then it occurred to her that a warhawk could carry a considerable quantity of them, and, more importantly, being struck by one falling from the sky might well slow down a boar, or its rider. And any that didn’t strike home might very well end up embedded in a warboar’s hoof. She shifted the quivers to free her other hand, and worked one of the insidious little devices out of the bag. The spikes weren’t long, not much longer than her index finger, but the orb gave it just enough weight that it might do to crack even a boar’s thick skull. It probably wouldn’t pierce a metal helmet; she thought the spike would probably break first, but it might well stun the rider badly enough to knock him off his mount to be trampled by his fellows.\n\nShe grunted as she withdrew a sack; there seemed to be about one hundred caltrops inside. With some difficulty, she managed to get her arms around it and carry it out to where the old elf was sitting, still lost in his thoughts. Or, more likely, his memories.\n\n“I see you found what you needed?” he commented idly as she dropped the heavy sack of caltrops to the floor with a loud crash.\n\n“Yes, and thank you,” she said. “Guards!”\n\nThe taller of the two guards entered the chamber and eyed her warily. “Is there a problem?”\n\n“No, I just need you to talk to the master here and bring as many of these sacks of caltrops to the aerie as you can.” She pushed at the bag with her foot. “I’ll send more help down, but in the meantime, you and your companion out there must bring up as many as you can. Right away!”\n\nThe guard’s expression didn’t change, but she could all but feel the affronted disapproval radiating from his body. “On whose authority, merchogion?”\n\n“On the Prince-General’s,” she snapped. “Is that sufficient?”\n\nThe guard stiffened. “It is. But we are under orders not to leave our post.”\n\n“Very well,” she said, realizing that he wasn’t trying to be difficult. “Those orders are superseded, by me, Bereth of the High Guard, on the authority of the Prince-General and Lord Oakenheart. Once you’ve delivered two loads each, you will return here and resume your previous duties. Will that do?”\n\n“Admirably, Bereth of the High Guard.” He gave her a very slight bow as she kneeled down to remove a caltrop from the sack, then rose and shouldered her quivers again. “Good luck today, rider.”\n\nShe smiled at him and held up the caltrop. “Pray that this is it.”\n\nLord Oakenheart’s warhawk was a large brown bird that was nearly as large as Ilriathas’s Ebon, and after she explained her idea about the caltrops to him, the Lord Commander of the High Guard immediately ordered them distributed to all twenty-one of the birds that would be flying to delay the enemy’s flanking movement. After the first two guards staggered up to the top of the aerie tower, each bearing three bags, he ordered seven more elves to go to their assistance. Soon each hawk bore, in addition to its riders, a heavy bag of caltrops tied to its saddle. Each bird was carrying two elves; half of the passengers were mages, and the other half archers like herself. One mage, an older elf who looked tremendously unhappy to find himself being strapped into the saddle, suggested that the mages might heat the caltrops with fireball spells as they were dropped, which would further discomfit any orcs that were struck. Some signals were quickly arranged, and then Oakenheart gave the command to leap skyward.\n\nBereth held tightly onto her bow even though it was lashed to the saddle along with the three quivers she’d taken from the armory. Her own quiver was slung around her shoulder, though she’d left her sword back in the quarters she’d been given. If they were somehow brought down by the orcs, all she’d need was the knife at her belt to cut her own throat. Not that the knife would spare her any indignities, orcs being orcs, but at least she need not participate in the festivities alive.\n\nRising from the highest tower of Tir Diffaith, the warhawks were soon at a safe altitude and beating their wings as they headed due east. It would be an all-too-short flight, she feared, as the enemy was desperate to seize the opportunity to take out once and for all the elven forces that had been harassing them for weeks. This wasn’t the Great Orc’s first attempt to encircle the infantry, but it was the first time the orcs had tried it since they’d known that both elven foot and horse would have to fall back to the great fortress.\n\n“Where are the scouts?” she shouted at Lord Oakenheart.\n\n“What?”\n\n“Scout!”\n\n“Just one. I sent Elrian out as soon as we got the word.”\n\n“I don’t see him!”\n\n“I know.” She could feel him slump a little in the saddle. “We should see him by now.”\n\nThe terrain below was mostly barren scrubland, intersected by the occasional stream. It was the border of the Kurs-Magog, the great wastelands inhabited by only the most barbaric orcs, goblins, and occasionally, men. The ground was rough, but flat, and the Great Orc’s cavalry would be making good speed over it.\n\n“There they are!” The lord commander pointed one black-gloved hand at a swelling dark mass on the horizon below. “They’re too close and they’re coming too fast. They’re going to beat the catrodau brenhinol to the walls.”\n\n“There must be five or six thousand of them!” Bereth’s heart sank as she quickly estimated the number of boar riders moving west at a rapid trot. “How can he have so many?”\n\nLord Oakenheart raised his arm, signaling that the sky riders should fall into attack formation. Bereth clutched at his arm, astonished.\n\n“What are you doing?” she demanded. While it was normal for the High Guard to approach and immediately attack, they almost never did so without their scouts first flying over the enemy forces to scan for artillery, shamen, or other ground-based threats. “We should do a flyover first!”\n\n“We should,” the lord commander agreed grimly. “Especially since Elrian is missing. But there’s no time for that now. Ready the caltrops.”\n\nShe shook her head as she looked out at the approaching enemy cavalry below them. She didn’t see any artillery or even any wagons being drawn that might contain a scorpio or some other device capable of harming a warhawk or its rider. She didn’t even see any obvious shamans in the dark, teeming mass moving over the ground. They must have something, though, to have brought down the scout, unless he had inexplicably flown north for some reason rather than back to Tir Diffaith.\n\nRegardless, they were committed now. The other hawks had moved up to form a line with them, with one exception; the skyrider carrying the mage who would cast the flame spell had dropped down below and behind them. She turned her attention to the saddlebags and fumbled at the heavy sack lashed to the saddle. The weight of the caltrops had tightened the knot, and it was hard to unpick, but with the help of her dagger, she managed it, and grunted as she pulled the now-open sack up onto the saddle in front of her.\n\n“Are you ready?” Lord Oakenheart called as they swept towards the front line of the trotting warboars. It had been decided that they would use the first line as their mark. If that would spare the frontmost orcs and their mounts, it would also have the benefit of ensuring more of the wicked little objects struck something on the way down. The lordly elf raised his hand, and just as they passed over the first orcs, a red light flashed from his hand and his hawk banked hard to the north.\n\nAs one, the line of warhawks parted, nine breaking south, the other nine following the lord commander’s lead. There was a searing sound that ripped through the sky, and as Bereth began emptying her canvas sack, she saw a massive fireball erupt horizontally below them, completely obscuring her view of the enemy. She could feel the heat on her exposed face as the caltrops plunged through the fire, down towards the unsuspecting heads and shoulders of the orcs below.\n\nThe sack was considerably lighter, but it wasn’t empty yet, so she grasped it by the two corners, lifted it and shook it. That nearly did the trick, but the spikes from one caltrop had somehow gotten embedded in the canvas, so she had to reach in and draw it out with her hand. The fireball was already fading by the time she hurled the little spiked ball down towards the ground, and as she watched, the first caltrops began to land amidst the enemy like a hellish, hot-metal hail.\n\nStarting about the sixth or seventh row back from the front, the cavalry formation abruptly began to disintegrate. From above, it looked almost as if a giant pillar had been dropped into a still body of water, as first the long hole appeared, followed by violent ripples that flowed towards the rear of the formation. Although they were still high above the orcs, Bereth could hear the outraged screams of the injured pigs and the enraged shouts of their riders over the continuous thunder of the thousands of unshod hooves.\n\nThere were more than a few riderless boars, their riders having fallen, either senseless or dead, after being struck on the head. As Bereth watched, one stunned orc tried to rise, only to be trampled into green ruin by the next wave of riders who were unable to avoid him. Other riders slumped wounded on the backs of their mounts, arms, thighbones, and even shoulders shattered. There were a few fallen boars, their skulls caved in by one or more caltrops, but far more were wounded, both from being struck by a falling caltrop or stepping on one that had failed to hit anything on the way down. The injured boars caused further havoc among the enemy, lashing out in helpless fury at their riders and nearby boars alike with their deadly tusks.\n\nA horn blew, and was quickly echoed by others, and the huge mass of cavalry came to a gradual halt as the various warleaders attempted to maintain a degree of order before their orderly formations devolved into complete chaos. But before the orcs could get their shattered squadrons properly arrayed again, Lord Oakenheart had flown past the northernmost edge of the enemy and gave the signal to launch the second phase of their attack.\n\nBereth, having spent too much time watching the devastation unfold, hurriedly untied her bow and slid the drawstring into place, then slipped an arrow out of her first quiver just before the hawk went into a steep, headfirst dive.\n\nA steep assault was always much harder as a passenger, she thought, even as she leaned forward against the lord commander’s leather-armored back, and tightly shut her eyes against both the rushing wind and the sight of the rapidly approaching ground. She counted, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and was just beginning to worry that Lord Oakenheart wasn’t going to pull up in time when she heard the giant warhawk spread its wings and smoothly ease them into a flight path parallel to the ground at a height barely higher than a warboar’s head.\n\nShe opened her eyes, and discovered she had already nocked her arrow without thinking about it. She loosed it as they sped across the face of the enemy formation, burying it in the throat of a standard bearer little more than a stone’s throw away. Without waiting to watch him fall, she was already drawing another arrow; she managed to loose seven more shafts before they were past the front line. Even though they were flying fast, at such close range she could hardly miss. The other hawks were right behind them, and arrows, lightning bolts, and fireballs ripped into the front ranks of the stationary cavalry, felling scores of orcs and boars alike. The enemy seemed to be in shock, as not a single rider charged forward even though the attacking warhawks were well within reach of the ground. The audacity of the aerial assault, coming so quickly on the heels of the shock of the caltrop bombardment, seemed to have paralyzed the orcs.\n\nBut their stunned paralysis didn’t last very long. No sooner had the sky riders completed their reckless low sweep across the front of the enemy formation than the horns began blowing again, and Bereth heard the unmistakable crack-snap of crossbows being fired at them. She looked back as the big warhawk began beating its wings to gain altitude again, and was relieved to see that none of the bolts that had been fired appeared to have struck home. However, she could also see, to her dismay, just how little damage their two attacks had done to the formation; at most they had, one way or another, taken two hundred orc-and-rider pairs out of commission. Still, the High Guard had not only slowed the Great Orc’s flanking movement down, they had actually managed to arrest it entirely, if only for a short time.\n", "completion": "Would they work on boar hooves, she wondered? Then it occurred to her that a warhawk could carry a considerable quantity of them, and, more importantly, being struck by one falling from the sky might well slow down a boar, or its rider. And any that didn’t strike home might very well end up embedded in a warboar’s hoof. She shifted the quivers to free her other hand, and worked one of the insidious little devices out of the bag. The spikes weren’t long, not much longer than her index finger, but the orb gave it just enough weight that it might do to crack even a boar’s thick skull. It probably wouldn’t pierce a metal helmet; she thought the spike would probably break first, but it might well stun the rider badly enough to knock him off his mount to be trampled by his fellows.\n\nShe grunted as she withdrew a sack; there seemed to be about one hundred caltrops inside. With some difficulty, she managed to get her arms around it and carry it out to where the old elf was sitting, still lost in his thoughts. Or, more likely, his memories.\n\n“I see you found what you needed?” he commented idly as she dropped the heavy sack of caltrops to the floor with a loud crash.\n\n“Yes, and thank you,” she said. “Guards!”\n\nThe taller of the two guards entered the chamber and eyed her warily. “Is there a problem?”\n\n“No, I just need you to talk to the master here and bring as many of these sacks of caltrops to the aerie as you can.” She pushed at the bag with her foot. “I’ll send more help down, but in the meantime, you and your companion out there must bring up as many as you can. Right away!”\n\nThe guard’s expression didn’t change, but she could all but feel the affronted disapproval radiating from his body. “On whose authority, merchogion?”\n\n“On the Prince-General’s,” she snapped. “Is that sufficient?”\n\nThe guard stiffened. “It is. But we are under orders not to leave our post.”\n\n“Very well,” she said, realizing that he wasn’t trying to be difficult. “Those orders are superseded, by me, Bereth of the High Guard, on the authority of the Prince-General and Lord Oakenheart. Once you’ve delivered two loads each, you will return here and resume your previous duties. Will that do?”\n\n“Admirably, Bereth of the High Guard.” He gave her a very slight bow as she kneeled down to remove a caltrop from the sack, then rose and shouldered her quivers again. “Good luck today, rider.”\n\nShe smiled at him and held up the caltrop. “Pray that this is it.”\n\nLord Oakenheart’s warhawk was a large brown bird that was nearly as large as Ilriathas’s Ebon, and after she explained her idea about the caltrops to him, the Lord Commander of the High Guard immediately ordered them distributed to all twenty-one of the birds that would be flying to delay the enemy’s flanking movement. After the first two guards staggered up to the top of the aerie tower, each bearing three bags, he ordered seven more elves to go to their assistance. Soon each hawk bore, in addition to its riders, a heavy bag of caltrops tied to its saddle. Each bird was carrying two elves; half of the passengers were mages, and the other half archers like herself. One mage, an older elf who looked tremendously unhappy to find himself being strapped into the saddle, suggested that the mages might heat the caltrops with fireball spells as they were dropped, which would further discomfit any orcs that were struck. Some signals were quickly arranged, and then Oakenheart gave the command to leap skyward.\n\nBereth held tightly onto her bow even though it was lashed to the saddle along with the three quivers she’d taken from the armory. Her own quiver was slung around her shoulder, though she’d left her sword back in the quarters she’d been given. If they were somehow brought down by the orcs, all she’d need was the knife at her belt to cut her own throat. Not that the knife would spare her any indignities, orcs being orcs, but at least she need not participate in the festivities alive.\n\nRising from the highest tower of Tir Diffaith, the warhawks were soon at a safe altitude and beating their wings as they headed due east. It would be an all-too-short flight, she feared, as the enemy was desperate to seize the opportunity to take out once and for all the elven forces that had been harassing them for weeks. This wasn’t the Great Orc’s first attempt to encircle the infantry, but it was the first time the orcs had tried it since they’d known that both elven foot and horse would have to fall back to the great fortress.\n\n“Where are the scouts?” she shouted at Lord Oakenheart.\n\n“What?”\n\n“Scout!”\n\n“Just one. I sent Elrian out as soon as we got the word.”\n\n“I don’t see him!”\n\n“I know.” She could feel him slump a little in the saddle. “We should see him by now.”\n\nThe terrain below was mostly barren scrubland, intersected by the occasional stream. It was the border of the Kurs-Magog, the great wastelands inhabited by only the most barbaric orcs, goblins, and occasionally, men. The ground was rough, but flat, and the Great Orc’s cavalry would be making good speed over it.\n\n“There they are!” The lord commander pointed one black-gloved hand at a swelling dark mass on the horizon below. “They’re too close and they’re coming too fast. They’re going to beat the catrodau brenhinol to the walls.”\n\n“There must be five or six thousand of them!” Bereth’s heart sank as she quickly estimated the number of boar riders moving west at a rapid trot. “How can he have so many?”\n\nLord Oakenheart raised his arm, signaling that the sky riders should fall into attack formation. Bereth clutched at his arm, astonished.\n\n“What are you doing?” she demanded. While it was normal for the High Guard to approach and immediately attack, they almost never did so without their scouts first flying over the enemy forces to scan for artillery, shamen, or other ground-based threats. “We should do a flyover first!”\n\n“We should,” the lord commander agreed grimly. “Especially since Elrian is missing. But there’s no time for that now. Ready the caltrops.”\n\nShe shook her head as she looked out at the approaching enemy cavalry below them. She didn’t see any artillery or even any wagons being drawn that might contain a scorpio or some other device capable of harming a warhawk or its rider. She didn’t even see any obvious shamans in the dark, teeming mass moving over the ground. They must have something, though, to have brought down the scout, unless he had inexplicably flown north for some reason rather than back to Tir Diffaith.\n\nRegardless, they were committed now. The other hawks had moved up to form a line with them, with one exception; the skyrider carrying the mage who would cast the flame spell had dropped down below and behind them. She turned her attention to the saddlebags and fumbled at the heavy sack lashed to the saddle. The weight of the caltrops had tightened the knot, and it was hard to unpick, but with the help of her dagger, she managed it, and grunted as she pulled the now-open sack up onto the saddle in front of her.\n\n“Are you ready?” Lord Oakenheart called as they swept towards the front line of the trotting warboars. It had been decided that they would use the first line as their mark. If that would spare the frontmost orcs and their mounts, it would also have the benefit of ensuring more of the wicked little objects struck something on the way down. The lordly elf raised his hand, and just as they passed over the first orcs, a red light flashed from his hand and his hawk banked hard to the north.\n\nAs one, the line of warhawks parted, nine breaking south, the other nine following the lord commander’s lead. There was a searing sound that ripped through the sky, and as Bereth began emptying her canvas sack, she saw a massive fireball erupt horizontally below them, completely obscuring her view of the enemy. She could feel the heat on her exposed face as the caltrops plunged through the fire, down towards the unsuspecting heads and shoulders of the orcs below.\n\nThe sack was considerably lighter, but it wasn’t empty yet, so she grasped it by the two corners, lifted it and shook it. That nearly did the trick, but the spikes from one caltrop had somehow gotten embedded in the canvas, so she had to reach in and draw it out with her hand. The fireball was already fading by the time she hurled the little spiked ball down towards the ground, and as she watched, the first caltrops began to land amidst the enemy like a hellish, hot-metal hail.\n\nStarting about the sixth or seventh row back from the front, the cavalry formation abruptly began to disintegrate. From above, it looked almost as if a giant pillar had been dropped into a still body of water, as first the long hole appeared, followed by violent ripples that flowed towards the rear of the formation. Although they were still high above the orcs, Bereth could hear the outraged screams of the injured pigs and the enraged shouts of their riders over the continuous thunder of the thousands of unshod hooves.\n\nThere were more than a few riderless boars, their riders having fallen, either senseless or dead, after being struck on the head. As Bereth watched, one stunned orc tried to rise, only to be trampled into green ruin by the next wave of riders who were unable to avoid him. Other riders slumped wounded on the backs of their mounts, arms, thighbones, and even shoulders shattered. There were a few fallen boars, their skulls caved in by one or more caltrops, but far more were wounded, both from being struck by a falling caltrop or stepping on one that had failed to hit anything on the way down. The injured boars caused further havoc among the enemy, lashing out in helpless fury at their riders and nearby boars alike with their deadly tusks.\n\nA horn blew, and was quickly echoed by others, and the huge mass of cavalry came to a gradual halt as the various warleaders attempted to maintain a degree of order before their orderly formations devolved into complete chaos. But before the orcs could get their shattered squadrons properly arrayed again, Lord Oakenheart had flown past the northernmost edge of the enemy and gave the signal to launch the second phase of their attack.\n\nBereth, having spent too much time watching the devastation unfold, hurriedly untied her bow and slid the drawstring into place, then slipped an arrow out of her first quiver just before the hawk went into a steep, headfirst dive.\n\nA steep assault was always much harder as a passenger, she thought, even as she leaned forward against the lord commander’s leather-armored back, and tightly shut her eyes against both the rushing wind and the sight of the rapidly approaching ground. She counted, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and was just beginning to worry that Lord Oakenheart wasn’t going to pull up in time when she heard the giant warhawk spread its wings and smoothly ease them into a flight path parallel to the ground at a height barely higher than a warboar’s head.\n\nShe opened her eyes, and discovered she had already nocked her arrow without thinking about it. She loosed it as they sped across the face of the enemy formation, burying it in the throat of a standard bearer little more than a stone’s throw away. Without waiting to watch him fall, she was already drawing another arrow; she managed to loose seven more shafts before they were past the front line. Even though they were flying fast, at such close range she could hardly miss. The other hawks were right behind them, and arrows, lightning bolts, and fireballs ripped into the front ranks of the stationary cavalry, felling scores of orcs and boars alike. The enemy seemed to be in shock, as not a single rider charged forward even though the attacking warhawks were well within reach of the ground. The audacity of the aerial assault, coming so quickly on the heels of the shock of the caltrop bombardment, seemed to have paralyzed the orcs.\n\nBut their stunned paralysis didn’t last very long. No sooner had the sky riders completed their reckless low sweep across the front of the enemy formation than the horns began blowing again, and Bereth heard the unmistakable crack-snap of crossbows being fired at them. She looked back as the big warhawk began beating its wings to gain altitude again, and was relieved to see that none of the bolts that had been fired appeared to have struck home. However, she could also see, to her dismay, just how little damage their two attacks had done to the formation; at most they had, one way or another, taken two hundred orc-and-rider pairs out of commission. Still, the High Guard had not only slowed the Great Orc’s flanking movement down, they had actually managed to arrest it entirely, if only for a short time.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2299, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch29_bereth-P3", "chapter": "ch29_bereth", "packet": "P3", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngwrachod — orc shamans/mages as named; keep form.\ntroll / trolls — keep spelling.\nEumelltithio i fagddu — Oakenheart’s curse; keep form.\ndragon arrows — Collegium shafts; keep form.\nmer Eulenarias — address form; keep spelling.\nHigh Guard — capitalize.\nhoodoo — Oakenheart’s shout for the barrier; keep as written.\n\n### STORY\nBereth and Oakenheart lead a caltrop-and-arrow sweep that briefly stops the Great Orc’s flanking boar cavalry, then climb away under unanswered crossbows with only about two hundred pairs down.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nSpotting for Oakenheart. Finds gwrachod among troll-wagons and goblin wolfriders; watches mage-fire fail against their barrier; remembers the three dragon arrows and offers them against the trolls.\n\nLord Oakenheart\nCalls the retreat to height when a hawk is lost; swears at the troll shield-breach; accepts her dragon-arrow plan despite the risk to the mages’ escort duty.\n\ntrolls\nOversized brutes under wagon yokes; one rips cover and swats a hawk; another takes an ordinary arrow and keeps roaring.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nA steep assault was always much harder as a passenger, she thought, even as she leaned forward against the lord commander’s leather-armored back, and tightly shut her eyes against both the rushing wind and the sight of the rapidly approaching ground. She counted, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and was just beginning to worry that Lord Oakenheart wasn’t going to pull up in time when she heard the giant warhawk spread its wings and smoothly ease them into a flight path parallel to the ground at a height barely higher than a warboar’s head.\n\nShe opened her eyes, and discovered she had already nocked her arrow without thinking about it. She loosed it as they sped across the face of the enemy formation, burying it in the throat of a standard bearer little more than a stone’s throw away. Without waiting to watch him fall, she was already drawing another arrow; she managed to loose seven more shafts before they were past the front line. Even though they were flying fast, at such close range she could hardly miss. The other hawks were right behind them, and arrows, lightning bolts, and fireballs ripped into the front ranks of the stationary cavalry, felling scores of orcs and boars alike. The enemy seemed to be in shock, as not a single rider charged forward even though the attacking warhawks were well within reach of the ground. The audacity of the aerial assault, coming so quickly on the heels of the shock of the caltrop bombardment, seemed to have paralyzed the orcs.\n\nBut their stunned paralysis didn’t last very long. No sooner had the sky riders completed their reckless low sweep across the front of the enemy formation than the horns began blowing again, and Bereth heard the unmistakable crack-snap of crossbows being fired at them. She looked back as the big warhawk began beating its wings to gain altitude again, and was relieved to see that none of the bolts that had been fired appeared to have struck home. However, she could also see, to her dismay, just how little damage their two attacks had done to the formation; at most they had, one way or another, taken two hundred orc-and-rider pairs out of commission. Still, the High Guard had not only slowed the Great Orc’s flanking movement down, they had actually managed to arrest it entirely, if only for a short time.\n\n### NOTES\nFour troll-drawn wagons advanced through the cavalry with goblin wolf escorts—the gwrachod party.\nThree fireballs dispersed by the barrier; one squadron presses and dies; High Guard climbs.\nBoar cavalry resumes toward the fortress and the infantry’s line of retreat.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nOakenheart demands the gwrachod; she finds them in the deference around troll-wagons and wolf-goblins and points him down. Mage triads throw fire; the barrier eats it—big hoodoo—and a pressing squadron is smashed when a troll unyokes and swats a hawk from the air. An archer’s shaft only enrages the brute; Oakenheart swears and climbs the Guard while orc captains whip the boars toward the infantry’s rear. She argues they must stop the horse, remembers the dragon arrows, and offers three shots if he will take her close. He weighs mage-escort duty against the fortress, hands the shaft back, and tells mer Eulenarias not to miss. The scene ends on that order — before the dive.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 2100 words. Battle clarity; curses and cant exact. Land on “Don’t miss”; do not begin the plunge.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Where are the gwrachod?” Lord Oakenheart shouted at her. “They must have brought some with them!”\n\nBereth frantically scanned the huge formation, trying to spot any signs of horns or staffs or any of the usual accoutrements of an orc-mage. Too many of the boar riders had brands and tattoos marking their faces and bare arms for the skin markings to be of much use to her, but then she saw movement in the middle of the formation, and saw riders making way for four of the troll-drawn wagons being brought forward from the rear. Following the wagons were smaller orcs riding smaller animals than the big boars on either side of them. Wolves, she realized, and the riders were not orcs, but goblins. The deference both wagons and riders were being shown as they were ushered towards the carnage in the front lines suggested they must be the gwrachod for whom they’d been looking.\n\n“Down there!” she yelled into his ear as she grabbed his shoulder and pointed with her bow.\n\nLord Oakenheart nodded and immediately urged the warhawk higher. He also pumped his left arm three times, paused for a moment, then repeated the gesture, which was the High Guard’s sign for the riders carrying archers to disengage and provide cover for those bearing mages as they attacked their orcish counterparts.\n\n“Wish we had more caltrops!” she shouted. She could feel him shrug; it might have been wise to hold onto a sack to drop on the gwrachod in an attempt to disrupt them, but they could hardly regret the damage they’d been able to inflict on the orcs already, and without loss. The next stage of the air-to-ground battle would be considerably riskier now, though, and the desperate need to slow the cavalry’s flanking attempt meant they couldn’t simply withdraw, as they usually did once the enemy was able to marshal its magic against them.\n\nThe nine warhawks bearing mages arranged themselves into three formations of three. In the present circumstances, attacking an unscouted enemy, Bereth knew that they would take a cautious approach. On the first attack, two of the three mages would be responsible for defensive spells, while the third, usually the most powerful, would attempt to kill or incapacitate as many of the magic-users as possible. Once the gwrachod were sufficiently distracted, she and the other archers would descend, first to attack any artillery that presented itself, after which they would take out the remaining gwrachod.\n\nOnly then would they return their attentions to the rest of the formation, concentrating first on officers, particularly the commanding general or warleader if they could identify him. There were simply too many orcs to even try to eliminate them all, but Bereth figured that if they could kill another thousand riders, there was a reasonable chance their surviving officers would abandon the flanking attempt and scatter to avoid the hell falling on them from on high. Orc or elf, a warrior who was helpless to respond was much more inclined to break and run than one who was able to fight back, even by proxy.\n\nA cry arose from below as the first squadron swooped down towards the gwrachod struggling to push through the press. Crossbow strings snapped as a flurry of wooden bolts were fired up at the descending warhawks, but the veteran sky riders knew their margin of safety, and the bolts lost momentum and began to fall back to the ground before endangering hawk or rider. Bereth had just enough magecraft to see that one of the leading mages was maintaining an arcane shield of sorts. The other one, she guessed, would be alert for a diableric assault on the bodies of the birds or the minds of the riders.\n\nOrcs leaped out of the canvas-shrouded wagons, and, judging by their colorful attire and ornamental headgear, they were almost certainly the gwrachod she’d suspected. They brandished wooden staves and ivory bones and other fetishes aloft, and the air above them fairly crackled with the mystical energy of the magic they were wielding. As near as she could tell, there appeared to be perhaps twenty orcs on the carts, plus another fifteen or twenty goblins riding wolves.\n\n“Too many!” she shouted at Lord Oakenheart.\n\nHe shook his head and reached back to reassure her by patting her thigh. Then he pointed to the three descending squadrons. The mage on the back of the leading hawk had risen in the saddle and was holding both hands up toward the white clouds above. He threw his head back, shouting, and then three bolts of lightning abruptly flashed in the blue sky, accompanied by a rapid series of thunderclaps detonating.\n\nBereth blinked and looked away, her eyes momentarily blinded by the bright burst of light. But when her vision returned to her and she looked down, she was surprised to see that instead of being three craters where the carts had been, the orcs were untouched.\n\n“Big hoodoo!” the lord commander shouted at her.\n\nShe nodded, astonished at the power being exhibited by the gwrachod; to not only deflect, but disperse three direct lightning bolts was something only a magister could do. Were they mutually augmenting each other’s power? Or were they drawing on some external power source they had somehow managed to hide from the High Guard’s most talented mages?\n\nThe same thought had clearly struck the mages in two of the attacking squadrons. Six of the nine warhawks abruptly pulled out of their dive, their great wings beating powerfully as the lead squadron arced north and the second squadron broke south. But the third squadron continued its descent, grimly intent on taking out the orcs’ magic users before they could demonstrate similarly unexpected offensive capabilities.\n\n“What are they doing?” she shouted fearfully. She could feel the Oakenheart’s shrug, but he shook his head too, and she knew he was equally concerned for the fate of the three warhawks and their reckless riders.\n\nThe force of the wind was too strong for the lone archer, but the two mages in the squadron abandoned all thought of defense as they hurled one fireball after another at the gathered gwrachod straining to hold up their magical shield below. The first four fireballs splattered against the invisible protection, sending fiery plumes arching in every direction above the orcs, but the fifth one penetrated the invisible barrier and exploded just in front of the first wagon, incinerating one gwrach where he stood and setting three or four others on fire. The flames also seared two of the blue-skinned trolls pulling the wagon, who shrieked and bellowed like beasts as they beat at their scalded hide.\n\nBereth shouted in anticipation, but the weakness in the barrier was only momentary and subsequent fireballs detonated harmlessly against the restored magic shield. The three warhawks were just beginning to pull out of their dive, and the archer had risen in his saddle as he began to nock an arrow when the beleaguered orcs struck back. Or rather, the trolls struck back.\n\nOne of the oversized creatures had ducked under the yoke of the third wagon and ripped off the leather cover, revealing that it was filled with long wooden poles, crudely sharpened at one end. The troll withdrew one and handed it to an even bigger companion, a monster with massive arms who looked as if he might well outmass the boars that flanked him on either side. The troll hefted the heavy pole, adjusted his grip, and then stepped forward and hurled it upwards as if it was a javelin. The oversized spear flew up and caught one of the warhawks in the side, just behind the wing, and the bloody tip burst out through the breast as the huge bird was spitted in mid-air.\n\nThe dismayed cry of its riders and the shriek of the hawk itself was drowned out by the terrible roar that erupted from the watching orcs below. The hawk crumpled and its wings furled like a man clutching at a wound. The two elves were strapped into the saddle, but the mage lost his grip on his staff as the bird turned over and began to plunge limply to the ground. The staff fell from the sky, rotating end over end, and the rest of the High Guard watched, helpless, as the dying bird bore its doomed riders down toward the unforgiving ground.\n\nThe squadron’s archer loosed his arrow and the shaft flew straight and true. It struck the troll in the shoulder and caused him to take a step backward, but his tough blue hide was too thick for the arrowhead to bury itself completely in his flesh or do any serious harm. With a snarl of pain, the troll ripped the shaft out and snapped it in twain.\n\nIgnoring the blood running down his side, the troll raised his mighty arms and roared defiance at them. His triumphant shout was echoed by the newly emboldened orcs, and rose to a fever pitch when the stricken bird struck the ground, killing mage and skyrider instantly. The orcs rapidly swarmed their fallen enemies; Bereth couldn’t help crying out in horror as both elves were swiftly beheaded and their heads mounted on spears that were thrust up mockingly towards the sky as the orcs howled in bestial triumph.\n\n“Eumelltithio i fagddu!” Lord Oakenheart swore bitterly at the sight. He held up his hand, and the High Guard rose higher into the sky, seeking the safety that came with altitude.\n\nEncouraged by the elven retreat to the heights, orc captains began shouting at their riders, whipping beasts back to their feet, and ordering those who had dismounted to clamber back astride their boars. A deep horn resounded, and was answered by a series of shouts, horn blasts, and whistles as the various warleaders and clan chieftains indicated that they were ready to resume the march.\n\n“We have to stop them!” Bereth shouted.\n\n“The risk is too great!”\n\n“They’ll cut off the infantry if we don’t stop them!”\n\n“I know!” She could feel him sigh deeply, and he shook his head in frustration. “We can’t throw away two-thirds of our mages for nothing!”\n\nBereth thought frantically. They needed to break the gwrachod to stop the cavalry, but they couldn’t get close enough to break through the spells of the magic-users without putting the warhawks at risk from the trolls. She made a mental note to be sure to kill the orc commander if she saw him; whoever he was, he had adroitly leveraged his forces to negate the usual elven advantages.\n\nThen she remembered the dragon arrows. They were forged by long-dead magisters of the Collegium, infused with the arcane magic of the ancients. If they could penetrate dragon scales, they could surely punch right through the toughest troll hide. She only had three of them, but three might well be enough. She pawed at the lord commander.\n\n“I can kill them!”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The trolls. The big ones! With these!”\n\nShe withdrew one of the dragon arrows and passed it forward to him.\n\n“Where did you get this?”\n\n“I’ve got three! If you can get me close enough, I can take them out.”\n\nHe ran his hand over the shaft thoughtfully, taking in the runes inscribed into the ancient wood. “It will be risky.”\n\n“You said we had to stop them, at any cost!”\n\nLord Oakenheart looked down at the mounted horde beneath them, now moving rapidly again in the direction of the fortress. The High Guard could withdraw safely and the Prince-General would not blame them; protecting the mages was their foremost priority and they had already lost one. And it was not impossible that the infantry would be able to fight its way through to safety, although it would certainly take heavy losses in doing so.\n\nHe handed the arrow back to her over his shoulder. Then he patted her thigh. “Don’t miss, mer Eulenarias,” he told her.\n", "completion": "“Where are the gwrachod?” Lord Oakenheart shouted at her. “They must have brought some with them!”\n\nBereth frantically scanned the huge formation, trying to spot any signs of horns or staffs or any of the usual accoutrements of an orc-mage. Too many of the boar riders had brands and tattoos marking their faces and bare arms for the skin markings to be of much use to her, but then she saw movement in the middle of the formation, and saw riders making way for four of the troll-drawn wagons being brought forward from the rear. Following the wagons were smaller orcs riding smaller animals than the big boars on either side of them. Wolves, she realized, and the riders were not orcs, but goblins. The deference both wagons and riders were being shown as they were ushered towards the carnage in the front lines suggested they must be the gwrachod for whom they’d been looking.\n\n“Down there!” she yelled into his ear as she grabbed his shoulder and pointed with her bow.\n\nLord Oakenheart nodded and immediately urged the warhawk higher. He also pumped his left arm three times, paused for a moment, then repeated the gesture, which was the High Guard’s sign for the riders carrying archers to disengage and provide cover for those bearing mages as they attacked their orcish counterparts.\n\n“Wish we had more caltrops!” she shouted. She could feel him shrug; it might have been wise to hold onto a sack to drop on the gwrachod in an attempt to disrupt them, but they could hardly regret the damage they’d been able to inflict on the orcs already, and without loss. The next stage of the air-to-ground battle would be considerably riskier now, though, and the desperate need to slow the cavalry’s flanking attempt meant they couldn’t simply withdraw, as they usually did once the enemy was able to marshal its magic against them.\n\nThe nine warhawks bearing mages arranged themselves into three formations of three. In the present circumstances, attacking an unscouted enemy, Bereth knew that they would take a cautious approach. On the first attack, two of the three mages would be responsible for defensive spells, while the third, usually the most powerful, would attempt to kill or incapacitate as many of the magic-users as possible. Once the gwrachod were sufficiently distracted, she and the other archers would descend, first to attack any artillery that presented itself, after which they would take out the remaining gwrachod.\n\nOnly then would they return their attentions to the rest of the formation, concentrating first on officers, particularly the commanding general or warleader if they could identify him. There were simply too many orcs to even try to eliminate them all, but Bereth figured that if they could kill another thousand riders, there was a reasonable chance their surviving officers would abandon the flanking attempt and scatter to avoid the hell falling on them from on high. Orc or elf, a warrior who was helpless to respond was much more inclined to break and run than one who was able to fight back, even by proxy.\n\nA cry arose from below as the first squadron swooped down towards the gwrachod struggling to push through the press. Crossbow strings snapped as a flurry of wooden bolts were fired up at the descending warhawks, but the veteran sky riders knew their margin of safety, and the bolts lost momentum and began to fall back to the ground before endangering hawk or rider. Bereth had just enough magecraft to see that one of the leading mages was maintaining an arcane shield of sorts. The other one, she guessed, would be alert for a diableric assault on the bodies of the birds or the minds of the riders.\n\nOrcs leaped out of the canvas-shrouded wagons, and, judging by their colorful attire and ornamental headgear, they were almost certainly the gwrachod she’d suspected. They brandished wooden staves and ivory bones and other fetishes aloft, and the air above them fairly crackled with the mystical energy of the magic they were wielding. As near as she could tell, there appeared to be perhaps twenty orcs on the carts, plus another fifteen or twenty goblins riding wolves.\n\n“Too many!” she shouted at Lord Oakenheart.\n\nHe shook his head and reached back to reassure her by patting her thigh. Then he pointed to the three descending squadrons. The mage on the back of the leading hawk had risen in the saddle and was holding both hands up toward the white clouds above. He threw his head back, shouting, and then three bolts of lightning abruptly flashed in the blue sky, accompanied by a rapid series of thunderclaps detonating.\n\nBereth blinked and looked away, her eyes momentarily blinded by the bright burst of light. But when her vision returned to her and she looked down, she was surprised to see that instead of being three craters where the carts had been, the orcs were untouched.\n\n“Big hoodoo!” the lord commander shouted at her.\n\nShe nodded, astonished at the power being exhibited by the gwrachod; to not only deflect, but disperse three direct lightning bolts was something only a magister could do. Were they mutually augmenting each other’s power? Or were they drawing on some external power source they had somehow managed to hide from the High Guard’s most talented mages?\n\nThe same thought had clearly struck the mages in two of the attacking squadrons. Six of the nine warhawks abruptly pulled out of their dive, their great wings beating powerfully as the lead squadron arced north and the second squadron broke south. But the third squadron continued its descent, grimly intent on taking out the orcs’ magic users before they could demonstrate similarly unexpected offensive capabilities.\n\n“What are they doing?” she shouted fearfully. She could feel the Oakenheart’s shrug, but he shook his head too, and she knew he was equally concerned for the fate of the three warhawks and their reckless riders.\n\nThe force of the wind was too strong for the lone archer, but the two mages in the squadron abandoned all thought of defense as they hurled one fireball after another at the gathered gwrachod straining to hold up their magical shield below. The first four fireballs splattered against the invisible protection, sending fiery plumes arching in every direction above the orcs, but the fifth one penetrated the invisible barrier and exploded just in front of the first wagon, incinerating one gwrach where he stood and setting three or four others on fire. The flames also seared two of the blue-skinned trolls pulling the wagon, who shrieked and bellowed like beasts as they beat at their scalded hide.\n\nBereth shouted in anticipation, but the weakness in the barrier was only momentary and subsequent fireballs detonated harmlessly against the restored magic shield. The three warhawks were just beginning to pull out of their dive, and the archer had risen in his saddle as he began to nock an arrow when the beleaguered orcs struck back. Or rather, the trolls struck back.\n\nOne of the oversized creatures had ducked under the yoke of the third wagon and ripped off the leather cover, revealing that it was filled with long wooden poles, crudely sharpened at one end. The troll withdrew one and handed it to an even bigger companion, a monster with massive arms who looked as if he might well outmass the boars that flanked him on either side. The troll hefted the heavy pole, adjusted his grip, and then stepped forward and hurled it upwards as if it was a javelin. The oversized spear flew up and caught one of the warhawks in the side, just behind the wing, and the bloody tip burst out through the breast as the huge bird was spitted in mid-air.\n\nThe dismayed cry of its riders and the shriek of the hawk itself was drowned out by the terrible roar that erupted from the watching orcs below. The hawk crumpled and its wings furled like a man clutching at a wound. The two elves were strapped into the saddle, but the mage lost his grip on his staff as the bird turned over and began to plunge limply to the ground. The staff fell from the sky, rotating end over end, and the rest of the High Guard watched, helpless, as the dying bird bore its doomed riders down toward the unforgiving ground.\n\nThe squadron’s archer loosed his arrow and the shaft flew straight and true. It struck the troll in the shoulder and caused him to take a step backward, but his tough blue hide was too thick for the arrowhead to bury itself completely in his flesh or do any serious harm. With a snarl of pain, the troll ripped the shaft out and snapped it in twain.\n\nIgnoring the blood running down his side, the troll raised his mighty arms and roared defiance at them. His triumphant shout was echoed by the newly emboldened orcs, and rose to a fever pitch when the stricken bird struck the ground, killing mage and skyrider instantly. The orcs rapidly swarmed their fallen enemies; Bereth couldn’t help crying out in horror as both elves were swiftly beheaded and their heads mounted on spears that were thrust up mockingly towards the sky as the orcs howled in bestial triumph.\n\n“Eumelltithio i fagddu!” Lord Oakenheart swore bitterly at the sight. He held up his hand, and the High Guard rose higher into the sky, seeking the safety that came with altitude.\n\nEncouraged by the elven retreat to the heights, orc captains began shouting at their riders, whipping beasts back to their feet, and ordering those who had dismounted to clamber back astride their boars. A deep horn resounded, and was answered by a series of shouts, horn blasts, and whistles as the various warleaders and clan chieftains indicated that they were ready to resume the march.\n\n“We have to stop them!” Bereth shouted.\n\n“The risk is too great!”\n\n“They’ll cut off the infantry if we don’t stop them!”\n\n“I know!” She could feel him sigh deeply, and he shook his head in frustration. “We can’t throw away two-thirds of our mages for nothing!”\n\nBereth thought frantically. They needed to break the gwrachod to stop the cavalry, but they couldn’t get close enough to break through the spells of the magic-users without putting the warhawks at risk from the trolls. She made a mental note to be sure to kill the orc commander if she saw him; whoever he was, he had adroitly leveraged his forces to negate the usual elven advantages.\n\nThen she remembered the dragon arrows. They were forged by long-dead magisters of the Collegium, infused with the arcane magic of the ancients. If they could penetrate dragon scales, they could surely punch right through the toughest troll hide. She only had three of them, but three might well be enough. She pawed at the lord commander.\n\n“I can kill them!”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The trolls. The big ones! With these!”\n\nShe withdrew one of the dragon arrows and passed it forward to him.\n\n“Where did you get this?”\n\n“I’ve got three! If you can get me close enough, I can take them out.”\n\nHe ran his hand over the shaft thoughtfully, taking in the runes inscribed into the ancient wood. “It will be risky.”\n\n“You said we had to stop them, at any cost!”\n\nLord Oakenheart looked down at the mounted horde beneath them, now moving rapidly again in the direction of the fortress. The High Guard could withdraw safely and the Prince-General would not blame them; protecting the mages was their foremost priority and they had already lost one. And it was not impossible that the infantry would be able to fight its way through to safety, although it would certainly take heavy losses in doing so.\n\nHe handed the arrow back to her over his shoulder. Then he patted her thigh. “Don’t miss, mer Eulenarias,” he told her.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 2027, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch29_bereth-P4", "chapter": "ch29_bereth", "packet": "P4", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngwrachod — keep form.\ndragon arrows — keep form.\nmer Eulenarias — keep form.\nDantelys — sky-rider who meets them; keep spelling.\nTir Diffaith — fortress; keep spelling.\ncatrodau brenhinol — royal infantry saved by the gamble; keep form.\nKurs-Magog — battle for the waste ends; keep spelling.\nPrince Hoelion — named in closing reflection; keep spelling.\nRhwymo a benditho a gwau / Gwella a selo a chryfhau — healing charm lines; keep exact.\n\n### STORY\nWhen mage-fire fails against the gwrachod barrier and trolls smash a squadron, Bereth offers three Collegium dragon arrows; Oakenheart accepts the risk and tells her not to miss.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nBereth mer Eulenarias\nPassenger-archer on the cloaked dive. Kills trolls with dragon arrows while gwrachod are occupied; finds Oakenheart dying of a bolt; packs the wound with bespelled herbs and flies him for Tir Diffaith.\n\nLord Oakenheart\nPlans the fake runs and cloaked second pass; hit deep by a bolt after the kills; gasps that they must still stop the horse; too weak to shout to Dantelys.\n\nDantelys\nSky-rider who closes on their erratic flight; takes the order to keep pressing while she runs for the castle.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEncouraged by the elven retreat to the heights, orc captains began shouting at their riders, whipping beasts back to their feet, and ordering those who had dismounted to clamber back astride their boars. A deep horn resounded, and was answered by a series of shouts, horn blasts, and whistles as the various warleaders and clan chieftains indicated that they were ready to resume the march.\n\n“We have to stop them!” Bereth shouted.\n\n“The risk is too great!”\n\n“They’ll cut off the infantry if we don’t stop them!”\n\n“I know!” She could feel him sigh deeply, and he shook his head in frustration. “We can’t throw away two-thirds of our mages for nothing!”\n\nBereth thought frantically. They needed to break the gwrachod to stop the cavalry, but they couldn’t get close enough to break through the spells of the magic-users without putting the warhawks at risk from the trolls. She made a mental note to be sure to kill the orc commander if she saw him; whoever he was, he had adroitly leveraged his forces to negate the usual elven advantages.\n\nThen she remembered the dragon arrows. They were forged by long-dead magisters of the Collegium, infused with the arcane magic of the ancients. If they could penetrate dragon scales, they could surely punch right through the toughest troll hide. She only had three of them, but three might well be enough. She pawed at the lord commander.\n\n“I can kill them!”\n\n“Who?”\n\n“The trolls. The big ones! With these!”\n\nShe withdrew one of the dragon arrows and passed it forward to him.\n\n“Where did you get this?”\n\n“I’ve got three! If you can get me close enough, I can take them out.”\n\nHe ran his hand over the shaft thoughtfully, taking in the runes inscribed into the ancient wood. “It will be risky.”\n\n“You said we had to stop them, at any cost!”\n\nLord Oakenheart looked down at the mounted horde beneath them, now moving rapidly again in the direction of the fortress. The High Guard could withdraw safely and the Prince-General would not blame them; protecting the mages was their foremost priority and they had already lost one. And it was not impossible that the infantry would be able to fight its way through to safety, although it would certainly take heavy losses in doing so.\n\nHe handed the arrow back to her over his shoulder. Then he patted her thigh. “Don’t miss, mer Eulenarias,” he told her.\n\n### NOTES\nAttack plan: two mage-hawks distract gwrachod; cloak on Oakenheart’s bird; steep dive then second front-line soar for chest shots.\nHealing pouch herbs flare under her hands with the spoken charm.\nCatrodau retreat secured; Kurs-Magog field battle over; siege of Tir Diffaith hours away.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Bereth.\n\nOakenheart signs the squadron: distract, cloak, fake runs, then a killing dive. She falls through waterfall wind, looses into troll chests as the gwrachod burn skyward distractions, and climbs shouting victory until he fails to answer. A bolt is buried in him; she packs and charms the wound, tells Dantelys to stop the horse while she runs for Tir Diffaith, and watches the green-brown mass stutter as the royal foot slips free. Even if he lives, the hit-and-run war is done—Prince Hoelion must trust the fortress walls. The battle for the Kurs-Magog is over; the siege will begin in hours, and it is one the elves cannot afford to lose. The scene ends on that siege-line.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1900 words. Kill and wound concrete; no victory speech. Land on the coming siege of Tir Diffaith; do not open the walls defense.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She nodded grimly as he began a complicated series of gestures that indicated to the other skyriders in their oversized squadron how they were going to attack. Two of the hawks bearing the two most powerful mages would distract the gwrachod with fire and lightning. Oakenheart would circle behind one of the remaining hawks, at which point the mage on the fifth hawk would cast a cloaking spell over them. The fourth and fifth hawks would remain on high, as the other squadrons aggressively faked attack runs until the trolls were dead.\n\nFrom this, Bereth gleaned that his intention was to dive as low as possible, as fast as possible, then soar a second time across the front line of the cavalry, giving her the best possible shots at the chests of the big brutes. She winced, not looking forward to the steep plunge towards the earth, nor flying so close to the crossbows carried by many of the orcs below. At least she’d be too busy with her bow to spare any thought for the risks they were taking; it was small consolation, but just enough to keep her from wetting herself in fearful anticipation.\n\n“Ready?”\n\nShe checked her straps, took a firm grip on her bow and quiver, and slid her arms around the lord commander’s armored waist, gripping him tight with her forearms. She squeezed twice, to confirm.\n\nShe felt him shift as he gestured to the others, and the two warhawks furled their wings and fell. Their own bird arced to the right, and as it made a tight circle, her trained senses tingled as the cloaking spell was cast upon them. Then, without further warning, they were dropping, and she shut her eyes tightly against the brutal force of the wind, seeking to prevent her eyes from watering. She did not want blurry vision once the great warhawk leveled out and they began their dangerous pass.\n\nHer stomach dropped and the wind roared in her ears like a waterfall. They were falling, falling, falling for what seemed like an eternity, but just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, she felt a sensation of heat on her face, heard bestial squeals and screams, and the roar of thunder ripping through the sky. She could somehow sense the great moving mass below them, and scent the horrid stink of thousands of monstrous beasts as they fell towards it.\n\nThat was all the warning she received before she was hurled back against the saddle as the warhawk spread its wings to end its dive. They arced gracefully to the south. She opened her eyes and saw a hellish scene of smoke, fire, and confusion; at least two or three of the fireballs thrown to cover their dive had penetrated the orcs’ magical defenses. They were speeding right over the helms and horns of the boar riders, seemingly so close that one would have been able to leap from the back of its mount and pluck a speckled brown feather from the belly of the giant hawk, and almost unthinkingly, she slipped the arrow onto the string and pulled it back to her ear. She didn’t know if the concealment spell had held, she didn’t know if they’d been seen, and she didn’t hear the snap-crack of the crossbow bolts being fired up at them. She was too busy seeking her targets.\n\nWhere were they? But her eyes were keen, even for an elf, and she quickly spotted the first troll, who had just removed another huge javelin from the wagon behind him and was turning back towards them. But he did not see them; he was staring up at the sky. Even though they were so close she could hardly miss, she waited until his chest was fully exposed, then loosed. She didn’t wait to see if the shaft struck home, but nocked the next one, aimed, and loosed again. Before the first troll even hit the ground, dying, two more were mortally wounded, one in the heart, one in the throat, and a third was dead before it struck the ground, a yellow-feathered shaft sticking out of its left eye. As she’d hoped, the dragon-banes proved to be more than a match for mountain troll hide; the fourth troll was a fortunate bonus.\n\nBut she didn’t stop there. The gwrachod were fully occupied with their sky-riding assailants and their green skin was not too tough for her conventional arrows. By the time Lord Oakenheart pulled up on the reins and directed the giant bird to ascend the sky to the safety of the heights, she had killed four of the cursed magic-users as well.\n\n“We did it!” she exulted, as the great bird beat its wings and climbed higher. But Lord Oakenheart didn’t respond except to grunt and send up a magical light that flared green, telling the waiting squadrons it was now safe to begin their attacks. The circling birds brought in their wings, one by one, and dove towards the increasingly defenseless foe.\n\nIt wasn’t until they reached their usual altitude and leveled out, and she was stowing her bow, that she saw blood on the saddle in front of her.\n\n“Lord Commander?” she asked, puzzled. “Are you hurt?”\n\nEven as she spoke, he slumped back on her breast with a wordless groan. She reached forward, and felt a thick wooden bolt, slick with blood, under her hand; it had pierced his armor just under his ribs on his right side. She couldn’t help crying out in alarm, but she still had the presence of mind to remember that she had the materials for a simple healing spell in her saddle pack. Heedless of the blood on her hands, she frantically dug through it until she found the sachet of dried herbs used as a trigger.\n\nTearing it open with her teeth, she poured half of it over his wound, then put it back in her mouth so she could grip the bolt with both hands. They were slippery from the blood, and it took her three tries, but the bolt finally came out with a terrible wet sucking sound. She couldn’t have removed an arrow driven equally deep, but fortunately, the crossbow bolts favored by the orcs were headless and barely tapered; not unlike the orcs who used them, they were dependent upon brute force to inflect damage. Blood gushed out a hole that would have fit four of her fingers, but there was no foul stink forthcoming, which gave her hope that the damage wasn’t too great. She poured the rest of the herbs directly into the wound, then placed both her hands over it and spoke the words of the spell known to every sky rider with even a modicum of magic.\n\nGods of earth and sky and stone.\n\nHeal this flesh, restore this bone!\n\nRhwymo a benditho a gwau,\n\nGwella a selo a chryfhau!\n\nShe could feel the heat under her hands as the bespelled herbs flared, searing and mending the torn and bleeding flesh. Lord Oakenheart cried out; the spell was not a merciful one. Bereth had never experienced it herself, but she was told it felt like being kissed by fire. But it seemed to work, for the blood was no longer pouring out of the tear in the armor, and when she probed lightly with her fingers, there was nothing more than a deep divot where the wound had been. The lord commander stirred and tried to push himself away from her, but she held him fast.\n\n“Must stop them,” he gasped.\n\n“We will. But we have to get you back to Tir Diffaith, my Lord. That bolt went deep and the skin will rupture if you move very much. It’s just a cantrip, it stopped the bleeding but it won’t have healed anything inside.”\n\n“Lord Commander!” Dantelys, one of the sky riders from their squadron, had noticed their erratic flight and caught up to them. He was flying just above them, to their right, and could no doubt see the blood. “You’re wounded! Is it grave?”\n\nLord Oakenheart waved a dismissive hand and tried to respond, but he was too weak to shout and his answer went unheard in the rush of the wind.\n\n“I’m taking him back to the castle!” Bereth cried, pointing towards the west. “He says you have to stop them!”\n\n“We will!” the elf promised. “Don’t let him fall!”\n\nBereth waved as the other hawk abruptly turned and descended towards the other three birds waiting below. She reached around her wounded commander, her arms on either side of him, and took up the slack reins. Fortunately, the big hawk responded at once to her tentative touch and began speeding homeward as if he knew his master was in peril.\n\nShe looked back to see if the great green-brown mass below was still in motion. It was, but its front was uneven now and its movements were uncertain. Great gouts of black smoke were rising from its center, where the wagons of the gwrachod burned, and a tentative pillar of flame was answered at once by a pair of lightning bolts, followed by a massive thunderclap. The orc magic was failing, overpowered at last by the more formidable arts of the High Guard, and soon their cavalry would be all but defenseless. She turned her back on the battle and set her sights on the distant mountains.\n\n“Stay alive, my lord,” she urged her commander. “You must stay alive! We are going to need you in the days ahead.”\n\nLord Oakenheart’s risky gamble had paid off. The safe retreat of the catrodau brenhinol was now assured. The pressure from the pursuing orcs notwithstanding, Lord Malchderas and the royal cavalry would be able see them to the protection of Tir Diffaith now. But even if the Lord Commander survived his wound, the price paid by the High Guard had already been a steep one.\n\nThe time for retreating and bleeding the Great Orc had finally come to its inevitable end. Their ability to hit and run, to choose the time and place of their next engagement, was no more. Now Prince Hoelion would have to trust to the walls of the ancient fortress of the elves against an enemy that had already proved itself to be more clever and resourceful than expected.\n\nThe battle for the Kurs-Magog was over. Soon, in a matter of mere hours, the siege of Tir Diffaith would begin. And unlike the previous battle, it was not one the elves would be able to afford to lose.\n", "completion": "She nodded grimly as he began a complicated series of gestures that indicated to the other skyriders in their oversized squadron how they were going to attack. Two of the hawks bearing the two most powerful mages would distract the gwrachod with fire and lightning. Oakenheart would circle behind one of the remaining hawks, at which point the mage on the fifth hawk would cast a cloaking spell over them. The fourth and fifth hawks would remain on high, as the other squadrons aggressively faked attack runs until the trolls were dead.\n\nFrom this, Bereth gleaned that his intention was to dive as low as possible, as fast as possible, then soar a second time across the front line of the cavalry, giving her the best possible shots at the chests of the big brutes. She winced, not looking forward to the steep plunge towards the earth, nor flying so close to the crossbows carried by many of the orcs below. At least she’d be too busy with her bow to spare any thought for the risks they were taking; it was small consolation, but just enough to keep her from wetting herself in fearful anticipation.\n\n“Ready?”\n\nShe checked her straps, took a firm grip on her bow and quiver, and slid her arms around the lord commander’s armored waist, gripping him tight with her forearms. She squeezed twice, to confirm.\n\nShe felt him shift as he gestured to the others, and the two warhawks furled their wings and fell. Their own bird arced to the right, and as it made a tight circle, her trained senses tingled as the cloaking spell was cast upon them. Then, without further warning, they were dropping, and she shut her eyes tightly against the brutal force of the wind, seeking to prevent her eyes from watering. She did not want blurry vision once the great warhawk leveled out and they began their dangerous pass.\n\nHer stomach dropped and the wind roared in her ears like a waterfall. They were falling, falling, falling for what seemed like an eternity, but just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, she felt a sensation of heat on her face, heard bestial squeals and screams, and the roar of thunder ripping through the sky. She could somehow sense the great moving mass below them, and scent the horrid stink of thousands of monstrous beasts as they fell towards it.\n\nThat was all the warning she received before she was hurled back against the saddle as the warhawk spread its wings to end its dive. They arced gracefully to the south. She opened her eyes and saw a hellish scene of smoke, fire, and confusion; at least two or three of the fireballs thrown to cover their dive had penetrated the orcs’ magical defenses. They were speeding right over the helms and horns of the boar riders, seemingly so close that one would have been able to leap from the back of its mount and pluck a speckled brown feather from the belly of the giant hawk, and almost unthinkingly, she slipped the arrow onto the string and pulled it back to her ear. She didn’t know if the concealment spell had held, she didn’t know if they’d been seen, and she didn’t hear the snap-crack of the crossbow bolts being fired up at them. She was too busy seeking her targets.\n\nWhere were they? But her eyes were keen, even for an elf, and she quickly spotted the first troll, who had just removed another huge javelin from the wagon behind him and was turning back towards them. But he did not see them; he was staring up at the sky. Even though they were so close she could hardly miss, she waited until his chest was fully exposed, then loosed. She didn’t wait to see if the shaft struck home, but nocked the next one, aimed, and loosed again. Before the first troll even hit the ground, dying, two more were mortally wounded, one in the heart, one in the throat, and a third was dead before it struck the ground, a yellow-feathered shaft sticking out of its left eye. As she’d hoped, the dragon-banes proved to be more than a match for mountain troll hide; the fourth troll was a fortunate bonus.\n\nBut she didn’t stop there. The gwrachod were fully occupied with their sky-riding assailants and their green skin was not too tough for her conventional arrows. By the time Lord Oakenheart pulled up on the reins and directed the giant bird to ascend the sky to the safety of the heights, she had killed four of the cursed magic-users as well.\n\n“We did it!” she exulted, as the great bird beat its wings and climbed higher. But Lord Oakenheart didn’t respond except to grunt and send up a magical light that flared green, telling the waiting squadrons it was now safe to begin their attacks. The circling birds brought in their wings, one by one, and dove towards the increasingly defenseless foe.\n\nIt wasn’t until they reached their usual altitude and leveled out, and she was stowing her bow, that she saw blood on the saddle in front of her.\n\n“Lord Commander?” she asked, puzzled. “Are you hurt?”\n\nEven as she spoke, he slumped back on her breast with a wordless groan. She reached forward, and felt a thick wooden bolt, slick with blood, under her hand; it had pierced his armor just under his ribs on his right side. She couldn’t help crying out in alarm, but she still had the presence of mind to remember that she had the materials for a simple healing spell in her saddle pack. Heedless of the blood on her hands, she frantically dug through it until she found the sachet of dried herbs used as a trigger.\n\nTearing it open with her teeth, she poured half of it over his wound, then put it back in her mouth so she could grip the bolt with both hands. They were slippery from the blood, and it took her three tries, but the bolt finally came out with a terrible wet sucking sound. She couldn’t have removed an arrow driven equally deep, but fortunately, the crossbow bolts favored by the orcs were headless and barely tapered; not unlike the orcs who used them, they were dependent upon brute force to inflect damage. Blood gushed out a hole that would have fit four of her fingers, but there was no foul stink forthcoming, which gave her hope that the damage wasn’t too great. She poured the rest of the herbs directly into the wound, then placed both her hands over it and spoke the words of the spell known to every sky rider with even a modicum of magic.\n\nGods of earth and sky and stone.\n\nHeal this flesh, restore this bone!\n\nRhwymo a benditho a gwau,\n\nGwella a selo a chryfhau!\n\nShe could feel the heat under her hands as the bespelled herbs flared, searing and mending the torn and bleeding flesh. Lord Oakenheart cried out; the spell was not a merciful one. Bereth had never experienced it herself, but she was told it felt like being kissed by fire. But it seemed to work, for the blood was no longer pouring out of the tear in the armor, and when she probed lightly with her fingers, there was nothing more than a deep divot where the wound had been. The lord commander stirred and tried to push himself away from her, but she held him fast.\n\n“Must stop them,” he gasped.\n\n“We will. But we have to get you back to Tir Diffaith, my Lord. That bolt went deep and the skin will rupture if you move very much. It’s just a cantrip, it stopped the bleeding but it won’t have healed anything inside.”\n\n“Lord Commander!” Dantelys, one of the sky riders from their squadron, had noticed their erratic flight and caught up to them. He was flying just above them, to their right, and could no doubt see the blood. “You’re wounded! Is it grave?”\n\nLord Oakenheart waved a dismissive hand and tried to respond, but he was too weak to shout and his answer went unheard in the rush of the wind.\n\n“I’m taking him back to the castle!” Bereth cried, pointing towards the west. “He says you have to stop them!”\n\n“We will!” the elf promised. “Don’t let him fall!”\n\nBereth waved as the other hawk abruptly turned and descended towards the other three birds waiting below. She reached around her wounded commander, her arms on either side of him, and took up the slack reins. Fortunately, the big hawk responded at once to her tentative touch and began speeding homeward as if he knew his master was in peril.\n\nShe looked back to see if the great green-brown mass below was still in motion. It was, but its front was uneven now and its movements were uncertain. Great gouts of black smoke were rising from its center, where the wagons of the gwrachod burned, and a tentative pillar of flame was answered at once by a pair of lightning bolts, followed by a massive thunderclap. The orc magic was failing, overpowered at last by the more formidable arts of the High Guard, and soon their cavalry would be all but defenseless. She turned her back on the battle and set her sights on the distant mountains.\n\n“Stay alive, my lord,” she urged her commander. “You must stay alive! We are going to need you in the days ahead.”\n\nLord Oakenheart’s risky gamble had paid off. The safe retreat of the catrodau brenhinol was now assured. The pressure from the pursuing orcs notwithstanding, Lord Malchderas and the royal cavalry would be able see them to the protection of Tir Diffaith now. But even if the Lord Commander survived his wound, the price paid by the High Guard had already been a steep one.\n\nThe time for retreating and bleeding the Great Orc had finally come to its inevitable end. Their ability to hit and run, to choose the time and place of their next engagement, was no more. Now Prince Hoelion would have to trust to the walls of the ancient fortress of the elves against an enemy that had already proved itself to be more clever and resourceful than expected.\n\nThe battle for the Kurs-Magog was over. Soon, in a matter of mere hours, the siege of Tir Diffaith would begin. And unlike the previous battle, it was not one the elves would be able to afford to lose.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1796, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch30_marcus-P1", "chapter": "ch30_marcus", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ncastra — legion fort; keep Latin.\nLutèce — capital he left; accent as written.\ncomte / baron — Savondese companions on the ride; forms as used.\nSaturnius — late legate in memory; keep spelling.\nCorvus — Marcus’s father; keep spelling.\nLegio XVII — implied force holding the fort; Roman numeral if used.\nRed Prince — elder brother anecdote; capitalize.\n\n### STORY\nIn Lutèce Marcus watches festival lists, joins Étienne-Henri’s box, and leaves Trebonius a wager-purse when summoned away.\nAt La Citadelle he drops his sword on holy ground, watches du Moulin dismiss assassin Warin, refuses rebel horse, and is hauled toward the Haut Conseil as the second orc army becomes royal business.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nRiding into the finished castra after hard morning miles from Lutèce, thighs raw. Left prince and Trebonius behind within a bell of the second-army news. Alive, outnumbered in his head, reaching for Saturnius’s attrition talk.\n\ncomte / baron\nSavondese escorts; explain levy malingering and the elder Red Prince’s harsh cure; marvel at the earthworks when Marcus speaks aloud.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nÉtienne-Henri granted a permanent stone castra as Eastmarch anchor if Marcus joined the Lutèce triumph; the second orc army cut that peace short.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nDu Moulin nodded, as if in agreement. “Charles-Phillippe would have been a great king, but I sometimes wonder if Étienne-Henri would have proven restive under his rule. Under his father, no, he will wait his turn. Which brother does he fear?”\n\n“The one closest to him in age. He never mentioned his name, and there was something in the way that he avoided even speaking it that caused me to notice. He has considerably more fondness for the youngest.”\n\n“That makes sense. The Comte d’Ainme was closer to Charles-Phillippe than to him, and some have even said that the comte shows considerable promise as a general.”\n\n“I could not say.”\n\n“No, of course not. Just one more question, General, and then I will take my leave. The orcs. Can you win?”\n\n“I will certainly do my utmost.”\n\n“That’s not an answer.”\n\n“No, it is not.” Marcus paused, and looked up at one of the stained glass windows. “In my considered and educated opinion, I do not see how we can, monseigneur. We will buy you time, and reduce their numbers. But do not rely upon us to turn them back.”\n\nDu Moulin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, Marcus saw, for the first time, the merest flicker of genuine emotion flash across the chancelier’s face. Was it fear? Was it doubt? Was it resignation? Whatever it was, it vanished in an instant as the older man mastered himself. He smiled tightly, and gave Marcus a formal little bow.\n\n“I thank you for your candor, General. And I will fervently pray, every morning and every night, that your considered and educated opinion is mistaken.”\n\n“D’accord, Monseigneur Chancelier.” In this, at least, they were agreed.\n\nThen light shattered the dim gloom and both Marcus and du Moulin whirled around, startled, as both doors to the dark sanctuary abruptly burst open and the urgent clatter of boots echoed over the marble floor. The tall figure with a rigid military bearing cast in silhouette soon revealed itself to be Antoine de Beaumille, the Maréchal de Savonne, followed by no less than ten of his men, all wearing the royal blue-and-gold livery. Behind them, Marcus’s two decurions trailed, as well as the young messenger who had found him at the tournament.\n\n“Du Moulin, the king has summoned the Haut Conseil at the palace, now!” the elderly soldier roared. “General Valerie, you’ll be wanting to ride back to the Eastmarch at once! The damned verdards are on the move!”\n\n### NOTES\nCastra walls finished; Marcus hopes for even a sweat-lodge bath.\nPerimeter riders recognize his banner and fall in.\nConversation on the approach covers levy desertion and noble beheading vanity.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nThe castra’s finished walls are a mercy after the saddle from Lutèce; he left the prince and Trebonius the hour the second orc army was reported. Riding in with comte and baron, he hears how Savondese levies melt and how an elder Red Prince once made malingering fatal, and he understands vanity that prefers the axe to the rope. Alone in thought he stacks the coming numbers against anything Corvus or Saturnius faced and hears the fat legate’s northern butcher’s arithmetic. “We’ll make them bleed,” he says aloud, startling the comte at the ditch-works—“but who will come to help us?” The scene ends on that question.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1400 words. Command fatigue and memory; no panic rhetoric. Land on “who will come to help us?” — do not open the ditch lecture.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The familiar sight of the castra was a welcome one after the morning’s hard riding. Marcus was grateful that today, at least, he would not have to spend from dawn until dusk in the saddle. He wondered how the message riders managed to survive as he shifted his weight gingerly in the saddle. While he had ridden all his life, even an experienced rider’s thighs could only endure so much abuse before they began to chafe and grow tender. He could see that the legion had finished their fortification of the walls, giving him hope that by now someone would have taken the time to build some sort of bath, even if it was little more than a rudimentary wooden sweat lodge.\n\nThe riders patrolling the perimeter recognized his banner as they approached, and the decurion leading them saluted smartly before falling in with the rest of his escort. He had left the prince and Trebonius behind him in Lutèce, having departed the city within a bell of hearing of the arrival of the orc’s second army. But the Savondese had insisted on providing him with a squadron of twenty knights, led by an elderly count whose garrulousness might have irritated Marcus were it not for how desperately he sought any useful information about the ground, about the enemy, and about his allies.\n\nIt was entirely possible, Marcus thought, that no Amorran legate had ever faced the prospect of battle in a more complete state of ignorance than he did right now. He didn’t know how large the enemy forces were, he didn’t know the terrain, he had no idea how accurate the maps they’d been provided were, and he had little more than a rough estimate of how many men the prince would have at his disposal. While the Savondese system of vassalage appeared to have its merits, timeliness and precision were not two of them. Each nobleman might owe a certain number of footmen or mounted men-at-arms to the king, but he only owed them for a limited period of time, and in any event, most of them made a regular habit of showing up with fewer men than they were supposed to have. Not only that, but their equipment was entirely irregular, so one knight might show up with ten pikemen, while another was accompanied by twenty men carrying swords and round wooden shields. His allies, such as they were, nearly made the damned orcs look organized!\n\n“We’re fortunate the orc is making his move now,” the comte explained. “A month ago, we’re in the spring planting season and the petty lords are reluctant to give up their manpower, as you can surely understand. Of course, it’s even worse in the fall when the harvest comes in. One counts his blessings if even half one’s vassals show up in their allotted numbers.”\n\n“Don’t the malingerers suffer some sort of penalty for their disobedience?” Marcus was incredulous.\n\n“Well, there was a time when the Red Prince, not the current one, his elder brother, may le bon Dieu rest his soul, took offense to one of his lords failing to appear when summoned. Sieur Bernard of Le Cluhey, if I recall correctly. Legitimized bastard of the baron, actually, got a bit carried away with himself once his father recognized him, if you ask me. It often happens, you know, when a bastard finally wins his place. He’d only held Le Cluhey four years when he thumbed his nose at the prince, and the prince turned about as red as his name when his man came back with the news.”\n\n“What happened?”\n\n“You can probably imagine. After he took care of the affair in the south—I don’t rightly remember what it was, those southern lords are always fractious about land disputes or other petty matters—he brought his army to Le Cluhey and put it to siege. After his pet battlemage knocked the crown off the keep with a lightning strike or two, Sieur Bernard agreed to come out and submit to the prince’s justice.” The baron laughed, a dry, hoarse chuckle. “The prince told him, ‘a bastard you were born and a bastard you will die!’ The poor fool begged for a beheading, but in vain; the prince wouldn’t even grant him that. Put a rope around his neck and had him thrown off his own ruddy battlements!”\n\nMarcus nodded appreciatively as the old man chuckled again. It seemed the Savondese didn’t entirely lack discipline, which was some relief. But one thing puzzled him.\n\n“Why did he wish to be beheaded? I should think most men would prefer to be hanged.”\n\nThe baron stared at him and tugged at a white mustache in surprise. “Hanged? Like a common criminal? I don’t know what it’s like down there in your Empire, but any man of noble blood would prefer a clean death by the blade.”\n\nMarcus nodded. Being a Valerius, vanity even in the face of death was something he could appreciate. How it must have grated the rebel’s soul, to have his hard-earned legitimacy denied even in death! The late Red Prince had apparently been a ruthless man. Was his brother the same? There were suggestions, to be sure. There were hints of steel beneath the silk. But the younger de Mirid was clearly neither the warrior nor the general that his brother had been. That was to be regretted, as Marcus had concluded he would not be able to rely upon Étienne-Henri once battle was joined. He still remembered, very clearly, how confused and afraid and completely unable to think he had felt during his first battle, and that had been a minor one in which he had been the most junior officer in the legion, not a complicated affair in which he was the senior commander.\n\nHe could not imagine what it would be like to try to command one’s first proper battle when one was as badly outnumbered as they were almost certain to be, and he was forced to reach the unsettling conclusion that Étienne-Henri was almost certain to run once the dire reality of war, and its deadly risks, abruptly penetrated his supercilious self-regard. Moreover, in the event that anyone survived the ensuing battle, the heir to the throne would be eager, if not desperate, to ensure that word of his cowardice never got back to the capital. Nor, in light of the Chancelier’s warning, could Marcus overlook the possibility that Étienne-Henri was deliberately planning to sacrifice the legion, and in doing so, kill two birds with a single treacherous stone.\n\nHis thoughts returned to the enemy they would be facing. They’re only orcs, he tried to tell himself, but the ravaged bodies he’d seen in the forest were mute witness to the strength and savagery of the green-skinned monsters. And the warriors of their main army would be better armed, better armored, and better disciplined than the scavengers and skirmishers Cassabus and his five centuries had butchered in the night. What would Magnus do, he wondered? Aim for a double-envelopment? Produce an unexpected stratagem that would somehow catch them off-guard? He shook his head. Brilliance and maneuver simply would not suffice to make up for the tremendous gap in numbers. Even a decisive strike, executed flawlessly, would bounce off the quantities they anticipated like a child’s wooden sword off an iron breastplate.\n\nHe closed his eyes and contemplated the geometries of which Saturnius had spoken so many times. He could almost hear the fat little legate’s voice in his head now, and remembered him talking about a campaign in the north, when Saturnius led two centuries against a newly declared king who’d raised half a legion’s worth of men against Amorr. “We had to make them bleed,” he’d said with satisfaction. “We atritted them like a butcher slicing meat, and slowed them down until your father arrived with his cohort and three decuria of auxiliaries.”\n\n“We’ll make them bleed,” he said, startling the comte, who had been marveling at the earthworks dug out by the legionaries. “But who will come to help us?”\n", "completion": "The familiar sight of the castra was a welcome one after the morning’s hard riding. Marcus was grateful that today, at least, he would not have to spend from dawn until dusk in the saddle. He wondered how the message riders managed to survive as he shifted his weight gingerly in the saddle. While he had ridden all his life, even an experienced rider’s thighs could only endure so much abuse before they began to chafe and grow tender. He could see that the legion had finished their fortification of the walls, giving him hope that by now someone would have taken the time to build some sort of bath, even if it was little more than a rudimentary wooden sweat lodge.\n\nThe riders patrolling the perimeter recognized his banner as they approached, and the decurion leading them saluted smartly before falling in with the rest of his escort. He had left the prince and Trebonius behind him in Lutèce, having departed the city within a bell of hearing of the arrival of the orc’s second army. But the Savondese had insisted on providing him with a squadron of twenty knights, led by an elderly count whose garrulousness might have irritated Marcus were it not for how desperately he sought any useful information about the ground, about the enemy, and about his allies.\n\nIt was entirely possible, Marcus thought, that no Amorran legate had ever faced the prospect of battle in a more complete state of ignorance than he did right now. He didn’t know how large the enemy forces were, he didn’t know the terrain, he had no idea how accurate the maps they’d been provided were, and he had little more than a rough estimate of how many men the prince would have at his disposal. While the Savondese system of vassalage appeared to have its merits, timeliness and precision were not two of them. Each nobleman might owe a certain number of footmen or mounted men-at-arms to the king, but he only owed them for a limited period of time, and in any event, most of them made a regular habit of showing up with fewer men than they were supposed to have. Not only that, but their equipment was entirely irregular, so one knight might show up with ten pikemen, while another was accompanied by twenty men carrying swords and round wooden shields. His allies, such as they were, nearly made the damned orcs look organized!\n\n“We’re fortunate the orc is making his move now,” the comte explained. “A month ago, we’re in the spring planting season and the petty lords are reluctant to give up their manpower, as you can surely understand. Of course, it’s even worse in the fall when the harvest comes in. One counts his blessings if even half one’s vassals show up in their allotted numbers.”\n\n“Don’t the malingerers suffer some sort of penalty for their disobedience?” Marcus was incredulous.\n\n“Well, there was a time when the Red Prince, not the current one, his elder brother, may le bon Dieu rest his soul, took offense to one of his lords failing to appear when summoned. Sieur Bernard of Le Cluhey, if I recall correctly. Legitimized bastard of the baron, actually, got a bit carried away with himself once his father recognized him, if you ask me. It often happens, you know, when a bastard finally wins his place. He’d only held Le Cluhey four years when he thumbed his nose at the prince, and the prince turned about as red as his name when his man came back with the news.”\n\n“What happened?”\n\n“You can probably imagine. After he took care of the affair in the south—I don’t rightly remember what it was, those southern lords are always fractious about land disputes or other petty matters—he brought his army to Le Cluhey and put it to siege. After his pet battlemage knocked the crown off the keep with a lightning strike or two, Sieur Bernard agreed to come out and submit to the prince’s justice.” The baron laughed, a dry, hoarse chuckle. “The prince told him, ‘a bastard you were born and a bastard you will die!’ The poor fool begged for a beheading, but in vain; the prince wouldn’t even grant him that. Put a rope around his neck and had him thrown off his own ruddy battlements!”\n\nMarcus nodded appreciatively as the old man chuckled again. It seemed the Savondese didn’t entirely lack discipline, which was some relief. But one thing puzzled him.\n\n“Why did he wish to be beheaded? I should think most men would prefer to be hanged.”\n\nThe baron stared at him and tugged at a white mustache in surprise. “Hanged? Like a common criminal? I don’t know what it’s like down there in your Empire, but any man of noble blood would prefer a clean death by the blade.”\n\nMarcus nodded. Being a Valerius, vanity even in the face of death was something he could appreciate. How it must have grated the rebel’s soul, to have his hard-earned legitimacy denied even in death! The late Red Prince had apparently been a ruthless man. Was his brother the same? There were suggestions, to be sure. There were hints of steel beneath the silk. But the younger de Mirid was clearly neither the warrior nor the general that his brother had been. That was to be regretted, as Marcus had concluded he would not be able to rely upon Étienne-Henri once battle was joined. He still remembered, very clearly, how confused and afraid and completely unable to think he had felt during his first battle, and that had been a minor one in which he had been the most junior officer in the legion, not a complicated affair in which he was the senior commander.\n\nHe could not imagine what it would be like to try to command one’s first proper battle when one was as badly outnumbered as they were almost certain to be, and he was forced to reach the unsettling conclusion that Étienne-Henri was almost certain to run once the dire reality of war, and its deadly risks, abruptly penetrated his supercilious self-regard. Moreover, in the event that anyone survived the ensuing battle, the heir to the throne would be eager, if not desperate, to ensure that word of his cowardice never got back to the capital. Nor, in light of the Chancelier’s warning, could Marcus overlook the possibility that Étienne-Henri was deliberately planning to sacrifice the legion, and in doing so, kill two birds with a single treacherous stone.\n\nHis thoughts returned to the enemy they would be facing. They’re only orcs, he tried to tell himself, but the ravaged bodies he’d seen in the forest were mute witness to the strength and savagery of the green-skinned monsters. And the warriors of their main army would be better armed, better armored, and better disciplined than the scavengers and skirmishers Cassabus and his five centuries had butchered in the night. What would Magnus do, he wondered? Aim for a double-envelopment? Produce an unexpected stratagem that would somehow catch them off-guard? He shook his head. Brilliance and maneuver simply would not suffice to make up for the tremendous gap in numbers. Even a decisive strike, executed flawlessly, would bounce off the quantities they anticipated like a child’s wooden sword off an iron breastplate.\n\nHe closed his eyes and contemplated the geometries of which Saturnius had spoken so many times. He could almost hear the fat little legate’s voice in his head now, and remembered him talking about a campaign in the north, when Saturnius led two centuries against a newly declared king who’d raised half a legion’s worth of men against Amorr. “We had to make them bleed,” he’d said with satisfaction. “We atritted them like a butcher slicing meat, and slowed them down until your father arrived with his cohort and three decuria of auxiliaries.”\n\n“We’ll make them bleed,” he said, startling the comte, who had been marveling at the earthworks dug out by the legionaries. “But who will come to help us?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1390, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
{"packet_id": "ch30_marcus-P2", "chapter": "ch30_marcus", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nVox Day. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene. Brutal military fantasy; concrete and unsentimental; invented names and cant spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ncastra — keep Latin.\nSenarius Arvandus — greeting officer; keep spelling.\nProculus — executed goblin captives; keep spelling.\nTitus Cassabus / praefectus — formation counts; keep forms.\ngobbo — Marcus’s cant for goblin-speech; keep as used.\nSelenoth — world-name in his thought; keep spelling.\nCorvus / Saturnius / Magnus — absent exemplars; keep spellings.\n\n### STORY\nMarcus rides into the finished castra from Lutèce after the second orc army’s report, hears levy and axe stories from the Savondese lords, and answers Saturnius’s remembered geometries with “We’ll make them bleed—but who will come to help us?”\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMarcus Valerius\nAt the ditch with the comte, then with Arvandus. Knows the wooden castra might hold fifteen or twenty thousand, not three times that. Four hundred horse against six thousand boars; praying to Father without knowing which father; reads a crow flying east as a hoped-for sign.\n\nSenarius Arvandus\nRides out with Ave; expected more than a half-squadron; reports orcs two days out after sacking a village; Cassabus’s count forty-five to fifty-five thousand with six thousand heavy cavalry.\n\ncomte / baron\nStill present for the ditch talk; baron jokes the orcs may get bored.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nMarcus nodded. Being a Valerius, vanity even in the face of death was something he could appreciate. How it must have grated the rebel’s soul, to have his hard-earned legitimacy denied even in death! The late Red Prince had apparently been a ruthless man. Was his brother the same? There were suggestions, to be sure. There were hints of steel beneath the silk. But the younger de Mirid was clearly neither the warrior nor the general that his brother had been. That was to be regretted, as Marcus had concluded he would not be able to rely upon Étienne-Henri once battle was joined. He still remembered, very clearly, how confused and afraid and completely unable to think he had felt during his first battle, and that had been a minor one in which he had been the most junior officer in the legion, not a complicated affair in which he was the senior commander.\n\nHe could not imagine what it would be like to try to command one’s first proper battle when one was as badly outnumbered as they were almost certain to be, and he was forced to reach the unsettling conclusion that Étienne-Henri was almost certain to run once the dire reality of war, and its deadly risks, abruptly penetrated his supercilious self-regard. Moreover, in the event that anyone survived the ensuing battle, the heir to the throne would be eager, if not desperate, to ensure that word of his cowardice never got back to the capital. Nor, in light of the Chancelier’s warning, could Marcus overlook the possibility that Étienne-Henri was deliberately planning to sacrifice the legion, and in doing so, kill two birds with a single treacherous stone.\n\nHis thoughts returned to the enemy they would be facing. They’re only orcs, he tried to tell himself, but the ravaged bodies he’d seen in the forest were mute witness to the strength and savagery of the green-skinned monsters. And the warriors of their main army would be better armed, better armored, and better disciplined than the scavengers and skirmishers Cassabus and his five centuries had butchered in the night. What would Magnus do, he wondered? Aim for a double-envelopment? Produce an unexpected stratagem that would somehow catch them off-guard? He shook his head. Brilliance and maneuver simply would not suffice to make up for the tremendous gap in numbers. Even a decisive strike, executed flawlessly, would bounce off the quantities they anticipated like a child’s wooden sword off an iron breastplate.\n\nHe closed his eyes and contemplated the geometries of which Saturnius had spoken so many times. He could almost hear the fat little legate’s voice in his head now, and remembered him talking about a campaign in the north, when Saturnius led two centuries against a newly declared king who’d raised half a legion’s worth of men against Amorr. “We had to make them bleed,” he’d said with satisfaction. “We atritted them like a butcher slicing meat, and slowed them down until your father arrived with his cohort and three decuria of auxiliaries.”\n\n“We’ll make them bleed,” he said, startling the comte, who had been marveling at the earthworks dug out by the legionaries. “But who will come to help us?”\n\n### NOTES\nDitch and wooden walls on an earthen mound.\nOrcs two days’ march away; wasted a day and night on a village.\nNo useful goblin tongue among captives; Proculus executed them.\nSingle crow flies east toward the forest host.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Marcus.\n\nThe comte asks what the ditch buys if the king’s men will not come; Marcus admits the castra was time for a muster that may never arrive. Numbers and magic both nag; Arvandus greets him, surprised at the small escort, and lays Cassabus’s count between forty-five and fifty-five thousand with six thousand boar cavalry against Marcus’s four hundred horse. He looks east over green fields toward a pitiless host larger than Corvus, Saturnius, or Magnus ever met, and prays to a Father he cannot name cleanly. A crow caws overhead flying east; he smiles, tells it to come back for the feed, and answers Arvandus that he dearly hopes it is a sign. The scene ends on that hope.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1300 words. Quiet dread; prayer understated. Land on hoping the crow is a sign; do not cut to the next council.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“That’s one hell of a ditch your men are digging. What good will it do? And who are you bleeding, the orcs?”\n\n“Even between the border lords and the prince’s levies, we won’t have enough men to beat them.” Marcus looked over the castra, which looked imposing with its wooden walls rising high above the earthen mound. But it was a fortress that could be expected to hold off fifteen or twenty thousand attackers, not three times that number. “I had them build it thinking it would buy the king sufficient time to gather his forces. But if they won’t come to our assistance, what is the point of buying more time?”\n\n“Maybe they’ll get bored and go home.” The baron grinned at his startled expression. “It’s been known to happen.”\n\n“They wouldn’t be here in these numbers now if that was likely, not after the way we already bloodied their ugly faces.”\n\n“That’s true enough, I should say.”\n\nThe numbers were bad enough. But what nagged at him now was the unknown factor that was the magical aspect of the battle. He’d shied away from even thinking about it, and he had avoided any serious discussion of it with the blue-robed men he’d seen in Lutèce, but it was a nettle that would have to be grasped, and soon. He could only hope that the cursed kingsmage, Theuderic, had been successful in the mission to which Marcus had set him. While it would be nice to think that Cassabus and his machines would suffice to deal with any unholy threat, as they had been against the goblins, it would be foolish to assume so, especially since they would desperately need to bring the full force of their artillery to bear against the enemy infantry in order to reduce the pressure on his outnumbered men.\n\n“Ave, Valerius!” he heard someone shout at him, and saw that it was Senarius Arvandus riding towards him. The senior decurion was mounted on a big grey, and was bare-headed and unarmored, although he still wore his curved cavalry sword strapped to his belt. Marcus nodded his thanks to the comte and indicated the side of the castra toward which he should ride to have his men’s horses stabled, then greeted Arvandus.\n\n“I have to say, General, I was expecting you to arrive with more than a half-squadron of horse and a fat old senator!” They clasped forearms, and the decurion smiled, but his eyes were dark with concern. “That can’t be all the reinforcements we’ll be receiving.”\n\n“No, I left at once and rode ahead of the prince. I expect he’ll arrive with his army around noon the day after tomorrow. Trebonius is with him; he’s bringing back the silver with Vitalis and the others. Where are the orcs? Are they close?”\n\n“They’re a solid two days’ march away. They wasted a day and half the night sacking a village full of fools who were stupid enough not to flee, then lazed about the next day raping and torturing the survivors.”\n\nMarcus nodded grimly. It was hard on the villagers, to be sure, but their inadvertent sacrifice had probably delayed the invading army more effectively than five thousand Savondese men-at-arms could have managed. He regretted their fate, and yet he couldn’t help welcoming the additional day’s respite it provided. “Do they know where we are?”\n\n“It appears not. The marcher lords have been maintaining patrols in force and hunting down any scouts they encounter. Our own patrols haven’t seen any sign of them within a half-day’s ride.”\n\n“Any skirmishes?”\n\n“None worth speaking of. A pair of scouts from the Second was ambushed by wolfriders three days ago, but they managed to fight their way clear without losing anyone. Another pair of my men surprised a group of scavenging goblins, took two captives, and killed the rest. We couldn’t find anyone who speaks gobbo, though, so Proculus executed them.”\n\n“Pity,” Marcus remarked. Then again, he doubted the wretched creatures would have been able to tell them anything useful. From what he understood of the enemy hierarchy, orcs were not inclined to include goblins in their councils. “Do we have an accurate count?”\n\n“Of the orcs?”\n\n“I thought it might be of interest, yes,” Marcus said patiently.\n\n“The praefectus has worked out what he thinks is a pretty close calculation of their formations. As I recall, the overall count is between forty-five and fifty-five thousand. He estimates six thousand are heavy cavalry.”\n\nMarcus sighed. He’d been hoping the frightened Savondese were exaggerating the numbers they’d reported, but it seemed that was not the case after all. Titus Cassabus was nothing if not precise. Although his cavalry was now fully mounted, he still had only 400 horse to throw against a legion’s worth of boar riders. He would have to hope that between the marcher lords and the prince’s forces, there would be enough knights to ride out against them. Despite more than a week of preparations, he was not sanguine about their chances for success, and he had little faith that any infantry other than the legion would stand against what he had learned were the most powerful, most intimidating cavalry on Selenoth. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely sure of his legionaries either.\n\nAfter all, it was one thing to read about an evil-minded creature three times the mass of a horse, and another one entirely to hold your ground as the bloody-minded beast tried to trample you beneath its horny hooves.\n\nHe looked out towards the east, past the castra and the laboring legionaries to the peaceful green fields beyond. Somewhere out there was a ravenous horde of monsters, a mighty force bigger than any army Corvus, or Saturnius, or even Magnus himself had ever faced. In three days, four or five at most, his men would find themselves in battle again, this time against an enemy more pitiless than any human foe. In three days, the fate of an entire kingdom would be in his inexperienced, incapable hands.\n\nI am alone and I am afraid and you have abandoned me. If only you will stand by me now! Be with me, Father, he silently prayed, although he could not have said with any certainty if it was his Heavenly Father or his fallen earthly father to whom his desperate plea was directed. Then he looked up, startled, at the sound of a loud caw coming from the sky over his head.\n\nIt was a single crow, flying east, towards the distant forest and the invaders. It cawed a second time, and then a third. Despite himself, despite his fears, Marcus found himself smiling.\n\n“You’re flying the wrong way, little friend,” he called after it. “Come back soon and we will feed you well.”\n\n“What’s that?” Arvandus asked.\n\n“A sign,” Marcus replied, watching as the small black shape disappeared. “I dearly hope it is a sign.”\n", "completion": "“That’s one hell of a ditch your men are digging. What good will it do? And who are you bleeding, the orcs?”\n\n“Even between the border lords and the prince’s levies, we won’t have enough men to beat them.” Marcus looked over the castra, which looked imposing with its wooden walls rising high above the earthen mound. But it was a fortress that could be expected to hold off fifteen or twenty thousand attackers, not three times that number. “I had them build it thinking it would buy the king sufficient time to gather his forces. But if they won’t come to our assistance, what is the point of buying more time?”\n\n“Maybe they’ll get bored and go home.” The baron grinned at his startled expression. “It’s been known to happen.”\n\n“They wouldn’t be here in these numbers now if that was likely, not after the way we already bloodied their ugly faces.”\n\n“That’s true enough, I should say.”\n\nThe numbers were bad enough. But what nagged at him now was the unknown factor that was the magical aspect of the battle. He’d shied away from even thinking about it, and he had avoided any serious discussion of it with the blue-robed men he’d seen in Lutèce, but it was a nettle that would have to be grasped, and soon. He could only hope that the cursed kingsmage, Theuderic, had been successful in the mission to which Marcus had set him. While it would be nice to think that Cassabus and his machines would suffice to deal with any unholy threat, as they had been against the goblins, it would be foolish to assume so, especially since they would desperately need to bring the full force of their artillery to bear against the enemy infantry in order to reduce the pressure on his outnumbered men.\n\n“Ave, Valerius!” he heard someone shout at him, and saw that it was Senarius Arvandus riding towards him. The senior decurion was mounted on a big grey, and was bare-headed and unarmored, although he still wore his curved cavalry sword strapped to his belt. Marcus nodded his thanks to the comte and indicated the side of the castra toward which he should ride to have his men’s horses stabled, then greeted Arvandus.\n\n“I have to say, General, I was expecting you to arrive with more than a half-squadron of horse and a fat old senator!” They clasped forearms, and the decurion smiled, but his eyes were dark with concern. “That can’t be all the reinforcements we’ll be receiving.”\n\n“No, I left at once and rode ahead of the prince. I expect he’ll arrive with his army around noon the day after tomorrow. Trebonius is with him; he’s bringing back the silver with Vitalis and the others. Where are the orcs? Are they close?”\n\n“They’re a solid two days’ march away. They wasted a day and half the night sacking a village full of fools who were stupid enough not to flee, then lazed about the next day raping and torturing the survivors.”\n\nMarcus nodded grimly. It was hard on the villagers, to be sure, but their inadvertent sacrifice had probably delayed the invading army more effectively than five thousand Savondese men-at-arms could have managed. He regretted their fate, and yet he couldn’t help welcoming the additional day’s respite it provided. “Do they know where we are?”\n\n“It appears not. The marcher lords have been maintaining patrols in force and hunting down any scouts they encounter. Our own patrols haven’t seen any sign of them within a half-day’s ride.”\n\n“Any skirmishes?”\n\n“None worth speaking of. A pair of scouts from the Second was ambushed by wolfriders three days ago, but they managed to fight their way clear without losing anyone. Another pair of my men surprised a group of scavenging goblins, took two captives, and killed the rest. We couldn’t find anyone who speaks gobbo, though, so Proculus executed them.”\n\n“Pity,” Marcus remarked. Then again, he doubted the wretched creatures would have been able to tell them anything useful. From what he understood of the enemy hierarchy, orcs were not inclined to include goblins in their councils. “Do we have an accurate count?”\n\n“Of the orcs?”\n\n“I thought it might be of interest, yes,” Marcus said patiently.\n\n“The praefectus has worked out what he thinks is a pretty close calculation of their formations. As I recall, the overall count is between forty-five and fifty-five thousand. He estimates six thousand are heavy cavalry.”\n\nMarcus sighed. He’d been hoping the frightened Savondese were exaggerating the numbers they’d reported, but it seemed that was not the case after all. Titus Cassabus was nothing if not precise. Although his cavalry was now fully mounted, he still had only 400 horse to throw against a legion’s worth of boar riders. He would have to hope that between the marcher lords and the prince’s forces, there would be enough knights to ride out against them. Despite more than a week of preparations, he was not sanguine about their chances for success, and he had little faith that any infantry other than the legion would stand against what he had learned were the most powerful, most intimidating cavalry on Selenoth. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely sure of his legionaries either.\n\nAfter all, it was one thing to read about an evil-minded creature three times the mass of a horse, and another one entirely to hold your ground as the bloody-minded beast tried to trample you beneath its horny hooves.\n\nHe looked out towards the east, past the castra and the laboring legionaries to the peaceful green fields beyond. Somewhere out there was a ravenous horde of monsters, a mighty force bigger than any army Corvus, or Saturnius, or even Magnus himself had ever faced. In three days, four or five at most, his men would find themselves in battle again, this time against an enemy more pitiless than any human foe. In three days, the fate of an entire kingdom would be in his inexperienced, incapable hands.\n\nI am alone and I am afraid and you have abandoned me. If only you will stand by me now! Be with me, Father, he silently prayed, although he could not have said with any certainty if it was his Heavenly Father or his fallen earthly father to whom his desperate plea was directed. Then he looked up, startled, at the sound of a loud caw coming from the sky over his head.\n\nIt was a single crow, flying east, towards the distant forest and the invaders. It cawed a second time, and then a third. Despite himself, despite his fears, Marcus found himself smiling.\n\n“You’re flying the wrong way, little friend,” he called after it. “Come back soon and we will feed you well.”\n\n“What’s that?” Arvandus asked.\n\n“A sign,” Marcus replied, watching as the small black shape disappeared. “I dearly hope it is a sign.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1193, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Vox Day", "book": "A Sea of Skulls"}}
</script>
<script type="application/x-ndjson" id="data-nuttall">{"packet_id": "prologue-P1", "chapter": "prologue", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized; the entity’s name-form in narrative.\nRoads of Happenstance — plural proper name for the timeline-linking paths; keep capitalization.\nEmily — capitalized; do not respell.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nMaster Wolfe\nEntity of pure magic who has absorbed challengers into his multiplicity and now experiences godlike omniscience across the multiverse. Alive at the height of that expansion: timelines harden under his gaze, then uncertainties rush back when he blinks. He knows he can define reality and also that his presence threatens to collapse the multiverse. He has long history with Emily — centuries between first meeting and last — and believes he imprisoned her in a personal hell. Before this scene he does not yet know she is missing from that prison.\n\nEmily\nNot present. Master Wolfe believes she should be his prisoner; she is instead concealed where his omniscience cannot find her. He still thinks of her as an insect who might sting.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nThe setting is Master Wolfe’s expanded awareness across the multiverse and quantum foam, not a mundane room.\nTimelines and entire galaxies can vanish under his emotion; children scream and adults flinch without visible cause when he is uneasy.\nHe needs an agent who can go where he cannot, and already knows where to find one.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Master Wolfe.\n\nHe giggles as awareness explodes into the multiverse — timelines, galaxies, subatomic particles, an infinity of voices — and finds omnipotence is also a trap: looking hardens possibility into one path; blinking lets uncertainty flood back. He can make a rock he cannot lift and lift it anyway. The cosmic all daunts him like a newborn butterfly that cannot return to the cocoon; his mere omniscience threatens to collapse everything, which is why greater beings only extrude tiny aspects into the human realm.\n\nEmily’s name ripples through him and the multiverse — screams in the night, cancers of unreality, galaxies erased — and he realizes the contradiction: she is his prisoner and she is missing, hidden in the Roads of Happenstance and the cracks where he cannot look without undoing himself. Rage evaporates universes, then stills. Clever and futile, he judges; she is an insect, and insects can kill. He narrows his will, chooses to find a servant who can go where he cannot — the ultimate enemy for her, the ultimate ally for him — and begins reshaping time and space so he will not merely rule the multiverse but be it, with all creation bearing his name. Soon.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Vast cosmic register collapsing into cold will; keep Emily as absence and obsession, not on-page. Land on the promise of soon.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Master Wolfe giggled.\n\nHis awareness expanded, his mind expanding with it until he could see – and comprehend – the vastness of the multiverse laid out before him. Timelines rose and fell, mighty empires came and went in the blink of an eye; he saw giant superclusters of galaxies whirling around the centre of their universe and tiny subatomic particles, each so tiny they couldn’t be so much as perceived by anything less than a godlike being, spinning in precise formations that were both random chance and perfectly planned. The secrets of the cosmic all were laid bare before him, from the petty concerns of tiny little mortals to the immense thoughts and feelings of immortal transcendent entities. An infinity of voices ran through his mind, the thoughts of an infinity of living beings, each one real and singular and yet blurring together into an immensity that even he had difficulty comprehending. Nothing in his experience, from the day he’d become an entity of pure magic to the final challenger he’d absorbed into his multiplicity, granting the honour of eternal life as part of his very soul, had prepared him for being a god. He was omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. He was …\n\nThe power pulsed around him, an endless sea of raw energy that was magic and science and so much more. He’d thought he would become a god, a creature of raw magic in truth, but instead he was so much more. The timelines hardened every time he looked at them, randomness itself breaking under his gaze. He stared and everything solidified, billions upon billions of potential possibilities collapsing into one; he blinked, for a space of time so tiny even he had trouble measuring it, and the uncertainties rose up to overwhelm him once again. He could see everything. He defined reality merely by existing. He was all-powerful and yet he was trapped and …\n\nHe could make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it. He could lift it regardless.\n\nHis mind pulsed as it slipped into the universe, into the quantum foam underpinning the multiverse. He’d been so small, he realised dully, despite all the minds he’d absorbed into his multiplicity. He’d thought himself the lord and master of all, ruler of everything he surveyed, and yet he’d been little more than the monarch of a tiny island, unaware of the vast empires surrounding his little realm. He saw himself as a tiny scuttling thing, trapped in a puddle on a beach, unaware of the ocean only a few short metres away. Waves rolled across the beach, upending everything … his mind was swept up, the power threatening to overwhelm him once again. The sheer immensity of the cosmic all daunted him, terrified him. He wanted to pull back, to drag himself free as a swimmer might escape currents dragging him out to sea, but it was already too late. He was a newborn butterfly with godlike powers, unable to return to the cocoon. He was …\n\nTimelines pulsed around him, the wreckage of the former universe trapped in a flicker of time. It was fragile … it struck him, suddenly, that the entire universe was far more fragile than he’d ever realised. His mere presence, his omniscience, was threatening to collapse the entire multiverse into nothing. He’d wondered, over the long centuries between his first meeting with Emily and the last, why so many transdimensional creatures only extruded tiny aspects of themselves into the human realm. He knew now. They could be trapped, caught within the material universe, or they could do immense damage merely by existing. They would be …\n\nEmily.\n\nA ripple of discontent, of unease, ran through his mind … and the multiverse. Everyone shivered helplessly; children screamed in the night, adults flinching helplessly though there was no cause. Random events flowered into life, great sweeping cancers of unreality that came and went so quickly few ever realised what happened, even when they recovered from the aftershocks; entire galaxies blinked out of existence, stars and their orbiting planets vanishing so completely they’d never existed at all. The entity barely noticed. Something was wrong …\n\nEmily.\n\nA shock ran through the ever-expanding multiplicity. Emily had done something … no. Emily was a prisoner, in a hell he’d made for her personally. She was there …\n\nNo. She was missing. She was nowhere to be found.\n\nThe contradiction battered his mind. There was no longer any such thing as randomness, not to him; there was nothing that could be concealed from him. He didn’t have to look to know everything; he already knew everything. And yet, he didn’t know Emily. She was in two places at once. She was concealed within the cracks in the universe, in the Roads of Happenstance that linked timelines together; she was … he felt a surge of pure anger, entire universes evaporating under his rage, as he realised she’d done something clever. She’d concealed herself so cleverly that he couldn’t find her, which meant …\n\nHe was a god. He could do anything. And yet …\n\nHis rage stilled, his thoughts calming. She had hidden herself in the one place he couldn’t see, the one place he couldn’t touch without undoing himself. Clever, he acknowledged sourly, clever and futile. She was an insect – less than an insect – against his immensity. She could do nothing but hide as he pulled on the strings of the multiverse, reshaping the cosmic all into something more suitable for his majesty. She was nothing … and yet, he feared. An insect could sting, an insect could bite … an insect could kill. The fact she was difficult, almost impossible, for even an omniscient being like himself to see …\n\nHe narrowed his thoughts to a cold hardness that bent the universe to his will. He needed an agent, someone who could go where he could not. He needed a servant and he knew just where to find one. The ultimate enemy for Emily and the ultimate ally for himself. He had all the time in the universe to find her, all the time he needed to destroy her … a knot of time and space started to form around him, within him. He would reshape the universe to suit himself, once and for all, and then the real work would begun.\n\nHe would not rule the multiverse. He would be the multiverse.\n\nAnd all creation would bear his name.\n\nSoon.\n", "completion": "Master Wolfe giggled.\n\nHis awareness expanded, his mind expanding with it until he could see – and comprehend – the vastness of the multiverse laid out before him. Timelines rose and fell, mighty empires came and went in the blink of an eye; he saw giant superclusters of galaxies whirling around the centre of their universe and tiny subatomic particles, each so tiny they couldn’t be so much as perceived by anything less than a godlike being, spinning in precise formations that were both random chance and perfectly planned. The secrets of the cosmic all were laid bare before him, from the petty concerns of tiny little mortals to the immense thoughts and feelings of immortal transcendent entities. An infinity of voices ran through his mind, the thoughts of an infinity of living beings, each one real and singular and yet blurring together into an immensity that even he had difficulty comprehending. Nothing in his experience, from the day he’d become an entity of pure magic to the final challenger he’d absorbed into his multiplicity, granting the honour of eternal life as part of his very soul, had prepared him for being a god. He was omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. He was …\n\nThe power pulsed around him, an endless sea of raw energy that was magic and science and so much more. He’d thought he would become a god, a creature of raw magic in truth, but instead he was so much more. The timelines hardened every time he looked at them, randomness itself breaking under his gaze. He stared and everything solidified, billions upon billions of potential possibilities collapsing into one; he blinked, for a space of time so tiny even he had trouble measuring it, and the uncertainties rose up to overwhelm him once again. He could see everything. He defined reality merely by existing. He was all-powerful and yet he was trapped and …\n\nHe could make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it. He could lift it regardless.\n\nHis mind pulsed as it slipped into the universe, into the quantum foam underpinning the multiverse. He’d been so small, he realised dully, despite all the minds he’d absorbed into his multiplicity. He’d thought himself the lord and master of all, ruler of everything he surveyed, and yet he’d been little more than the monarch of a tiny island, unaware of the vast empires surrounding his little realm. He saw himself as a tiny scuttling thing, trapped in a puddle on a beach, unaware of the ocean only a few short metres away. Waves rolled across the beach, upending everything … his mind was swept up, the power threatening to overwhelm him once again. The sheer immensity of the cosmic all daunted him, terrified him. He wanted to pull back, to drag himself free as a swimmer might escape currents dragging him out to sea, but it was already too late. He was a newborn butterfly with godlike powers, unable to return to the cocoon. He was …\n\nTimelines pulsed around him, the wreckage of the former universe trapped in a flicker of time. It was fragile … it struck him, suddenly, that the entire universe was far more fragile than he’d ever realised. His mere presence, his omniscience, was threatening to collapse the entire multiverse into nothing. He’d wondered, over the long centuries between his first meeting with Emily and the last, why so many transdimensional creatures only extruded tiny aspects of themselves into the human realm. He knew now. They could be trapped, caught within the material universe, or they could do immense damage merely by existing. They would be …\n\nEmily.\n\nA ripple of discontent, of unease, ran through his mind … and the multiverse. Everyone shivered helplessly; children screamed in the night, adults flinching helplessly though there was no cause. Random events flowered into life, great sweeping cancers of unreality that came and went so quickly few ever realised what happened, even when they recovered from the aftershocks; entire galaxies blinked out of existence, stars and their orbiting planets vanishing so completely they’d never existed at all. The entity barely noticed. Something was wrong …\n\nEmily.\n\nA shock ran through the ever-expanding multiplicity. Emily had done something … no. Emily was a prisoner, in a hell he’d made for her personally. She was there …\n\nNo. She was missing. She was nowhere to be found.\n\nThe contradiction battered his mind. There was no longer any such thing as randomness, not to him; there was nothing that could be concealed from him. He didn’t have to look to know everything; he already knew everything. And yet, he didn’t know Emily. She was in two places at once. She was concealed within the cracks in the universe, in the Roads of Happenstance that linked timelines together; she was … he felt a surge of pure anger, entire universes evaporating under his rage, as he realised she’d done something clever. She’d concealed herself so cleverly that he couldn’t find her, which meant …\n\nHe was a god. He could do anything. And yet …\n\nHis rage stilled, his thoughts calming. She had hidden herself in the one place he couldn’t see, the one place he couldn’t touch without undoing himself. Clever, he acknowledged sourly, clever and futile. She was an insect – less than an insect – against his immensity. She could do nothing but hide as he pulled on the strings of the multiverse, reshaping the cosmic all into something more suitable for his majesty. She was nothing … and yet, he feared. An insect could sting, an insect could bite … an insect could kill. The fact she was difficult, almost impossible, for even an omniscient being like himself to see …\n\nHe narrowed his thoughts to a cold hardness that bent the universe to his will. He needed an agent, someone who could go where he could not. He needed a servant and he knew just where to find one. The ultimate enemy for Emily and the ultimate ally for himself. He had all the time in the universe to find her, all the time he needed to destroy her … a knot of time and space started to form around him, within him. He would reshape the universe to suit himself, once and for all, and then the real work would begun.\n\nHe would not rule the multiverse. He would be the multiverse.\n\nAnd all creation would bear his name.\n\nSoon.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1081, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch01_emily-P1", "chapter": "ch01_emily", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHogwarts — capitalized; magical-school name in Emily’s fantasy list.\nCackles — capitalized; another magical-school name she lists with Hogwarts.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nTeenage girl on Earth, still under eighteen, living with her mother and stepfather. Thin, pale, brown hair in unkempt ringlets; baggy sweater and ill-fitting jeans. Hungry, exhausted, memories jumbled after a nearly sleepless night while her mother was sick. Afraid of her stepfather’s gaze and of being forced out at eighteen with no college, job, or place to go. Uses the library as refuge; feels her life is over and yet endless. Does not know why the world suddenly feels fragile or why her body feels wrong.\n\nLibrarian\nKindly older woman who has seen too much to trust easily. Closing the library for the night. Present with Emily at the start.\n\nMother\nEmily’s mother. Referenced only; sick the night before; not present in the library.\n\nStepfather\nEmily’s stepfather. Referenced only; back at the family home; Emily associates him with slime-trail stares and dread.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nPublic library, closing time. Book trolley near Emily; mirror by the exit door.\nNothing to eat in the library.\nEmily’s family home is waiting; she is not yet outside.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nClosing time in the library, and Emily barely hears the librarian because the solid shelves suddenly feel fragile and her body no longer feels like hers. She clings to the book trolley until the fever-wave of disorientation passes. The librarian says she looks unwell — the tone lands as certainty, not concern — and for a blink the kindly face looks cold and calculating before it is kindly again. Emily manages that she did not sleep; her memories are a mess of a sick mother and a stepfather whose eyes leave slime on her skin; her stomach reminds her she has not eaten. The librarian turns her out with a curt whenever.\n\nEmily walks toward the door through the nearly empty library, catching a homeless man’s eye and seeing her own future after eighteen: no college, no job, nowhere to stay. At the mirror she studies the thin stranger in the baggy clothes, then blinks and another woman stares back — strong, confident, long brown hair, blue dress, a mechanical wand in one hand and light sparkling at her fingertips. Another blink and it is only Emily again. Tears and loss hit her; images flicker of a beautiful blonde girl and a young man kissing her; she wants Hogwarts or Cackles or any school where she is special. She finds herself on her knees wanting to pretend, then forces herself up. There is no point in pretence.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 900 words. Intimate close-third dread and longing; keep the visions brief and uncanny, not explained. Land on the refusal of pretence.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“It’s time to close, my dear.”\n\nEmily barely noticed the librarian, a kindly older woman who had seen too much in her life to be wholly trusting of anything, as the world seemed to shift around her. The library was reassuringly solid, rows upon rows of bookshelves heaving under the weight of countless books, and yet her reality suddenly felt fragile, as if everything rested on a knife edge. Her legs trembled under her, as if they were about to send her plummeting to the floor; her body felt wrong, as if it were no longer truly hers. Sweat prickled on her forehead, a wave of fever running through her mind … she caught hold of the book trolley, clinging onto its reassuring solidity until the disorientation passed. Everything felt wrong …\n\n“You look unwell,” the librarian said. Her tone was … wrong. Not concern, but … certainty. She spoke the truth. “Did you get enough sleep last night?”\n\nEmily looked up. The librarian looked … cold and calculating and yet … Emily blinked and the vision was gone, the kindly old lady returning so quickly it was hard to convince herself she hadn’t imagined it. Perhaps it was nothing more than her imagination. She didn’t feel well … perhaps she was coming down with a cold. Or something worse. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten anything for … hours. There was nothing to eat in the library. She would have to go home.\n\n“I don’t think so,” she managed. Her memories were a jumbled mess. She’d barely had any sleep last night, her mother had been sick and her stepfather … her skin crawled as he recalled his eyes leaving trails of slime all over her body, as thin and scrawny as it was. The bastard was back home, waiting for her … she felt her gorge starting to rise and swallowed hard. Perhaps she was coming down with something. “I just …”\n\nThe librarian turned away. “You’d best be off,” she said, curtly. “I’ll see you whenever.”\n\nEmily nodded and forced herself to start walking towards the door. The library was nearly empty now, the remaining patrons making their way back home. Kids and adults, people with loving homes and people who had nowhere else to go … she caught the eye of a man she knew to be homeless and shuddered inwardly, seeing her fate in his eyes. She wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the family home once she turned eighteen, she was sure, and she had no idea where she would go. There was no hope of college, no hope of finding a decent place to live … there was little hope, even, of finding a job. Her life was over and yet it felt as if it would never end.\n\nShe paused in front of the mirror by the door, staring at herself. She was thin, her baggy sweater and ill-fitting jeans covering everything and yet not covering enough … her brown hair hung around her face in unkempt ringlets, a reminder she hadn’t had time to wash it recently. If her stepfather went out on the weekend, doing whatever he did when he wasn’t at home, she’d wash it … she sighed as she studied her pale complexion, feeling almost as if she were staring at a stranger. It wasn’t her face …\n\nEmily blinked. Another woman was staring back at her, a strong confident woman with long brown hair framing an elegant face, wearing a blue dress that flattered her curves without revealing anything below the neckline. She held a device in one hand, an odd mechanical wand, and her other hand … light sparkled around her fingertips, a trick of the light that Emily knew was nothing of the sort. She wasn’t so much beautiful as she was … Emily didn’t know how to put it into words. The stranger was strong and confident and everything Emily had ever wanted to be.\n\nShe blinked, again. The vision was gone. Her face stared back at her.\n\nTears prickled in the corner of her eyes. She wiped them away, an immense sense of loss sweeping over her. Images flickered through her mind, a beautiful blonde girl, a handsome young man leaning down to kiss her … her lips tingled, as if someone truly had brushed their lips against hers, the feeling vanishing as quickly as it had come. She was imagining it, trying to lose herself in fantasy … a world in which she went to Hogwarts or Cackles or one of a hundred other magical schools, a world where she was something special, a world where she had friends and a life and a future and … she found herself on her knees, without quite recalling how she’d gotten there. The sense of loss was overpowering. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend …\n\nNo. She forced herself to stand, brushing the hair out of her eyes. There’s no point in pretence.\n", "completion": "“It’s time to close, my dear.”\n\nEmily barely noticed the librarian, a kindly older woman who had seen too much in her life to be wholly trusting of anything, as the world seemed to shift around her. The library was reassuringly solid, rows upon rows of bookshelves heaving under the weight of countless books, and yet her reality suddenly felt fragile, as if everything rested on a knife edge. Her legs trembled under her, as if they were about to send her plummeting to the floor; her body felt wrong, as if it were no longer truly hers. Sweat prickled on her forehead, a wave of fever running through her mind … she caught hold of the book trolley, clinging onto its reassuring solidity until the disorientation passed. Everything felt wrong …\n\n“You look unwell,” the librarian said. Her tone was … wrong. Not concern, but … certainty. She spoke the truth. “Did you get enough sleep last night?”\n\nEmily looked up. The librarian looked … cold and calculating and yet … Emily blinked and the vision was gone, the kindly old lady returning so quickly it was hard to convince herself she hadn’t imagined it. Perhaps it was nothing more than her imagination. She didn’t feel well … perhaps she was coming down with a cold. Or something worse. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten anything for … hours. There was nothing to eat in the library. She would have to go home.\n\n“I don’t think so,” she managed. Her memories were a jumbled mess. She’d barely had any sleep last night, her mother had been sick and her stepfather … her skin crawled as he recalled his eyes leaving trails of slime all over her body, as thin and scrawny as it was. The bastard was back home, waiting for her … she felt her gorge starting to rise and swallowed hard. Perhaps she was coming down with something. “I just …”\n\nThe librarian turned away. “You’d best be off,” she said, curtly. “I’ll see you whenever.”\n\nEmily nodded and forced herself to start walking towards the door. The library was nearly empty now, the remaining patrons making their way back home. Kids and adults, people with loving homes and people who had nowhere else to go … she caught the eye of a man she knew to be homeless and shuddered inwardly, seeing her fate in his eyes. She wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the family home once she turned eighteen, she was sure, and she had no idea where she would go. There was no hope of college, no hope of finding a decent place to live … there was little hope, even, of finding a job. Her life was over and yet it felt as if it would never end.\n\nShe paused in front of the mirror by the door, staring at herself. She was thin, her baggy sweater and ill-fitting jeans covering everything and yet not covering enough … her brown hair hung around her face in unkempt ringlets, a reminder she hadn’t had time to wash it recently. If her stepfather went out on the weekend, doing whatever he did when he wasn’t at home, she’d wash it … she sighed as she studied her pale complexion, feeling almost as if she were staring at a stranger. It wasn’t her face …\n\nEmily blinked. Another woman was staring back at her, a strong confident woman with long brown hair framing an elegant face, wearing a blue dress that flattered her curves without revealing anything below the neckline. She held a device in one hand, an odd mechanical wand, and her other hand … light sparkled around her fingertips, a trick of the light that Emily knew was nothing of the sort. She wasn’t so much beautiful as she was … Emily didn’t know how to put it into words. The stranger was strong and confident and everything Emily had ever wanted to be.\n\nShe blinked, again. The vision was gone. Her face stared back at her.\n\nTears prickled in the corner of her eyes. She wiped them away, an immense sense of loss sweeping over her. Images flickered through her mind, a beautiful blonde girl, a handsome young man leaning down to kiss her … her lips tingled, as if someone truly had brushed their lips against hers, the feeling vanishing as quickly as it had come. She was imagining it, trying to lose herself in fantasy … a world in which she went to Hogwarts or Cackles or one of a hundred other magical schools, a world where she was something special, a world where she had friends and a life and a future and … she found herself on her knees, without quite recalling how she’d gotten there. The sense of loss was overpowering. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend …\n\nNo. She forced herself to stand, brushing the hair out of her eyes. There’s no point in pretence.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 829, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch01_emily-P2", "chapter": "ch01_emily", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSergeant Harkin — both words; keep as the bleed-memory drill instructor’s name.\nJade — capitalized; young man in Emily’s bleed memories.\nCat — capitalized; young man in Emily’s bleed memories; do not expand.\n\n### STORY\nAt closing time Emily rides out a wave of unreality in the library; the librarian’s face flickers cold then kind; a wand-bearing woman replaces her mirror reflection and vanishes; school fantasy drives her to her knees; she stands, refusing pretence.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust forced herself to stand after the mirror vision and the crush of loss. Still unwell, hungry, and heading home on foot into cold modern streets. Ashamed of her helplessness; haunted by fantasy images she cannot place; certain she is going mad when bleed-memories of training and sex feel real against her knowledge that she is a virgin.\n\nLibrarian\nAlive; has locked the library behind Emily. No longer on-page.\n\nChad\nTeenage school bully and jock on Emily’s street and campus. Not yet face-to-face; his laugh carries in the distance with unnamed friends. Known for touching girls, lifting skirts, and getting away with it because of sports or size. Emily flees rather than face him.\n\nSergeant Harkin\nBleed-memory drill instructor who, in the voice at the back of Emily’s mind, taught her how to fight. Not present in the street; Emily has no waking proof he exists and will classify him as fantasy. Stands in her mind for training and discipline she does not believe Earth ever gave her.\n\nJade\nYoung man in the same bleed-memory as Harkin’s training. Not present; Emily recalls training beside him and ranks him among “true men” rather than animals in human form. She does not believe he is real.\n\nCat\nYoung man in Emily’s bleed-memory, paired with Jade as another “true man.” Not present; she has an intense false memory of sex with him that her body almost believes. She knows she is a virgin and will insist he does not exist.\n\nStepfather\nReferenced; gambling fights with Emily’s mother; one of the “animals” she contrasts with the bleed-men.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily nodded and forced herself to start walking towards the door. The library was nearly empty now, the remaining patrons making their way back home. Kids and adults, people with loving homes and people who had nowhere else to go … she caught the eye of a man she knew to be homeless and shuddered inwardly, seeing her fate in his eyes. She wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the family home once she turned eighteen, she was sure, and she had no idea where she would go. There was no hope of college, no hope of finding a decent place to live … there was little hope, even, of finding a job. Her life was over and yet it felt as if it would never end.\n\nShe paused in front of the mirror by the door, staring at herself. She was thin, her baggy sweater and ill-fitting jeans covering everything and yet not covering enough … her brown hair hung around her face in unkempt ringlets, a reminder she hadn’t had time to wash it recently. If her stepfather went out on the weekend, doing whatever he did when he wasn’t at home, she’d wash it … she sighed as she studied her pale complexion, feeling almost as if she were staring at a stranger. It wasn’t her face …\n\nEmily blinked. Another woman was staring back at her, a strong confident woman with long brown hair framing an elegant face, wearing a blue dress that flattered her curves without revealing anything below the neckline. She held a device in one hand, an odd mechanical wand, and her other hand … light sparkled around her fingertips, a trick of the light that Emily knew was nothing of the sort. She wasn’t so much beautiful as she was … Emily didn’t know how to put it into words. The stranger was strong and confident and everything Emily had ever wanted to be.\n\nShe blinked, again. The vision was gone. Her face stared back at her.\n\nTears prickled in the corner of her eyes. She wiped them away, an immense sense of loss sweeping over her. Images flickered through her mind, a beautiful blonde girl, a handsome young man leaning down to kiss her … her lips tingled, as if someone truly had brushed their lips against hers, the feeling vanishing as quickly as it had come. She was imagining it, trying to lose herself in fantasy … a world in which she went to Hogwarts or Cackles or one of a hundred other magical schools, a world where she was something special, a world where she had friends and a life and a future and … she found herself on her knees, without quite recalling how she’d gotten there. The sense of loss was overpowering. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend …\n\nNo. She forced herself to stand, brushing the hair out of her eyes. There’s no point in pretence.\n\n### NOTES\nCold evening street outside the library: cars, cigarettes, boarded shops, a bar with music, prostitutes waiting for customers.\nShop window that can throw reflections.\nAlley Emily uses to dodge Chad’s crowd.\nPuddle that can hold a reflection.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nOutside, the air stinks of cars and cigarettes; the librarian locks the door and Emily trudges a drab street of boarded shops and quiet desperation, past a bar and the memory of her mother and stepfather screaming over his gambling. She passes middle-aged prostitutes and wonders if that is her fate when she is kicked out, knowing she would be tempted by any way out or even a few hours of forgetting.\n\nA shop window shows a girl her age with long black pigtails — a thrill of recognition that dies into strangerhood and the certainty she is going mad. The street feels like scenery changing around an actress who will never matter; she tells herself she will never be important. Chad’s distant laugh sends her into an alley; a wolf whistle hurries her on; a puddle reflects the strong confident woman again, disgusted, and Emily is ashamed. A voice at the back of her mind names Sergeant Harkin, Jade, and Cat — training, true men — and she nearly collapses under a flush of memory of sex with Cat that cannot be real. She digs nails into her scalp, insists those men do not exist, only Chad and her stepfather and worse, and lands on the hard knowledge that there are far worse men out there.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Street-level bleakness; bleed memories hit hard then get denied. Land on the line about worse men.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The air outside was cold, stinking of cars and cigarettes and all the other horrors of modern life. She heard the librarian lock the door behind her, another sense of loss and bitterness flowing through her as she trudged home. The street felt drab, the handful of open shops badly outnumbered by boarded-up establishments that had been closed since time out of mind, their faded signs and posts blurring together into a grey post-urban nightmare. A handful of people were visible, trapped in their own moments of quiet desperation, but she felt alone. No one paid any attention to her as she walked past a bar, music echoing through the air as the patrons drank and gambled away their paychecks before stumbling home. Her mother and stepfather had argued, more than once, about his gambling … Emily shuddered, helplessly, as she recalled hiding in her room as they screamed at each other. It had been a nightmare and yet …\n\nHer heart twisted as she passed a pair of prostitutes, the middle-aged women drinking and smoking as they waited for their first customers. Was that the fate that awaited her, when she was kicked out of house and home? The women probably weren’t that old, but they looked old enough to be her mother, their bodies worn down by drugs and alcohol and abuse from their pimps and johns. There were all sorts of horror stories about teenage schoolgirls selling themselves, whispered rumours passed from girl to girl in the locker room … Emily didn’t want to believe the stories, yet there was a part of her that feared they were true. She understood, better than she cared to admit. If someone offered her a way out of the nightmare her life had become, or even just enough money to forget the nightmare for a few short hours, she knew she would be tempted. There was no point in denying it.\n\nShe glanced into a shop window and froze. A girl was looking back at her, a girl around the same age as she was with long black pigtails and … a thrill of recognition shot through her, banished a second later as it dawned on her she didn’t know the girl. She was a stranger, a very familiar stranger … Emily’s head spun, her knees threatening to buckle again. She was going mad. She had to be. She was being haunted by visions out of her fantasies …\n\nHer heart twisted as she forced herself to keep walking. The world felt weird, as if it was changing around her … she had the sudden sense she was the centre of the world, an actress on a stage mouthing her lines as the scenery changed around her. She wondered, suddenly, if the street outside her vision even existed, the thought coming and going so quickly she knew she was being silly. She was no main character, not even an Non-Player-Character. The world would exist with or without her, the universe never noticing her comings and goings. She would live and die in a world she hated, surrounded by wealth and power she would never touch … a land of boundless opportunity she’d never be able to access.\n\nShe would never be important. Never.\n\nShe heard someone laugh in the distance, a sound that sent chills down her spine. Chad and his friends, teenage boys whose names she had never bothered to learn … jocks and bullies and outright jackasses, young men with a reputation for touching girls or lifting their skirts or molesting them in other ways, men who got away with it because they were good at sports or simply too big and strong for the teachers to challenge. Her cheeks flushed with shame as she turned, ducking down the alleyway to escape before they caught sight of her. She hated being so weak, hated being unable to stand up to Chad or her stepfather or every other vile creature in her life …  hated it. She wanted to blast them to atoms, but how could she? She was weak and powerless and …\n\nA wolf whistle echoed through the air. Chad? Someone else? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She forced herself to pick up speed, feeling as if someone was right behind her … it felt as if someone was breathing down the back of her neck. Her skin crawled … she forced herself to look back, half-expecting to find herself staring at an inhuman monster. There was nothing there and yet … she splashed through a puddle and saw, reflected in the liquid, the strong and confident woman she’d seen earlier. She looked disgusted. Emily felt ashamed of herself once again, ashamed of her own helplessness. She couldn’t fight. She was powerless.\n\nSergeant Harkin taught you how to fight, a voice said, at the back of her mind. And you trained beside Jade and Cat, true men rather than animals in human form ...\n\nShe staggered, nearly falling to her knees once again as her hands tore at her head. It was a fantasy! Jade and Cat didn’t exist … a flush ran through her as she recalled having sex with Cat, a memory so intense it seemed almost real. She was a virgin. She knew she was a virgin. And yet she could feel him inside her … she dug her nails into her scalp, the pain helping to centre her mind. She was going insane. Jade and Cat didn’t exist. Sergeant Harkin didn’t exist. Men like that didn’t exist. There were only assholes like Chad and her stepfather, men who bragged of being alpha even as they proved, time and time again, that they were nothing more than animals. She had read countless stories about decent men, but she’d never met any. The most decent man on the street might not be physically or mentally abusive to his wife and children, if rumour was to be believed, yet he was still a cheat. Emily wondered why his wife put up with it … no. That wasn’t true.\n\nShe knew why. There were far worse men out there.\n", "completion": "The air outside was cold, stinking of cars and cigarettes and all the other horrors of modern life. She heard the librarian lock the door behind her, another sense of loss and bitterness flowing through her as she trudged home. The street felt drab, the handful of open shops badly outnumbered by boarded-up establishments that had been closed since time out of mind, their faded signs and posts blurring together into a grey post-urban nightmare. A handful of people were visible, trapped in their own moments of quiet desperation, but she felt alone. No one paid any attention to her as she walked past a bar, music echoing through the air as the patrons drank and gambled away their paychecks before stumbling home. Her mother and stepfather had argued, more than once, about his gambling … Emily shuddered, helplessly, as she recalled hiding in her room as they screamed at each other. It had been a nightmare and yet …\n\nHer heart twisted as she passed a pair of prostitutes, the middle-aged women drinking and smoking as they waited for their first customers. Was that the fate that awaited her, when she was kicked out of house and home? The women probably weren’t that old, but they looked old enough to be her mother, their bodies worn down by drugs and alcohol and abuse from their pimps and johns. There were all sorts of horror stories about teenage schoolgirls selling themselves, whispered rumours passed from girl to girl in the locker room … Emily didn’t want to believe the stories, yet there was a part of her that feared they were true. She understood, better than she cared to admit. If someone offered her a way out of the nightmare her life had become, or even just enough money to forget the nightmare for a few short hours, she knew she would be tempted. There was no point in denying it.\n\nShe glanced into a shop window and froze. A girl was looking back at her, a girl around the same age as she was with long black pigtails and … a thrill of recognition shot through her, banished a second later as it dawned on her she didn’t know the girl. She was a stranger, a very familiar stranger … Emily’s head spun, her knees threatening to buckle again. She was going mad. She had to be. She was being haunted by visions out of her fantasies …\n\nHer heart twisted as she forced herself to keep walking. The world felt weird, as if it was changing around her … she had the sudden sense she was the centre of the world, an actress on a stage mouthing her lines as the scenery changed around her. She wondered, suddenly, if the street outside her vision even existed, the thought coming and going so quickly she knew she was being silly. She was no main character, not even an Non-Player-Character. The world would exist with or without her, the universe never noticing her comings and goings. She would live and die in a world she hated, surrounded by wealth and power she would never touch … a land of boundless opportunity she’d never be able to access.\n\nShe would never be important. Never.\n\nShe heard someone laugh in the distance, a sound that sent chills down her spine. Chad and his friends, teenage boys whose names she had never bothered to learn … jocks and bullies and outright jackasses, young men with a reputation for touching girls or lifting their skirts or molesting them in other ways, men who got away with it because they were good at sports or simply too big and strong for the teachers to challenge. Her cheeks flushed with shame as she turned, ducking down the alleyway to escape before they caught sight of her. She hated being so weak, hated being unable to stand up to Chad or her stepfather or every other vile creature in her life …  hated it. She wanted to blast them to atoms, but how could she? She was weak and powerless and …\n\nA wolf whistle echoed through the air. Chad? Someone else? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She forced herself to pick up speed, feeling as if someone was right behind her … it felt as if someone was breathing down the back of her neck. Her skin crawled … she forced herself to look back, half-expecting to find herself staring at an inhuman monster. There was nothing there and yet … she splashed through a puddle and saw, reflected in the liquid, the strong and confident woman she’d seen earlier. She looked disgusted. Emily felt ashamed of herself once again, ashamed of her own helplessness. She couldn’t fight. She was powerless.\n\nSergeant Harkin taught you how to fight, a voice said, at the back of her mind. And you trained beside Jade and Cat, true men rather than animals in human form ...\n\nShe staggered, nearly falling to her knees once again as her hands tore at her head. It was a fantasy! Jade and Cat didn’t exist … a flush ran through her as she recalled having sex with Cat, a memory so intense it seemed almost real. She was a virgin. She knew she was a virgin. And yet she could feel him inside her … she dug her nails into her scalp, the pain helping to centre her mind. She was going insane. Jade and Cat didn’t exist. Sergeant Harkin didn’t exist. Men like that didn’t exist. There were only assholes like Chad and her stepfather, men who bragged of being alpha even as they proved, time and time again, that they were nothing more than animals. She had read countless stories about decent men, but she’d never met any. The most decent man on the street might not be physically or mentally abusive to his wife and children, if rumour was to be believed, yet he was still a cheat. Emily wondered why his wife put up with it … no. That wasn’t true.\n\nShe knew why. There were far worse men out there.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1027, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch01_emily-P3", "chapter": "ch01_emily", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\n(none)\n\n### STORY\nAt closing time Emily rides out a wave of unreality in the library; the librarian’s face flickers cold then kind; a wand-bearing woman replaces her mirror reflection and vanishes; school fantasy drives her to her knees; she stands, refusing pretence.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill on foot toward home after denying the bleed-memories. Head aching; hopeless about school, coats, and adulthood; loathes pity and performative acknowledgements; bracing herself for whatever waits behind the apartment door — drunk mother, leering stepfather, or absence.\n\nChad\nStill out there near the school; Emily watches Norris walk toward him and cannot warn him.\n\nNorris\nSchool nerd scurrying out of the building, eyes flicking for attack. Heading toward Chad. Emily feels guilt and helplessness.\n\nMother\nReferenced; drunk often; lies about whether Emily’s parents were married; may be gone one day. Not yet seen this evening.\n\nStepfather\nReferenced; wastes paychecks; Emily will not ask him for clothes if she can help it. Waiting at home as a possible threat.\n\nFather\nReferenced only in memory and hope; never came back; Emily suspects he may have been only a john.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe heard someone laugh in the distance, a sound that sent chills down her spine. Chad and his friends, teenage boys whose names she had never bothered to learn … jocks and bullies and outright jackasses, young men with a reputation for touching girls or lifting their skirts or molesting them in other ways, men who got away with it because they were good at sports or simply too big and strong for the teachers to challenge. Her cheeks flushed with shame as she turned, ducking down the alleyway to escape before they caught sight of her. She hated being so weak, hated being unable to stand up to Chad or her stepfather or every other vile creature in her life …  hated it. She wanted to blast them to atoms, but how could she? She was weak and powerless and …\n\nA wolf whistle echoed through the air. Chad? Someone else? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She forced herself to pick up speed, feeling as if someone was right behind her … it felt as if someone was breathing down the back of her neck. Her skin crawled … she forced herself to look back, half-expecting to find herself staring at an inhuman monster. There was nothing there and yet … she splashed through a puddle and saw, reflected in the liquid, the strong and confident woman she’d seen earlier. She looked disgusted. Emily felt ashamed of herself once again, ashamed of her own helplessness. She couldn’t fight. She was powerless.\n\nSergeant Harkin taught you how to fight, a voice said, at the back of her mind. And you trained beside Jade and Cat, true men rather than animals in human form ...\n\nShe staggered, nearly falling to her knees once again as her hands tore at her head. It was a fantasy! Jade and Cat didn’t exist … a flush ran through her as she recalled having sex with Cat, a memory so intense it seemed almost real. She was a virgin. She knew she was a virgin. And yet she could feel him inside her … she dug her nails into her scalp, the pain helping to centre her mind. She was going insane. Jade and Cat didn’t exist. Sergeant Harkin didn’t exist. Men like that didn’t exist. There were only assholes like Chad and her stepfather, men who bragged of being alpha even as they proved, time and time again, that they were nothing more than animals. She had read countless stories about decent men, but she’d never met any. The most decent man on the street might not be physically or mentally abusive to his wife and children, if rumour was to be believed, yet he was still a cheat. Emily wondered why his wife put up with it … no. That wasn’t true.\n\nShe knew why. There were far worse men out there.\n\n### NOTES\nSchool grounds on the walk home: drab grey walls, graffiti, students loitering.\nEmily’s street and apartment block: dark, cold, windows largely boarded.\nEvening darkening; colour leaching from the street.\nShe has keys in her pocket; she has not yet opened the door.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHer head aches as she passes the school — listless students, misspelled graffiti, no justice — and she sees Norris scurry out toward Chad and cannot protect him. She circles home through empty streets and cold wind, cursing wasted paychecks, ill-fitting clothes, and the likelihood she will need Goodwill before winter. A window shows the pigtailed girl again with disappointed eyes; Emily’s loathing turns on herself and on the father who never returned. The vision becomes two girls pitying her; she hates pity the way she hates the principal’s empty land acknowledgement, meets the older girl’s eyes, and turns away. There are no miracles, no magic, only a poor girl’s closed future.\n\nShe turns into her street, almost glad the boarded windows cannot throw alien reflections, and tells herself this drab nightmare is reality forever. At the apartment door she braces for drunk mother or leering stepfather; a voice whispers that one day she will come home and her mother will be gone. She digs out her keys, sees the street as a trap that is not a war zone and still hell, and the scene lands on that recognition.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Hopeless close-third; visions stay pitiless, not comforting. Land on the final judgment of the street.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Her head ached as she kept walking, passing the school. A handful of students were clearly visible, some listlessly kicking a ball around and others just loitering … they had no hope, Emily knew, just like her. Chad and his ilk might brag of their football skills, telling everyone around them that they were going to be the next great sports star, but she knew better. They weren’t going to get out of the trap, any more than she would. They would graduate, find work stocking shelves or something else that was a dead end, and then … who knew? She didn’t want to think about it.\n\nThe hopelessness and despair poisoned the air around the school. The walls were drab and grey, barely lightened by splashes of graffiti; she wondered, idly, which student had managed to misspell a four-letter word that should have been easy to spell. The staff hadn’t seemed too worried either, although in a just world … she shook her head, reminding herself once again that there was no justice. The world wasn’t fair. She swallowed, hard, as she saw Norris scurrying out of the building, eyes flickering from side to side as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. He probably was. Chad was still out there, ready to work off his feelings by punching a nerd … guilt gnawed at her as she watched Norris hurry onwards, right towards Chad. She wanted to warn him, to stop him, to protect him. But there was nothing she could do.\n\nEmily kept walking, circling the school and making her way home. The streets were empty now, the cold wind picking up fragments of newspaper and other pieces of rubbish and tossing them through the air. She wrapped her arms around herself for warmth, cursing her stepfather for wasting his paycheck and her mother for not stopping him. She’d have to go to the Goodwill and see if they had a cheap coat before winter really started to bite, although she knew she’d be lucky if they had anything. The whole district was too poor to have many cast-offs … she shifted uncomfortably, reminded – despite herself – that nearly everything she wore, from her sweater to her underwear, was ill-fitting. She had no idea what she’d do if she grew any taller. It was going to be a nightmare getting anything more from her mother and she didn’t have any friends who might be willing to trade … the thought of asking her stepfather was just repugnant. And yet she might have no choice.\n\nShe glanced into a window and froze. The girl was there again, watching her with disappointed eyes … Emily felt a surge of sheer loathing and hatred that was directed more against herself than the vision confronting her. Her life was a mess, her future non-existent … she’d let herself hope, more than once, that her father would come back for her, but he never had. She had let herself dream that he might be a prince, or a wealthy man, or … someone, anyone, who could give her the hope she needed to make something of herself. But the odds were that he’d been nothing more than a passing stranger, a john who’d called upon a whore … Emily wasn’t even sure if her parents had been married. Her mother had said so, when she’d asked, but her mother told a lot of lies. She was so drunk, so often, that it was impossible to tell if she believed herself.\n\nThe vision changed. Two girls now stared at her, eyes wide with pity. Emily gritted her teeth in bitter frustration. She hated being pitied, for all that it was nice to have someone acknowledge her situation. It was just like the tedious land acknowledgement the principal had read out one morning in assembly, the sanctimonious babbling about stolen land that – for some strange reason – hadn’t ended with the land being returned to the descendants of the former owners. It was performative nonsense, an exercise in self-flagellation that didn’t include any actual reparations. But then, it was easy to make speeches and harder to do anything that might reshape the world. She met the eyes of the older girl and clenched her fists. It would be so easy to let herself believe …\n\nShe shook her head and turned away. There were no miracles in life. No one was going to sweep her off her feet and give her the keys to a kingdom, or even a very large library. There was no prospect of anything from further education to gainful employment, with little hope of survival, perhaps, beyond the next few years. She was a poor girl from a poor family, lacking the education to make use of her mind or the beauty that would induce people to overlook her limited education and character flaws. There was no such thing as magic. No matter how many books she read, no matter how many worlds of super-technology or wondrous fantasy she explored through the written word, she always had to return to reality.\n\nThere was no such thing as magic.\n\nEmily turned into her street and made her way down to the apartment block. The buildings were dark and cold, the windows largely boarded up after vandals had smashed the glass. Emily was almost relieved, knowing she wouldn’t be able to see the alien reflections any longer. The sky was darkening rapidly, casting an eerie shadow over the drab grey street. All colour seemed to be  leaching from the world, leaving nothing but a dull nightmare.\n\nIt was her reality. It would always be.\n\nShe paused in front of the door, bracing herself. Her home should be her safe space, a place where she could relax and be herself … where a loving mother and father took care of her, preparing her for adulthood. Instead … she wondered, numbly, what was waiting for her. A drunk mother? An angry, leering stepfather? Or … or what? She didn’t want to know.\n\nOne day, a voice whispered at the back of her mind, you’ll come home and she’ll be gone.\n\nShe took a long breath, letting her eyes wander the street as she dug her keys out of her pocket. It was a nightmare, all the darker for being so mundane. It wasn’t a war zone, nor was it a place where death could come at any moment, yet … it was a trap. She would never escape. She would live and die in the drab grey world, her life and death going unnoticed by the people around her, never making anything of herself …\n\nIt looked very much like hell.\n", "completion": "Her head ached as she kept walking, passing the school. A handful of students were clearly visible, some listlessly kicking a ball around and others just loitering … they had no hope, Emily knew, just like her. Chad and his ilk might brag of their football skills, telling everyone around them that they were going to be the next great sports star, but she knew better. They weren’t going to get out of the trap, any more than she would. They would graduate, find work stocking shelves or something else that was a dead end, and then … who knew? She didn’t want to think about it.\n\nThe hopelessness and despair poisoned the air around the school. The walls were drab and grey, barely lightened by splashes of graffiti; she wondered, idly, which student had managed to misspell a four-letter word that should have been easy to spell. The staff hadn’t seemed too worried either, although in a just world … she shook her head, reminding herself once again that there was no justice. The world wasn’t fair. She swallowed, hard, as she saw Norris scurrying out of the building, eyes flickering from side to side as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. He probably was. Chad was still out there, ready to work off his feelings by punching a nerd … guilt gnawed at her as she watched Norris hurry onwards, right towards Chad. She wanted to warn him, to stop him, to protect him. But there was nothing she could do.\n\nEmily kept walking, circling the school and making her way home. The streets were empty now, the cold wind picking up fragments of newspaper and other pieces of rubbish and tossing them through the air. She wrapped her arms around herself for warmth, cursing her stepfather for wasting his paycheck and her mother for not stopping him. She’d have to go to the Goodwill and see if they had a cheap coat before winter really started to bite, although she knew she’d be lucky if they had anything. The whole district was too poor to have many cast-offs … she shifted uncomfortably, reminded – despite herself – that nearly everything she wore, from her sweater to her underwear, was ill-fitting. She had no idea what she’d do if she grew any taller. It was going to be a nightmare getting anything more from her mother and she didn’t have any friends who might be willing to trade … the thought of asking her stepfather was just repugnant. And yet she might have no choice.\n\nShe glanced into a window and froze. The girl was there again, watching her with disappointed eyes … Emily felt a surge of sheer loathing and hatred that was directed more against herself than the vision confronting her. Her life was a mess, her future non-existent … she’d let herself hope, more than once, that her father would come back for her, but he never had. She had let herself dream that he might be a prince, or a wealthy man, or … someone, anyone, who could give her the hope she needed to make something of herself. But the odds were that he’d been nothing more than a passing stranger, a john who’d called upon a whore … Emily wasn’t even sure if her parents had been married. Her mother had said so, when she’d asked, but her mother told a lot of lies. She was so drunk, so often, that it was impossible to tell if she believed herself.\n\nThe vision changed. Two girls now stared at her, eyes wide with pity. Emily gritted her teeth in bitter frustration. She hated being pitied, for all that it was nice to have someone acknowledge her situation. It was just like the tedious land acknowledgement the principal had read out one morning in assembly, the sanctimonious babbling about stolen land that – for some strange reason – hadn’t ended with the land being returned to the descendants of the former owners. It was performative nonsense, an exercise in self-flagellation that didn’t include any actual reparations. But then, it was easy to make speeches and harder to do anything that might reshape the world. She met the eyes of the older girl and clenched her fists. It would be so easy to let herself believe …\n\nShe shook her head and turned away. There were no miracles in life. No one was going to sweep her off her feet and give her the keys to a kingdom, or even a very large library. There was no prospect of anything from further education to gainful employment, with little hope of survival, perhaps, beyond the next few years. She was a poor girl from a poor family, lacking the education to make use of her mind or the beauty that would induce people to overlook her limited education and character flaws. There was no such thing as magic. No matter how many books she read, no matter how many worlds of super-technology or wondrous fantasy she explored through the written word, she always had to return to reality.\n\nThere was no such thing as magic.\n\nEmily turned into her street and made her way down to the apartment block. The buildings were dark and cold, the windows largely boarded up after vandals had smashed the glass. Emily was almost relieved, knowing she wouldn’t be able to see the alien reflections any longer. The sky was darkening rapidly, casting an eerie shadow over the drab grey street. All colour seemed to be  leaching from the world, leaving nothing but a dull nightmare.\n\nIt was her reality. It would always be.\n\nShe paused in front of the door, bracing herself. Her home should be her safe space, a place where she could relax and be herself … where a loving mother and father took care of her, preparing her for adulthood. Instead … she wondered, numbly, what was waiting for her. A drunk mother? An angry, leering stepfather? Or … or what? She didn’t want to know.\n\nOne day, a voice whispered at the back of her mind, you’ll come home and she’ll be gone.\n\nShe took a long breath, letting her eyes wander the street as she dug her keys out of her pocket. It was a nightmare, all the darker for being so mundane. It wasn’t a war zone, nor was it a place where death could come at any moment, yet … it was a trap. She would never escape. She would live and die in the drab grey world, her life and death going unnoticed by the people around her, never making anything of herself …\n\nIt looked very much like hell.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1127, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch02-P1", "chapter": "ch02", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized; the mad-god antagonist.\nFrieda — capitalized; Emily’s companion in the bubble.\nCaleb — capitalized; Emily’s lover, absent/lost.\nnexus point — lowercase; the artificial power source holding the bubble.\nspellware — one word, lowercase; structured magic-as-software.\nbilocated — lowercase; Emily’s split-self form.\n\n### STORY\n(none - new storyline)\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSorceress trapped with Frieda inside a force-grown bubble in an artificial nexus point while Master Wolfe remakes the multiverse. Exhausted, hungry, and terrified; she can sense his omniscient gaze sweeping timelines and fears contamination from his madness. Knows magic and technology but finds his scale beyond measure. Mourns Caleb and her bilocated other self, both lost or unreachable after the holocaust; still improvising desperately. Does not yet see a workable plan.\n\nFrieda\nYounger companion in the bubble with Emily. Pale, sweating, wary, and still faithful that Emily can fix this. Present, kneeling with a hand on Emily’s shoulder when Emily opens her eyes.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nMad god remaking reality by looking; absorbing minds into a multiplicity. Not physically in the bubble; his shadow and awareness sweep past. Genius turned cosmic editor who can make any change always-have-been-so.\n\nCaleb\nEmily’s lover. Absent; lost in the dead world as far as she knows. She wants him and hates herself for lacking time to mourn.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n(none)\n\n### NOTES\nBubble held inside an artificial nexus point; soap-bubble edge against a raging maelstrom.\nTimelines visible beyond the bubble; Master Wolfe’s presence sweeps the multiverse.\nHours since either of them has eaten; no food in the bubble at the start.\nTime inside the bubble is unreliable.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe is in hell inside the nexus-point bubble, raw power battering her skull while she holds the spells that keep her and Frieda alive. Master Wolfe’s vast presence sweeps the multiverse, locking timelines by observation; a shadow falls across the bubble and she freezes until it retreats. Time is meaningless in the flexible magic. Frieda wakes her with a hand on her shoulder, faith still in her eyes, and asks what he is doing. Emily looks into the maelstrom—cancered timelines, red eyes, howling laughter—and names the remaking of everything, comparing them to ants under a god’s foot. She wants Caleb, knows he and her bilocated self may be gone, and lands on the hard truth that she has no time to mourn.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Cosmic dread in close third; keep the god-scale sensing vast but concrete. Land on the mourning she cannot afford.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She was in hell.\n\nEmily cowered in the nexus point, its raw power battering against her skull. The magic surrounding her was so intense it was hard to think clearly, let alone draw on it to maintain the bubble keeping her and Frieda alive. The spells she’d cast to take control of the artificial nexus point should have been allowed to develop naturally, a process that she knew could take a year or more, but she’d been forced to accelerate their development at great risk to herself. They were trapped in a single moment of time, a bubble caught within a raging torrent of sheer power that could sweep them away in a heartbeat, if she lost her grip. The slightest mistake could see them both killed, vaporised so completely nothing would be left of them. They were doomed.\n\nShe shuddered as she felt the giant presence pervading the multiverse, a feeling of being watched as an unblinking gaze swept over her before vanishing in the distance. Master Wolfe was big now, an entity so huge that she could barely comprehend the footprints he left in his wake. It was difficult to force what she was seeing, or sensing, into something she could understand; difficult, almost impossible, to get any real sense of what he’d become. She understood magic and technology, she was hardly unaware of the basics of each even if they reached levels she couldn’t even begin to understand, but this was something different. It felt as if even putting hard numbers on his abilities was a mistake, because it would blind her to the truth. He was just too big to be easily stopped.\n\nHer mind expanded, a child peeking into a violent adult world. Timelines spun around, above and below her, each one slowly falling to a mad god. She could feel his presence sweeping through the multiverse, taking control of each and every timeline one by one; she saw, now, just what he’d become. He wasn’t just powerful, he was the determinant of reality itself. His gaze locked reality into place, the quantum observer effect made manifest. He defined reality and ended randomness simply by looking, and he was always looking. And … she shuddered, helplessly, as she sensed the growing madness pervading the universe. It was … it was so great that even looking at it made her fear contamination. She was …\n\nA shadow fell across the bubble. Emily froze, holding herself as still as she dared. The slightest motion might attract attention, might draw his gaze to her. She thought they were relatively safe, within the bubble, but that wouldn’t last. Master Wolfe had been a genius even before he’d started absorbing other minds into his multiplicity and now he was a god, with all the insight of an omniscient being. He could work out how to do anything … no. It was far worse than that. He could determine that two plus two made five, if he wished, and make it so. The entire universe would bend to his will. In a sense, it would always be so and always have been so.\n\nThe shadow retreated, the awareness moving away. Emily let out a breath she hadn’t realised she'd been holding. How long had it been, since everything had come apart at the seams? An hour? A day? A month? A year? She didn’t know. The magic around her was just too strong to say much of anything for sure, when reality itself was astonishingly – and terrifyingly – flexible. She knew spells that could turn a man into a toad, a woman into a bird … and yet such horrors were little more than child’s play, compared to the power Master Wolfe had unleashed. He could not only change anything he liked, he could make it always have been so. He was a cosmic editor editing the entire universe, the worlds shifting around him with every change. He was a mad god.\n\n“Emily?”\n\nEmily opened her eyes, unsure of when she’d closed them. Frieda was kneeling in front of her, one hand resting on Emily’s shoulder. She looked pale and wan, her face streaked with sweat; eyes tired and wary and yet tinged with a touching faith in Emily. Emily knew it was misplaced. The entire multiverse was at risk and she didn’t even know where to begin fixing it, if indeed she could. Everything she’d faced before was tiny, almost immaterial, compared to the nightmare surrounding her. The bubble felt very flimsy indeed.\n\nHer stomach growled. It had been hours since she’d eaten anything and that meant …\n\n“I …” She swallowed and started again. “I don’t know what to do.”\n\nFrieda leaned back, her eyes grim. “What is he doing?”\n\nEmily looked past her, towards the edge of the bubble. The edge looked like a soap bubble … and beyond, the maelstrom raged. It was hard to force herself to see anything beyond the sheer vastness surrounding them, but … she could see the timelines, see the worlds changing, see the cancer threatening the entire multiverse. Red eyes burned through the darkness, a howling laughter battering against her mind … she forced herself to look away, blinking tears from her eyes as she glanced down. The hammering receded slightly … he wasn’t trying to attack her, he realised numbly, but it hardly mattered. A man who stood on an ant might not mean to kill the poor creature, yet it made no difference to the ant. Master Wolfe could swat her effortlessly, kill her without ever knowing what he’d done.\n\nAn ant can be lethal, if it bites someone in precisely the right spot, she told herself. And right now, that’s what we’re going to have to do.\n\n“He’s remaking everything,” Emily said. “I think …”\n\nShe gritted her teeth. She wanted Caleb. She needed Caleb. But Caleb was gone, lost in the dead world … so was her other self, if her bilocated form had survived the holocaust. She’d had no time to strengthen the mental link between them, no time to do anything but improvise desperately. She mourned the loss of her lover, even as she tried to tell herself he might still be alive. It was … she shuddered, helplessly. She didn’t have time to worry about him now. She hated herself for even thinking it. And yet it was true.\n", "completion": "She was in hell.\n\nEmily cowered in the nexus point, its raw power battering against her skull. The magic surrounding her was so intense it was hard to think clearly, let alone draw on it to maintain the bubble keeping her and Frieda alive. The spells she’d cast to take control of the artificial nexus point should have been allowed to develop naturally, a process that she knew could take a year or more, but she’d been forced to accelerate their development at great risk to herself. They were trapped in a single moment of time, a bubble caught within a raging torrent of sheer power that could sweep them away in a heartbeat, if she lost her grip. The slightest mistake could see them both killed, vaporised so completely nothing would be left of them. They were doomed.\n\nShe shuddered as she felt the giant presence pervading the multiverse, a feeling of being watched as an unblinking gaze swept over her before vanishing in the distance. Master Wolfe was big now, an entity so huge that she could barely comprehend the footprints he left in his wake. It was difficult to force what she was seeing, or sensing, into something she could understand; difficult, almost impossible, to get any real sense of what he’d become. She understood magic and technology, she was hardly unaware of the basics of each even if they reached levels she couldn’t even begin to understand, but this was something different. It felt as if even putting hard numbers on his abilities was a mistake, because it would blind her to the truth. He was just too big to be easily stopped.\n\nHer mind expanded, a child peeking into a violent adult world. Timelines spun around, above and below her, each one slowly falling to a mad god. She could feel his presence sweeping through the multiverse, taking control of each and every timeline one by one; she saw, now, just what he’d become. He wasn’t just powerful, he was the determinant of reality itself. His gaze locked reality into place, the quantum observer effect made manifest. He defined reality and ended randomness simply by looking, and he was always looking. And … she shuddered, helplessly, as she sensed the growing madness pervading the universe. It was … it was so great that even looking at it made her fear contamination. She was …\n\nA shadow fell across the bubble. Emily froze, holding herself as still as she dared. The slightest motion might attract attention, might draw his gaze to her. She thought they were relatively safe, within the bubble, but that wouldn’t last. Master Wolfe had been a genius even before he’d started absorbing other minds into his multiplicity and now he was a god, with all the insight of an omniscient being. He could work out how to do anything … no. It was far worse than that. He could determine that two plus two made five, if he wished, and make it so. The entire universe would bend to his will. In a sense, it would always be so and always have been so.\n\nThe shadow retreated, the awareness moving away. Emily let out a breath she hadn’t realised she'd been holding. How long had it been, since everything had come apart at the seams? An hour? A day? A month? A year? She didn’t know. The magic around her was just too strong to say much of anything for sure, when reality itself was astonishingly – and terrifyingly – flexible. She knew spells that could turn a man into a toad, a woman into a bird … and yet such horrors were little more than child’s play, compared to the power Master Wolfe had unleashed. He could not only change anything he liked, he could make it always have been so. He was a cosmic editor editing the entire universe, the worlds shifting around him with every change. He was a mad god.\n\n“Emily?”\n\nEmily opened her eyes, unsure of when she’d closed them. Frieda was kneeling in front of her, one hand resting on Emily’s shoulder. She looked pale and wan, her face streaked with sweat; eyes tired and wary and yet tinged with a touching faith in Emily. Emily knew it was misplaced. The entire multiverse was at risk and she didn’t even know where to begin fixing it, if indeed she could. Everything she’d faced before was tiny, almost immaterial, compared to the nightmare surrounding her. The bubble felt very flimsy indeed.\n\nHer stomach growled. It had been hours since she’d eaten anything and that meant …\n\n“I …” She swallowed and started again. “I don’t know what to do.”\n\nFrieda leaned back, her eyes grim. “What is he doing?”\n\nEmily looked past her, towards the edge of the bubble. The edge looked like a soap bubble … and beyond, the maelstrom raged. It was hard to force herself to see anything beyond the sheer vastness surrounding them, but … she could see the timelines, see the worlds changing, see the cancer threatening the entire multiverse. Red eyes burned through the darkness, a howling laughter battering against her mind … she forced herself to look away, blinking tears from her eyes as she glanced down. The hammering receded slightly … he wasn’t trying to attack her, he realised numbly, but it hardly mattered. A man who stood on an ant might not mean to kill the poor creature, yet it made no difference to the ant. Master Wolfe could swat her effortlessly, kill her without ever knowing what he’d done.\n\nAn ant can be lethal, if it bites someone in precisely the right spot, she told herself. And right now, that’s what we’re going to have to do.\n\n“He’s remaking everything,” Emily said. “I think …”\n\nShe gritted her teeth. She wanted Caleb. She needed Caleb. But Caleb was gone, lost in the dead world … so was her other self, if her bilocated form had survived the holocaust. She’d had no time to strengthen the mental link between them, no time to do anything but improvise desperately. She mourned the loss of her lover, even as she tried to tell herself he might still be alive. It was … she shuddered, helplessly. She didn’t have time to worry about him now. She hated herself for even thinking it. And yet it was true.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1075, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch02-P2", "chapter": "ch02", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nspellware — one word, lowercase.\nnexus point — lowercase.\nVoid — capitalized; Emily’s former teacher, referenced.\nmimic-form — hyphenated, lowercase; Master Wolfe’s magical structure.\n\n### STORY\nEmily holds the nexus-point bubble against Master Wolfe’s remaking of the multiverse; his shadow sweeps past and retreats; Frieda asks what he is doing; Emily names the remaking and mourns Caleb and her lost bilocated self without time to linger.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill inside the bubble after admitting she does not know what to do. Hungry, drained, clinging to the hope that Master Wolfe cannot see them because they are inside his mimic-form. About to try adapting nexus spellware while keeping the structure alive; does not yet know she has imprisoned herself.\n\nFrieda\nBeside Emily; practical faith; suggests breaking the problem into chunks; will eat conjured food without complaint.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nStill unseen outside; treated as spellware multiplicity rather than true divinity once Emily reframes him.\n\nVoid\nReferenced only; taught Emily to conjure from raw magic and once steered portals by signature.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily opened her eyes, unsure of when she’d closed them. Frieda was kneeling in front of her, one hand resting on Emily’s shoulder. She looked pale and wan, her face streaked with sweat; eyes tired and wary and yet tinged with a touching faith in Emily. Emily knew it was misplaced. The entire multiverse was at risk and she didn’t even know where to begin fixing it, if indeed she could. Everything she’d faced before was tiny, almost immaterial, compared to the nightmare surrounding her. The bubble felt very flimsy indeed.\n\nHer stomach growled. It had been hours since she’d eaten anything and that meant …\n\n“I …” She swallowed and started again. “I don’t know what to do.”\n\nFrieda leaned back, her eyes grim. “What is he doing?”\n\nEmily looked past her, towards the edge of the bubble. The edge looked like a soap bubble … and beyond, the maelstrom raged. It was hard to force herself to see anything beyond the sheer vastness surrounding them, but … she could see the timelines, see the worlds changing, see the cancer threatening the entire multiverse. Red eyes burned through the darkness, a howling laughter battering against her mind … she forced herself to look away, blinking tears from her eyes as she glanced down. The hammering receded slightly … he wasn’t trying to attack her, he realised numbly, but it hardly mattered. A man who stood on an ant might not mean to kill the poor creature, yet it made no difference to the ant. Master Wolfe could swat her effortlessly, kill her without ever knowing what he’d done.\n\nAn ant can be lethal, if it bites someone in precisely the right spot, she told herself. And right now, that’s what we’re going to have to do.\n\n“He’s remaking everything,” Emily said. “I think …”\n\nShe gritted her teeth. She wanted Caleb. She needed Caleb. But Caleb was gone, lost in the dead world … so was her other self, if her bilocated form had survived the holocaust. She’d had no time to strengthen the mental link between them, no time to do anything but improvise desperately. She mourned the loss of her lover, even as she tried to tell herself he might still be alive. It was … she shuddered, helplessly. She didn’t have time to worry about him now. She hated herself for even thinking it. And yet it was true.\n\n### NOTES\nBubble still held by Emily’s living will inside the nexus torrent.\nConjured food can be shaped from drawn power; taste is wrong.\nNo safe bilocation or handoff of bubble control to Frieda.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nFrieda squeezes her hand and urges her to break the god-problem into chunks. Emily finds hope that Master Wolfe cannot see them inside his own mimic-form spellware, stands into the thrumming magic, and risks adapting the nexus taming spells on a living structure. She conjures barely edible food; they eat; she studies how his mind defines reality like a child with living building blocks and finds his spell-structure too vast for a simple virus. The bubble flickers and she realizes her force-grown will is the only lock—leaving would evaporate it; she cannot bilocate again or hand control to Frieda. She tells Frieda she may have trapped them; Frieda says better than death. Emily privately weighs portaling Frieda out by interdimensional signature while remaining trapped forever.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Problem-solving under pressure; conjuring and analysis stay tactile. Break off on the private portal calculus.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Frieda squeezed her hand. “You always said to break down a problem into manageable chunks and go on from there,” she said, lightly. “You could do that here too.”\n\nEmily smiled, humourlessly. How did one break down a god? Master Wolfe had become omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He was … except he wasn’t. He would have eradicated them both if he’d been able to see them, which suggested – very strongly – he couldn’t. The thought gave her a flicker of hope. She might not be able to best a true god, but if he was a creature of magic … hell, that was exactly what the mimic-form was. A structure of spellware, millions upon millions of spell components working together … he might have expanded his mind, yet he was still a creature of magic. And she was inside of him. Her lips quirked at the thought. He could no more see them than she could see the bacteria in her stomach.\n\n“You might be right,” she said. The magic thrummed around her as she forced herself to stand. “If we can …”\n\nShe reached out gingerly with her mind, recoiling slightly as raw power splashed against her shields. She’d heard a joke once about a mechanic who’d complained that he did the exact same job as a surgeon yet was paid much, much, less. The surgeon had pointed out that the mechanic got to turn off the engine before he went to work, while the surgeon had to operate on a living body. She had the same problem, in spades. She had to adapt the spellware she’d created to tame the nexus point, without cancelling or weakening the structure to the point it collapsed. There was so much power around them that the slightest mistake could get them both killed … she gritted her teeth as she drew a little power into the bubble, then shaped it into something they could eat. The effort drained her. Void had taught her how to conjure items from raw magic, but even he had never done it lightly. It wasn’t worth the effort, he’d pointed out. But there was no other source of food.\n\nEmily sat down, hard. The bubble pulsed underneath her. “Eat,” she said. The food looked about as appetising as a plate of wilted veggies and, and they’d have to eat with their hands, but it was better than nothing. “And then we’ll find a way to fight back.”\n\nFrieda ate her share, without complaint. She’d eaten worse. Emily frowned, inwardly, as she forced herself to eat as much as she could. The taste was funny, wrong in a manner she couldn’t quite put into words … she told herself to be grateful she could feed them, at least for a few days. If they starved to death in the bubble … she put the thought aside and finished the bowl, then leaned back and reached out with her mind once again. Master Wolfe might be immensely powerful, she told herself firmly, but he wasn’t a real god. He wasn’t beyond her. He could be beaten.\n\nSure, a little voice whispered at the back of her mind. Keep telling yourself that.\n\nShe dismissed it with an effort as she started to study the way he absorbed and manipulated power, noting how his mind defined reality in a manner that reminded her of a child playing with building blocks. A Lego city, one that was both composed of plastic toys and living people … a world that was both independent and yet utterly dependent on the defining mind. It was just too big to be easily grasped, so she tried to take Frieda’s advice and break the problem down into manageable sections. It was still hard to find a way to bring him down. She’d once heard that whales didn’t die of cancer because they were just too large … she had no idea if that was true, as she’d never looked into it, but it was certainly true of Master Wolfe. She could take a piece of spellware apart with a virus, if she wished, yet … his spell-structure was just too large to be easily turned against him. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she tried …\n\nThe bubble flickered. She closed her eyes, cursing under her breath as she realised her mistake. The bubble had been force-grown by her will, the spells forced into their final shape by her desperation … and now she was trapped, the bubble held in place only by her living will. The moment she tried to leave, the bubble would evaporate around her … there was no way out. She couldn’t bilocate herself a second time, nor could she hand control to Frieda … not that she would even if it were possible. She’d imprisoned herself.\n\n“Emily?” Frieda was beside her. “What’s wrong?”\n\n“I think I made a mistake,” Emily said. She’d never faced anything like it, not even during the final battle against Void. There had never been a sense she couldn’t run … she felt like Atlas, trapped under the weight of the world. Shrugging wasn’t an option. It would get them both killed. “I may have trapped us both here.”\n\n“Better that than death,” Frieda pointed out.\n\nI might be able to get you out, Emily told herself. Opening a portal wouldn’t be difficult … except aiming it at the right universe would be tricky. Or would it? Frieda was a creature of her universe and it wouldn’t be hard to use her interdimensional signature to point her in the right direction. Void had done something like it, years ago. But I’ll remain trapped here forever.\n", "completion": "Frieda squeezed her hand. “You always said to break down a problem into manageable chunks and go on from there,” she said, lightly. “You could do that here too.”\n\nEmily smiled, humourlessly. How did one break down a god? Master Wolfe had become omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He was … except he wasn’t. He would have eradicated them both if he’d been able to see them, which suggested – very strongly – he couldn’t. The thought gave her a flicker of hope. She might not be able to best a true god, but if he was a creature of magic … hell, that was exactly what the mimic-form was. A structure of spellware, millions upon millions of spell components working together … he might have expanded his mind, yet he was still a creature of magic. And she was inside of him. Her lips quirked at the thought. He could no more see them than she could see the bacteria in her stomach.\n\n“You might be right,” she said. The magic thrummed around her as she forced herself to stand. “If we can …”\n\nShe reached out gingerly with her mind, recoiling slightly as raw power splashed against her shields. She’d heard a joke once about a mechanic who’d complained that he did the exact same job as a surgeon yet was paid much, much, less. The surgeon had pointed out that the mechanic got to turn off the engine before he went to work, while the surgeon had to operate on a living body. She had the same problem, in spades. She had to adapt the spellware she’d created to tame the nexus point, without cancelling or weakening the structure to the point it collapsed. There was so much power around them that the slightest mistake could get them both killed … she gritted her teeth as she drew a little power into the bubble, then shaped it into something they could eat. The effort drained her. Void had taught her how to conjure items from raw magic, but even he had never done it lightly. It wasn’t worth the effort, he’d pointed out. But there was no other source of food.\n\nEmily sat down, hard. The bubble pulsed underneath her. “Eat,” she said. The food looked about as appetising as a plate of wilted veggies and, and they’d have to eat with their hands, but it was better than nothing. “And then we’ll find a way to fight back.”\n\nFrieda ate her share, without complaint. She’d eaten worse. Emily frowned, inwardly, as she forced herself to eat as much as she could. The taste was funny, wrong in a manner she couldn’t quite put into words … she told herself to be grateful she could feed them, at least for a few days. If they starved to death in the bubble … she put the thought aside and finished the bowl, then leaned back and reached out with her mind once again. Master Wolfe might be immensely powerful, she told herself firmly, but he wasn’t a real god. He wasn’t beyond her. He could be beaten.\n\nSure, a little voice whispered at the back of her mind. Keep telling yourself that.\n\nShe dismissed it with an effort as she started to study the way he absorbed and manipulated power, noting how his mind defined reality in a manner that reminded her of a child playing with building blocks. A Lego city, one that was both composed of plastic toys and living people … a world that was both independent and yet utterly dependent on the defining mind. It was just too big to be easily grasped, so she tried to take Frieda’s advice and break the problem down into manageable sections. It was still hard to find a way to bring him down. She’d once heard that whales didn’t die of cancer because they were just too large … she had no idea if that was true, as she’d never looked into it, but it was certainly true of Master Wolfe. She could take a piece of spellware apart with a virus, if she wished, yet … his spell-structure was just too large to be easily turned against him. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she tried …\n\nThe bubble flickered. She closed her eyes, cursing under her breath as she realised her mistake. The bubble had been force-grown by her will, the spells forced into their final shape by her desperation … and now she was trapped, the bubble held in place only by her living will. The moment she tried to leave, the bubble would evaporate around her … there was no way out. She couldn’t bilocate herself a second time, nor could she hand control to Frieda … not that she would even if it were possible. She’d imprisoned herself.\n\n“Emily?” Frieda was beside her. “What’s wrong?”\n\n“I think I made a mistake,” Emily said. She’d never faced anything like it, not even during the final battle against Void. There had never been a sense she couldn’t run … she felt like Atlas, trapped under the weight of the world. Shrugging wasn’t an option. It would get them both killed. “I may have trapped us both here.”\n\n“Better that than death,” Frieda pointed out.\n\nI might be able to get you out, Emily told herself. Opening a portal wouldn’t be difficult … except aiming it at the right universe would be tricky. Or would it? Frieda was a creature of her universe and it wouldn’t be hard to use her interdimensional signature to point her in the right direction. Void had done something like it, years ago. But I’ll remain trapped here forever.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 962, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch02-P3", "chapter": "ch02", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\nCat — capitalized; do not expand.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nbilocation — lowercase.\nEarth — capitalized when naming the home world.\n\n### STORY\nEmily holds the nexus-point bubble against Master Wolfe’s remaking of the multiverse; his shadow sweeps past and retreats; Frieda asks what he is doing; Emily names the remaking and mourns Caleb and her lost bilocated self without time to linger.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill trapped by her own bubble-will after weighing sending Frieda out alone. Despairing, then suddenly hunting contact with her bilocated other self as a way into Master Wolfe’s spell-structure. Does not yet know the other self’s Earth-hell is a pocket distortion that has erased seven years.\n\nFrieda\nPresent; about to be told to sleep; still faithful.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nOutside; had tried to recruit Emily; may hold her other self in his multiplicity.\n\nCaleb\nReferenced among those counting on her; fate unknown.\n\nCat\nReferenced among loved ones counting on her; fate unknown.\n\nAlassa\nReferenced among loved ones counting on her; fate unknown.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe dismissed it with an effort as she started to study the way he absorbed and manipulated power, noting how his mind defined reality in a manner that reminded her of a child playing with building blocks. A Lego city, one that was both composed of plastic toys and living people … a world that was both independent and yet utterly dependent on the defining mind. It was just too big to be easily grasped, so she tried to take Frieda’s advice and break the problem down into manageable sections. It was still hard to find a way to bring him down. She’d once heard that whales didn’t die of cancer because they were just too large … she had no idea if that was true, as she’d never looked into it, but it was certainly true of Master Wolfe. She could take a piece of spellware apart with a virus, if she wished, yet … his spell-structure was just too large to be easily turned against him. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she tried …\n\nThe bubble flickered. She closed her eyes, cursing under her breath as she realised her mistake. The bubble had been force-grown by her will, the spells forced into their final shape by her desperation … and now she was trapped, the bubble held in place only by her living will. The moment she tried to leave, the bubble would evaporate around her … there was no way out. She couldn’t bilocate herself a second time, nor could she hand control to Frieda … not that she would even if it were possible. She’d imprisoned herself.\n\n“Emily?” Frieda was beside her. “What’s wrong?”\n\n“I think I made a mistake,” Emily said. She’d never faced anything like it, not even during the final battle against Void. There had never been a sense she couldn’t run … she felt like Atlas, trapped under the weight of the world. Shrugging wasn’t an option. It would get them both killed. “I may have trapped us both here.”\n\n“Better that than death,” Frieda pointed out.\n\nI might be able to get you out, Emily told herself. Opening a portal wouldn’t be difficult … except aiming it at the right universe would be tricky. Or would it? Frieda was a creature of her universe and it wouldn’t be hard to use her interdimensional signature to point her in the right direction. Void had done something like it, years ago. But I’ll remain trapped here forever.\n\n### NOTES\nBubble remains intact only while Emily’s will holds.\nMental contact with a bilocated self is possible and dangerous.\nEmily has a cloak to toss Frieda for sleep; no alertness potions.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nDespair hits, then a thought: Master Wolfe once tried to recruit her, so her other self may still live as prisoner or multiplicity. She reaches for bilocated contact and is flooded with unfamiliar-yet-hers memories of Earth—not home—and sees the other self trapped in a funhouse-mirror pocket hell that has erased seven years of skills and life. Contact cannot free the other self, who believes the nightmare is reality. Emily steels herself for Frieda, Caleb, Cat, Alassa, and everyone counting on her; an idea forms. She tells Frieda to sleep, lies that she will rest soon, studies cracks and catacombs under the multiverse like a mouse in a mousehole, and as the shadow brushes past again she warns herself not to rush—she will only get one shot.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Quiet despair turning to cold resolve; keep the other-self contact uncanny. Land on the one-shot warning.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Despair threatened to wash over her. Their universe was gone or, worse, the plaything of a mad god. She was trapped, unable to escape … her eyes narrowed suddenly as a thought crossed her mind. Master Wolfe had tried to convince her to join him – in hindsight, she should have wondered why he kept raising odd topics of conversation – and it was possible, just possible, that her other self was still alive. A prisoner, or perhaps part of his multiplicity … if she could make contact, she could use it as a way into the spell-structure. If … she closed her eyes again, reaching out as gingerly as she could. Bilocation was always dangerous, the two bilocated forms trying to merge back together … they were, of course, the same person. If she linked minds with her other self …\n\nWe’re entangled together, she told herself. They should be able to make mental contact at any distance, even though it was something she’d been taught to avoid. It risked madness, she’d been cautioned, or worse. If we make mental contact, if she’s already outside the bubble … might it draw me to her, or her to me?\n\nShe blinked in surprise as a torrent of thoughts and feelings ran through her. Her other self was alive. Her other self was … memories battered against her mind, each one uniquely hers and yet strange and unfamiliar. It was … a frisson of pure horror shot through her as she saw her old world, her old home, the world she’d been yanked from years ago. She had never wanted to return, never wanted to give up her magic and friends and a life of significance; she’d carefully refrained from experimenting with the interdimensional spells Void had devised, for fear she’d find herself back home. No. It wasn’t home. It had never been home. And she didn’t miss anyone there, not even her mother. The woman had never seemed to love her.\n\nHer eyes narrowed as she studied the world surrounding her other self. It was disturbingly real and yet, there was something about it that reminded her of a funhouse mirror. Real enough, she was sure, but also distorted to the point of being very different. The world curved around her other self, a pocket dimension shaped by her mind … Emily sucked in her breath as she realised it was a very personal hell. It might be an exaggerated caricature of reality, but … to her other self it was reality. It was a nightmare devised for her and her alone.\n\nYou always believed hell was more than just fire and brimstone, she reminded herself. She had no idea where she’d picked that up, not when she’d never been particularly religious … perhaps it had been a sense that fire pits and enormous devils breaking wind night and day showed a certain lack of imagination. Why burn forever when you can be hit with something far more personal?\n\nShe tried to reach out and scowled, grimly, as she realised it was impossible. Her other self had accepted the reality around her, believing she had no way home … no. It was worse. Everything that had happened over the past seven years had been erased, leaving nothing behind. She had lost everything and she didn’t even know it! Emily knew she’d hate to go back to Earth – the real Earth – but the skills she’d picked up over the last few years would serve her well if she did. Her other self didn’t even have them …\n\nFuck, she thought, numbly. What do we do now?\n\nShe gritted her teeth. Frieda was counting on her. Caleb and Cat and Alassa and everyone else she’d known and loved were counting on her … if they were still alive. They had to be … she hoped that was true, even as she feared the worst. Master Wolfe was doing immense damage to the multiverse simply by existing, the waves upon waves of raw power battering the fabric of reality itself. She needed to fix the nightmare and had no idea where to begin. No. That wasn’t quite true. An idea was starting to form in her mind. It was going to be risky, but …\n\n“Get some sleep,” she told Frieda. “You’ll need to be rested for what is to come.”\n\n“I’ll try,” Frieda said. The faith in her words was touching. Emily felt her heart melt even as she hoped to hell it wasn’t misplaced. “Are you …?”\n\n“I’ll try and get some sleep shortly,” Emily lied. She’d have to make sure the bubble would remain intact, once she went to sleep. If not … she’d been tired before, time and time again, but this time there were no potions to help her remain alert. She would start making mistakes long before her body gave out, plunging her into a sleep from which she might never awaken. “I just need to work out how to … how to deal with this.”\n\nShe tossed Frieda her cloak, then leaned back as the younger girl lay down. Her mind reached out once again, studying the sheets of raw power battering the universe itself. She’d known there were cracks in the multiverse, places where someone could fall through a gap and find themselves in another universe, and yet … she’d never realised just how many threads there were, catacombs under the multiverse that could be used to step from universe to universe. She felt like a mouse, peeking through the mouse hole … she told herself, firmly, that mice could be dangerous too. If she had time to study how everything worked, if she found a way to build a weapon, she might be able to turn the tables. She might be able to save everything one final time.\n\nThe shadow brushed over her again, a reminder that time wasn’t on her side. If she didn’t act fast …\n\nDon’t rush it, she told herself, sharply. You’ll only get one shot at this.\n", "completion": "Despair threatened to wash over her. Their universe was gone or, worse, the plaything of a mad god. She was trapped, unable to escape … her eyes narrowed suddenly as a thought crossed her mind. Master Wolfe had tried to convince her to join him – in hindsight, she should have wondered why he kept raising odd topics of conversation – and it was possible, just possible, that her other self was still alive. A prisoner, or perhaps part of his multiplicity … if she could make contact, she could use it as a way into the spell-structure. If … she closed her eyes again, reaching out as gingerly as she could. Bilocation was always dangerous, the two bilocated forms trying to merge back together … they were, of course, the same person. If she linked minds with her other self …\n\nWe’re entangled together, she told herself. They should be able to make mental contact at any distance, even though it was something she’d been taught to avoid. It risked madness, she’d been cautioned, or worse. If we make mental contact, if she’s already outside the bubble … might it draw me to her, or her to me?\n\nShe blinked in surprise as a torrent of thoughts and feelings ran through her. Her other self was alive. Her other self was … memories battered against her mind, each one uniquely hers and yet strange and unfamiliar. It was … a frisson of pure horror shot through her as she saw her old world, her old home, the world she’d been yanked from years ago. She had never wanted to return, never wanted to give up her magic and friends and a life of significance; she’d carefully refrained from experimenting with the interdimensional spells Void had devised, for fear she’d find herself back home. No. It wasn’t home. It had never been home. And she didn’t miss anyone there, not even her mother. The woman had never seemed to love her.\n\nHer eyes narrowed as she studied the world surrounding her other self. It was disturbingly real and yet, there was something about it that reminded her of a funhouse mirror. Real enough, she was sure, but also distorted to the point of being very different. The world curved around her other self, a pocket dimension shaped by her mind … Emily sucked in her breath as she realised it was a very personal hell. It might be an exaggerated caricature of reality, but … to her other self it was reality. It was a nightmare devised for her and her alone.\n\nYou always believed hell was more than just fire and brimstone, she reminded herself. She had no idea where she’d picked that up, not when she’d never been particularly religious … perhaps it had been a sense that fire pits and enormous devils breaking wind night and day showed a certain lack of imagination. Why burn forever when you can be hit with something far more personal?\n\nShe tried to reach out and scowled, grimly, as she realised it was impossible. Her other self had accepted the reality around her, believing she had no way home … no. It was worse. Everything that had happened over the past seven years had been erased, leaving nothing behind. She had lost everything and she didn’t even know it! Emily knew she’d hate to go back to Earth – the real Earth – but the skills she’d picked up over the last few years would serve her well if she did. Her other self didn’t even have them …\n\nFuck, she thought, numbly. What do we do now?\n\nShe gritted her teeth. Frieda was counting on her. Caleb and Cat and Alassa and everyone else she’d known and loved were counting on her … if they were still alive. They had to be … she hoped that was true, even as she feared the worst. Master Wolfe was doing immense damage to the multiverse simply by existing, the waves upon waves of raw power battering the fabric of reality itself. She needed to fix the nightmare and had no idea where to begin. No. That wasn’t quite true. An idea was starting to form in her mind. It was going to be risky, but …\n\n“Get some sleep,” she told Frieda. “You’ll need to be rested for what is to come.”\n\n“I’ll try,” Frieda said. The faith in her words was touching. Emily felt her heart melt even as she hoped to hell it wasn’t misplaced. “Are you …?”\n\n“I’ll try and get some sleep shortly,” Emily lied. She’d have to make sure the bubble would remain intact, once she went to sleep. If not … she’d been tired before, time and time again, but this time there were no potions to help her remain alert. She would start making mistakes long before her body gave out, plunging her into a sleep from which she might never awaken. “I just need to work out how to … how to deal with this.”\n\nShe tossed Frieda her cloak, then leaned back as the younger girl lay down. Her mind reached out once again, studying the sheets of raw power battering the universe itself. She’d known there were cracks in the multiverse, places where someone could fall through a gap and find themselves in another universe, and yet … she’d never realised just how many threads there were, catacombs under the multiverse that could be used to step from universe to universe. She felt like a mouse, peeking through the mouse hole … she told herself, firmly, that mice could be dangerous too. If she had time to study how everything worked, if she found a way to build a weapon, she might be able to turn the tables. She might be able to save everything one final time.\n\nThe shadow brushed over her again, a reminder that time wasn’t on her side. If she didn’t act fast …\n\nDon’t rush it, she told herself, sharply. You’ll only get one shot at this.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1014, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch03-P1", "chapter": "ch03", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nDestiny Sanderson — both names; Emily’s mother; Destiny alone also appears.\nPatty — capitalized; neighborhood teen Emily fears becoming like.\nSam — capitalized; neighborhood teen with a child’s mental age.\n\n### STORY\nAt closing time Emily rides out a wave of unreality in the library; the librarian’s face flickers cold then kind; a wand-bearing woman replaces her mirror reflection and vanishes; school fantasy drives her to her knees; she stands, refusing pretence.\n\nOutside she trudges cold drab streets past boarded shops and prostitutes; a pigtailed stranger appears in a window then becomes unfamiliar; Chad’s laugh drives her into an alley; puddle and mind-voice name Sergeant Harkin, Jade, and Cat; she denies the bleed-memories and lands on knowing worse men exist.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nTeenage girl on Earth just home from a walk that ended with the street looking like hell. Thin, hungry, used to cleaning up after her drunk mother; braces for the apartment’s stench and for her stepfather’s return. Still shaken by mirror and window visions she cannot explain; certain she is going mad when an apparition of a better self appears in the kitchen.\n\nDestiny Sanderson\nEmily’s mother. Present on the couch with a bottle and empties; dead-eyed, neither glad nor upset to see Emily; demands coffee after vomiting. Blames Emily for ruining her body; will not hear or care.\n\nStepfather\nEmily’s stepfather. Referenced; promised to replace a dead bulb and did not; not yet home.\n\nPatty\nReferenced only; neighborhood girl damaged by her upbringing; Emily’s fear-image of a closed future.\n\nSam\nReferenced only; near Emily’s age with the mental age of a five-year-old; another fear-image.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe shook her head and turned away. There were no miracles in life. No one was going to sweep her off her feet and give her the keys to a kingdom, or even a very large library. There was no prospect of anything from further education to gainful employment, with little hope of survival, perhaps, beyond the next few years. She was a poor girl from a poor family, lacking the education to make use of her mind or the beauty that would induce people to overlook her limited education and character flaws. There was no such thing as magic. No matter how many books she read, no matter how many worlds of super-technology or wondrous fantasy she explored through the written word, she always had to return to reality.\n\nThere was no such thing as magic.\n\nEmily turned into her street and made her way down to the apartment block. The buildings were dark and cold, the windows largely boarded up after vandals had smashed the glass. Emily was almost relieved, knowing she wouldn’t be able to see the alien reflections any longer. The sky was darkening rapidly, casting an eerie shadow over the drab grey street. All colour seemed to be  leaching from the world, leaving nothing but a dull nightmare.\n\nIt was her reality. It would always be.\n\nShe paused in front of the door, bracing herself. Her home should be her safe space, a place where she could relax and be herself … where a loving mother and father took care of her, preparing her for adulthood. Instead … she wondered, numbly, what was waiting for her. A drunk mother? An angry, leering stepfather? Or … or what? She didn’t want to know.\n\nOne day, a voice whispered at the back of her mind, you’ll come home and she’ll be gone.\n\nShe took a long breath, letting her eyes wander the street as she dug her keys out of her pocket. It was a nightmare, all the darker for being so mundane. It wasn’t a war zone, nor was it a place where death could come at any moment, yet … it was a trap. She would never escape. She would live and die in the drab grey world, her life and death going unnoticed by the people around her, never making anything of herself …\n\nIt looked very much like hell.\n\n### NOTES\nApartment living room: couch, overflowing ashtray, stained armchair, ruined carpet, dead light bulb.\nTiny kitchen with open stale bread, open jam jar with ants, kettle for instant coffee.\nBathroom toilet where Destiny is sick.\nEvening/homecoming after Emily’s walk.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThe smell hits as she opens the door—Destiny drunk among empties and shattered glass, neither happy nor upset to see her. Emily takes in the pigsty room, the dead bulb her stepfather never fixed, and a kitchen of wasted bread and ant-fouled jam. Destiny retches; Emily hauls her to the toilet, then puts the kettle on for demanded coffee. An apparition of an Emily who could never be stares from the kitchen; she screams it away, buckles against the counter, and lands on terror of ending up like Patty or Sam.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Domestic squalor in close third; keep the apparition brief and uncanny. Land on the fear of a damaged future.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The smell hit her as soon as she opened the door.\n\nEmily stopped, grimacing as the stench wafted against her nostrils. Her mother had been drinking again, drinking herself silly. God alone knew how long she’d been pouring alcohol down her throat … Emily gritted her teeth as she closed the door behind her, then forced herself to step into the living room. Her mother was on the couch, a bottle of booze in her hand and several empties lying on the floor beneath her feet. One was clearly broken … Emily cursed under her breath as she saw the shattered glass, all too aware of just who would have to clear up the mess. It wasn’t as if the broken bottle could be returned either. The glass would have to be tossed and …\n\n“Oh,” her mother said. Her tone lacked all feeling. She was neither happy nor upset to see her daughter. “It’s you.”\n\nEmily felt her fists clench helplessly. Her mother had done as little as possible to take care of her from the very first day, or at least the first she remembered. She’d had to learn to cook the basics just to ensure that she was fed, and she was painfully aware she was dangerously thin. A diet of cheap processed food wasn’t good for anyone. It was a minor miracle her mother had managed to clothe her back then, although now she had to purchase her own clothes from cheap shops and pray to a God who had abandoned her long ago that she found something she could actually wear. If she had money of her own …\n\nShe didn’t know her father. She feared she never would. And yet … how could he be worse than this?\n\nHer mother put the bottle to her lips and took a long swig. “Go away.”\n\nEmily scowled, unwilling to look and yet unable to look away. Destiny Sanderson was almost a caricature of herself, her face fleshed out and her belly bulging in all the wrong places, a ghastly sight made worse by an outfit that was clearly meant for a woman half her age. Her brown hair was matted, her eyes dead and cold even as she stared at her daughter. She’d said, more than once, that giving birth to Emily had ruined her body. Emily had seen mothers who had worked to get back in shape after giving birth and she’d made the mistake of pointing it out, the first time. Her mother hadn’t struck her, not then and not ever, but what she’d said had been so ghastly Emily would almost sooner have been hit. Her mother knew just how to hurt her daughter.\n\nShe shook her head, allowing her gaze to wander the room. The ashtray was overflowing with the remains of a dozen cigarettes, something else she’d have to clean up. She’d emptied it only yesterday … she gritted her teeth in disgust, wondering – again – why her mother chose to live in such a pigsty. The sofa stank, the armchair was covered with stains, the carpet was beyond all hope of recovery … she glanced up and noticed the dead light bulb, that had failed weeks ago, had still not been replaced. Her stepfather had promised to do it and he hadn’t … she rolled her eyes, somehow unsurprised. Just why he stayed around baffled her. She certainly wouldn’t want to remain close to Destiny, if there was a choice.\n\nHer heart twisted as she hurried into the tiny kitchen. Someone had taken the loaf of bread from the fridge and left it on the sideboard, the plastic left open … she groaned, inwardly, at the realisation the bread was likely stale. The jam had been left open too, the dirty knife plunged into the jar and left there … she shuddered as she saw the ants, crawling over the knife and making their way into the jam. That would have to be tossed too, she told herself, as a wave of hopelessness washed over her. A jar that should have lasted for weeks, a jar that had been opened only a day or two ago … wasted. A wave of anger shot through her – her mother could have shut the fucking lid – only to fade before she could scream, let alone find a healthier way to express it. There was no point in arguing. Her mother was too drunk to care.\n\nShe heard retching from behind and cursed under her breath, hurrying back into the living room. Her mother was on her feet, staggering in a manner Emily knew meant she was about to be violently sick … Emily caught her hand and pulled her forward, half-dragging her into the toilet and pushing her towards the bowl. Her mother shuddered, practically falling to her knees an instant before she threw up. Emily looked away, trying not to hear as her mother retched again and again. The stench was horrific, the sink of half-digested alcohol and human waste blurring together into a ghastly whole. She knew she’d be cleaning that up too.\n\n“Coffee,” her mother managed. “Now.”\n\nEmily sighed. Coffee? It was too late for coffee. There was no point in arguing. She hurried back into the kitchen to put the kettle on, hoping her mother would have the sense to stay in the bathroom until she’d emptied her stomach. There’d been times when she’d thrown up on the carpet instead … Emily didn’t want to think about it. She put instant coffee in the mug and looked up. The apparition was right in front of her again, staring at her. A vision of an Emily who could never be …\n\n“GO AWAY!” The scream tore itself from her throat. “GO AWAY!”\n\nShe caught herself a second later, her legs buckling so violently that she had to catch the counter to steady herself. She was going crazy. She had to be. She knew kids who’d been raised by druggies, kids who’d been harmed by the poisonous environment … kids who were slow, or had problems controlling themselves, or anger management issues. Perhaps she was going the same way. How much second-hand smoke had she breathed in, over the years? She didn’t want to know. The thought of ending up like Patty or Sam, sweet teenagers who would never be able to live independently, was terrifying. Sam was her age, or near enough, and yet he had the mental age of a five-year-old. He would never be anything more.\n", "completion": "The smell hit her as soon as she opened the door.\n\nEmily stopped, grimacing as the stench wafted against her nostrils. Her mother had been drinking again, drinking herself silly. God alone knew how long she’d been pouring alcohol down her throat … Emily gritted her teeth as she closed the door behind her, then forced herself to step into the living room. Her mother was on the couch, a bottle of booze in her hand and several empties lying on the floor beneath her feet. One was clearly broken … Emily cursed under her breath as she saw the shattered glass, all too aware of just who would have to clear up the mess. It wasn’t as if the broken bottle could be returned either. The glass would have to be tossed and …\n\n“Oh,” her mother said. Her tone lacked all feeling. She was neither happy nor upset to see her daughter. “It’s you.”\n\nEmily felt her fists clench helplessly. Her mother had done as little as possible to take care of her from the very first day, or at least the first she remembered. She’d had to learn to cook the basics just to ensure that she was fed, and she was painfully aware she was dangerously thin. A diet of cheap processed food wasn’t good for anyone. It was a minor miracle her mother had managed to clothe her back then, although now she had to purchase her own clothes from cheap shops and pray to a God who had abandoned her long ago that she found something she could actually wear. If she had money of her own …\n\nShe didn’t know her father. She feared she never would. And yet … how could he be worse than this?\n\nHer mother put the bottle to her lips and took a long swig. “Go away.”\n\nEmily scowled, unwilling to look and yet unable to look away. Destiny Sanderson was almost a caricature of herself, her face fleshed out and her belly bulging in all the wrong places, a ghastly sight made worse by an outfit that was clearly meant for a woman half her age. Her brown hair was matted, her eyes dead and cold even as she stared at her daughter. She’d said, more than once, that giving birth to Emily had ruined her body. Emily had seen mothers who had worked to get back in shape after giving birth and she’d made the mistake of pointing it out, the first time. Her mother hadn’t struck her, not then and not ever, but what she’d said had been so ghastly Emily would almost sooner have been hit. Her mother knew just how to hurt her daughter.\n\nShe shook her head, allowing her gaze to wander the room. The ashtray was overflowing with the remains of a dozen cigarettes, something else she’d have to clean up. She’d emptied it only yesterday … she gritted her teeth in disgust, wondering – again – why her mother chose to live in such a pigsty. The sofa stank, the armchair was covered with stains, the carpet was beyond all hope of recovery … she glanced up and noticed the dead light bulb, that had failed weeks ago, had still not been replaced. Her stepfather had promised to do it and he hadn’t … she rolled her eyes, somehow unsurprised. Just why he stayed around baffled her. She certainly wouldn’t want to remain close to Destiny, if there was a choice.\n\nHer heart twisted as she hurried into the tiny kitchen. Someone had taken the loaf of bread from the fridge and left it on the sideboard, the plastic left open … she groaned, inwardly, at the realisation the bread was likely stale. The jam had been left open too, the dirty knife plunged into the jar and left there … she shuddered as she saw the ants, crawling over the knife and making their way into the jam. That would have to be tossed too, she told herself, as a wave of hopelessness washed over her. A jar that should have lasted for weeks, a jar that had been opened only a day or two ago … wasted. A wave of anger shot through her – her mother could have shut the fucking lid – only to fade before she could scream, let alone find a healthier way to express it. There was no point in arguing. Her mother was too drunk to care.\n\nShe heard retching from behind and cursed under her breath, hurrying back into the living room. Her mother was on her feet, staggering in a manner Emily knew meant she was about to be violently sick … Emily caught her hand and pulled her forward, half-dragging her into the toilet and pushing her towards the bowl. Her mother shuddered, practically falling to her knees an instant before she threw up. Emily looked away, trying not to hear as her mother retched again and again. The stench was horrific, the sink of half-digested alcohol and human waste blurring together into a ghastly whole. She knew she’d be cleaning that up too.\n\n“Coffee,” her mother managed. “Now.”\n\nEmily sighed. Coffee? It was too late for coffee. There was no point in arguing. She hurried back into the kitchen to put the kettle on, hoping her mother would have the sense to stay in the bathroom until she’d emptied her stomach. There’d been times when she’d thrown up on the carpet instead … Emily didn’t want to think about it. She put instant coffee in the mug and looked up. The apparition was right in front of her again, staring at her. A vision of an Emily who could never be …\n\n“GO AWAY!” The scream tore itself from her throat. “GO AWAY!”\n\nShe caught herself a second later, her legs buckling so violently that she had to catch the counter to steady herself. She was going crazy. She had to be. She knew kids who’d been raised by druggies, kids who’d been harmed by the poisonous environment … kids who were slow, or had problems controlling themselves, or anger management issues. Perhaps she was going the same way. How much second-hand smoke had she breathed in, over the years? She didn’t want to know. The thought of ending up like Patty or Sam, sweet teenagers who would never be able to live independently, was terrifying. Sam was her age, or near enough, and yet he had the mental age of a five-year-old. He would never be anything more.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1099, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch03-P2", "chapter": "ch03", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nDestiny — capitalized; Emily’s mother.\nHarry Potter — both words; movie/book realism foil in Emily’s thought.\n\n### STORY\nEmily comes home to drunk Destiny, broken glass, stale bread and ants in the jam; she hauls her mother to the toilet to vomit; making coffee she sees an impossible self-apparition and screams it away, buckling as she fears ending up like damaged neighborhood kids.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust screamed an apparition away and steadied on the kitchen counter. Still making coffee for Destiny; body feels wrong and feverish; voices in her head urge her to give up; about to face her stepfather alone in the kitchen.\n\nDestiny\nBack on the sofa with the remote after coffee; deaf to Emily’s scream; not a protector.\n\nStepfather\nArrives home unseen; short, weaselly, aftershave-stinking; leers and closes on Emily in the kitchen. Not yet shoved off.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer heart twisted as she hurried into the tiny kitchen. Someone had taken the loaf of bread from the fridge and left it on the sideboard, the plastic left open … she groaned, inwardly, at the realisation the bread was likely stale. The jam had been left open too, the dirty knife plunged into the jar and left there … she shuddered as she saw the ants, crawling over the knife and making their way into the jam. That would have to be tossed too, she told herself, as a wave of hopelessness washed over her. A jar that should have lasted for weeks, a jar that had been opened only a day or two ago … wasted. A wave of anger shot through her – her mother could have shut the fucking lid – only to fade before she could scream, let alone find a healthier way to express it. There was no point in arguing. Her mother was too drunk to care.\n\nShe heard retching from behind and cursed under her breath, hurrying back into the living room. Her mother was on her feet, staggering in a manner Emily knew meant she was about to be violently sick … Emily caught her hand and pulled her forward, half-dragging her into the toilet and pushing her towards the bowl. Her mother shuddered, practically falling to her knees an instant before she threw up. Emily looked away, trying not to hear as her mother retched again and again. The stench was horrific, the sink of half-digested alcohol and human waste blurring together into a ghastly whole. She knew she’d be cleaning that up too.\n\n“Coffee,” her mother managed. “Now.”\n\nEmily sighed. Coffee? It was too late for coffee. There was no point in arguing. She hurried back into the kitchen to put the kettle on, hoping her mother would have the sense to stay in the bathroom until she’d emptied her stomach. There’d been times when she’d thrown up on the carpet instead … Emily didn’t want to think about it. She put instant coffee in the mug and looked up. The apparition was right in front of her again, staring at her. A vision of an Emily who could never be …\n\n“GO AWAY!” The scream tore itself from her throat. “GO AWAY!”\n\nShe caught herself a second later, her legs buckling so violently that she had to catch the counter to steady herself. She was going crazy. She had to be. She knew kids who’d been raised by druggies, kids who’d been harmed by the poisonous environment … kids who were slow, or had problems controlling themselves, or anger management issues. Perhaps she was going the same way. How much second-hand smoke had she breathed in, over the years? She didn’t want to know. The thought of ending up like Patty or Sam, sweet teenagers who would never be able to live independently, was terrifying. Sam was her age, or near enough, and yet he had the mental age of a five-year-old. He would never be anything more.\n\n### NOTES\nApartment kitchen and Emily’s disordered bedroom (mother has been through her clothes).\nSofa and television with a romantic movie on.\nNo knife or weapon within Emily’s reach when he corners her.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe refuses to end up damaged, stands, finishes Destiny’s coffee, and finds her bedroom ransacked for clothes she cannot share. Her body feels out of kilter; a voice urges her to let go; she staggers back toward a shower before her stepfather returns and insists she cannot surrender. He appears in the kitchen doorway without warning, eyes on her body, aftershave thick; hatred and helplessness flood her as he backs her to the counter, wraps her up, and mashes a kiss onto her mouth.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Claustrophobic domestic threat; keep the intrusion sudden. Break off on the repulsive kiss.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "I won’t end up like that, she told herself. I won’t!\n\nShe forced herself to stand. The vision was gone. She poured hot water into the coffee, added milk and sugar, then carried it back to her mother. Destiny was sitting on the sofa again, the TV remote clutched firmly in one hand; her eyes were fixed on the television as if she dared not miss a single moment. Emily gave her the coffee – her mother hadn’t heard her scream; of course not – and glanced at the telly. A romantic movie, a predictable plot that was about as realistic as Harry Potter … she had never seen the movie, but she could guess the plot points. A lonely woman finding a handsome man who would always be true to her. It didn’t happen in the real world.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she hurried into the bedroom. Everything looked disturbed … her mother had been looking for clothes again, even though few of Emily’s garments could fit her without tearing. They were just too different … she groaned inwardly as she saw her underclothes scattered across the bed, as if her mother couldn’t be bothered to put them back after trying to find one that could fit her. She wished for a lock for her door, just to ensure a little privacy, but her stepfather had forbidden it. Fire safety, he’d said. Emily suspected his motives were a little different. She’d known too many young men who were outraged by the idea of a barrier being erected between them and young women, even if they had no intention of doing anything. Assholes. Would it really hurt them to let people have a little safety and security?\n\nProbably, she thought, as she sat on her bed. They hate the idea of being barred even if they had no intention of crossing the line.\n\nShe stared down at herself, her body feeling … weird. She didn’t like her body very much and yet … it felt wrong, as if everything was slightly out of kilter. It wasn’t like puberty, when she’d discovered to her horror that her body was going to bleed every month and if it didn’t it was a sign something was very wrong, but something else. She felt dizzy again, almost feverish. It made no sense. Perhaps she was coming down with something nasty. She hoped not. Her mother’s idea of medical care consisted of throwing painkillers at her daughter and telling her to sleep it off.\n\nYou could just lie back and close your eyes, a voice whispered at the back of her head. Just let it all go.\n\nEmily shook her head, staggering to her feet. Why was she so weak? She was too weak to live and too frightened to die … she had nothing to live for, nothing at all. She could just walk out of the apartment and never return, leaving her mother to choke to death on her own vomit … no one would care. Her body felt grimy as she stumbled back to the kitchen, a reminder she needed to shower before her stepfather got home. The way he looked at her … her skin crawled. She didn’t want to think about it.\n\nThere’s nowhere to go, the voice whispered. You’re trapped. Forever.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment. There was no way out. Nothing to live for … nothing at all. And yet, she couldn’t let it all end. She couldn’t!\n\n“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck it!”\n\n“Charming,” a new voice said. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”\n\nEmily jumped, spinning around so rapidly she nearly fell over. Her stepfather was leaning against the kitchen door, his eyes rising from her rear to her face … she felt a hot flash of panic as she realised she hadn’t heard him coming home, let alone entering the chamber. She was trapped, with no way out … she stared at him, suddenly all too aware he was bigger and stronger than she was. He was hardly the biggest man she’d seen – he was short and weaselly, with a face that made him look untrustworthy – but he was still strong enough to hurt her. His eyes lingered on her breasts, or what little could be seen, before looking up at her.\n\nA wave of hatred and helplessness washed through her, a bitter surge of resentment and loathing. He had never tried to be a father to her, never treated her as anything more than an unwanted appendage. She’d caught him leering at her time and time again, as she grew into a young adult, and … her mother hadn’t cared. God alone knew why. It was a mother’s duty to look after her child … not that her mother cared. She’d crawled into a bottle long ago and stayed there.\n\n“You’re looking good,” he said, stepping closer. She could smell his aftershave. She knew teenage boys who drenched themselves with aftershave, on the theory that it drew girls to them like moths to flame, but none of those smells had ever repelled her as much as her stepfather’s more subtle brand. It was a stench she associated with him and him alone. “You’re a pretty young thing, aren’t you?”\n\nEmily flinched. Her hand wanted to reach for a knife, to cut him open … there was nothing within reach. No weapon, no way out … he was inching closer, backing her against the counter. She wanted to scream for her mother, but she’d probably already passed out. Her stepfather was right on top of her, invading her personal space … her entire body felt heavy and wrong, unable to move as he wrapped his arms around her and mashed his lips against hers. It was repulsive and …\n", "completion": "I won’t end up like that, she told herself. I won’t!\n\nShe forced herself to stand. The vision was gone. She poured hot water into the coffee, added milk and sugar, then carried it back to her mother. Destiny was sitting on the sofa again, the TV remote clutched firmly in one hand; her eyes were fixed on the television as if she dared not miss a single moment. Emily gave her the coffee – her mother hadn’t heard her scream; of course not – and glanced at the telly. A romantic movie, a predictable plot that was about as realistic as Harry Potter … she had never seen the movie, but she could guess the plot points. A lonely woman finding a handsome man who would always be true to her. It didn’t happen in the real world.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she hurried into the bedroom. Everything looked disturbed … her mother had been looking for clothes again, even though few of Emily’s garments could fit her without tearing. They were just too different … she groaned inwardly as she saw her underclothes scattered across the bed, as if her mother couldn’t be bothered to put them back after trying to find one that could fit her. She wished for a lock for her door, just to ensure a little privacy, but her stepfather had forbidden it. Fire safety, he’d said. Emily suspected his motives were a little different. She’d known too many young men who were outraged by the idea of a barrier being erected between them and young women, even if they had no intention of doing anything. Assholes. Would it really hurt them to let people have a little safety and security?\n\nProbably, she thought, as she sat on her bed. They hate the idea of being barred even if they had no intention of crossing the line.\n\nShe stared down at herself, her body feeling … weird. She didn’t like her body very much and yet … it felt wrong, as if everything was slightly out of kilter. It wasn’t like puberty, when she’d discovered to her horror that her body was going to bleed every month and if it didn’t it was a sign something was very wrong, but something else. She felt dizzy again, almost feverish. It made no sense. Perhaps she was coming down with something nasty. She hoped not. Her mother’s idea of medical care consisted of throwing painkillers at her daughter and telling her to sleep it off.\n\nYou could just lie back and close your eyes, a voice whispered at the back of her head. Just let it all go.\n\nEmily shook her head, staggering to her feet. Why was she so weak? She was too weak to live and too frightened to die … she had nothing to live for, nothing at all. She could just walk out of the apartment and never return, leaving her mother to choke to death on her own vomit … no one would care. Her body felt grimy as she stumbled back to the kitchen, a reminder she needed to shower before her stepfather got home. The way he looked at her … her skin crawled. She didn’t want to think about it.\n\nThere’s nowhere to go, the voice whispered. You’re trapped. Forever.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment. There was no way out. Nothing to live for … nothing at all. And yet, she couldn’t let it all end. She couldn’t!\n\n“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck it!”\n\n“Charming,” a new voice said. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”\n\nEmily jumped, spinning around so rapidly she nearly fell over. Her stepfather was leaning against the kitchen door, his eyes rising from her rear to her face … she felt a hot flash of panic as she realised she hadn’t heard him coming home, let alone entering the chamber. She was trapped, with no way out … she stared at him, suddenly all too aware he was bigger and stronger than she was. He was hardly the biggest man she’d seen – he was short and weaselly, with a face that made him look untrustworthy – but he was still strong enough to hurt her. His eyes lingered on her breasts, or what little could be seen, before looking up at her.\n\nA wave of hatred and helplessness washed through her, a bitter surge of resentment and loathing. He had never tried to be a father to her, never treated her as anything more than an unwanted appendage. She’d caught him leering at her time and time again, as she grew into a young adult, and … her mother hadn’t cared. God alone knew why. It was a mother’s duty to look after her child … not that her mother cared. She’d crawled into a bottle long ago and stayed there.\n\n“You’re looking good,” he said, stepping closer. She could smell his aftershave. She knew teenage boys who drenched themselves with aftershave, on the theory that it drew girls to them like moths to flame, but none of those smells had ever repelled her as much as her stepfather’s more subtle brand. It was a stench she associated with him and him alone. “You’re a pretty young thing, aren’t you?”\n\nEmily flinched. Her hand wanted to reach for a knife, to cut him open … there was nothing within reach. No weapon, no way out … he was inching closer, backing her against the counter. She wanted to scream for her mother, but she’d probably already passed out. Her stepfather was right on top of her, invading her personal space … her entire body felt heavy and wrong, unable to move as he wrapped his arms around her and mashed his lips against hers. It was repulsive and …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 979, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch03-P3", "chapter": "ch03", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nChad — capitalized; school bully Emily would sooner face than her stepfather.\nJabba the Hutt — keep the full epithet as written.\n\n### STORY\nEmily comes home to drunk Destiny, broken glass, stale bread and ants in the jam; she hauls her mother to the toilet to vomit; making coffee she sees an impossible self-apparition and screams it away, buckling as she fears ending up like damaged neighborhood kids.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nCornered and kissed by her stepfather; body suddenly odd and strong in ways she does not understand. About to shove him off with instincts she does not believe she has; afterward she will flee to an empty night street and park bench.\n\nStepfather\nEntitled, fist raised after the shove; will take a twisted wrist and a knee to the groin and hit the floor. Not pursuing her onto the street yet.\n\nDestiny\nOn the sofa like a blank television addict; does not look up as Emily grabs her coat and flees.\n\nChad\nReferenced only; Emily’s comparative dread—she would sooner face him than her stepfather’s kiss.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment. There was no way out. Nothing to live for … nothing at all. And yet, she couldn’t let it all end. She couldn’t!\n\n“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck it!”\n\n“Charming,” a new voice said. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”\n\nEmily jumped, spinning around so rapidly she nearly fell over. Her stepfather was leaning against the kitchen door, his eyes rising from her rear to her face … she felt a hot flash of panic as she realised she hadn’t heard him coming home, let alone entering the chamber. She was trapped, with no way out … she stared at him, suddenly all too aware he was bigger and stronger than she was. He was hardly the biggest man she’d seen – he was short and weaselly, with a face that made him look untrustworthy – but he was still strong enough to hurt her. His eyes lingered on her breasts, or what little could be seen, before looking up at her.\n\nA wave of hatred and helplessness washed through her, a bitter surge of resentment and loathing. He had never tried to be a father to her, never treated her as anything more than an unwanted appendage. She’d caught him leering at her time and time again, as she grew into a young adult, and … her mother hadn’t cared. God alone knew why. It was a mother’s duty to look after her child … not that her mother cared. She’d crawled into a bottle long ago and stayed there.\n\n“You’re looking good,” he said, stepping closer. She could smell his aftershave. She knew teenage boys who drenched themselves with aftershave, on the theory that it drew girls to them like moths to flame, but none of those smells had ever repelled her as much as her stepfather’s more subtle brand. It was a stench she associated with him and him alone. “You’re a pretty young thing, aren’t you?”\n\nEmily flinched. Her hand wanted to reach for a knife, to cut him open … there was nothing within reach. No weapon, no way out … he was inching closer, backing her against the counter. She wanted to scream for her mother, but she’d probably already passed out. Her stepfather was right on top of her, invading her personal space … her entire body felt heavy and wrong, unable to move as he wrapped his arms around her and mashed his lips against hers. It was repulsive and …\n\n### NOTES\nApartment living room and stairs down to an empty, silent night street.\nPark bench where Emily stops; buildings oddly translucent; air without cars or parties.\nGhostly doppelganger visible in the gloom, smiling.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe shoves him back in shock at her own strength; he snarls entitlement and swings; unknown instincts deflect, twist his wrist, and knee his groin until he drops. She flees past Destiny, who never looks up from the television, into a silent pulsing street that feels half dream until pain proves it real. On a park bench she cannot explain how she fought, studies an arm that feels both bony and strong, and meets her smiling ghostly doppelganger’s encouragement to figure it out from first principles—feeling hope without knowing why.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Sudden violence then eerie quiet; keep the doppelganger hopeful, not explained. Land on hope without a reason.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She shoved him back, hard. He stumbled back, eyes going wide with shock. Emily was equally shocked. She had no illusions about her lack of physical strength, not after years of being amongst the last to be picked for games in gym and the first to be put out. Her stepfather might be weedy compared to her gym teacher, a sadist in shorts and a hoodie, but he was still strong enough to put her in her place. Except … her body felt odd, as if nothing was quite where it was supposed to be. Everything was just wrong.\n\n“You ungrateful brat,” her stepfather snarled. The sheer entitlement in his voice shocked her beyond words, even as his face twisted into a nightmarish parody of itself. “I give you everything and this is how you repay me?”\n\nEmily blinked. Had he been grooming her? She’d been a little girl when her stepfather had entered her life and he’d never touched her, but … he’d known she'd grow up. Of course he had … had he been waiting all along, waiting for the right moment to … her stomach heaved painfully, so violently she almost doubled over The thought was just appalling. She would sooner let Chad do anything he liked to her than let her stepfather give her a kiss. It struck her, a moment too late, that he’d stolen her first kiss …\n\nHer stepfather marched towards her, fist raised. Emily barely had a second to react before he threw a punch at her face … instincts she hadn’t known she had took over, grabbing his wrist to deflect the blow and then twisting it hard enough to make him scream. She gritted her teeth as he yanked his arm back, then tried to hit her with the other one. She stepped into the blow and brought her knee up sharply, slamming it right into his groin. He screamed in agony. Emily stepped back as he doubled over, letting him hit the floor. Her thoughts were a confused mess, her feelings running in circles. The sheer satisfaction of knocking him down was matched by fear of what he’d do when he got up again, no matter how badly she’d hurt him. She wasn’t even sure how she’d hurt him. She didn’t know how to fight, yet she’d fought.\n\nHer hands shook as she turned away and hurried out into the living room. Her mother was sitting on the sofa like Jabba the Hutt, eyes firmly fixed on the television screen. Emily couldn’t understand how she hadn’t heard the racket … was she truly deaf or was she pretending she couldn’t hear, for whatever reason? Emily didn’t want to think about her mother letting her stepfather have his way with her daughter, and yet … the thought was a nightmarish image that refused to die. Her mother didn’t even look up from the screen as Emily reached for her coat and pulled it on, then hurried outside. She had no idea what her stepfather would do – she had no idea how long it would take for him to recover – but she didn’t want to be there when he managed to stand up again. He’d kill her.\n\n“Fuck,” she muttered, as she ran down the stairs and out onto the streets. There was no pursuit. No one cared enough to run after her. “What the hell do I do now?”\n\nThe cold seeped through her second-hand coat, leaving her shivering as she walked down the empty street. The darkness pulsed around her like a living thing, the buildings half-hidden and oddly translucent in the gloom. The air was utterly silent, the noise of cars and wild parties and all the other sounds of the night eerily stilled. Emily felt as if she were half-asleep, as if she were dreaming … perhaps she was. She pinched herself, hard, and winced at the pain. It was real.\n\nShe slowed as she reached the park, as empty as the rest of the world, and sat on a bench. There was nowhere to go and yet she couldn’t go home. Her stepfather would kill her. She wasn’t sure how she’d bested him and she had no idea if she could do it again. She was scared of him and yet she wasn’t, as if she’d faced worst things and beaten them … she knew she hadn’t and yet she had. It was absurd and yet … she sucked in her breath, running her fingers down her arm. It was somehow both thin and bony and yet strong and healthy. It just made no sense. The world made no sense.\n\nHow did you learn how to fight like that?\n\nThe question echoed in her mind. She hadn’t. There had been no secret martial arts training in her life. She had no military father who had taught her his ways, no grand destiny as a vampire slayer or something, anything, that came with skills she didn’t have to practice … the only destiny in her life was her mother, a drunk who cared nothing for her only child. There was no way she should have been able to do what she’d done, but she had. It made no sense. It was …\n\nShe looked up. The apparition was right in front of her, perfectly visible even in the gloom. And it was smiling.\n\nFigure it out, Emily told herself. Her ghostly doppelganger looked encouraging. Start from first principles and figure out what to do.\n\nShe wasn’t sure where to begin. But for the first time in longer than she could remember she felt a little hope.\n\nShe just didn’t know why.\n", "completion": "She shoved him back, hard. He stumbled back, eyes going wide with shock. Emily was equally shocked. She had no illusions about her lack of physical strength, not after years of being amongst the last to be picked for games in gym and the first to be put out. Her stepfather might be weedy compared to her gym teacher, a sadist in shorts and a hoodie, but he was still strong enough to put her in her place. Except … her body felt odd, as if nothing was quite where it was supposed to be. Everything was just wrong.\n\n“You ungrateful brat,” her stepfather snarled. The sheer entitlement in his voice shocked her beyond words, even as his face twisted into a nightmarish parody of itself. “I give you everything and this is how you repay me?”\n\nEmily blinked. Had he been grooming her? She’d been a little girl when her stepfather had entered her life and he’d never touched her, but … he’d known she'd grow up. Of course he had … had he been waiting all along, waiting for the right moment to … her stomach heaved painfully, so violently she almost doubled over The thought was just appalling. She would sooner let Chad do anything he liked to her than let her stepfather give her a kiss. It struck her, a moment too late, that he’d stolen her first kiss …\n\nHer stepfather marched towards her, fist raised. Emily barely had a second to react before he threw a punch at her face … instincts she hadn’t known she had took over, grabbing his wrist to deflect the blow and then twisting it hard enough to make him scream. She gritted her teeth as he yanked his arm back, then tried to hit her with the other one. She stepped into the blow and brought her knee up sharply, slamming it right into his groin. He screamed in agony. Emily stepped back as he doubled over, letting him hit the floor. Her thoughts were a confused mess, her feelings running in circles. The sheer satisfaction of knocking him down was matched by fear of what he’d do when he got up again, no matter how badly she’d hurt him. She wasn’t even sure how she’d hurt him. She didn’t know how to fight, yet she’d fought.\n\nHer hands shook as she turned away and hurried out into the living room. Her mother was sitting on the sofa like Jabba the Hutt, eyes firmly fixed on the television screen. Emily couldn’t understand how she hadn’t heard the racket … was she truly deaf or was she pretending she couldn’t hear, for whatever reason? Emily didn’t want to think about her mother letting her stepfather have his way with her daughter, and yet … the thought was a nightmarish image that refused to die. Her mother didn’t even look up from the screen as Emily reached for her coat and pulled it on, then hurried outside. She had no idea what her stepfather would do – she had no idea how long it would take for him to recover – but she didn’t want to be there when he managed to stand up again. He’d kill her.\n\n“Fuck,” she muttered, as she ran down the stairs and out onto the streets. There was no pursuit. No one cared enough to run after her. “What the hell do I do now?”\n\nThe cold seeped through her second-hand coat, leaving her shivering as she walked down the empty street. The darkness pulsed around her like a living thing, the buildings half-hidden and oddly translucent in the gloom. The air was utterly silent, the noise of cars and wild parties and all the other sounds of the night eerily stilled. Emily felt as if she were half-asleep, as if she were dreaming … perhaps she was. She pinched herself, hard, and winced at the pain. It was real.\n\nShe slowed as she reached the park, as empty as the rest of the world, and sat on a bench. There was nowhere to go and yet she couldn’t go home. Her stepfather would kill her. She wasn’t sure how she’d bested him and she had no idea if she could do it again. She was scared of him and yet she wasn’t, as if she’d faced worst things and beaten them … she knew she hadn’t and yet she had. It was absurd and yet … she sucked in her breath, running her fingers down her arm. It was somehow both thin and bony and yet strong and healthy. It just made no sense. The world made no sense.\n\nHow did you learn how to fight like that?\n\nThe question echoed in her mind. She hadn’t. There had been no secret martial arts training in her life. She had no military father who had taught her his ways, no grand destiny as a vampire slayer or something, anything, that came with skills she didn’t have to practice … the only destiny in her life was her mother, a drunk who cared nothing for her only child. There was no way she should have been able to do what she’d done, but she had. It made no sense. It was …\n\nShe looked up. The apparition was right in front of her, perfectly visible even in the gloom. And it was smiling.\n\nFigure it out, Emily told herself. Her ghostly doppelganger looked encouraging. Start from first principles and figure out what to do.\n\nShe wasn’t sure where to begin. But for the first time in longer than she could remember she felt a little hope.\n\nShe just didn’t know why.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 964, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch04-P1", "chapter": "ch04", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nnexus point — lowercase.\nspellware — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily holds the nexus-point bubble against Master Wolfe’s remaking of the multiverse; his shadow sweeps past and retreats; Frieda asks what he is doing; Emily names the remaking and mourns Caleb and her lost bilocated self without time to linger.\n\nFrieda urges chunking the god-problem; Emily finds hope inside his mimic-form, conjures food, studies his spell-structure, and realizes her force-grown will alone holds the bubble; she weighs portaling Frieda out while remaining trapped forever.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill trapped in the nexus bubble after contacting her Earth-side other self and ordering Frieda to rest. Studying timeline cancer, half a plan forming; cannot leave without collapsing the bubble; intending to send Frieda out.\n\nFrieda\nSleeping, then waking in the bubble; educated but not in quantum theory; willing to leave if Emily cannot.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nMad god outside; shadow presence; still unseen.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe gritted her teeth. Frieda was counting on her. Caleb and Cat and Alassa and everyone else she’d known and loved were counting on her … if they were still alive. They had to be … she hoped that was true, even as she feared the worst. Master Wolfe was doing immense damage to the multiverse simply by existing, the waves upon waves of raw power battering the fabric of reality itself. She needed to fix the nightmare and had no idea where to begin. No. That wasn’t quite true. An idea was starting to form in her mind. It was going to be risky, but …\n\n“Get some sleep,” she told Frieda. “You’ll need to be rested for what is to come.”\n\n“I’ll try,” Frieda said. The faith in her words was touching. Emily felt her heart melt even as she hoped to hell it wasn’t misplaced. “Are you …?”\n\n“I’ll try and get some sleep shortly,” Emily lied. She’d have to make sure the bubble would remain intact, once she went to sleep. If not … she’d been tired before, time and time again, but this time there were no potions to help her remain alert. She would start making mistakes long before her body gave out, plunging her into a sleep from which she might never awaken. “I just need to work out how to … how to deal with this.”\n\nShe tossed Frieda her cloak, then leaned back as the younger girl lay down. Her mind reached out once again, studying the sheets of raw power battering the universe itself. She’d known there were cracks in the multiverse, places where someone could fall through a gap and find themselves in another universe, and yet … she’d never realised just how many threads there were, catacombs under the multiverse that could be used to step from universe to universe. She felt like a mouse, peeking through the mouse hole … she told herself, firmly, that mice could be dangerous too. If she had time to study how everything worked, if she found a way to build a weapon, she might be able to turn the tables. She might be able to save everything one final time.\n\nThe shadow brushed over her again, a reminder that time wasn’t on her side. If she didn’t act fast …\n\nDon’t rush it, she told herself, sharply. You’ll only get one shot at this.\n\n### NOTES\nBubble inside Master Wolfe’s body/nexus torrent; Frieda has been sleeping.\nRaw power sparks against the bubble continuously.\nEmily cannot leave; Frieda may be able to.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe studies the multiverse cancer—timelines frozen and shattered by Master Wolfe’s gaze—while Frieda sleeps and a shadow of presence sweeps them again. Frieda wakes to no dream; Emily admits only half a plan and that improvisation may fit intersecting realities. Surrounded by unusable power, she states she cannot leave without killing them both; Frieda confirms she can leave; Emily begins forcing her thoughts toward a plan Frieda can execute without quantum schooling.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Strategic dread in close third; keep the bubble constraints clear. Land on the plan she must invent for Frieda.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The more Emily studied the growing disaster, the cancer spreading through the multiverse, the more she feared the worst.\n\nIt was difficult to wrap her head around the sheer scale of it. She was staring at timelines, threads running through the multiverse, that looked tiny to her and yet were near-infinite realms in their own right. Master Wolfe was destroying them one by one, entire timelines of billions upon billions of souls disintegrating under his gaze; an endless series of atrocities that made all previous uses of the word look insignificant. The worst of it was that Master Wolfe didn’t seem to know what he was doing, or perhaps didn’t even intend to do it. He was a gardener who covered his entire garden in concrete, then wondered why his plants weren’t growing.\n\nThere’s no room for evolution, she thought. Master Wolfe was eradicating randomness, his gaze freezing timelines and causing them to break up and shatter … her lips twisted, bitterly, as she realised he’d solved the riddle of Schrödinger’s cat by collapsing the quantum waveforms that depended on randomness to exist. The cat was no longer caught between life and death, its mere existence resting on a knife edge, when the box was under constant observation. And everything is dying under his gaze.\n\nShe cursed under her breath, trying to think. They were resting inside the body of a mad god, her bubble battered constantly by the waves of raw power running through an infinite spell structure, and they were running out of time. She thought he couldn’t see them, couldn’t get to them, but … it was hard to be sure. Her comprehension was so limited that he could come at her from a completely unexpected direction, warping the multiverse around her to isolate her bubble and then blink it out of existence. Her metaphors imposed a certain degree of order on the universe, but … in a sense, they were the universe. But they were also a very limited way of looking at the world. It was the difference between playing a computer game and real life. Something that worked in the context of the game simply didn’t work in the real world.\n\nFrieda shifted in her sleep, perhaps on the verge of wakefulness. Emily’s heart went out to her. She deserved better than to be trapped in the bubble, watching helplessly as the entire multiverse died. They all did. Caleb was gone … she tried to tell herself that he wasn’t dead, that he was trapped like her other self, but she hadn’t been able to find him. They should have gotten married on the spot, she told herself, and embraced a marital bond that would have linked them together. It would have saved her now. But …\n\nThe shadow swept over them again, a wave of sheer presence so overwhelming that she cringed and cowered, bracing herself for a blow that would eradicate them before she even knew she was under attack. Nothing happened. The shadow receded, the monstrous gaze sweeping away across the multiverse … a searchlight that might or might not be looking for them. She didn’t know, not for sure. The entity Master Wolfe had become was too big for her to grasp due to the sheer scale … not that it mattered. A man out for a walk might not mean to step on an ant and kill it, but it wouldn’t make any difference to the ant. It would be dead either way.\n\nFrieda opened her eyes. “It wasn’t a dream.”\n\n“I’m afraid not,” Emily said. She wished she could convince herself it was a dream – or a nightmare. But she knew better. “I think I have half a plan.”\n\nFrieda smiled, rather wanly. “Only half a plan?”\n\n“We might have to start making it up as we go,” Emily said. Oddly, given the strange intersection of realities, shifting on the fly might work better than trying to lay down a plan before they started. “It depends on how things work.”\n\nShe scowled as raw power sparked against the bubble. It was galling to be surrounded by a near-infinite source of power, yet barely be able to make any use of it. She was a sailor on a life raft, dying of thirst though he was floating in the middle of a vast ocean. The power around her wasn’t poisonous, but there was so much of it that trying to make use of the power was like flying a hang glider through a hurricane. She had to focus to draw even a little power into her spells, knowing the slightest mistake would sweep them away into nothingness. It had taken her hours to gather enough power to go to work and she was uncomfortably aware that she would only get one chance. They might as well start mining the sun. Maybe a spaceship could reach the star, maybe it could take a sample from the corona, but it was far more likely the spacecraft and crew would evaporate far before they reached their destination.\n\n“Go on.” Frieda sat up, putting on an attentive expression that didn’t mask her fear. The worst had happened and it was over, except it would never be over. The roaring howls pervading the multiverse around them was a grim reminder it would never end. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“I can’t leave the bubble,” Emily said. “The moment I try, the bubble collapses and we die.”\n\n“Right.” Frieda refrained from pointing out Emily had told her that already. “But I can leave?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily forced herself to think. Frieda was far from stupid, and she’d had a very good education, but she knew nothing about quantum theory or the uncertainty principle. It had never been part of her education. Emily’s hadn’t been much better. Half of what she thought she knew came from science fiction and she was painfully aware far too many science fiction writers had simply made it up. “I can open a portal for you and send you after my other self …”\n", "completion": "The more Emily studied the growing disaster, the cancer spreading through the multiverse, the more she feared the worst.\n\nIt was difficult to wrap her head around the sheer scale of it. She was staring at timelines, threads running through the multiverse, that looked tiny to her and yet were near-infinite realms in their own right. Master Wolfe was destroying them one by one, entire timelines of billions upon billions of souls disintegrating under his gaze; an endless series of atrocities that made all previous uses of the word look insignificant. The worst of it was that Master Wolfe didn’t seem to know what he was doing, or perhaps didn’t even intend to do it. He was a gardener who covered his entire garden in concrete, then wondered why his plants weren’t growing.\n\nThere’s no room for evolution, she thought. Master Wolfe was eradicating randomness, his gaze freezing timelines and causing them to break up and shatter … her lips twisted, bitterly, as she realised he’d solved the riddle of Schrödinger’s cat by collapsing the quantum waveforms that depended on randomness to exist. The cat was no longer caught between life and death, its mere existence resting on a knife edge, when the box was under constant observation. And everything is dying under his gaze.\n\nShe cursed under her breath, trying to think. They were resting inside the body of a mad god, her bubble battered constantly by the waves of raw power running through an infinite spell structure, and they were running out of time. She thought he couldn’t see them, couldn’t get to them, but … it was hard to be sure. Her comprehension was so limited that he could come at her from a completely unexpected direction, warping the multiverse around her to isolate her bubble and then blink it out of existence. Her metaphors imposed a certain degree of order on the universe, but … in a sense, they were the universe. But they were also a very limited way of looking at the world. It was the difference between playing a computer game and real life. Something that worked in the context of the game simply didn’t work in the real world.\n\nFrieda shifted in her sleep, perhaps on the verge of wakefulness. Emily’s heart went out to her. She deserved better than to be trapped in the bubble, watching helplessly as the entire multiverse died. They all did. Caleb was gone … she tried to tell herself that he wasn’t dead, that he was trapped like her other self, but she hadn’t been able to find him. They should have gotten married on the spot, she told herself, and embraced a marital bond that would have linked them together. It would have saved her now. But …\n\nThe shadow swept over them again, a wave of sheer presence so overwhelming that she cringed and cowered, bracing herself for a blow that would eradicate them before she even knew she was under attack. Nothing happened. The shadow receded, the monstrous gaze sweeping away across the multiverse … a searchlight that might or might not be looking for them. She didn’t know, not for sure. The entity Master Wolfe had become was too big for her to grasp due to the sheer scale … not that it mattered. A man out for a walk might not mean to step on an ant and kill it, but it wouldn’t make any difference to the ant. It would be dead either way.\n\nFrieda opened her eyes. “It wasn’t a dream.”\n\n“I’m afraid not,” Emily said. She wished she could convince herself it was a dream – or a nightmare. But she knew better. “I think I have half a plan.”\n\nFrieda smiled, rather wanly. “Only half a plan?”\n\n“We might have to start making it up as we go,” Emily said. Oddly, given the strange intersection of realities, shifting on the fly might work better than trying to lay down a plan before they started. “It depends on how things work.”\n\nShe scowled as raw power sparked against the bubble. It was galling to be surrounded by a near-infinite source of power, yet barely be able to make any use of it. She was a sailor on a life raft, dying of thirst though he was floating in the middle of a vast ocean. The power around her wasn’t poisonous, but there was so much of it that trying to make use of the power was like flying a hang glider through a hurricane. She had to focus to draw even a little power into her spells, knowing the slightest mistake would sweep them away into nothingness. It had taken her hours to gather enough power to go to work and she was uncomfortably aware that she would only get one chance. They might as well start mining the sun. Maybe a spaceship could reach the star, maybe it could take a sample from the corona, but it was far more likely the spacecraft and crew would evaporate far before they reached their destination.\n\n“Go on.” Frieda sat up, putting on an attentive expression that didn’t mask her fear. The worst had happened and it was over, except it would never be over. The roaring howls pervading the multiverse around them was a grim reminder it would never end. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“I can’t leave the bubble,” Emily said. “The moment I try, the bubble collapses and we die.”\n\n“Right.” Frieda refrained from pointing out Emily had told her that already. “But I can leave?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily forced herself to think. Frieda was far from stupid, and she’d had a very good education, but she knew nothing about quantum theory or the uncertainty principle. It had never been part of her education. Emily’s hadn’t been much better. Half of what she thought she knew came from science fiction and she was painfully aware far too many science fiction writers had simply made it up. “I can open a portal for you and send you after my other self …”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1030, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch04-P2", "chapter": "ch04", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized; school name.\nShadye — capitalized; referenced past foe.\nNameless World — both words capitalized when naming the home world.\n\n### STORY\nInside the nexus bubble Emily studies multiverse cancer while Frieda sleeps; Wolfe’s shadow sweeps again; Frieda wakes; Emily admits she cannot leave without collapsing the bubble but Frieda can, and starts shaping a half-plan around quantum uncertainty.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nExplaining observer-effect cover to Frieda; planning to send Frieda into the other self’s pocket hell; ashamed of that personal nightmare beside Frieda’s worse childhood.\n\nFrieda\nDoubtful of the cat-in-a-box logic; asks what to do with the other self; standing ready; will not mock.\n\nMaster Wolfe — Outside; threat of tweezers-removal from inside his heart.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I’m afraid not,” Emily said. She wished she could convince herself it was a dream – or a nightmare. But she knew better. “I think I have half a plan.”\n\nFrieda smiled, rather wanly. “Only half a plan?”\n\n“We might have to start making it up as we go,” Emily said. Oddly, given the strange intersection of realities, shifting on the fly might work better than trying to lay down a plan before they started. “It depends on how things work.”\n\nShe scowled as raw power sparked against the bubble. It was galling to be surrounded by a near-infinite source of power, yet barely be able to make any use of it. She was a sailor on a life raft, dying of thirst though he was floating in the middle of a vast ocean. The power around her wasn’t poisonous, but there was so much of it that trying to make use of the power was like flying a hang glider through a hurricane. She had to focus to draw even a little power into her spells, knowing the slightest mistake would sweep them away into nothingness. It had taken her hours to gather enough power to go to work and she was uncomfortably aware that she would only get one chance. They might as well start mining the sun. Maybe a spaceship could reach the star, maybe it could take a sample from the corona, but it was far more likely the spacecraft and crew would evaporate far before they reached their destination.\n\n“Go on.” Frieda sat up, putting on an attentive expression that didn’t mask her fear. The worst had happened and it was over, except it would never be over. The roaring howls pervading the multiverse around them was a grim reminder it would never end. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“I can’t leave the bubble,” Emily said. “The moment I try, the bubble collapses and we die.”\n\n“Right.” Frieda refrained from pointing out Emily had told her that already. “But I can leave?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily forced herself to think. Frieda was far from stupid, and she’d had a very good education, but she knew nothing about quantum theory or the uncertainty principle. It had never been part of her education. Emily’s hadn’t been much better. Half of what she thought she knew came from science fiction and she was painfully aware far too many science fiction writers had simply made it up. “I can open a portal for you and send you after my other self …”\n\n### NOTES\nBubble still held by Emily’s will.\nOther self imprisoned in a mind-shaped pocket world that looks like a world but is not.\nNexus points sit outside ordinary time.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe tries a cat-in-a-box explanation: while she looks at Frieda and her other self, Wolfe cannot simply deny them. Frieda doubts; Emily insists that here denial is erasure, and that being inside him is like a presence in a heart—hard to tweeze out. She sends Frieda to the other self’s prison-bubble, hopes the link can channel power, warns that the nightmare world is unbound by normal law, and flushes with shame asking Frieda not to judge the other her too harshly.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Expository dialogue under threat; keep the shame personal. Land on the flush of selfish comparison.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She took a breath, trying to think of a way to explain it. “Imagine there’s a cat in a box. You can’t see the cat, but you know it’s there. The cat is alive or dead; you don’t know which until you open the box. As long as you don’t look, the cat is trapped between life and dead.”\n\nFrieda frowned. “That makes no sense.”\n\nEmily was tempted to agree. On one hand, the cat’s objective reality was set in stone; on the other, as long as she didn’t look she wouldn’t know what the objective reality was. If a tree fell in a forest, with no one around to hear it, would it make a sound? Perhaps it would, but how could anyone be sure? They weren’t there. She had a sudden vision of hundreds upon hundreds of versions of conflicting reality, contrasting and clashing depending on who was watching … it was hard to wrap her head around. And Frieda, who was pragmatic to a fault, would find it even harder.\n\n“It works, I think,” Emily said. “The point is that I can look at you and my other self. As long as I am looking, he can’t simply blink you out of existence by denying your existence. Just as you looking inside the box determines the cat’s exact state, my gaze determines your existence and keeps you in place.”\n\nFrieda looked doubtful. “Him denying my existence doesn’t mean I don’t exist.”\n\n“It does here,” Emily said. She’d met far too many people with deluded views of their own importance, and thought that as long as they refused to acknowledge reality they would never have to deal with it, but in this case … Master Wolfe had become the determinant of reality. He could tell himself that anyone within the timelines and the threadlines running through the multiverse simply didn’t exist and they wouldn’t. “But as long as I keep my eye on you, you should be immune to his power.”\n\n“And what’s to stop him dealing with you?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “Right now, we’re inside him,” she said. She tapped her chest. “Imagine there’s someone inside your heart. You might be able to feel his presence” – she had no idea if someone could and she didn’t want to find out the hard way – “but you couldn’t get to him without cutting your skin and tearing your way into your own heart. You’d kill yourself in the process.”\n\nProbably, she added, mentally. From Master Wolfe’s point of view, getting rid of her and her bubble might be no harder than using a pair of tweezers to dig out a splinter. Unpleasant and painful to be sure, but hardly fatal. I may need to find somewhere else to hide.\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Frieda said. “What do you want me to do once I’m with your other self?”\n\n“She’s trapped in a bubble of her own,” Emily said. It was a prison, a private hell shaped by her mind. A chill ran through her. And then she woke up and it was all a dream. She’d had nightmares about that, over the first few months she’d spent at Whitehall. Was she having a dream? Was she trapped in a coma? Would she be awakened to confront, once again, the realities of life with a drunkard of a mother, a creepy stepfather and an enormous medical bill? “You break her out, get her back into the threadlines between universes. And then we can proceed from there.”\n\nAnd hope that between us we can come up with a better plan, she added. The link between her and her other self could be used to channel power, which meant … they might be able to find a way to fight back. She had half an idea, true, but it rather depended on being outside the bubble. Or having someone on the outside who could do the working for her. If we can get it to work …\n\n“Got it,” Frieda said. She stood, brushing down her outfit. “How long do we have?”\n\nEmily didn’t know. Nexus points existed outside time and space – and inside, all times were one. They could be used for time travel because they touched all times simultaneously, something she’d done twice in her life, but navigation was extremely difficult without a great deal of prior preparation. The unique nexus point Master Wolfe had created might just be usable for time travel, yet … it was impossible to tell if putting so much stress on the nexus point was wise. They could be snuffed out … and if she accidentally killed this nexus point she’d likely kill herself at the same time.\n\n“I suggest you hurry,” Emily said. They were relatively safe from entropy inside the bubble, she thought, but that would change the moment they started interacting with the outside universe. “Get her into the threadlines and then … we’ll work from there.”\n\n“Got it,” Frieda said, again. “Is there anything else I need to know?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “The bubble you’re entering looks like a world,” she said. “It isn’t. It isn’t bound by the regular laws of time and space. Or magic. You might not be able to use magic there” – her other self didn’t recall magic, which meant she probably hadn’t tried – “and reality itself is mutable. And …”\n\nShe swallowed. “It’s shaped by my – her – mind, a nightmare crafted for me personally. What you’ll see … don’t judge her too harshly.”\n\n“That sounds bad,” Frieda said.\n\nEmily nodded, feeling her cheeks flush. Frieda’s childhood had been far worse than hers. It was selfish to suggest otherwise, or that Frieda would judge her for her upbringing. And yet, she’d met Emily well after she’d entered the Nameless World, after she’d had two years of magical education under her belt. The Emily trapped within the bubble wasn’t that Emily. She wasn’t even the girl Shadye had kidnapped from one world and dropped into another. She was … Emily swallowed, again. If the bubble was truly shaped by her nightmares, it could be a great deal worse than anything that had actually happened.\n", "completion": "She took a breath, trying to think of a way to explain it. “Imagine there’s a cat in a box. You can’t see the cat, but you know it’s there. The cat is alive or dead; you don’t know which until you open the box. As long as you don’t look, the cat is trapped between life and dead.”\n\nFrieda frowned. “That makes no sense.”\n\nEmily was tempted to agree. On one hand, the cat’s objective reality was set in stone; on the other, as long as she didn’t look she wouldn’t know what the objective reality was. If a tree fell in a forest, with no one around to hear it, would it make a sound? Perhaps it would, but how could anyone be sure? They weren’t there. She had a sudden vision of hundreds upon hundreds of versions of conflicting reality, contrasting and clashing depending on who was watching … it was hard to wrap her head around. And Frieda, who was pragmatic to a fault, would find it even harder.\n\n“It works, I think,” Emily said. “The point is that I can look at you and my other self. As long as I am looking, he can’t simply blink you out of existence by denying your existence. Just as you looking inside the box determines the cat’s exact state, my gaze determines your existence and keeps you in place.”\n\nFrieda looked doubtful. “Him denying my existence doesn’t mean I don’t exist.”\n\n“It does here,” Emily said. She’d met far too many people with deluded views of their own importance, and thought that as long as they refused to acknowledge reality they would never have to deal with it, but in this case … Master Wolfe had become the determinant of reality. He could tell himself that anyone within the timelines and the threadlines running through the multiverse simply didn’t exist and they wouldn’t. “But as long as I keep my eye on you, you should be immune to his power.”\n\n“And what’s to stop him dealing with you?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “Right now, we’re inside him,” she said. She tapped her chest. “Imagine there’s someone inside your heart. You might be able to feel his presence” – she had no idea if someone could and she didn’t want to find out the hard way – “but you couldn’t get to him without cutting your skin and tearing your way into your own heart. You’d kill yourself in the process.”\n\nProbably, she added, mentally. From Master Wolfe’s point of view, getting rid of her and her bubble might be no harder than using a pair of tweezers to dig out a splinter. Unpleasant and painful to be sure, but hardly fatal. I may need to find somewhere else to hide.\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Frieda said. “What do you want me to do once I’m with your other self?”\n\n“She’s trapped in a bubble of her own,” Emily said. It was a prison, a private hell shaped by her mind. A chill ran through her. And then she woke up and it was all a dream. She’d had nightmares about that, over the first few months she’d spent at Whitehall. Was she having a dream? Was she trapped in a coma? Would she be awakened to confront, once again, the realities of life with a drunkard of a mother, a creepy stepfather and an enormous medical bill? “You break her out, get her back into the threadlines between universes. And then we can proceed from there.”\n\nAnd hope that between us we can come up with a better plan, she added. The link between her and her other self could be used to channel power, which meant … they might be able to find a way to fight back. She had half an idea, true, but it rather depended on being outside the bubble. Or having someone on the outside who could do the working for her. If we can get it to work …\n\n“Got it,” Frieda said. She stood, brushing down her outfit. “How long do we have?”\n\nEmily didn’t know. Nexus points existed outside time and space – and inside, all times were one. They could be used for time travel because they touched all times simultaneously, something she’d done twice in her life, but navigation was extremely difficult without a great deal of prior preparation. The unique nexus point Master Wolfe had created might just be usable for time travel, yet … it was impossible to tell if putting so much stress on the nexus point was wise. They could be snuffed out … and if she accidentally killed this nexus point she’d likely kill herself at the same time.\n\n“I suggest you hurry,” Emily said. They were relatively safe from entropy inside the bubble, she thought, but that would change the moment they started interacting with the outside universe. “Get her into the threadlines and then … we’ll work from there.”\n\n“Got it,” Frieda said, again. “Is there anything else I need to know?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “The bubble you’re entering looks like a world,” she said. “It isn’t. It isn’t bound by the regular laws of time and space. Or magic. You might not be able to use magic there” – her other self didn’t recall magic, which meant she probably hadn’t tried – “and reality itself is mutable. And …”\n\nShe swallowed. “It’s shaped by my – her – mind, a nightmare crafted for me personally. What you’ll see … don’t judge her too harshly.”\n\n“That sounds bad,” Frieda said.\n\nEmily nodded, feeling her cheeks flush. Frieda’s childhood had been far worse than hers. It was selfish to suggest otherwise, or that Frieda would judge her for her upbringing. And yet, she’d met Emily well after she’d entered the Nameless World, after she’d had two years of magical education under her belt. The Emily trapped within the bubble wasn’t that Emily. She wasn’t even the girl Shadye had kidnapped from one world and dropped into another. She was … Emily swallowed, again. If the bubble was truly shaped by her nightmares, it could be a great deal worse than anything that had actually happened.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1060, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch04-P3", "chapter": "ch04", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nJade — capitalized.\nImaiqah — capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\nCat — capitalized; do not expand.\nLilith — capitalized.\nAdam — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nInside the nexus bubble Emily studies multiverse cancer while Frieda sleeps; Wolfe’s shadow sweeps again; Frieda wakes; Emily admits she cannot leave without collapsing the bubble but Frieda can, and starts shaping a half-plan around quantum uncertainty.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nReady to portal Frieda with a blood focus; grieving possible loss of home-universe friends; asking Frieda to be her bridesmaid as brittle humor before the spell.\n\nFrieda\nPromises to take care of the other Emily; accepts bridesmaid ask; steps through the portal.\n\nCaleb — Referenced; engagement uncertain if he no longer exists.\nAlassa, Jade, Imaiqah, Cat, Lilith, Adam — Referenced loved ones whose fates are unknown.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAnd hope that between us we can come up with a better plan, she added. The link between her and her other self could be used to channel power, which meant … they might be able to find a way to fight back. She had half an idea, true, but it rather depended on being outside the bubble. Or having someone on the outside who could do the working for her. If we can get it to work …\n\n“Got it,” Frieda said. She stood, brushing down her outfit. “How long do we have?”\n\nEmily didn’t know. Nexus points existed outside time and space – and inside, all times were one. They could be used for time travel because they touched all times simultaneously, something she’d done twice in her life, but navigation was extremely difficult without a great deal of prior preparation. The unique nexus point Master Wolfe had created might just be usable for time travel, yet … it was impossible to tell if putting so much stress on the nexus point was wise. They could be snuffed out … and if she accidentally killed this nexus point she’d likely kill herself at the same time.\n\n“I suggest you hurry,” Emily said. They were relatively safe from entropy inside the bubble, she thought, but that would change the moment they started interacting with the outside universe. “Get her into the threadlines and then … we’ll work from there.”\n\n“Got it,” Frieda said, again. “Is there anything else I need to know?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “The bubble you’re entering looks like a world,” she said. “It isn’t. It isn’t bound by the regular laws of time and space. Or magic. You might not be able to use magic there” – her other self didn’t recall magic, which meant she probably hadn’t tried – “and reality itself is mutable. And …”\n\nShe swallowed. “It’s shaped by my – her – mind, a nightmare crafted for me personally. What you’ll see … don’t judge her too harshly.”\n\n“That sounds bad,” Frieda said.\n\nEmily nodded, feeling her cheeks flush. Frieda’s childhood had been far worse than hers. It was selfish to suggest otherwise, or that Frieda would judge her for her upbringing. And yet, she’d met Emily well after she’d entered the Nameless World, after she’d had two years of magical education under her belt. The Emily trapped within the bubble wasn’t that Emily. She wasn’t even the girl Shadye had kidnapped from one world and dropped into another. She was … Emily swallowed, again. If the bubble was truly shaped by her nightmares, it could be a great deal worse than anything that had actually happened.\n\n### NOTES\nBlood on a handkerchief as focus for portal and power channel.\nPortal appears as a shimmering non-square of light; snaps shut after Frieda crosses.\nEmily remains in the bubble watching her other self.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShame confirms the other self knows no magic; Frieda vows care as Emily once cared for her. Emily fears she has only Frieda left, blinks tears, and asks her to be bridesmaid anyway; they hug; Emily cuts herself, passes the bloody handkerchief, and opens a raw-power portal. Frieda steps through; the portal snaps; Emily watches her other self, refuses to think of Wolfe as a god, and forces herself to wait.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Tender resolve before the send-off; portal work stays dangerous and physical. Land on forced waiting.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“It is,” she confirmed. Shame boiled through her, all the worse for knowing Frieda had been through an utter nightmare. “She doesn’t know anything about magic. Or us. Or anything.”\n\n“I’ll take care of her,” Frieda said. “You took care of me.”\n\nEmily smiled, rather wanly. “You’re a good friend,” she said. “I …”\n\nIt struck her, suddenly, that Frieda might be the only friend she had left. Master Wolfe could have destroyed their home universe by now. Alassa and Jade and Imaiqah and Adam and Lilith and everyone else, every friend or enemy she’d made over the last eight years, could be trapped in their own private hells … or dead. Or never have existed at all. She pushed the thought aside as hard as she could. If she let herself think about it too much, she’d never be able to fix it.\n\nShe blinked away tears. “You want to be my bridesmaid?”\n\nFrieda smiled. “It’s a poor time to ask, isn’t it?”\n\nEmily had to smile, even as her heart skipped a beat. If Caleb no longer existed, were they still engaged? She shut that thought down too. She had to believe otherwise.\n\n“I guess so.” Emily shrugged. “But will you?”\n\n“If you’ll have me,” Frieda said. She winked. “But won’t they be fighting duels over who gets to be your bridesmaid?”\n\n“Probably.” Emily tried not to wince. Alassa had warned her that their wedding was going to be the event of the season. Everyone would expect an invite. “But at least no one can deny I have the right to choose you.”\n\n“Bet they will,” Frieda said. She took a breath, then stood upright. “Are you ready?”\n\nEmily smiled, rather wanly. “Give me a moment.”\n\nShe stood, taking a moment to compose herself before giving her friend a hug. Frieda had filled out a lot over the past six years, after going to a school that served proper meals and provided proper medical care, but she was still thin and bony. Frieda returned the hug, then stepped back. It was time.\n\nEmily took the blade from her sleeve and cut herself gingerly, wiping the blood with a handkerchief before passing it to Frieda. Frieda nodded as she took the handkerchief and tucked it away in her pocket, a flicker of awe and respect clearly visible in her eyes. Giving someone a sample of your blood was the ultimate gesture of trust, clear proof that you trusted them completely. More than completely. In the wrong hands, a blood sample could be used to break down anyone’s mental defences, leaving them helpless; they could be made to say or do or believe anything. It was difficult beyond words to even recognise you were being attacked through your blood, let alone do something about it. It was like being attacked by your own mind.\n\n“It’ll let you find her, and let me channel power through to you,” Emily said, sitting down. “Good luck.”\n\nShe started the spell gingerly, gritting her teeth as raw power washed through her. It felt as if she were playing games with live wires, the slightest mistake likely to shock her – or worse. It was normally challenging to gather enough magic to open a portal, but now … it was harder to limit the flow as the magic roared through her spellware, harder to ensure she didn’t accidentally overpower the spell. It was the kind of problem, she reflected grimly, that she would have loved to have a few months ago. Now … it was a headache she wasn’t prepared to face. The portal needed to be opened, true, but it also had to be perfectly aligned with the bubble. If it wasn’t …\n\nThe air twisted in front of them, a shimmering column of light rapidly coalescing into a square of light that wasn’t light. It wasn’t a square either … Emily knew, from experience, that it would always look the same no matter which direction she was looking from. It was …\n\n“Good luck,” she said, again. Tears prickled in her eyes. She wiped them away angrily. “I’ll see you soon.”\n\nOr one of me will, her thoughts added, silently. If this version of her died, the other would go on … perhaps. It had been painful enough to lose one of her bilocated forms and that had been before a mad god had started tearing reality apart. She had no idea what would happen if she died now. The two of me may never be able to integrate again.\n\nFrieda hesitated, then stepped through the portal. Emily felt the universe jerk and swore under her breath as the portal snapped out of existence, realising she might have given Master Wolfe a shock. If he hadn’t known that she existed, and where she was, he might well know now. Even if he didn’t, he knew something was wrong …\n\nShe shook her head, then concentrated on watching her other self. As long as she kept her eye on them, they should be safe … relatively so. Master Wolfe could easily find other ways to deal with them. Emily had no trouble coming up with a handful and she dared not assuming he was any less capable. He’d been a multiplicity even before he’d become a god. He could not be underestimated.\n\nDon’t think of him as a god, she told herself, sharply. Think of him as an immensely powerful being instead, powerful but not invincible. You can win.\n\nShe shivered. Master Wolfe might not be omnipotent, not yet, but he was so powerful it hardly mattered. Nothing about him was going to be easy, and if her plan failed …\n\nNo, she told herself. Don’t think like that. Not here.\n\nGritting her teeth, she forced herself to wait.\n", "completion": "“It is,” she confirmed. Shame boiled through her, all the worse for knowing Frieda had been through an utter nightmare. “She doesn’t know anything about magic. Or us. Or anything.”\n\n“I’ll take care of her,” Frieda said. “You took care of me.”\n\nEmily smiled, rather wanly. “You’re a good friend,” she said. “I …”\n\nIt struck her, suddenly, that Frieda might be the only friend she had left. Master Wolfe could have destroyed their home universe by now. Alassa and Jade and Imaiqah and Adam and Lilith and everyone else, every friend or enemy she’d made over the last eight years, could be trapped in their own private hells … or dead. Or never have existed at all. She pushed the thought aside as hard as she could. If she let herself think about it too much, she’d never be able to fix it.\n\nShe blinked away tears. “You want to be my bridesmaid?”\n\nFrieda smiled. “It’s a poor time to ask, isn’t it?”\n\nEmily had to smile, even as her heart skipped a beat. If Caleb no longer existed, were they still engaged? She shut that thought down too. She had to believe otherwise.\n\n“I guess so.” Emily shrugged. “But will you?”\n\n“If you’ll have me,” Frieda said. She winked. “But won’t they be fighting duels over who gets to be your bridesmaid?”\n\n“Probably.” Emily tried not to wince. Alassa had warned her that their wedding was going to be the event of the season. Everyone would expect an invite. “But at least no one can deny I have the right to choose you.”\n\n“Bet they will,” Frieda said. She took a breath, then stood upright. “Are you ready?”\n\nEmily smiled, rather wanly. “Give me a moment.”\n\nShe stood, taking a moment to compose herself before giving her friend a hug. Frieda had filled out a lot over the past six years, after going to a school that served proper meals and provided proper medical care, but she was still thin and bony. Frieda returned the hug, then stepped back. It was time.\n\nEmily took the blade from her sleeve and cut herself gingerly, wiping the blood with a handkerchief before passing it to Frieda. Frieda nodded as she took the handkerchief and tucked it away in her pocket, a flicker of awe and respect clearly visible in her eyes. Giving someone a sample of your blood was the ultimate gesture of trust, clear proof that you trusted them completely. More than completely. In the wrong hands, a blood sample could be used to break down anyone’s mental defences, leaving them helpless; they could be made to say or do or believe anything. It was difficult beyond words to even recognise you were being attacked through your blood, let alone do something about it. It was like being attacked by your own mind.\n\n“It’ll let you find her, and let me channel power through to you,” Emily said, sitting down. “Good luck.”\n\nShe started the spell gingerly, gritting her teeth as raw power washed through her. It felt as if she were playing games with live wires, the slightest mistake likely to shock her – or worse. It was normally challenging to gather enough magic to open a portal, but now … it was harder to limit the flow as the magic roared through her spellware, harder to ensure she didn’t accidentally overpower the spell. It was the kind of problem, she reflected grimly, that she would have loved to have a few months ago. Now … it was a headache she wasn’t prepared to face. The portal needed to be opened, true, but it also had to be perfectly aligned with the bubble. If it wasn’t …\n\nThe air twisted in front of them, a shimmering column of light rapidly coalescing into a square of light that wasn’t light. It wasn’t a square either … Emily knew, from experience, that it would always look the same no matter which direction she was looking from. It was …\n\n“Good luck,” she said, again. Tears prickled in her eyes. She wiped them away angrily. “I’ll see you soon.”\n\nOr one of me will, her thoughts added, silently. If this version of her died, the other would go on … perhaps. It had been painful enough to lose one of her bilocated forms and that had been before a mad god had started tearing reality apart. She had no idea what would happen if she died now. The two of me may never be able to integrate again.\n\nFrieda hesitated, then stepped through the portal. Emily felt the universe jerk and swore under her breath as the portal snapped out of existence, realising she might have given Master Wolfe a shock. If he hadn’t known that she existed, and where she was, he might well know now. Even if he didn’t, he knew something was wrong …\n\nShe shook her head, then concentrated on watching her other self. As long as she kept her eye on them, they should be safe … relatively so. Master Wolfe could easily find other ways to deal with them. Emily had no trouble coming up with a handful and she dared not assuming he was any less capable. He’d been a multiplicity even before he’d become a god. He could not be underestimated.\n\nDon’t think of him as a god, she told herself, sharply. Think of him as an immensely powerful being instead, powerful but not invincible. You can win.\n\nShe shivered. Master Wolfe might not be omnipotent, not yet, but he was so powerful it hardly mattered. Nothing about him was going to be easy, and if her plan failed …\n\nNo, she told herself. Don’t think like that. Not here.\n\nGritting her teeth, she forced herself to wait.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 976, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch05-P1", "chapter": "ch05", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\n(none)\n\n### STORY\nEmily comes home to drunk Destiny, broken glass, stale bread and ants in the jam; she hauls her mother to the toilet to vomit; making coffee she sees an impossible self-apparition and screams it away, buckling as she fears ending up like damaged neighborhood kids.\n\nEmily refuses to give up, finds her bedroom ransacked, and is cornered in the kitchen by her stepfather’s aftershave and leer until he mashes a kiss onto her mouth.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nAfter the park-bench hope and doppelganger smile, she has walked for hours and been carried home in her own mind’s account. Ready to name the attempted rape to Destiny; still half-mad from visions; street beginning to warp.\n\nDestiny\nOn the couch with TV; calls Emily a liar; chooses romantic comedy over police; will not leave him.\n\nStepfather — Referenced as the attacker; not on-page.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Fuck,” she muttered, as she ran down the stairs and out onto the streets. There was no pursuit. No one cared enough to run after her. “What the hell do I do now?”\n\nThe cold seeped through her second-hand coat, leaving her shivering as she walked down the empty street. The darkness pulsed around her like a living thing, the buildings half-hidden and oddly translucent in the gloom. The air was utterly silent, the noise of cars and wild parties and all the other sounds of the night eerily stilled. Emily felt as if she were half-asleep, as if she were dreaming … perhaps she was. She pinched herself, hard, and winced at the pain. It was real.\n\nShe slowed as she reached the park, as empty as the rest of the world, and sat on a bench. There was nowhere to go and yet she couldn’t go home. Her stepfather would kill her. She wasn’t sure how she’d bested him and she had no idea if she could do it again. She was scared of him and yet she wasn’t, as if she’d faced worst things and beaten them … she knew she hadn’t and yet she had. It was absurd and yet … she sucked in her breath, running her fingers down her arm. It was somehow both thin and bony and yet strong and healthy. It just made no sense. The world made no sense.\n\nHow did you learn how to fight like that?\n\nThe question echoed in her mind. She hadn’t. There had been no secret martial arts training in her life. She had no military father who had taught her his ways, no grand destiny as a vampire slayer or something, anything, that came with skills she didn’t have to practice … the only destiny in her life was her mother, a drunk who cared nothing for her only child. There was no way she should have been able to do what she’d done, but she had. It made no sense. It was …\n\nShe looked up. The apparition was right in front of her, perfectly visible even in the gloom. And it was smiling.\n\nFigure it out, Emily told herself. Her ghostly doppelganger looked encouraging. Start from first principles and figure out what to do.\n\nShe wasn’t sure where to begin. But for the first time in longer than she could remember she felt a little hope.\n\nShe just didn’t know why.\n\n### NOTES\nApartment couch and television; news briefly shows a skeletal nightmare face.\nStreet outside warping like a funhouse mirror after Emily leaves.\nLibrary as intended destination.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe finds herself back at the apartment after hours of walking; Destiny is glued to TV news that flashes a skeletal nightmare face. Emily demands talk, names the attempted rape; Destiny calls her a liar and a tease, turns on a rom-com, and refuses the police. Emily leaves, watching buildings warp, decides the library might hold answers, and walks into deepening wrongness.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Confrontational domestic betrayal then uncanny street. Land on the funhouse wrongness.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily walked for hours, her feet wandering seemingly at random, before looking up and finding herself in front of her apartment. They’d carried her back home … a wave of despair washed over her, a wave of something she didn’t want to look at too closely … a flash of horror ran through her as she realised she’d left her mother alone with her stepfather. The man had been hurt by someone he’d thought he could push around at will and that meant … she swallowed hard, torn between fear and an unwillingness to leave her mother at the mercy of a merciless man. If she went back upstairs … she found her legs taking her through the door and up the stairs, her depression too strong to resist. She would face what was at the top because there was no way to escape. There was nowhere to go, no one willing to help …\n\nShe pushed the door open and stepped inside. Her mother was seated on the coach, eyes glued to the TV. The newsreader was babbling loudly, a liturgy of violence and hate and bigotry that blurred into a tidal wave of darkness, threatening to overwhelm the light. Emily glanced into the kitchen and saw nothing. There was no sign of a struggle, no sign of anyone lying dead on the floor or … perhaps he’d called himself an ambulance and gone to hospital or perhaps he was in the master bedroom, trying to recover from the beating she’d given him. She held her breath as she glanced into the bedroom, but saw nothing. The room was as cold and silent as the grave.\n\nThe TV was still babbling. The President was in trouble. Again. Emily glanced at the screen and froze as she saw a skeletal face, right out of nightmares, with glowing red eyes that seemed to peer into her very soul. She’d never been a fan of the President and yet she was fairly sure he didn’t look like that … she blinked, then reached for the TV remote and turned it off. The ghastly face vanished. She felt a flicker of relief, mingled with fear. What was wrong with her?\n\nWhat was wrong with the world?\n\n“Turn it on,” her mother ordered. “Now.”\n\nEmily shook her head. “We need to talk.”\n\n“Turn it on,” her mother repeated.\n\n“No,” Emily said. She spoke with a confidence that seemed to come out of nowhere. “Your husband just tried to rape me.”\n\nHer mother’s face flushed with anger. “Liar!”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. “I am not lying,” she snapped. She knew there were far too many people who would do everything in their power to avoid recognising an unfortunate reality, such as the simple fact they were married to a rapist, but her mother … was supposed to care. “He tried to rape me.”\n\n“It’s always the same, isn’t it?” Her mother glowered at her. “A pretty girl draws a man and then cries rape …”\n\n“I don’t believe this,” Emily snapped, although she did. She’d seen it before. Women blamed for their own rape, children blamed for their own abuse. “You …”\n\nAnger burned through her, burning through the haze in her mind. “Your partner just tried to rape me,” she added. “He tried to cheat on you! With me!”\n\nShe gritted her teeth. “You don’t have to be scared of him. We could go to the police together …”\n\nHer mother reached for the TV remote and turned it back on, flicking through the channels until she found a romantic comedy. Emily stared down at her, rage boiling through her mind. Her mother was not a very good mother, but this … despair washed through her as she recalled other men who had been arrested, for far worse crimes, only to be released to take their revenge on those who had reported them. What did it profit a battered wife or abused daughter to report their victimiser, when nothing was done and the monster returned to kill them? Better to crawl into a bottle … Emily felt sick, wondering just how much her mother had tried to hide from over the years. Her stepfather had never tried to rape her before, but God alone knew what else he’d done …\n\nShe turned away, heading for the door. She couldn’t help her mother any longer, not if she was unwilling to help herself. It was hard to convince herself she needed to try. Her mother could have taken her away, could have found work elsewhere, but instead … she had left Emily to the mercies of a merciless man. Emily took one last look around the apartment, then hurried back down the stairs. It was broad daylight. It was …\n\nHer mind skipped a beat. It had been night, only a moment ago.\n\nWhat?\n\nShe was going mad. She had to be. The world didn’t change like that … a flash of paranoia shot through her. Had she been drugged? She wouldn’t put it past her stepfather to slip something nasty into her drink. He could have put her to sleep and then done whatever he wanted to her … or worse. She could have lost all sense of time … it looked like mid-morning now, the schoolchildren making their slow way to school and the … she shook her head. Everything was just wrong. It made no sense at all.\n\nThe library, she thought, numbly. There’ll be answers there.\n\nThe sense of wrongness only grew stronger as she walked down the street. It felt like a funhouse mirror, a warped and twisted reflection of the real world, but the distortion was so minimal that she could hardly convince herself it was there. And yet, it was. Everything was slightly off, slightly out of place … it felt as if someone had come into her room, picked everything up and put it back down again. No matter how careful they were, they wouldn’t get it completely right. The world felt the same way. Everything was just wrong.\n", "completion": "Emily walked for hours, her feet wandering seemingly at random, before looking up and finding herself in front of her apartment. They’d carried her back home … a wave of despair washed over her, a wave of something she didn’t want to look at too closely … a flash of horror ran through her as she realised she’d left her mother alone with her stepfather. The man had been hurt by someone he’d thought he could push around at will and that meant … she swallowed hard, torn between fear and an unwillingness to leave her mother at the mercy of a merciless man. If she went back upstairs … she found her legs taking her through the door and up the stairs, her depression too strong to resist. She would face what was at the top because there was no way to escape. There was nowhere to go, no one willing to help …\n\nShe pushed the door open and stepped inside. Her mother was seated on the coach, eyes glued to the TV. The newsreader was babbling loudly, a liturgy of violence and hate and bigotry that blurred into a tidal wave of darkness, threatening to overwhelm the light. Emily glanced into the kitchen and saw nothing. There was no sign of a struggle, no sign of anyone lying dead on the floor or … perhaps he’d called himself an ambulance and gone to hospital or perhaps he was in the master bedroom, trying to recover from the beating she’d given him. She held her breath as she glanced into the bedroom, but saw nothing. The room was as cold and silent as the grave.\n\nThe TV was still babbling. The President was in trouble. Again. Emily glanced at the screen and froze as she saw a skeletal face, right out of nightmares, with glowing red eyes that seemed to peer into her very soul. She’d never been a fan of the President and yet she was fairly sure he didn’t look like that … she blinked, then reached for the TV remote and turned it off. The ghastly face vanished. She felt a flicker of relief, mingled with fear. What was wrong with her?\n\nWhat was wrong with the world?\n\n“Turn it on,” her mother ordered. “Now.”\n\nEmily shook her head. “We need to talk.”\n\n“Turn it on,” her mother repeated.\n\n“No,” Emily said. She spoke with a confidence that seemed to come out of nowhere. “Your husband just tried to rape me.”\n\nHer mother’s face flushed with anger. “Liar!”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. “I am not lying,” she snapped. She knew there were far too many people who would do everything in their power to avoid recognising an unfortunate reality, such as the simple fact they were married to a rapist, but her mother … was supposed to care. “He tried to rape me.”\n\n“It’s always the same, isn’t it?” Her mother glowered at her. “A pretty girl draws a man and then cries rape …”\n\n“I don’t believe this,” Emily snapped, although she did. She’d seen it before. Women blamed for their own rape, children blamed for their own abuse. “You …”\n\nAnger burned through her, burning through the haze in her mind. “Your partner just tried to rape me,” she added. “He tried to cheat on you! With me!”\n\nShe gritted her teeth. “You don’t have to be scared of him. We could go to the police together …”\n\nHer mother reached for the TV remote and turned it back on, flicking through the channels until she found a romantic comedy. Emily stared down at her, rage boiling through her mind. Her mother was not a very good mother, but this … despair washed through her as she recalled other men who had been arrested, for far worse crimes, only to be released to take their revenge on those who had reported them. What did it profit a battered wife or abused daughter to report their victimiser, when nothing was done and the monster returned to kill them? Better to crawl into a bottle … Emily felt sick, wondering just how much her mother had tried to hide from over the years. Her stepfather had never tried to rape her before, but God alone knew what else he’d done …\n\nShe turned away, heading for the door. She couldn’t help her mother any longer, not if she was unwilling to help herself. It was hard to convince herself she needed to try. Her mother could have taken her away, could have found work elsewhere, but instead … she had left Emily to the mercies of a merciless man. Emily took one last look around the apartment, then hurried back down the stairs. It was broad daylight. It was …\n\nHer mind skipped a beat. It had been night, only a moment ago.\n\nWhat?\n\nShe was going mad. She had to be. The world didn’t change like that … a flash of paranoia shot through her. Had she been drugged? She wouldn’t put it past her stepfather to slip something nasty into her drink. He could have put her to sleep and then done whatever he wanted to her … or worse. She could have lost all sense of time … it looked like mid-morning now, the schoolchildren making their slow way to school and the … she shook her head. Everything was just wrong. It made no sense at all.\n\nThe library, she thought, numbly. There’ll be answers there.\n\nThe sense of wrongness only grew stronger as she walked down the street. It felt like a funhouse mirror, a warped and twisted reflection of the real world, but the distortion was so minimal that she could hardly convince herself it was there. And yet, it was. Everything was slightly off, slightly out of place … it felt as if someone had come into her room, picked everything up and put it back down again. No matter how careful they were, they wouldn’t get it completely right. The world felt the same way. Everything was just wrong.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1012, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch05-P2", "chapter": "ch05", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\nHogwarts — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nPrincess Alassa — both words; keep form.\nImaiqah — capitalized.\nJade — capitalized.\nHarry Potter — both words.\n\n### STORY\nEmily walks back to the apartment, confronts Destiny about the attempted rape, is called a liar, and leaves into a street that feels like a funhouse mirror while heading for the library.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nHungry, library-bound, certain magic is fantasy; does not remember Frieda or Whitehall until a memory strikes.\n\nFrieda\nAppears in the library in an oddly familiar costume; insists Emily knows her and was made to forget; names friends until memory hits.\n\nDestiny — Absent; left behind.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer mother reached for the TV remote and turned it back on, flicking through the channels until she found a romantic comedy. Emily stared down at her, rage boiling through her mind. Her mother was not a very good mother, but this … despair washed through her as she recalled other men who had been arrested, for far worse crimes, only to be released to take their revenge on those who had reported them. What did it profit a battered wife or abused daughter to report their victimiser, when nothing was done and the monster returned to kill them? Better to crawl into a bottle … Emily felt sick, wondering just how much her mother had tried to hide from over the years. Her stepfather had never tried to rape her before, but God alone knew what else he’d done …\n\nShe turned away, heading for the door. She couldn’t help her mother any longer, not if she was unwilling to help herself. It was hard to convince herself she needed to try. Her mother could have taken her away, could have found work elsewhere, but instead … she had left Emily to the mercies of a merciless man. Emily took one last look around the apartment, then hurried back down the stairs. It was broad daylight. It was …\n\nHer mind skipped a beat. It had been night, only a moment ago.\n\nWhat?\n\nShe was going mad. She had to be. The world didn’t change like that … a flash of paranoia shot through her. Had she been drugged? She wouldn’t put it past her stepfather to slip something nasty into her drink. He could have put her to sleep and then done whatever he wanted to her … or worse. She could have lost all sense of time … it looked like mid-morning now, the schoolchildren making their slow way to school and the … she shook her head. Everything was just wrong. It made no sense at all.\n\nThe library, she thought, numbly. There’ll be answers there.\n\nThe sense of wrongness only grew stronger as she walked down the street. It felt like a funhouse mirror, a warped and twisted reflection of the real world, but the distortion was so minimal that she could hardly convince herself it was there. And yet, it was. Everything was slightly off, slightly out of place … it felt as if someone had come into her room, picked everything up and put it back down again. No matter how careful they were, they wouldn’t get it completely right. The world felt the same way. Everything was just wrong.\n\n### NOTES\nPublic library, already open; café passed on the way.\nFamiliar library smell; seating where memory can strike.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHungry past a café, she enters the open library and meets a strangely costumed girl who knows her name—Frieda—claiming Emily was made to forget. Anger at Hogwarts fantasy dulled by depression meets Frieda’s quiet insistence on Princess Alassa, Imaiqah, Jade; a memory hits hard enough that only being seated saves her from the floor.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Library quiet broken by impossible recognition. Land on the memory strike.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Her stomach growled as she passed a café, the handful of customers lining up for overpriced coffee and a sandwich they could have made themselves, for a far cheaper price. She had no money now; she’d spent the last of her cash yesterday and she’d never been allowed to open a credit card. There was no way she could buy something … a trio of boys ran out a corner shop, the shopkeeper shouting curses after them in a language she didn’t recognise. Shoplifters, stealing sweets and money and … she watched them go, then resumed her walk. There was nothing to be done about it. A shopkeeper who beat up the boys for stealing would be arrested while his tormentors walked free.\n\nThe library loomed in front of her, already open. Emily stepped through the door, breathing in the familiar smell even though she had no idea what she’d do there so early. Perhaps … if the world was changing, there would be a clue. Or …perhaps she really was going crazy. It was … she took a bunch of newspapers from the stand and carried them to the nearest table, sitting down to read. The stories blurred together: unemployment on the rise, police brutality on the rise too … it was just the same as always, a nightmarish reminder there was no hope for her. No better prospects, no chance to even make something of herself …\n\n“Emily!”\n\nEmily looked up … and blinked. The young girl in front of her was ... strange. She wore an outfit right out of a steampunk fantasy novel, as if she were cosplaying … but there was something authentic about it, as if it were real. A brown leather jerkin, a belt crammed with odd tools – some understandable, some truly alien – a set of loose trousers that concealed a frame that was almost disturbingly thin … the girl had two long pigtails, framing a round face that would have been cute if her skin hadn’t been so tight around the bone. The mere sight of her sent Emily’s mind into a spin. She wasn’t sure why.\n\n“I …” She swallowed and started again. “Who are you?”\n\nThe girl flinched, as if Emily had struck her. “You don’t know my name?”\n\nEmily studied her for a long moment. The face was oddly familiar and yet … she couldn’t place it. Not a girl at school, she was sure, and not someone she knew elsewhere. She had no siblings or cousins, as far as she knew, and her stepfather didn’t have any children of his own … unless he had a whole secret family somewhere else. She didn’t think so, but it wasn’t impossible. She  certainly wouldn’t put it past him. And yet, the girl facing her wouldn’t know her if it was so …\n\n“I’m Frieda.” Frieda eyed her sadly, a hint of pity in her eyes. Emily found it worse than contempt. “Can’t you recall me?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. Frieda was a stranger. And yet, there was something about her that was oddly familiar. Emily wasn’t sure what to make of it. She wanted to tell the silly girl to go away and bother some other random stranger, if she was out for money or food or something else, but some instinct told her to listen instead. “I don’t know you.”\n\n“You do,” Frieda said. “You’ve just been made to forget.”\n\n“Impossible,” Emily said. The denial was instant. And yet … she had the oddest sense of something plucking at her mind, reshaping the world around her even as she tried to grasp what was happening. “What are you …?”\n\n“Don’t you remember Whitehall?” Frieda’s voice was low, urgent. “You studied magic there …”\n\nEmily felt a hot flash of anger, rapidly dulled by the depression. God! She’d fantasised about going to Hogwarts from the very first day she’d read Harry Potter. She had told herself her father had been a wizard, that one day the letter would arrive and she’d go off to learn magic … something useful, something she could use to build a life for herself, something – anything – other than a drab grey existence that would end in her death, her passing as unremarked and unremarkable as her life. She wouldn’t have cared if she wound up in Slytherin as long as she had the chance to practice magic. But the letter had never come. Of course not. There was no such thing as magic.\n\n“You’ve been made to forget,” Frieda repeated, “but you were there.”\n\nEmily wanted to believe, really she did. The yearning for something greater than herself was almost overpowering. Had she been expelled and memory charmed? Had she been …\n\nNo. There was no such thing as magic.\n\n“Shut up,” she snapped. The cold rage burning through her made it hard to think clearly. It was a joke. A trick. An unfunny prank committed by someone who had no sense of humour – or at least no sense of human decency. She wanted to believe, and so she didn’t. The easiest lies were the lies the victim wanted to believe and she wanted to believe this one very much. But in the end it was a lie. “It isn’t true.”\n\n“It is,” Frieda said, quietly. She sounded as though Emily was breaking her heart. “Don’t you remember Princess Alassa? Imaiqah? Jade?”\n\nA memory shot through Emily’s mind, so powerful it would have sent her to the ground if she hadn’t already been sitting. A blonde girl with a heart-shaped face, a darker girl with tanned skin and brown hair, a handsome young man with a smile and … Emily had kissed him. She had. Her lips tingled at the thought. And yet, she knew she hadn’t. It was no more real than her Hogwarts fantasies. There was no such thing as a true alpha male, just silly little boys insisting they were alpha and special and …\n", "completion": "Her stomach growled as she passed a café, the handful of customers lining up for overpriced coffee and a sandwich they could have made themselves, for a far cheaper price. She had no money now; she’d spent the last of her cash yesterday and she’d never been allowed to open a credit card. There was no way she could buy something … a trio of boys ran out a corner shop, the shopkeeper shouting curses after them in a language she didn’t recognise. Shoplifters, stealing sweets and money and … she watched them go, then resumed her walk. There was nothing to be done about it. A shopkeeper who beat up the boys for stealing would be arrested while his tormentors walked free.\n\nThe library loomed in front of her, already open. Emily stepped through the door, breathing in the familiar smell even though she had no idea what she’d do there so early. Perhaps … if the world was changing, there would be a clue. Or …perhaps she really was going crazy. It was … she took a bunch of newspapers from the stand and carried them to the nearest table, sitting down to read. The stories blurred together: unemployment on the rise, police brutality on the rise too … it was just the same as always, a nightmarish reminder there was no hope for her. No better prospects, no chance to even make something of herself …\n\n“Emily!”\n\nEmily looked up … and blinked. The young girl in front of her was ... strange. She wore an outfit right out of a steampunk fantasy novel, as if she were cosplaying … but there was something authentic about it, as if it were real. A brown leather jerkin, a belt crammed with odd tools – some understandable, some truly alien – a set of loose trousers that concealed a frame that was almost disturbingly thin … the girl had two long pigtails, framing a round face that would have been cute if her skin hadn’t been so tight around the bone. The mere sight of her sent Emily’s mind into a spin. She wasn’t sure why.\n\n“I …” She swallowed and started again. “Who are you?”\n\nThe girl flinched, as if Emily had struck her. “You don’t know my name?”\n\nEmily studied her for a long moment. The face was oddly familiar and yet … she couldn’t place it. Not a girl at school, she was sure, and not someone she knew elsewhere. She had no siblings or cousins, as far as she knew, and her stepfather didn’t have any children of his own … unless he had a whole secret family somewhere else. She didn’t think so, but it wasn’t impossible. She  certainly wouldn’t put it past him. And yet, the girl facing her wouldn’t know her if it was so …\n\n“I’m Frieda.” Frieda eyed her sadly, a hint of pity in her eyes. Emily found it worse than contempt. “Can’t you recall me?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. Frieda was a stranger. And yet, there was something about her that was oddly familiar. Emily wasn’t sure what to make of it. She wanted to tell the silly girl to go away and bother some other random stranger, if she was out for money or food or something else, but some instinct told her to listen instead. “I don’t know you.”\n\n“You do,” Frieda said. “You’ve just been made to forget.”\n\n“Impossible,” Emily said. The denial was instant. And yet … she had the oddest sense of something plucking at her mind, reshaping the world around her even as she tried to grasp what was happening. “What are you …?”\n\n“Don’t you remember Whitehall?” Frieda’s voice was low, urgent. “You studied magic there …”\n\nEmily felt a hot flash of anger, rapidly dulled by the depression. God! She’d fantasised about going to Hogwarts from the very first day she’d read Harry Potter. She had told herself her father had been a wizard, that one day the letter would arrive and she’d go off to learn magic … something useful, something she could use to build a life for herself, something – anything – other than a drab grey existence that would end in her death, her passing as unremarked and unremarkable as her life. She wouldn’t have cared if she wound up in Slytherin as long as she had the chance to practice magic. But the letter had never come. Of course not. There was no such thing as magic.\n\n“You’ve been made to forget,” Frieda repeated, “but you were there.”\n\nEmily wanted to believe, really she did. The yearning for something greater than herself was almost overpowering. Had she been expelled and memory charmed? Had she been …\n\nNo. There was no such thing as magic.\n\n“Shut up,” she snapped. The cold rage burning through her made it hard to think clearly. It was a joke. A trick. An unfunny prank committed by someone who had no sense of humour – or at least no sense of human decency. She wanted to believe, and so she didn’t. The easiest lies were the lies the victim wanted to believe and she wanted to believe this one very much. But in the end it was a lie. “It isn’t true.”\n\n“It is,” Frieda said, quietly. She sounded as though Emily was breaking her heart. “Don’t you remember Princess Alassa? Imaiqah? Jade?”\n\nA memory shot through Emily’s mind, so powerful it would have sent her to the ground if she hadn’t already been sitting. A blonde girl with a heart-shaped face, a darker girl with tanned skin and brown hair, a handsome young man with a smile and … Emily had kissed him. She had. Her lips tingled at the thought. And yet, she knew she hadn’t. It was no more real than her Hogwarts fantasies. There was no such thing as a true alpha male, just silly little boys insisting they were alpha and special and …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1004, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch05-P3", "chapter": "ch05", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\nHogwarts — capitalized.\nHarry Potter — both words.\nCaleb — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily walks back to the apartment, confronts Destiny about the attempted rape, is called a liar, and leaves into a street that feels like a funhouse mirror while heading for the library.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nDenying the memory as unreal; socially convinced she has no friends; about to be slapped into recollection and led outside to apocalypse.\n\nFrieda\nUrgent, heartbroken, insistent the world is a trap; slaps Emily; helps her up; hurries her out.\n\nCaleb — Appears in jarring sensory memory as loving presence after the slap.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Impossible,” Emily said. The denial was instant. And yet … she had the oddest sense of something plucking at her mind, reshaping the world around her even as she tried to grasp what was happening. “What are you …?”\n\n“Don’t you remember Whitehall?” Frieda’s voice was low, urgent. “You studied magic there …”\n\nEmily felt a hot flash of anger, rapidly dulled by the depression. God! She’d fantasised about going to Hogwarts from the very first day she’d read Harry Potter. She had told herself her father had been a wizard, that one day the letter would arrive and she’d go off to learn magic … something useful, something she could use to build a life for herself, something – anything – other than a drab grey existence that would end in her death, her passing as unremarked and unremarkable as her life. She wouldn’t have cared if she wound up in Slytherin as long as she had the chance to practice magic. But the letter had never come. Of course not. There was no such thing as magic.\n\n“You’ve been made to forget,” Frieda repeated, “but you were there.”\n\nEmily wanted to believe, really she did. The yearning for something greater than herself was almost overpowering. Had she been expelled and memory charmed? Had she been …\n\nNo. There was no such thing as magic.\n\n“Shut up,” she snapped. The cold rage burning through her made it hard to think clearly. It was a joke. A trick. An unfunny prank committed by someone who had no sense of humour – or at least no sense of human decency. She wanted to believe, and so she didn’t. The easiest lies were the lies the victim wanted to believe and she wanted to believe this one very much. But in the end it was a lie. “It isn’t true.”\n\n“It is,” Frieda said, quietly. She sounded as though Emily was breaking her heart. “Don’t you remember Princess Alassa? Imaiqah? Jade?”\n\nA memory shot through Emily’s mind, so powerful it would have sent her to the ground if she hadn’t already been sitting. A blonde girl with a heart-shaped face, a darker girl with tanned skin and brown hair, a handsome young man with a smile and … Emily had kissed him. She had. Her lips tingled at the thought. And yet, she knew she hadn’t. It was no more real than her Hogwarts fantasies. There was no such thing as a true alpha male, just silly little boys insisting they were alpha and special and …\n\n### NOTES\nLibrary interior becoming trap-like; exterior waiting with end-of-world sight.\nNo cameras found though Emily suspects influencer staging.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe denies the memory, snaps go away, and tries to hide in newspaper misery while suspecting a filmed trap. Frieda names the prison, grabs for her hand, then slaps her hard; legs buckle under a flood of Caleb and friendship. Frieda hauls her up with rare urgency; outside, Emily stops dead—it is the end of the world.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Denial broken by slap and flood of memory; outside reveal lands hard. Land on the end of the world.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She gritted her teeth. It wasn’t real.\n\n“They were your friends,” Frieda said. “They still are. But you need to help them.”\n\nEmily scowled. She didn’t have friends. Not really. She had acquaintances at best. She was a socially awkward teenage girl, lacking beauty or money or anything else that would convince people to look at her. She wanted friends, yet … it wasn’t easy to open up to anyone. She wanted … she knew she was being taunted. She wanted friends and a chance to go to magic school and … she didn’t have either. She never would.\n\n“Go away,” she snapped. She stared down at the newspaper, wondering if she could lose herself in the text. Another sad story, another hint of a world dying around her. “Just … go away.”\n\nFrieda sat, facing her. “You need to listen to me.”\n\n“You’re making fun of me,” Emily snarled.\n\nShe couldn’t see any cameras, but she was sure they were there. It was just some idiot influencer filming content for her blog, making fun of the desperate teenager who wanted to be something – anything – more than she was. If someone could toss a homeless woman into a lake to watch her try to swim, just for clicks, someone else could pretend to be from Hogwarts. Frieda wasn’t even doing a very good job of it. Her outfit was hardly from Harry Potter. But wearing that on a blog would probably offend the lawsuit gods.\n\n“Emily, you need to listen to me,” Frieda said, with quiet urgency. “You know this isn’t your world.”\n\nEmily hesitated. Something was wrong. She knew it. And yet … she would sooner believe she’d been drugged than … than something, anything, that might imply she was from a finer world. Was she a little cuckoo, taken from one world and hidden in another … she’d read a story about that once. More than once. Perhaps her father was a mighty sorcerer who’d come back for her. Or a king of a far-distant land. Or was Emily just a magical student who’d been expelled? Or …  God! She wanted to believe. But she didn’t dare.\n\n“This is a trap, a prison,” Frieda hissed. She reached out to take Emily’s hand; Emily drew back, somehow reluctant to touch the strange girl. “The walls are already closing in. You have to remember.”\n\n“I don’t remember you,” Emily said. She felt as if she’d lost something without quite knowing what, the feeling fading almost as soon as she put a name to it. Tears prickled in her eyes. She wanted to cry and she didn’t know why. “Just … go away.”\n\nFrieda looked offended, offended and dismayed. “You don’t remember me …?”\n\nFrieda’s hand moved so quickly Emily barely had a second to realise what was happening before Frieda struck, slapping Emily so hard she nearly went tumbling over backwards. The pain hit a moment later, making her cry out in agony. She’d never been hit before, not really. Her mother had berated her time and time again, as a child, but she’d never slapped or spanked her daughter. Her stepfather had never struck her. Even at school … she had been taunted, true, but never hit. Girls rarely were. But now …\n\n“You’re crazy,” Emily managed. The pain was excruciating. There was blood in her mouth … her blood. She stumbled to her feet, desperate to get away from the madwoman in front of her. She no longer cared if she were being filmed, if she were being set up for the Gullible Brat of the Year Award. She just wanted to get away. “Leave me alone!”\n\nFrieda’s voice followed her as she ran to the door. “You don’t remember me? Or Caleb?”\n\nEmily’s legs buckled. A young man, maybe not classically handsome, but … bright and clever and loving and … the sensation of holding him, loving him, swept through her. He was real. He had to be. He was … if it was a fantasy, to have a man who was both her lover and her intellectual partner, she didn’t want to stay in the real world. She could practically feel him holding her, his eyes alight with love and passion and …\n\nShe hit the ground, hard. The shock jarred her, but this time … she could feel the memories slowly coming into focus, a whole other life … she could sense something plucking at her thoughts, trying to overwrite them with memories that no longer made sense. If there was nothing wrong with her, perhaps there was something wrong with the universe; if the universe was changing, and all the tools she used to measure it were changing too, would she even know the universe was changing? But she knew now. The moment she started asking specific questions, the moment she started wondering why it had been the middle of the night one moment and broad daylight the next, the whole scenario started tumbling down.\n\n“Frieda,” she managed. A torrent of memories shot through her, a life she’d lived. Frieda was a friend … practically a little sister. No wonder she’d been so offended when Emily had forgotten her … why had she forgotten? The memories were confused, as if everything had happened at once … she could barely put them into some kind of order. “I …”\n\nFrieda helped her to her feet. “We need to move,” she said. The urgency in her voice caught Emily’s attention. Frieda rarely panicked, but she was panicking now. “I don’t know how much time we have.”\n\nA shudder ran through the air. Emily felt it, something tearing at her mind … at reality itself. A headache … no, something worse. Much worse. The entire universe was screaming in agony. It felt like the end of the world.\n\nShe hurried outside and stopped, dead. The sight before her …\n\nIt was the end of the world.\n", "completion": "She gritted her teeth. It wasn’t real.\n\n“They were your friends,” Frieda said. “They still are. But you need to help them.”\n\nEmily scowled. She didn’t have friends. Not really. She had acquaintances at best. She was a socially awkward teenage girl, lacking beauty or money or anything else that would convince people to look at her. She wanted friends, yet … it wasn’t easy to open up to anyone. She wanted … she knew she was being taunted. She wanted friends and a chance to go to magic school and … she didn’t have either. She never would.\n\n“Go away,” she snapped. She stared down at the newspaper, wondering if she could lose herself in the text. Another sad story, another hint of a world dying around her. “Just … go away.”\n\nFrieda sat, facing her. “You need to listen to me.”\n\n“You’re making fun of me,” Emily snarled.\n\nShe couldn’t see any cameras, but she was sure they were there. It was just some idiot influencer filming content for her blog, making fun of the desperate teenager who wanted to be something – anything – more than she was. If someone could toss a homeless woman into a lake to watch her try to swim, just for clicks, someone else could pretend to be from Hogwarts. Frieda wasn’t even doing a very good job of it. Her outfit was hardly from Harry Potter. But wearing that on a blog would probably offend the lawsuit gods.\n\n“Emily, you need to listen to me,” Frieda said, with quiet urgency. “You know this isn’t your world.”\n\nEmily hesitated. Something was wrong. She knew it. And yet … she would sooner believe she’d been drugged than … than something, anything, that might imply she was from a finer world. Was she a little cuckoo, taken from one world and hidden in another … she’d read a story about that once. More than once. Perhaps her father was a mighty sorcerer who’d come back for her. Or a king of a far-distant land. Or was Emily just a magical student who’d been expelled? Or …  God! She wanted to believe. But she didn’t dare.\n\n“This is a trap, a prison,” Frieda hissed. She reached out to take Emily’s hand; Emily drew back, somehow reluctant to touch the strange girl. “The walls are already closing in. You have to remember.”\n\n“I don’t remember you,” Emily said. She felt as if she’d lost something without quite knowing what, the feeling fading almost as soon as she put a name to it. Tears prickled in her eyes. She wanted to cry and she didn’t know why. “Just … go away.”\n\nFrieda looked offended, offended and dismayed. “You don’t remember me …?”\n\nFrieda’s hand moved so quickly Emily barely had a second to realise what was happening before Frieda struck, slapping Emily so hard she nearly went tumbling over backwards. The pain hit a moment later, making her cry out in agony. She’d never been hit before, not really. Her mother had berated her time and time again, as a child, but she’d never slapped or spanked her daughter. Her stepfather had never struck her. Even at school … she had been taunted, true, but never hit. Girls rarely were. But now …\n\n“You’re crazy,” Emily managed. The pain was excruciating. There was blood in her mouth … her blood. She stumbled to her feet, desperate to get away from the madwoman in front of her. She no longer cared if she were being filmed, if she were being set up for the Gullible Brat of the Year Award. She just wanted to get away. “Leave me alone!”\n\nFrieda’s voice followed her as she ran to the door. “You don’t remember me? Or Caleb?”\n\nEmily’s legs buckled. A young man, maybe not classically handsome, but … bright and clever and loving and … the sensation of holding him, loving him, swept through her. He was real. He had to be. He was … if it was a fantasy, to have a man who was both her lover and her intellectual partner, she didn’t want to stay in the real world. She could practically feel him holding her, his eyes alight with love and passion and …\n\nShe hit the ground, hard. The shock jarred her, but this time … she could feel the memories slowly coming into focus, a whole other life … she could sense something plucking at her thoughts, trying to overwrite them with memories that no longer made sense. If there was nothing wrong with her, perhaps there was something wrong with the universe; if the universe was changing, and all the tools she used to measure it were changing too, would she even know the universe was changing? But she knew now. The moment she started asking specific questions, the moment she started wondering why it had been the middle of the night one moment and broad daylight the next, the whole scenario started tumbling down.\n\n“Frieda,” she managed. A torrent of memories shot through her, a life she’d lived. Frieda was a friend … practically a little sister. No wonder she’d been so offended when Emily had forgotten her … why had she forgotten? The memories were confused, as if everything had happened at once … she could barely put them into some kind of order. “I …”\n\nFrieda helped her to her feet. “We need to move,” she said. The urgency in her voice caught Emily’s attention. Frieda rarely panicked, but she was panicking now. “I don’t know how much time we have.”\n\nA shudder ran through the air. Emily felt it, something tearing at her mind … at reality itself. A headache … no, something worse. Much worse. The entire universe was screaming in agony. It felt like the end of the world.\n\nShe hurried outside and stopped, dead. The sight before her …\n\nIt was the end of the world.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 994, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch06-P1", "chapter": "ch06", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily walks back to the apartment, confronts Destiny about the attempted rape, is called a liar, and leaves into a street that feels like a funhouse mirror while heading for the library.\n\nAt the library a costumed stranger named Frieda insists Emily knows her and has been made to forget; names of friends and Whitehall strike a memory so hard Emily nearly collapses.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nMemories of two lives colliding as the end of the world unfolds; terrified; following Frieda’s lead through bending streets.\n\nFrieda\nBeside her, directing flight, flying beside her; snaps to stay down.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“You’re crazy,” Emily managed. The pain was excruciating. There was blood in her mouth … her blood. She stumbled to her feet, desperate to get away from the madwoman in front of her. She no longer cared if she were being filmed, if she were being set up for the Gullible Brat of the Year Award. She just wanted to get away. “Leave me alone!”\n\nFrieda’s voice followed her as she ran to the door. “You don’t remember me? Or Caleb?”\n\nEmily’s legs buckled. A young man, maybe not classically handsome, but … bright and clever and loving and … the sensation of holding him, loving him, swept through her. He was real. He had to be. He was … if it was a fantasy, to have a man who was both her lover and her intellectual partner, she didn’t want to stay in the real world. She could practically feel him holding her, his eyes alight with love and passion and …\n\nShe hit the ground, hard. The shock jarred her, but this time … she could feel the memories slowly coming into focus, a whole other life … she could sense something plucking at her thoughts, trying to overwrite them with memories that no longer made sense. If there was nothing wrong with her, perhaps there was something wrong with the universe; if the universe was changing, and all the tools she used to measure it were changing too, would she even know the universe was changing? But she knew now. The moment she started asking specific questions, the moment she started wondering why it had been the middle of the night one moment and broad daylight the next, the whole scenario started tumbling down.\n\n“Frieda,” she managed. A torrent of memories shot through her, a life she’d lived. Frieda was a friend … practically a little sister. No wonder she’d been so offended when Emily had forgotten her … why had she forgotten? The memories were confused, as if everything had happened at once … she could barely put them into some kind of order. “I …”\n\nFrieda helped her to her feet. “We need to move,” she said. The urgency in her voice caught Emily’s attention. Frieda rarely panicked, but she was panicking now. “I don’t know how much time we have.”\n\nA shudder ran through the air. Emily felt it, something tearing at her mind … at reality itself. A headache … no, something worse. Much worse. The entire universe was screaming in agony. It felt like the end of the world.\n\nShe hurried outside and stopped, dead. The sight before her …\n\nIt was the end of the world.\n\n### NOTES\nCity streets with parting apartment blocks and bending skyscrapers; no panic among bystanders.\nGodlike paws as protrusions of greater reality.\nPocket-dimension nature becoming clear.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nNever so scared in either life, she watches the city bend in silence while people ignore the impossible. Frieda pulls her along under descending paws of a greater reality; flying low, Emily grasps that the world is a pocket dimension—a personal hell—and sucks in that truth.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Silent apocalypse motion; keep the pocket-hell recognition sharp. Land on the nature of the world.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily had never been so scared before, not in either of her two lives.\n\nThe world was shifting, changing, as if it belonged to a mad god. Towering apartment blocks were parting, skyscrapers bending in directions they were never intended to go, shifting to clear the way for something pushing its way into the world. Light hazed and bent around the intruder, framing a growing structure that was taking shape and form without ever quite showing itself. It was something defined by the absence of itself, something outlined rather than present … she had the sudden impression of a giant foot on the beach, shoving aside the sand to leave footprints behind. It was just too big to be grasped. It was … she saw a skyscraper bend right over, as if it had been pushed aside by an angry god, yet … the building remained intact. It looked more like a distorted painting than anything real.\n\nThere was no noise as the world shifted around her. No panic … the handful of people on the streets seemed utterly unconcerned, going about their business even as their universe stretched and threatened to tear itself asunder. She saw someone walk right into the distortion and vanish … no, reappear on the other side as if it’d never been there at all. They honestly couldn’t see the distortion, she realised, so to them it was as if it simply didn’t exist. It didn’t, to them. It was so far out of their context they couldn’t even see it.\n\n“My gods,” Frieda breathed.\n\nEmily barely heard her. The entity was taking on shape and form. Four shimmering translucent legs, a shape that was decidedly lupine and yet disturbingly large, extending in directions her mind wasn’t built to comprehend; the back of her mind, still trying to integrate the memories she’d lost and then recovered, yammered about multidimensional beings that existed on planes so far above the human realm that it was different, if not impossible, for them to interact meaningfully with humanity without breaking them beyond all hope of repair. The world was just too fragile for such creatures … horror washed through her as she realised her mother was about to die, along with the rest of the pocket universe. But it wasn’t her real mother, was it? She was nothing more than a construct shaped out of Emily’s nightmares …\n\nSomething tore, above her. Emily staggered, her ears ringing as a silent scream battered her mind. The universe was giving birth to a demon child … she shuddered, warm liquid trickling down her legs, as she saw the giant red eyes burning high overhead. The wolf was a monster, a nightmarish hunter … what she saw, the back of her mind whispered, was her mind’s attempt to force what she saw into something she could comprehend. It wasn’t a real wolf. It was a monster that simply didn’t belong.\n\nFrieda caught her arm. “This way!”\n\nEmily let herself be dragged away, as she felt the world warp and twist around them. The wolf didn’t seem to be able to see them directly, but she knew – at a very primal level – that it was just a matter of time before it put its foot down on top of them and … she wasn’t sure what would happen, yet she was certain it would be utterly disastrous. The silent howling grew louder as they fled down the street and into an alleyway, the shadows taking on nightmarish shapes in its wake. She didn’t dare look up at the monstrous shape above her, behind her, but she could feel the red eyes burning into her very soul. It was …\n\n“Keep moving,” Frieda snapped. “Don’t let it get its hands on you!”\n\nPaws, Emily thought numbly, although she knew it was silly. The paws were just protrusions of a greater reality, tools a godlike entity might use to manipulate the lesser realms. They were no more paws than a cursor was anything more than something used to interface with a GUI. It certainly had no material reality. This universe is a computer program and that thing intends to take control.\n\nThe world kept shifting and bending around them. She sensed, more than saw, the universe stretching behind her, the very fabric of reality itself pulled to the breaking point. Half-forgotten memories tore at her mind, reminders of things lurking outside the interdimensional walls … she had the sudden nasty sense that they were scratching at the walls, waiting patiently for a chance to force their way into the world and tear it apart. It had happened before and it would happen again, if the walls fell … she could feel them weakening, the laws of science bending and breaking under the hammering from above. They weren’t being rewritten so much as they were being ruthlessly discarded, raising the spectre of ultimate chaos. It was going to be a nightmare.\n\nA giant paw crashed down, right next to her. Her mind yammered in shock. There had been a building there, a solid wall … no, it had been pushed aside to create room for the entity to grab her. She could feel the jaws behind her, sweeping down … she could feel the raw malevolence, a loathing that would never be satisfied with just killing her. It was going to rip her apart and condemn her soul … instincts she’d forgotten took control, levitating her up and away from the snapping jaws. She found herself high in the sky … horror washed through her as she realised she was flying, that she was about to fall … no. It was real. She laughed, despite everything, as the pure joy of magic ran through her. She hadn’t lost it after all.\n\nFrieda flew beside her. “Stay down,” she snapped. “We’re in the open here …”\n\nEmily swallowed hard, sucking in her breath as the true nature of the world around her became clear. It was a pocket dimension, one centred on her … a giant multiversal hamster ball, she thought numbly, a feat of construction none the less staggering for being created by a god. No matter how far they ran, the dimension would always be centred on her; the world around her, the people and the buildings and everything else, created as she passed and fading into nothingness afterwards. It was a very personal prison.\n", "completion": "Emily had never been so scared before, not in either of her two lives.\n\nThe world was shifting, changing, as if it belonged to a mad god. Towering apartment blocks were parting, skyscrapers bending in directions they were never intended to go, shifting to clear the way for something pushing its way into the world. Light hazed and bent around the intruder, framing a growing structure that was taking shape and form without ever quite showing itself. It was something defined by the absence of itself, something outlined rather than present … she had the sudden impression of a giant foot on the beach, shoving aside the sand to leave footprints behind. It was just too big to be grasped. It was … she saw a skyscraper bend right over, as if it had been pushed aside by an angry god, yet … the building remained intact. It looked more like a distorted painting than anything real.\n\nThere was no noise as the world shifted around her. No panic … the handful of people on the streets seemed utterly unconcerned, going about their business even as their universe stretched and threatened to tear itself asunder. She saw someone walk right into the distortion and vanish … no, reappear on the other side as if it’d never been there at all. They honestly couldn’t see the distortion, she realised, so to them it was as if it simply didn’t exist. It didn’t, to them. It was so far out of their context they couldn’t even see it.\n\n“My gods,” Frieda breathed.\n\nEmily barely heard her. The entity was taking on shape and form. Four shimmering translucent legs, a shape that was decidedly lupine and yet disturbingly large, extending in directions her mind wasn’t built to comprehend; the back of her mind, still trying to integrate the memories she’d lost and then recovered, yammered about multidimensional beings that existed on planes so far above the human realm that it was different, if not impossible, for them to interact meaningfully with humanity without breaking them beyond all hope of repair. The world was just too fragile for such creatures … horror washed through her as she realised her mother was about to die, along with the rest of the pocket universe. But it wasn’t her real mother, was it? She was nothing more than a construct shaped out of Emily’s nightmares …\n\nSomething tore, above her. Emily staggered, her ears ringing as a silent scream battered her mind. The universe was giving birth to a demon child … she shuddered, warm liquid trickling down her legs, as she saw the giant red eyes burning high overhead. The wolf was a monster, a nightmarish hunter … what she saw, the back of her mind whispered, was her mind’s attempt to force what she saw into something she could comprehend. It wasn’t a real wolf. It was a monster that simply didn’t belong.\n\nFrieda caught her arm. “This way!”\n\nEmily let herself be dragged away, as she felt the world warp and twist around them. The wolf didn’t seem to be able to see them directly, but she knew – at a very primal level – that it was just a matter of time before it put its foot down on top of them and … she wasn’t sure what would happen, yet she was certain it would be utterly disastrous. The silent howling grew louder as they fled down the street and into an alleyway, the shadows taking on nightmarish shapes in its wake. She didn’t dare look up at the monstrous shape above her, behind her, but she could feel the red eyes burning into her very soul. It was …\n\n“Keep moving,” Frieda snapped. “Don’t let it get its hands on you!”\n\nPaws, Emily thought numbly, although she knew it was silly. The paws were just protrusions of a greater reality, tools a godlike entity might use to manipulate the lesser realms. They were no more paws than a cursor was anything more than something used to interface with a GUI. It certainly had no material reality. This universe is a computer program and that thing intends to take control.\n\nThe world kept shifting and bending around them. She sensed, more than saw, the universe stretching behind her, the very fabric of reality itself pulled to the breaking point. Half-forgotten memories tore at her mind, reminders of things lurking outside the interdimensional walls … she had the sudden nasty sense that they were scratching at the walls, waiting patiently for a chance to force their way into the world and tear it apart. It had happened before and it would happen again, if the walls fell … she could feel them weakening, the laws of science bending and breaking under the hammering from above. They weren’t being rewritten so much as they were being ruthlessly discarded, raising the spectre of ultimate chaos. It was going to be a nightmare.\n\nA giant paw crashed down, right next to her. Her mind yammered in shock. There had been a building there, a solid wall … no, it had been pushed aside to create room for the entity to grab her. She could feel the jaws behind her, sweeping down … she could feel the raw malevolence, a loathing that would never be satisfied with just killing her. It was going to rip her apart and condemn her soul … instincts she’d forgotten took control, levitating her up and away from the snapping jaws. She found herself high in the sky … horror washed through her as she realised she was flying, that she was about to fall … no. It was real. She laughed, despite everything, as the pure joy of magic ran through her. She hadn’t lost it after all.\n\nFrieda flew beside her. “Stay down,” she snapped. “We’re in the open here …”\n\nEmily swallowed hard, sucking in her breath as the true nature of the world around her became clear. It was a pocket dimension, one centred on her … a giant multiversal hamster ball, she thought numbly, a feat of construction none the less staggering for being created by a god. No matter how far they ran, the dimension would always be centred on her; the world around her, the people and the buildings and everything else, created as she passed and fading into nothingness afterwards. It was a very personal prison.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1071, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch06-P2", "chapter": "ch06", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily and Frieda flee a silently warping city under godlike paws; Emily realizes the world is a pocket dimension shaped as personal hell while skyscrapers bend without panic in the streets.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nRunning from tears in the universe and crashing paws; hoping her read of the wolf is right; about to be proven wrong as it pins reality.\n\nFrieda\nSnapping hurry; half-worried, half-worshipful glance as they run.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nPaws, Emily thought numbly, although she knew it was silly. The paws were just protrusions of a greater reality, tools a godlike entity might use to manipulate the lesser realms. They were no more paws than a cursor was anything more than something used to interface with a GUI. It certainly had no material reality. This universe is a computer program and that thing intends to take control.\n\nThe world kept shifting and bending around them. She sensed, more than saw, the universe stretching behind her, the very fabric of reality itself pulled to the breaking point. Half-forgotten memories tore at her mind, reminders of things lurking outside the interdimensional walls … she had the sudden nasty sense that they were scratching at the walls, waiting patiently for a chance to force their way into the world and tear it apart. It had happened before and it would happen again, if the walls fell … she could feel them weakening, the laws of science bending and breaking under the hammering from above. They weren’t being rewritten so much as they were being ruthlessly discarded, raising the spectre of ultimate chaos. It was going to be a nightmare.\n\nA giant paw crashed down, right next to her. Her mind yammered in shock. There had been a building there, a solid wall … no, it had been pushed aside to create room for the entity to grab her. She could feel the jaws behind her, sweeping down … she could feel the raw malevolence, a loathing that would never be satisfied with just killing her. It was going to rip her apart and condemn her soul … instincts she’d forgotten took control, levitating her up and away from the snapping jaws. She found herself high in the sky … horror washed through her as she realised she was flying, that she was about to fall … no. It was real. She laughed, despite everything, as the pure joy of magic ran through her. She hadn’t lost it after all.\n\nFrieda flew beside her. “Stay down,” she snapped. “We’re in the open here …”\n\nEmily swallowed hard, sucking in her breath as the true nature of the world around her became clear. It was a pocket dimension, one centred on her … a giant multiversal hamster ball, she thought numbly, a feat of construction none the less staggering for being created by a god. No matter how far they ran, the dimension would always be centred on her; the world around her, the people and the buildings and everything else, created as she passed and fading into nothingness afterwards. It was a very personal prison.\n\n### NOTES\nUniverse tears/gashes opening ahead.\nWolf entity pinning and freeing itself from the local reality.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nA screaming tear opens; Frieda drives them onward as paws crash behind. Emily runs on unknown reserves, guesses the wolf will not stay stuck, catches Frieda’s worried-worshipful look, then feels the universe shudder—the wolf has pinned reality and is pulling free.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Chase tempo; break on the wolf freeing itself.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She dropped down as she felt the universe screaming once again. A tear appeared, right in front of her, a gash in the fabric of the world itself. There were things there, things so alien her mind refused to grasp their existence. She had the sudden horrific impression of something that laid eggs in human minds, something that waited for the newborn to flower into life before tearing greater holes in reality and ripping the universe apart. It was reaching for her … a sickening sensation battered her mind, as if she were going to throw up in her head, before she managed to turn it away. It was too much. She could barely focus enough to run.\n\n“Keep moving,” Frieda snapped. “Hurry!”\n\nEmily stared at her. “Where do we go?”\n\n“This way!”\n\nEmily hoped to hell Frieda knew what she was doing, because there didn’t seem to be any way out. The entire universe was a prison and … if they fell through one of the gashes, it would be the end. The wolf was above them, seeking them … it was both behind them and in front of them, its presence growing until it dominated the entire world. It was just a matter of time until it found them. She could feel it sniffing the air, searching for them in a manner that had nothing to do with their scent. It was …\n\nThey ran down a street, real and yet utterly distorted. The shoppers didn’t seem to care that their world was being torn apart, didn’t seem to notice even as more gashes appeared around them and things boiled into view. She saw people change as the things overcame them, saw a policeman club a little boy to death and a mother strangle her own child; an endless liturgy of horror both cosmic and frighteningly mundane. Others staggered as newborn monsters grew in their brains, exploding outwards to unleash more horror … the street beneath her feet cracked and broke, shattering to reveal more darkness reaching for her. The universe was breaking up … a memory shot through her, a desperate flight from a pocket dimension that was on the verge of snapping out of existence and taking her with it. But here there was nowhere to go.\n\nA paw crashed down again, right behind her. Emily forced herself to run faster, summoning reserves she hadn’t known she had. The wolf howled in victory and came after her … Emily ran right into her stepfather, the impact knocking the wind from her body. Her mind spun in confusion. Where the hell had he come from? The rest of the passers-by wore the same face, all slowly turning to face her … the local timeline was breaking too. Magic flared around her, flame exploding out of nowhere and blasting him … he stood unharmed, his face twisting into a leer. The ground below her was breaking too …\n\nEmily heard the wolf behind her, felt a mighty paw coming down like the hammer of God. A demented idea ran through her mind; she stood still as long as she dared, then jumped aside at the very last moment. The paw hit the street and smashed through, smashing right into the space under the pocket universe. The wolf howled in pain, shaking its paw so violently that the shockwaves burst into the real world. Emily staggered, barely holding itself up as an almighty earthquake shook the pocket dimension like a snow globe. It was a snow globe. She didn’t have to look up to see the red eyes peering down at her.\n\nFrieda caught her eye. “How long will that hold him?”\n\nEmily had no idea. The wolf wouldn’t remain stuck for long, not when it was clear the creature didn’t care about the pocket dimension’s safety. It could do immense damage to the world around it by thrashing around until it tore itself free, even through the things were already swarming the giant paw. Emily wondered if she’d only made matters worse … cracks were already spreading, the remaining shoppers walking into them and falling out of the universe in a manner that chilled her to the bone. It was inhuman …\n\nHer memories drove her on, forcing her to look at the wolf. It was big … she staggered back, nearly blinded, as she got an impression of its true form. It was just too big, too incomprehensible … it would always be there, had always been there, in a manner she couldn’t quite comprehend. It was a fixed point of reality, a solid thing in a world that was very fragile indeed. And its mere presence was tearing the pocket dimension apart. There was nowhere to run.\n\n“The world is centred on me,” she said, catching Frieda’s hand. “If we can run it out of the ball …”\n\nFrieda shot her an odd glance – half-worried, half-worshipful – as they started to run. Emily hoped to hell she was right. If she was the hamster at the heart of the hamster ball, she should be able to use the walls of the universe to slice the deranged wolf right out of the universe … or at least hit it with something that might hurt it. But there was no way to be sure. It sounded like utter nonsense and yet … she kept running, the world creaking and groaning around her. If she was right …\n\nShe felt the universe shudder and knew she was wrong. The wolf had pinned the universe down and was pulling itself free, the cracks in reality growing stronger as the world came apart. Frieda was muttering words under her breath, words in a language Emily didn’t know and yet understood perfectly … words to open a portal, words that might get them out of the trap. The words … didn’t work. She could feel their power and yet … it wasn’t working. They were trapped.\n", "completion": "She dropped down as she felt the universe screaming once again. A tear appeared, right in front of her, a gash in the fabric of the world itself. There were things there, things so alien her mind refused to grasp their existence. She had the sudden horrific impression of something that laid eggs in human minds, something that waited for the newborn to flower into life before tearing greater holes in reality and ripping the universe apart. It was reaching for her … a sickening sensation battered her mind, as if she were going to throw up in her head, before she managed to turn it away. It was too much. She could barely focus enough to run.\n\n“Keep moving,” Frieda snapped. “Hurry!”\n\nEmily stared at her. “Where do we go?”\n\n“This way!”\n\nEmily hoped to hell Frieda knew what she was doing, because there didn’t seem to be any way out. The entire universe was a prison and … if they fell through one of the gashes, it would be the end. The wolf was above them, seeking them … it was both behind them and in front of them, its presence growing until it dominated the entire world. It was just a matter of time until it found them. She could feel it sniffing the air, searching for them in a manner that had nothing to do with their scent. It was …\n\nThey ran down a street, real and yet utterly distorted. The shoppers didn’t seem to care that their world was being torn apart, didn’t seem to notice even as more gashes appeared around them and things boiled into view. She saw people change as the things overcame them, saw a policeman club a little boy to death and a mother strangle her own child; an endless liturgy of horror both cosmic and frighteningly mundane. Others staggered as newborn monsters grew in their brains, exploding outwards to unleash more horror … the street beneath her feet cracked and broke, shattering to reveal more darkness reaching for her. The universe was breaking up … a memory shot through her, a desperate flight from a pocket dimension that was on the verge of snapping out of existence and taking her with it. But here there was nowhere to go.\n\nA paw crashed down again, right behind her. Emily forced herself to run faster, summoning reserves she hadn’t known she had. The wolf howled in victory and came after her … Emily ran right into her stepfather, the impact knocking the wind from her body. Her mind spun in confusion. Where the hell had he come from? The rest of the passers-by wore the same face, all slowly turning to face her … the local timeline was breaking too. Magic flared around her, flame exploding out of nowhere and blasting him … he stood unharmed, his face twisting into a leer. The ground below her was breaking too …\n\nEmily heard the wolf behind her, felt a mighty paw coming down like the hammer of God. A demented idea ran through her mind; she stood still as long as she dared, then jumped aside at the very last moment. The paw hit the street and smashed through, smashing right into the space under the pocket universe. The wolf howled in pain, shaking its paw so violently that the shockwaves burst into the real world. Emily staggered, barely holding itself up as an almighty earthquake shook the pocket dimension like a snow globe. It was a snow globe. She didn’t have to look up to see the red eyes peering down at her.\n\nFrieda caught her eye. “How long will that hold him?”\n\nEmily had no idea. The wolf wouldn’t remain stuck for long, not when it was clear the creature didn’t care about the pocket dimension’s safety. It could do immense damage to the world around it by thrashing around until it tore itself free, even through the things were already swarming the giant paw. Emily wondered if she’d only made matters worse … cracks were already spreading, the remaining shoppers walking into them and falling out of the universe in a manner that chilled her to the bone. It was inhuman …\n\nHer memories drove her on, forcing her to look at the wolf. It was big … she staggered back, nearly blinded, as she got an impression of its true form. It was just too big, too incomprehensible … it would always be there, had always been there, in a manner she couldn’t quite comprehend. It was a fixed point of reality, a solid thing in a world that was very fragile indeed. And its mere presence was tearing the pocket dimension apart. There was nowhere to run.\n\n“The world is centred on me,” she said, catching Frieda’s hand. “If we can run it out of the ball …”\n\nFrieda shot her an odd glance – half-worried, half-worshipful – as they started to run. Emily hoped to hell she was right. If she was the hamster at the heart of the hamster ball, she should be able to use the walls of the universe to slice the deranged wolf right out of the universe … or at least hit it with something that might hurt it. But there was no way to be sure. It sounded like utter nonsense and yet … she kept running, the world creaking and groaning around her. If she was right …\n\nShe felt the universe shudder and knew she was wrong. The wolf had pinned the universe down and was pulling itself free, the cracks in reality growing stronger as the world came apart. Frieda was muttering words under her breath, words in a language Emily didn’t know and yet understood perfectly … words to open a portal, words that might get them out of the trap. The words … didn’t work. She could feel their power and yet … it wasn’t working. They were trapped.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 989, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch06-P3", "chapter": "ch06", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily and Frieda flee a silently warping city under godlike paws; Emily realizes the world is a pocket dimension shaped as personal hell while skyscrapers bend without panic in the streets.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nTwo memory-sets colliding; portal failing; racing into a library that should not be there toward an unchanged mirror; realizing Master Wolfe’s neat trap of an unknowing prison.\n\nFrieda\nCannot open the portal; apologetic; running with her.\n\nDoppelganger Emily — About to speak from behind; not yet faced.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily heard the wolf behind her, felt a mighty paw coming down like the hammer of God. A demented idea ran through her mind; she stood still as long as she dared, then jumped aside at the very last moment. The paw hit the street and smashed through, smashing right into the space under the pocket universe. The wolf howled in pain, shaking its paw so violently that the shockwaves burst into the real world. Emily staggered, barely holding itself up as an almighty earthquake shook the pocket dimension like a snow globe. It was a snow globe. She didn’t have to look up to see the red eyes peering down at her.\n\nFrieda caught her eye. “How long will that hold him?”\n\nEmily had no idea. The wolf wouldn’t remain stuck for long, not when it was clear the creature didn’t care about the pocket dimension’s safety. It could do immense damage to the world around it by thrashing around until it tore itself free, even through the things were already swarming the giant paw. Emily wondered if she’d only made matters worse … cracks were already spreading, the remaining shoppers walking into them and falling out of the universe in a manner that chilled her to the bone. It was inhuman …\n\nHer memories drove her on, forcing her to look at the wolf. It was big … she staggered back, nearly blinded, as she got an impression of its true form. It was just too big, too incomprehensible … it would always be there, had always been there, in a manner she couldn’t quite comprehend. It was a fixed point of reality, a solid thing in a world that was very fragile indeed. And its mere presence was tearing the pocket dimension apart. There was nowhere to run.\n\n“The world is centred on me,” she said, catching Frieda’s hand. “If we can run it out of the ball …”\n\nFrieda shot her an odd glance – half-worried, half-worshipful – as they started to run. Emily hoped to hell she was right. If she was the hamster at the heart of the hamster ball, she should be able to use the walls of the universe to slice the deranged wolf right out of the universe … or at least hit it with something that might hurt it. But there was no way to be sure. It sounded like utter nonsense and yet … she kept running, the world creaking and groaning around her. If she was right …\n\nShe felt the universe shudder and knew she was wrong. The wolf had pinned the universe down and was pulling itself free, the cracks in reality growing stronger as the world came apart. Frieda was muttering words under her breath, words in a language Emily didn’t know and yet understood perfectly … words to open a portal, words that might get them out of the trap. The words … didn’t work. She could feel their power and yet … it wasn’t working. They were trapped.\n\n### NOTES\nLibrary door and lobby stretching; mirror unchanged amid silent screaming.\nWolf above it all.\nSlap earlier jarred memories.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nFrieda cannot open the portal; Emily shoves into a library that was not there, walls stretching toward an unchanged mirror while the wolf looms. Mind-pressure loosens; she names Master Wolfe’s trap—prisoners who do not know they are imprisoned—and as she steadies Frieda, a familiar voice behind her says hello, me.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Trap recognition then sudden bilocation greeting. Land on “Hello, me.”\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Frieda swore. “I can’t get the portal open!”\n\nEmily forced herself to think. It was hard to get any sort of traction. There were two sets of memories in her mind, the one that insisted she was a teenage loser battling the one that defined her as a sorceress. Her body felt wrong … she was both sixteen and twenty-five, thin and scrawny and yet also strong and healthy. Another gash appeared right in front of them, things rending and tearing the air …was that why the portal wouldn’t open? The laws of the universe were changing …\n\nShe looked up and saw the library. It hadn’t been there … she was beyond concern now as she shoved the door open and led the way inside. The librarian was gone, the bookshelves transformed into horrors … she shut her mind the best as she could as she slammed the door behind them, knowing it was just a matter of time before the wolf put its foot on the building and smashed it. The walls could no more stop it than a chalk line on the ground could stop someone from walking right across. It existed so far above the line that the line might as well not exist.\n\n“I’m sorry,” Frieda said, quietly.\n\nEmily nodded, unsure what Frieda was apologising for. The walls were cracking, things moving through the gap … one wall looked so insubstantial she was sure she could walk right through if she tried. A memory shot through her – a nightmare at Heart’s Eye, one she’d tried to forget – and triggered a handful of other memories. If there was a mirror …\n\n“This way,” she snapped. “Hurry.”\n\nThe walls stretched as they ran to the lobby, the silent screaming growing louder. The mirror was there, utterly unchanged; she blinked as she caught sight of herself, both her selves, looking back at her. A teenager, a young adult, a teenager again … she bit her lip to draw blood, using it to outline runes on the mirror. Mirrors could be gateways to alternate realities, she knew; Heart’s Eye had used them to anchor pocket dimensions, eventually reaching out into the higher dimensions. She’d seen an alternate version of herself … she shoved that thought out of her mind as she finished the runes, trying to ignore the whispers at the back of her mind that insisted she was wasting time. The mirror started to glow as she imbued magic into the runes.\n\nSomething shifted, overhead. She glanced back. The wolf was there, glowing red eyes peering into her very soul. She whimpered, despite herself; Frieda lifted her hand and hurled an entire series of curses at the wolf, the magic somehow slipping past the entity even through it should have hit it. The wolf opened its jaws, revealing teeth that were not teeth and … Emily felt her eyes hurting, painfully, as she forced herself to look away. The nightmare was reaching for them … she reached out herself, trying to slam the laws of magic into place and hold them there. The wolf howled, red eyes burning with hatred, as she worked the spell. It wouldn’t last long, but if it held a few seconds …\n\nShe caught Frieda’s hand and yanked her back, pulling them both against the mirror … into the mirror. The world went white – she had a sudden impression of the pocket dimension shattering into nothingness, the human shadows that had inhabited it evaporating into the interdimensional void – as she landed on something solid, something … she wasn’t sure what it was and she didn’t much care. A flurry of images brushed against her mind, so many so quickly that there was no time for anything beyond fleeting impressions. She was seeing a hundred thousand million alternate universes, giant timelines and thin threadlines blurring together into an endless tapestry.\n\nAnd above it all, the wolf.\n\nDon’t look too closely, she told herself. She wasn’t sure how much of what she was seeing was real, and how much was her mind trying to interpret what she was seeing as something she could understand, but she suspected it didn’t matter. It might look back at you.\n\n“You’re back!” Frieda hugged her, tightly. “You’re back!”\n\n“Yeah …” Emily staggered as she felt her mind loosen, as if she was suddenly free of a pressure that had permeated her mind so completely she hadn’t even been aware of its existence. The memories were slowly snapping back into place, returning her to herself. She looked down and saw an adult body, wearing an outfit very much like Frieda’s. “It’s good to see you again.”\n\nHer adopted sister looked embarrassed. “Sorry for slapping you.”\n\nEmily shrugged. The pressure was gone, and it was hard to believe she hadn’t known Frieda … or that she’d been fooled for so long by the fake universe. If her memories and nightmares hadn’t been used to create it, perhaps it wouldn’t have held her trapped for so long. She might have broken out eventually …\n\nClever, she had to admit, sourly. Master Wolfe had constructed a neat little trap. Most prisoners know they’re in prison. I didn’t. I had no reason to plan an escape if I didn’t even know I was trapped.\n\n“Don’t worry about it,” she said. If the slap had jarred a few memories free, it had been worth it. If not … Frieda had been desperate. Everything was at stake. She would be churlish to complain when the entire multiverse hung in the balance. “You saved my life.”\n\nA voice spoke from behind her, a very familiar voice. “Hello, me.”\n", "completion": "Frieda swore. “I can’t get the portal open!”\n\nEmily forced herself to think. It was hard to get any sort of traction. There were two sets of memories in her mind, the one that insisted she was a teenage loser battling the one that defined her as a sorceress. Her body felt wrong … she was both sixteen and twenty-five, thin and scrawny and yet also strong and healthy. Another gash appeared right in front of them, things rending and tearing the air …was that why the portal wouldn’t open? The laws of the universe were changing …\n\nShe looked up and saw the library. It hadn’t been there … she was beyond concern now as she shoved the door open and led the way inside. The librarian was gone, the bookshelves transformed into horrors … she shut her mind the best as she could as she slammed the door behind them, knowing it was just a matter of time before the wolf put its foot on the building and smashed it. The walls could no more stop it than a chalk line on the ground could stop someone from walking right across. It existed so far above the line that the line might as well not exist.\n\n“I’m sorry,” Frieda said, quietly.\n\nEmily nodded, unsure what Frieda was apologising for. The walls were cracking, things moving through the gap … one wall looked so insubstantial she was sure she could walk right through if she tried. A memory shot through her – a nightmare at Heart’s Eye, one she’d tried to forget – and triggered a handful of other memories. If there was a mirror …\n\n“This way,” she snapped. “Hurry.”\n\nThe walls stretched as they ran to the lobby, the silent screaming growing louder. The mirror was there, utterly unchanged; she blinked as she caught sight of herself, both her selves, looking back at her. A teenager, a young adult, a teenager again … she bit her lip to draw blood, using it to outline runes on the mirror. Mirrors could be gateways to alternate realities, she knew; Heart’s Eye had used them to anchor pocket dimensions, eventually reaching out into the higher dimensions. She’d seen an alternate version of herself … she shoved that thought out of her mind as she finished the runes, trying to ignore the whispers at the back of her mind that insisted she was wasting time. The mirror started to glow as she imbued magic into the runes.\n\nSomething shifted, overhead. She glanced back. The wolf was there, glowing red eyes peering into her very soul. She whimpered, despite herself; Frieda lifted her hand and hurled an entire series of curses at the wolf, the magic somehow slipping past the entity even through it should have hit it. The wolf opened its jaws, revealing teeth that were not teeth and … Emily felt her eyes hurting, painfully, as she forced herself to look away. The nightmare was reaching for them … she reached out herself, trying to slam the laws of magic into place and hold them there. The wolf howled, red eyes burning with hatred, as she worked the spell. It wouldn’t last long, but if it held a few seconds …\n\nShe caught Frieda’s hand and yanked her back, pulling them both against the mirror … into the mirror. The world went white – she had a sudden impression of the pocket dimension shattering into nothingness, the human shadows that had inhabited it evaporating into the interdimensional void – as she landed on something solid, something … she wasn’t sure what it was and she didn’t much care. A flurry of images brushed against her mind, so many so quickly that there was no time for anything beyond fleeting impressions. She was seeing a hundred thousand million alternate universes, giant timelines and thin threadlines blurring together into an endless tapestry.\n\nAnd above it all, the wolf.\n\nDon’t look too closely, she told herself. She wasn’t sure how much of what she was seeing was real, and how much was her mind trying to interpret what she was seeing as something she could understand, but she suspected it didn’t matter. It might look back at you.\n\n“You’re back!” Frieda hugged her, tightly. “You’re back!”\n\n“Yeah …” Emily staggered as she felt her mind loosen, as if she was suddenly free of a pressure that had permeated her mind so completely she hadn’t even been aware of its existence. The memories were slowly snapping back into place, returning her to herself. She looked down and saw an adult body, wearing an outfit very much like Frieda’s. “It’s good to see you again.”\n\nHer adopted sister looked embarrassed. “Sorry for slapping you.”\n\nEmily shrugged. The pressure was gone, and it was hard to believe she hadn’t known Frieda … or that she’d been fooled for so long by the fake universe. If her memories and nightmares hadn’t been used to create it, perhaps it wouldn’t have held her trapped for so long. She might have broken out eventually …\n\nClever, she had to admit, sourly. Master Wolfe had constructed a neat little trap. Most prisoners know they’re in prison. I didn’t. I had no reason to plan an escape if I didn’t even know I was trapped.\n\n“Don’t worry about it,” she said. If the slap had jarred a few memories free, it had been worth it. If not … Frieda had been desperate. Everything was at stake. She would be churlish to complain when the entire multiverse hung in the balance. “You saved my life.”\n\nA voice spoke from behind her, a very familiar voice. “Hello, me.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 953, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch07-P1", "chapter": "ch07", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nnexus point — lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily and Frieda flee a silently warping city under godlike paws; Emily realizes the world is a pocket dimension shaped as personal hell while skyscrapers bend without panic in the streets.\n\nA screaming tear opens in the air ahead of them; they sprint from crashing paws and collapsing street until the wolf pins the universe down and pulls itself free again.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust heard her other self say hello from behind; conflicted about bilocation closeness; standing on eerily shifting nothing-ground with Frieda; ready to plan against Master Wolfe.\n\nDoppelganger Emily\nBilocated counterpart outside the Earth-hell; smiling, tactical, insists Wolfe is powerful but not God; wants to seize power beyond the nexus.\n\nFrieda\nPresent; notes Wolfe was human once; watching the reunion.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe caught Frieda’s hand and yanked her back, pulling them both against the mirror … into the mirror. The world went white – she had a sudden impression of the pocket dimension shattering into nothingness, the human shadows that had inhabited it evaporating into the interdimensional void – as she landed on something solid, something … she wasn’t sure what it was and she didn’t much care. A flurry of images brushed against her mind, so many so quickly that there was no time for anything beyond fleeting impressions. She was seeing a hundred thousand million alternate universes, giant timelines and thin threadlines blurring together into an endless tapestry.\n\nAnd above it all, the wolf.\n\nDon’t look too closely, she told herself. She wasn’t sure how much of what she was seeing was real, and how much was her mind trying to interpret what she was seeing as something she could understand, but she suspected it didn’t matter. It might look back at you.\n\n“You’re back!” Frieda hugged her, tightly. “You’re back!”\n\n“Yeah …” Emily staggered as she felt her mind loosen, as if she was suddenly free of a pressure that had permeated her mind so completely she hadn’t even been aware of its existence. The memories were slowly snapping back into place, returning her to herself. She looked down and saw an adult body, wearing an outfit very much like Frieda’s. “It’s good to see you again.”\n\nHer adopted sister looked embarrassed. “Sorry for slapping you.”\n\nEmily shrugged. The pressure was gone, and it was hard to believe she hadn’t known Frieda … or that she’d been fooled for so long by the fake universe. If her memories and nightmares hadn’t been used to create it, perhaps it wouldn’t have held her trapped for so long. She might have broken out eventually …\n\nClever, she had to admit, sourly. Master Wolfe had constructed a neat little trap. Most prisoners know they’re in prison. I didn’t. I had no reason to plan an escape if I didn’t even know I was trapped.\n\n“Don’t worry about it,” she said. If the slap had jarred a few memories free, it had been worth it. If not … Frieda had been desperate. Everything was at stake. She would be churlish to complain when the entire multiverse hung in the balance. “You saved my life.”\n\nA voice spoke from behind her, a very familiar voice. “Hello, me.”\n\n### NOTES\nInterstice ground that is nothing and yet solid underfoot.\nNexus point insufficient alone as power base.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe answers her doppelganger’s hello; they trade wry self-knowledge while Frieda watches. On shifting unreal ground they refuse to treat Master Wolfe as God, note his human origins as a limit, and settle that they must take control of power beyond the nexus—two minds better than one.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Wry bilocation conference; keep the ground uncanny. Land on two minds better than one.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Hello me,” Emily answered. “It’s good to see myself again.”\n\nHer doppelganger smiled. “It’s good to see myself again too,” she agreed. “So we can find out what everyone else already knows about us.”\n\nEmily smiled back, although she was conflicted. The last time she’d bilocated herself, she’d been careful to keep a distance from her other self and sorting out the memories, which insisted she’d been in two different places at the same time, had been a minor nightmare. She hadn’t dared exchange a handful of words with herself, let alone hold a proper conversation. The risk of accidentally merging back together was just too high. But here … they were separated by the interdimensional walls, her doppelganger barely able to use their shared blood to communicate. It should be safe.\n\nYeah, her thoughts pointed out. Should.\n\nShe studied herself for a long moment, feeling an odd twinge of discomfort. A mirror was a reflection of herself, but this … her doppelganger wasn’t quite right. It was jarring in a way she couldn’t quite put into words, as if her mirror image was wearing different clothes or posing in a very different manner. She wished, suddenly, that she’d kept her teenage clothes, even though they no longer fit. It would have been easier, she thought, if her doppelganger hadn’t looked so much like her. But they were the same person. The point of divergence had only been a few hours ago.\n\n“Are we still the same person, if our experiences are so different?” Her doppelganger was clearly thinking along the same lines. “Will we be able to merge back together afterwards?”\n\n“Good question,” Emily agreed. “But right now, does it matter?”\n\n“Probably not,” her doppelganger said. “Master Wolfe may leave nothing behind, if we don’t stop him.”\n\nEmily nodded, glancing up. The wolf was still there, still expanding and growing into something beyond her comprehension, even more beyond her comprehension. Magic – raw power – was flowing in and out of him, his mentality directing change on a scale she could barely grasp … she gritted her teeth as she felt a shadow washing over her mind, as if something was brushing against her, searching for her. He might not be able to see them directly, but … sooner or later, he’d realised they had to be hiding in a place he currently couldn’t see.\n\nShe looked down, wondering just what they were standing on. There was nothing there and yet the ground beneath their feet was solid. She had the sudden disturbing sensation that they were standing on ice or glass, something transparent and prone to breaking at any moment. She had her powers back, although her magic was drained, but even at her prime it would be difficult to alter the world around them. She wasn’t sure where they were. Another pocket dimension or something else, something new?\n\nAnd the more disruption we cause, the greater the chance he’ll find us, she thought. A man with a stomach-ache didn’t need to be able to see inside his stomach to feel the pain. What can he do to us?\n\nA dozen ideas shot through her mind, each worse than the last. Master Wolfe could devise a new body for himself, and transfer his mentality over to it, before erasing the last as easily as a human would wipe a computer. Or he could devise tools to search his own body and root them out … she would be surprised if he wasn’t already working on it, perhaps multitasking to both remake reality and track them down. He had to know his wolf-thing had failed. It had been an extension of himself. He knew what had happened to it.\n\n“He’s powerful, but he’s not God,” her doppelganger said. “We can outwit him.”\n\nEmily hoped she was right. Master Wolfe had been brilliant even before he’d become a mimic and started adding other minds to his own. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have so many thoughts and personalities within hers, and now … he was a god. It was hard to fight something when you couldn’t comprehend it, when you couldn’t even begin to put hard numbers on what it could – and couldn’t – do. Sure, an ant could sting a man, but …could it kill? And if it killed, what then?\n\nIf we were on even terms, we might be able to outwit him, she thought. But we can’t even begin to understand him.\n\n“He was human once,” Frieda said. “That limits him, doesn’t it?”\n\n“I hope so,” Emily said. “But how far beyond humanity is he?”\n\nShe winced, inwardly. Being transfigured into an animal risked being overwhelmed by the animal’s mentality, all the more so if you cast the spell on yourself. Being transfigured into a god … he might have been human once, but he was godlike now. His thoughts would run so fast he’d outstrip her as easily as a hare would outrun a tortoise, as long as the hare didn’t get arrogant and have a nap in the middle of the race. Even so … the hare had nearly won. Would Master Wolfe make the same mistake? She didn’t know. He had to be smart enough to understand the dangers.\n\n“We need to take control of the power ourselves,” her doppelganger said. “The nexus point is a start, but it isn’t enough.”\n\n“And doing so risks going crazy ourselves,” Emily finished. Master Wolfe might be able to channel such power without going insane, although she feared he was mad already, but she couldn’t. “If we can use it to attack him from within, take over the spell-structure.”\n\n“Like a computer virus,” her doppelganger agreed. “The mimics are spells, after all. Just very advanced ones.”\n\nEmily sat on the eerily shifting ground and winked at Frieda. “This could take some time.”\n\n“Two minds are better than one,” her doppelganger said. “And between us, we should be able to come up with something.”\n", "completion": "“Hello me,” Emily answered. “It’s good to see myself again.”\n\nHer doppelganger smiled. “It’s good to see myself again too,” she agreed. “So we can find out what everyone else already knows about us.”\n\nEmily smiled back, although she was conflicted. The last time she’d bilocated herself, she’d been careful to keep a distance from her other self and sorting out the memories, which insisted she’d been in two different places at the same time, had been a minor nightmare. She hadn’t dared exchange a handful of words with herself, let alone hold a proper conversation. The risk of accidentally merging back together was just too high. But here … they were separated by the interdimensional walls, her doppelganger barely able to use their shared blood to communicate. It should be safe.\n\nYeah, her thoughts pointed out. Should.\n\nShe studied herself for a long moment, feeling an odd twinge of discomfort. A mirror was a reflection of herself, but this … her doppelganger wasn’t quite right. It was jarring in a way she couldn’t quite put into words, as if her mirror image was wearing different clothes or posing in a very different manner. She wished, suddenly, that she’d kept her teenage clothes, even though they no longer fit. It would have been easier, she thought, if her doppelganger hadn’t looked so much like her. But they were the same person. The point of divergence had only been a few hours ago.\n\n“Are we still the same person, if our experiences are so different?” Her doppelganger was clearly thinking along the same lines. “Will we be able to merge back together afterwards?”\n\n“Good question,” Emily agreed. “But right now, does it matter?”\n\n“Probably not,” her doppelganger said. “Master Wolfe may leave nothing behind, if we don’t stop him.”\n\nEmily nodded, glancing up. The wolf was still there, still expanding and growing into something beyond her comprehension, even more beyond her comprehension. Magic – raw power – was flowing in and out of him, his mentality directing change on a scale she could barely grasp … she gritted her teeth as she felt a shadow washing over her mind, as if something was brushing against her, searching for her. He might not be able to see them directly, but … sooner or later, he’d realised they had to be hiding in a place he currently couldn’t see.\n\nShe looked down, wondering just what they were standing on. There was nothing there and yet the ground beneath their feet was solid. She had the sudden disturbing sensation that they were standing on ice or glass, something transparent and prone to breaking at any moment. She had her powers back, although her magic was drained, but even at her prime it would be difficult to alter the world around them. She wasn’t sure where they were. Another pocket dimension or something else, something new?\n\nAnd the more disruption we cause, the greater the chance he’ll find us, she thought. A man with a stomach-ache didn’t need to be able to see inside his stomach to feel the pain. What can he do to us?\n\nA dozen ideas shot through her mind, each worse than the last. Master Wolfe could devise a new body for himself, and transfer his mentality over to it, before erasing the last as easily as a human would wipe a computer. Or he could devise tools to search his own body and root them out … she would be surprised if he wasn’t already working on it, perhaps multitasking to both remake reality and track them down. He had to know his wolf-thing had failed. It had been an extension of himself. He knew what had happened to it.\n\n“He’s powerful, but he’s not God,” her doppelganger said. “We can outwit him.”\n\nEmily hoped she was right. Master Wolfe had been brilliant even before he’d become a mimic and started adding other minds to his own. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have so many thoughts and personalities within hers, and now … he was a god. It was hard to fight something when you couldn’t comprehend it, when you couldn’t even begin to put hard numbers on what it could – and couldn’t – do. Sure, an ant could sting a man, but …could it kill? And if it killed, what then?\n\nIf we were on even terms, we might be able to outwit him, she thought. But we can’t even begin to understand him.\n\n“He was human once,” Frieda said. “That limits him, doesn’t it?”\n\n“I hope so,” Emily said. “But how far beyond humanity is he?”\n\nShe winced, inwardly. Being transfigured into an animal risked being overwhelmed by the animal’s mentality, all the more so if you cast the spell on yourself. Being transfigured into a god … he might have been human once, but he was godlike now. His thoughts would run so fast he’d outstrip her as easily as a hare would outrun a tortoise, as long as the hare didn’t get arrogant and have a nap in the middle of the race. Even so … the hare had nearly won. Would Master Wolfe make the same mistake? She didn’t know. He had to be smart enough to understand the dangers.\n\n“We need to take control of the power ourselves,” her doppelganger said. “The nexus point is a start, but it isn’t enough.”\n\n“And doing so risks going crazy ourselves,” Emily finished. Master Wolfe might be able to channel such power without going insane, although she feared he was mad already, but she couldn’t. “If we can use it to attack him from within, take over the spell-structure.”\n\n“Like a computer virus,” her doppelganger agreed. “The mimics are spells, after all. Just very advanced ones.”\n\nEmily sat on the eerily shifting ground and winked at Frieda. “This could take some time.”\n\n“Two minds are better than one,” her doppelganger said. “And between us, we should be able to come up with something.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1023, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch07-P2", "chapter": "ch07", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nDoctor Who — both words.\nMatt Smith — both words.\nBig Bang — both words capitalized as series beat.\nVoid — capitalized.\nShadye — capitalized.\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily greets her doppelganger in the interstice; with Frieda they debate Master Wolfe’s limits and agree two minds must seize power beyond the nexus point.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nBrainstorming with her double; hungry; aware the interstice irritates them; deciding to move.\n\nDoppelganger Emily\nTrading Doctor Who jokes and hard logistics; can follow/watch but not freely scan alternate timelines alone.\n\nFrieda — Present for the irritations and the decision to move.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nA dozen ideas shot through her mind, each worse than the last. Master Wolfe could devise a new body for himself, and transfer his mentality over to it, before erasing the last as easily as a human would wipe a computer. Or he could devise tools to search his own body and root them out … she would be surprised if he wasn’t already working on it, perhaps multitasking to both remake reality and track them down. He had to know his wolf-thing had failed. It had been an extension of himself. He knew what had happened to it.\n\n“He’s powerful, but he’s not God,” her doppelganger said. “We can outwit him.”\n\nEmily hoped she was right. Master Wolfe had been brilliant even before he’d become a mimic and started adding other minds to his own. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have so many thoughts and personalities within hers, and now … he was a god. It was hard to fight something when you couldn’t comprehend it, when you couldn’t even begin to put hard numbers on what it could – and couldn’t – do. Sure, an ant could sting a man, but …could it kill? And if it killed, what then?\n\nIf we were on even terms, we might be able to outwit him, she thought. But we can’t even begin to understand him.\n\n“He was human once,” Frieda said. “That limits him, doesn’t it?”\n\n“I hope so,” Emily said. “But how far beyond humanity is he?”\n\nShe winced, inwardly. Being transfigured into an animal risked being overwhelmed by the animal’s mentality, all the more so if you cast the spell on yourself. Being transfigured into a god … he might have been human once, but he was godlike now. His thoughts would run so fast he’d outstrip her as easily as a hare would outrun a tortoise, as long as the hare didn’t get arrogant and have a nap in the middle of the race. Even so … the hare had nearly won. Would Master Wolfe make the same mistake? She didn’t know. He had to be smart enough to understand the dangers.\n\n“We need to take control of the power ourselves,” her doppelganger said. “The nexus point is a start, but it isn’t enough.”\n\n“And doing so risks going crazy ourselves,” Emily finished. Master Wolfe might be able to channel such power without going insane, although she feared he was mad already, but she couldn’t. “If we can use it to attack him from within, take over the spell-structure.”\n\n“Like a computer virus,” her doppelganger agreed. “The mimics are spells, after all. Just very advanced ones.”\n\nEmily sat on the eerily shifting ground and winked at Frieda. “This could take some time.”\n\n“Two minds are better than one,” her doppelganger said. “And between us, we should be able to come up with something.”\n\n### NOTES\nInterstice still unstable.\nConjuration cannot supply everything; coins/supplies short.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThey bounce impossible plans—recreate the Big Bang, scriptwriter jokes—then face supplies Void himself might not conjure. Timeline-watching limits and near-same-self irritation mount; she asks why any God stays out, stomach growling, and says they need to move.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Banter over dread; keep logistics real. Land on the need to move.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily grinned, then forced herself to relax as they bounced ideas off each other. It was a strange discussion, her other self finishing her sentences or jumping ahead … she wondered, mischievously, if talking to herself was a sign of insanity. Frieda was more practical than either of them, but … Caleb would have been better. A rush of grief and guilt shot through her, grief for her missing lover and guilt for thinking less of her friend; she gritted her teeth, telling herself that in the nexus points all times were one. If they could get rid of Master Wolfe, they could use the nexus point to return to the final moments of their true timeline and … she wasn’t sure. Reboot it?\n\n“Recreate the Big Bang?” her doppelganger said. “That worked in Doctor Who.”\n\n“Of course it did,” Emily countered. “Matt Smith had a friendly scriptwriter on his side.”\n\nShe rubbed her forehead. “We do have another problem,” she added. “How are we going to get the supplies we need?”\n\n“And food,” Frieda said. She’d always been ruthlessly practical. “How long has it been since we ate?”\n\nEmily hesitated. Hours? Or days? Had she really eaten anything in her prison? Or …\n\n“We can’t conjure everything we need,” she said, grimly. “I don’t think even Void could have done it.”\n\nThe thought stabbed at her heart. Void had been her father in every sense that mattered, save blood. He’d plotted to take over the world, for the world’s own good, and she’d stopped him … she didn’t doubt she’d done the right thing, but she regretted having to kill him. She wanted to believe he hadn’t died, yet … she doubted even a sorcerer as powerful and knowledgeable as Void could have survived. It was hard not to feel guilty. He’d been far more of a father to her than either her biological father or her stepfather …\n\n“No,” her doppelganger agreed. “But I have been giving the matter some thought.”\n\nShe smiled. Emily wondered, morbidly, how many people secretly loathed her smile.\n\n“You’re currently in an interstice between dimensions,” her doppelganger said. “From this vantage point, it looks like a bubble attached to a threadline that runs from dimension to dimension, timeline to timeline. I think we can use it to get you two into another timeline … one close to ours, to Frieda’s, and search for help there.”\n\nEmily’s eyes narrowed. “And what will we find there?”\n\n“I don’t know,” her doppelganger said. “I can follow you, and watch you, but I can’t look into alternate timelines without you being there. I think – I think – that the timeline will be near enough to ours that you’ll be able to navigate, and that he’ll have problems attacking it, but … I could be wrong. It isn’t rocket science, you know.”\n\n“I’m starting to understand why the Doctor bitched and moaned about meeting his other selves,” Emily said, although she took her doppelganger’s point. Rocket science was nothing more than applied physics. It was easy to chart out just when and where the rockets should be fired, to steer the spacecraft onto a new course, even if actual technological development lingered far behind. “Is there a version of us there?”\n\n“Unknown,” her other self said. “There could be.”\n\nEmily winced, again. How many times had she come close to utter defeat? How many times had she been defeated, in other timelines? Would they step into a world where Shadye had won the day? Or Void? Or one of her other enemies, from the short-sighted and greedy to the noble and selfless? She didn’t know what kind of world they’d created, in a timeline where they’d won … perhaps they’d been defeated by someone else, perhaps they’d become rulers of all they surveyed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it. But she had no choice.\n\nAnd if there’s a Caleb in those worlds, he’s marrying a different Emily, she thought. Isn’t he?\n\nShe shoved the thought aside. “Get into those worlds, get the supplies we need, get everything put together … what a plan.”\n\n“We’ve done it before, with less,” her doppelganger pointed out. “And we are irritating each other because we are, technically, the same person.”\n\nEmily scowled. “Which one of us is Caleb going to marry?”\n\nHer doppelganger winked. “Does it matter, if we are the same person?”\n\nBut we’re not, not quite, Emily thought. You didn’t get trapped in your own past.\n\n“I’m sure he’ll be very happy to see both of you,” Frieda said, sharply. “Can you both … focus?”\n\n“We are meant to be one person,” Emily said. It was rare for Frieda to snap at her. “And being unable to merge back together is draining us.”\n\n“It’s certainly irritating us,” her doppelganger agreed. “And I suspect that staying in the interstice isn’t doing you any favours either.”\n\nEmily nodded. Their environment was wrong in a manner that made the pocket dimension look perfect. The floor was invisible, yet present; they were surrounded by hundreds of millions of timelines and threadlines, each one tiny and yet an entire universe in itself. And the wolf … she could feel his presence, a distant burning that lingered in the back of her mind even when she wasn’t looking at him. It was hard to wrap her head around the devastation he was wrecking on the universes around him. His mere presence was fatal to their mere existence. It was a crime on a scale beyond comprehension. God alone knew how many lives were being lost with every passing second …\n\nAnd if there is a God, she asked herself, why isn’t he stepping in?\n\n“Then we need to move,” she said. Her stomach growled. She tapped her belt, wishing she’d thought to bring some more coins. There hadn’t been any need for money in the Blighted Lands … God! Had it only been a day or two ago when everything had been normal? Master Wolfe had swept everything away, so completely it was hard to believe it had ever existed at all. “Can you help us open a portal?”\n", "completion": "Emily grinned, then forced herself to relax as they bounced ideas off each other. It was a strange discussion, her other self finishing her sentences or jumping ahead … she wondered, mischievously, if talking to herself was a sign of insanity. Frieda was more practical than either of them, but … Caleb would have been better. A rush of grief and guilt shot through her, grief for her missing lover and guilt for thinking less of her friend; she gritted her teeth, telling herself that in the nexus points all times were one. If they could get rid of Master Wolfe, they could use the nexus point to return to the final moments of their true timeline and … she wasn’t sure. Reboot it?\n\n“Recreate the Big Bang?” her doppelganger said. “That worked in Doctor Who.”\n\n“Of course it did,” Emily countered. “Matt Smith had a friendly scriptwriter on his side.”\n\nShe rubbed her forehead. “We do have another problem,” she added. “How are we going to get the supplies we need?”\n\n“And food,” Frieda said. She’d always been ruthlessly practical. “How long has it been since we ate?”\n\nEmily hesitated. Hours? Or days? Had she really eaten anything in her prison? Or …\n\n“We can’t conjure everything we need,” she said, grimly. “I don’t think even Void could have done it.”\n\nThe thought stabbed at her heart. Void had been her father in every sense that mattered, save blood. He’d plotted to take over the world, for the world’s own good, and she’d stopped him … she didn’t doubt she’d done the right thing, but she regretted having to kill him. She wanted to believe he hadn’t died, yet … she doubted even a sorcerer as powerful and knowledgeable as Void could have survived. It was hard not to feel guilty. He’d been far more of a father to her than either her biological father or her stepfather …\n\n“No,” her doppelganger agreed. “But I have been giving the matter some thought.”\n\nShe smiled. Emily wondered, morbidly, how many people secretly loathed her smile.\n\n“You’re currently in an interstice between dimensions,” her doppelganger said. “From this vantage point, it looks like a bubble attached to a threadline that runs from dimension to dimension, timeline to timeline. I think we can use it to get you two into another timeline … one close to ours, to Frieda’s, and search for help there.”\n\nEmily’s eyes narrowed. “And what will we find there?”\n\n“I don’t know,” her doppelganger said. “I can follow you, and watch you, but I can’t look into alternate timelines without you being there. I think – I think – that the timeline will be near enough to ours that you’ll be able to navigate, and that he’ll have problems attacking it, but … I could be wrong. It isn’t rocket science, you know.”\n\n“I’m starting to understand why the Doctor bitched and moaned about meeting his other selves,” Emily said, although she took her doppelganger’s point. Rocket science was nothing more than applied physics. It was easy to chart out just when and where the rockets should be fired, to steer the spacecraft onto a new course, even if actual technological development lingered far behind. “Is there a version of us there?”\n\n“Unknown,” her other self said. “There could be.”\n\nEmily winced, again. How many times had she come close to utter defeat? How many times had she been defeated, in other timelines? Would they step into a world where Shadye had won the day? Or Void? Or one of her other enemies, from the short-sighted and greedy to the noble and selfless? She didn’t know what kind of world they’d created, in a timeline where they’d won … perhaps they’d been defeated by someone else, perhaps they’d become rulers of all they surveyed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it. But she had no choice.\n\nAnd if there’s a Caleb in those worlds, he’s marrying a different Emily, she thought. Isn’t he?\n\nShe shoved the thought aside. “Get into those worlds, get the supplies we need, get everything put together … what a plan.”\n\n“We’ve done it before, with less,” her doppelganger pointed out. “And we are irritating each other because we are, technically, the same person.”\n\nEmily scowled. “Which one of us is Caleb going to marry?”\n\nHer doppelganger winked. “Does it matter, if we are the same person?”\n\nBut we’re not, not quite, Emily thought. You didn’t get trapped in your own past.\n\n“I’m sure he’ll be very happy to see both of you,” Frieda said, sharply. “Can you both … focus?”\n\n“We are meant to be one person,” Emily said. It was rare for Frieda to snap at her. “And being unable to merge back together is draining us.”\n\n“It’s certainly irritating us,” her doppelganger agreed. “And I suspect that staying in the interstice isn’t doing you any favours either.”\n\nEmily nodded. Their environment was wrong in a manner that made the pocket dimension look perfect. The floor was invisible, yet present; they were surrounded by hundreds of millions of timelines and threadlines, each one tiny and yet an entire universe in itself. And the wolf … she could feel his presence, a distant burning that lingered in the back of her mind even when she wasn’t looking at him. It was hard to wrap her head around the devastation he was wrecking on the universes around him. His mere presence was fatal to their mere existence. It was a crime on a scale beyond comprehension. God alone knew how many lives were being lost with every passing second …\n\nAnd if there is a God, she asked herself, why isn’t he stepping in?\n\n“Then we need to move,” she said. Her stomach growled. She tapped her belt, wishing she’d thought to bring some more coins. There hadn’t been any need for money in the Blighted Lands … God! Had it only been a day or two ago when everything had been normal? Master Wolfe had swept everything away, so completely it was hard to believe it had ever existed at all. “Can you help us open a portal?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1052, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch07-P3", "chapter": "ch07", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\nFaerie — capitalized.\nThe Other Folk — keep the three-word form.\nVoid — capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\nPolly Diggory — both words; mirror-magic cautionary name.\n\n### STORY\nEmily greets her doppelganger in the interstice; with Frieda they debate Master Wolfe’s limits and agree two minds must seize power beyond the nexus point.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nReady to take a steered mirror path; filthy and exhausted; wary of Faerie and Polly Diggory’s kind of mirror magic.\n\nDoppelganger Emily\nOffers to steer them to the right mirror; will keep watching.\n\nFrieda\nWants assurance they can get back; grins when a plan exists.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily winced, again. How many times had she come close to utter defeat? How many times had she been defeated, in other timelines? Would they step into a world where Shadye had won the day? Or Void? Or one of her other enemies, from the short-sighted and greedy to the noble and selfless? She didn’t know what kind of world they’d created, in a timeline where they’d won … perhaps they’d been defeated by someone else, perhaps they’d become rulers of all they surveyed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it. But she had no choice.\n\nAnd if there’s a Caleb in those worlds, he’s marrying a different Emily, she thought. Isn’t he?\n\nShe shoved the thought aside. “Get into those worlds, get the supplies we need, get everything put together … what a plan.”\n\n“We’ve done it before, with less,” her doppelganger pointed out. “And we are irritating each other because we are, technically, the same person.”\n\nEmily scowled. “Which one of us is Caleb going to marry?”\n\nHer doppelganger winked. “Does it matter, if we are the same person?”\n\nBut we’re not, not quite, Emily thought. You didn’t get trapped in your own past.\n\n“I’m sure he’ll be very happy to see both of you,” Frieda said, sharply. “Can you both … focus?”\n\n“We are meant to be one person,” Emily said. It was rare for Frieda to snap at her. “And being unable to merge back together is draining us.”\n\n“It’s certainly irritating us,” her doppelganger agreed. “And I suspect that staying in the interstice isn’t doing you any favours either.”\n\nEmily nodded. Their environment was wrong in a manner that made the pocket dimension look perfect. The floor was invisible, yet present; they were surrounded by hundreds of millions of timelines and threadlines, each one tiny and yet an entire universe in itself. And the wolf … she could feel his presence, a distant burning that lingered in the back of her mind even when she wasn’t looking at him. It was hard to wrap her head around the devastation he was wrecking on the universes around him. His mere presence was fatal to their mere existence. It was a crime on a scale beyond comprehension. God alone knew how many lives were being lost with every passing second …\n\nAnd if there is a God, she asked herself, why isn’t he stepping in?\n\n“Then we need to move,” she said. Her stomach growled. She tapped her belt, wishing she’d thought to bring some more coins. There hadn’t been any need for money in the Blighted Lands … God! Had it only been a day or two ago when everything had been normal? Master Wolfe had swept everything away, so completely it was hard to believe it had ever existed at all. “Can you help us open a portal?”\n\n### NOTES\nNot the Wood between the Worlds; return to this exact interstice not required.\nEnvironment shifting into strange images before transit.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHer doppelganger will steer them to a mirror path; Frieda demands sight-lines home; Emily weighs Faerie oaths and Polly Diggory’s victims, stands filthy and tired, and with Frieda’s grin at having a plan the world shifts—and they are somewhere else.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Plan locked; transit abrupt. Land on somewhere else.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I can steer you towards the right mirror,” her doppelganger said. “And I think you should be able to get through it.”\n\n“As long as we can get back,” Frieda said. “Just make sure you don’t lose sight of us.”\n\n“This isn’t the Wood between the Worlds,” Emily’s doppelganger said. “And it won’t matter if you don’t come back to this particular interstice.”\n\n“Probably,” Emily agreed. It had never worried her that there was no way home, at least at first. She’d had nothing to go back to. Diggory and Polly, by contrast, had had loving homes and families. The thought of wandering forever through countless universes, trying to make their way back home, had been utterly nightmarish for them, all the more so because they had come so close to doing just that. “How much danger are we in, if we stay here?”\n\n“I don’t know,” her doppelganger said. “I’ve seen people travelling the threadlines, moving from world to world, but I haven’t been able to speak to them. It could be very dangerous or … completely harmless.”\n\nEmily had a vision, suddenly, of entire networks of traders and explorers making their way along the threadlines, each trading network huge by human standards and yet infinitely tiny compared to the sheer vastness of the multiverse. Entire empires could rise and fall and vanish in the blink of an eye, on such a scale; she wondered, suddenly, if they could find help from other explorers. Or other entities. She was wary of contacting the Faerie, or demons, or creatures so alien meaningful conversation was impossible, but surely … they’d help if everything was at stake. Wouldn’t they?\n\n“See if you can track someone down we can ask for help,” she said. “We’re going to need it.”\n\n“I can try, but the more disruption we cause the easier it will be for him to hunt us down,” her doppelganger said. “And once he pops the bubble surrounding me, we’re done.”\n\n“And summoning a demon would be disruptive,” Emily mused. “Or the Faerie …”\n\nShe scowled. She’d made and repaid her oath to the Faerie, yet … she didn’t understand what they truly were. The Other Folk didn’t seem to follow the laws of magic, as she understood them, which raised all kinds of questions. Their morals were very alien too, if the old stories were to be believed. There was a reason no one ever went near the deepest darkest places in the wood. They knew there was a very real risk they’d never be seen again.\n\n“Yes,” her doppelganger agreed. “We dare not show our hand too openly.”\n\nShe paused. “Asking ourselves, other versions of ourselves, for help might work better.”\n\n“As long as we don’t run into her,” Emily said. The last time she’d had anything to do with mirror magic, she’d seen a warped, alien and evil version of her face. “What if …”\n\nShe caught herself. She didn’t want to finish that sentence. Didn’t want to think about the monster who had looked like her … who’d been her. She didn’t want to think she could be that person, that she could have been a monster … that a tiny change could have blossomed into a nightmare. But she couldn’t deny it either.\n\n“She wasn't inherently evil,” her doppelganger pointed out. “She just made a mistake.”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said, sarcastically. “And I’m sure that’s a great comfort to her victims.”\n\nFrieda squeezed her hand, gently. Emily wasn’t sure she deserved it.\n\n“Go,” her doppelganger said. “We’re short of time.”\n\nEmily stood. Her body was filthy, her clothes … she needed a bath and a good night’s sleep and … the sooner they got started, the better. There was nowhere to rest here. She had no idea if she’d be in danger, if they lay down and tried to sleep, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way. Her doppelganger was in very real danger, if she tried to sleep. The nexus point was safer than the interstice, but who knew what would happen if the bubble eroded while her doppelganger was asleep?\n\nShe took Frieda’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”\n\nA thrill of tired excitement ran through her as she started to walk. The idea of exploring countless other worlds was fascinating, although the looming threat overhead made it impossible for her to relax and enjoy it. She would have been tempted, if she hadn’t had so many responsibilities … Void had told her, once, of a pair of sorcerers who’d opened gateways to other worlds and stepped through, never to be seen again. She thought she knew how they felt. They’d been so powerful that there were no challenges left, nothing to fear and nothing to overcome … why not go exploring? Caleb and she could go later, if they had time …\n\nFrieda grinned up at her. “We have a plan now, don’t we?”\n\n“Half of one,” Emily agreed. It was more than they’d had earlier, even if she was still out of sorts. She had no idea how long it would take to recover completely. Her mind felt as if she’d been put through the winger. “If we have a chance to gather ourselves, we can fill in the rest as we go along.”\n\nShe felt the world shift again and cursed under her breath. Their environment was shifting, strange images coming and going so quickly she could barely catch a glimpse before they were gone. They looked like windows into other worlds … it dawned on her, suddenly, that she could jump through and find herself in a whole new world. The path shifted underneath her, steering them onwards … she barely had a second to realise they were starting to fall, before they plummeted down and into a light. It reached up and swallowed them, the light so bright it seemed to touch every cell of her being …\n\nAnd then they were somewhere else.\n", "completion": "“I can steer you towards the right mirror,” her doppelganger said. “And I think you should be able to get through it.”\n\n“As long as we can get back,” Frieda said. “Just make sure you don’t lose sight of us.”\n\n“This isn’t the Wood between the Worlds,” Emily’s doppelganger said. “And it won’t matter if you don’t come back to this particular interstice.”\n\n“Probably,” Emily agreed. It had never worried her that there was no way home, at least at first. She’d had nothing to go back to. Diggory and Polly, by contrast, had had loving homes and families. The thought of wandering forever through countless universes, trying to make their way back home, had been utterly nightmarish for them, all the more so because they had come so close to doing just that. “How much danger are we in, if we stay here?”\n\n“I don’t know,” her doppelganger said. “I’ve seen people travelling the threadlines, moving from world to world, but I haven’t been able to speak to them. It could be very dangerous or … completely harmless.”\n\nEmily had a vision, suddenly, of entire networks of traders and explorers making their way along the threadlines, each trading network huge by human standards and yet infinitely tiny compared to the sheer vastness of the multiverse. Entire empires could rise and fall and vanish in the blink of an eye, on such a scale; she wondered, suddenly, if they could find help from other explorers. Or other entities. She was wary of contacting the Faerie, or demons, or creatures so alien meaningful conversation was impossible, but surely … they’d help if everything was at stake. Wouldn’t they?\n\n“See if you can track someone down we can ask for help,” she said. “We’re going to need it.”\n\n“I can try, but the more disruption we cause the easier it will be for him to hunt us down,” her doppelganger said. “And once he pops the bubble surrounding me, we’re done.”\n\n“And summoning a demon would be disruptive,” Emily mused. “Or the Faerie …”\n\nShe scowled. She’d made and repaid her oath to the Faerie, yet … she didn’t understand what they truly were. The Other Folk didn’t seem to follow the laws of magic, as she understood them, which raised all kinds of questions. Their morals were very alien too, if the old stories were to be believed. There was a reason no one ever went near the deepest darkest places in the wood. They knew there was a very real risk they’d never be seen again.\n\n“Yes,” her doppelganger agreed. “We dare not show our hand too openly.”\n\nShe paused. “Asking ourselves, other versions of ourselves, for help might work better.”\n\n“As long as we don’t run into her,” Emily said. The last time she’d had anything to do with mirror magic, she’d seen a warped, alien and evil version of her face. “What if …”\n\nShe caught herself. She didn’t want to finish that sentence. Didn’t want to think about the monster who had looked like her … who’d been her. She didn’t want to think she could be that person, that she could have been a monster … that a tiny change could have blossomed into a nightmare. But she couldn’t deny it either.\n\n“She wasn't inherently evil,” her doppelganger pointed out. “She just made a mistake.”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said, sarcastically. “And I’m sure that’s a great comfort to her victims.”\n\nFrieda squeezed her hand, gently. Emily wasn’t sure she deserved it.\n\n“Go,” her doppelganger said. “We’re short of time.”\n\nEmily stood. Her body was filthy, her clothes … she needed a bath and a good night’s sleep and … the sooner they got started, the better. There was nowhere to rest here. She had no idea if she’d be in danger, if they lay down and tried to sleep, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way. Her doppelganger was in very real danger, if she tried to sleep. The nexus point was safer than the interstice, but who knew what would happen if the bubble eroded while her doppelganger was asleep?\n\nShe took Frieda’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”\n\nA thrill of tired excitement ran through her as she started to walk. The idea of exploring countless other worlds was fascinating, although the looming threat overhead made it impossible for her to relax and enjoy it. She would have been tempted, if she hadn’t had so many responsibilities … Void had told her, once, of a pair of sorcerers who’d opened gateways to other worlds and stepped through, never to be seen again. She thought she knew how they felt. They’d been so powerful that there were no challenges left, nothing to fear and nothing to overcome … why not go exploring? Caleb and she could go later, if they had time …\n\nFrieda grinned up at her. “We have a plan now, don’t we?”\n\n“Half of one,” Emily agreed. It was more than they’d had earlier, even if she was still out of sorts. She had no idea how long it would take to recover completely. Her mind felt as if she’d been put through the winger. “If we have a chance to gather ourselves, we can fill in the rest as we go along.”\n\nShe felt the world shift again and cursed under her breath. Their environment was shifting, strange images coming and going so quickly she could barely catch a glimpse before they were gone. They looked like windows into other worlds … it dawned on her, suddenly, that she could jump through and find herself in a whole new world. The path shifted underneath her, steering them onwards … she barely had a second to realise they were starting to fall, before they plummeted down and into a light. It reached up and swallowed them, the light so bright it seemed to touch every cell of her being …\n\nAnd then they were somewhere else.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1021, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch08-P1", "chapter": "ch08", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFrieda — capitalized.\nAdam — capitalized.\nVoid — capitalized.\nShadye — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nNameless World — both words capitalized.\nHeath Robinson — both words; steampunk aesthetic foil.\nLilith — capitalized.\nspellware — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily greets her doppelganger in the interstice; with Frieda they debate Master Wolfe’s limits and agree two minds must seize power beyond the nexus point.\n\nThe two Emilys brainstorm Big-Bang jokes and impossible supply problems, irritate each other as near-same selves, and decide the interstice is hurting them—so they must move.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust arrived via mirror into a warded room; reading astonishing spellware; meeting a leather-steampunk counterpart; mind-brush flooding with alternate memories.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nCounterpart in steampunk kit; wary; probing with wards; shares DNA-deep sameness.\n\nFrieda — With Emily; swearing at the place.\nAdam — About to enter with a wand-device; stronger-voiced than Emily recalls.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily stood. Her body was filthy, her clothes … she needed a bath and a good night’s sleep and … the sooner they got started, the better. There was nowhere to rest here. She had no idea if she’d be in danger, if they lay down and tried to sleep, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way. Her doppelganger was in very real danger, if she tried to sleep. The nexus point was safer than the interstice, but who knew what would happen if the bubble eroded while her doppelganger was asleep?\n\nShe took Frieda’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”\n\nA thrill of tired excitement ran through her as she started to walk. The idea of exploring countless other worlds was fascinating, although the looming threat overhead made it impossible for her to relax and enjoy it. She would have been tempted, if she hadn’t had so many responsibilities … Void had told her, once, of a pair of sorcerers who’d opened gateways to other worlds and stepped through, never to be seen again. She thought she knew how they felt. They’d been so powerful that there were no challenges left, nothing to fear and nothing to overcome … why not go exploring? Caleb and she could go later, if they had time …\n\nFrieda grinned up at her. “We have a plan now, don’t we?”\n\n“Half of one,” Emily agreed. It was more than they’d had earlier, even if she was still out of sorts. She had no idea how long it would take to recover completely. Her mind felt as if she’d been put through the winger. “If we have a chance to gather ourselves, we can fill in the rest as we go along.”\n\nShe felt the world shift again and cursed under her breath. Their environment was shifting, strange images coming and going so quickly she could barely catch a glimpse before they were gone. They looked like windows into other worlds … it dawned on her, suddenly, that she could jump through and find herself in a whole new world. The path shifted underneath her, steering them onwards … she barely had a second to realise they were starting to fall, before they plummeted down and into a light. It reached up and swallowed them, the light so bright it seemed to touch every cell of her being …\n\nAnd then they were somewhere else.\n\n### NOTES\nWarded chamber with intricate spellware structure.\nDoor/path into further rooms not yet taken.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nArrival triggers locking wards she reads as astonishing spellware; Frieda swears; a steampunk Emily faces her and their minds brush—Void, Shadye, Whitehall paths spilling. Adam’s stronger voice arrives with a wand-device, asking Emily’s name as if this Adam grew up sooner.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Ward-tension first contact; memory brush uncanny. Land on Adam’s entrance.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily barely had a second to take in the room around them before their arrival triggered the wards.\n\nThe magic flared around them, a wave of subtle and yet focused spells that tried to lock her in place and hold her prisoner until their caster arrived to take her into custody. She gritted her teeth and pushed back, her magic blurring into the wards in a manner that should have been impossible; it took her a moment, longer than it should have, to realise that her magic pervaded the wards … that she’d cast them. No, not her; another alternate of herself. The wards drew back, confused, as they brushed against her magic. They weren’t so kind to Frieda. Emily had to reach out and shove them away from her friend. Whatever version of herself had cast the wards, they were clearly unwilling to risk any intruders escaping. If she hadn’t been there, Frieda would have been stuck.\n\nShe brushed against the wards, sucking in her breath as she got a look at their inner structure. The spellware was astonishingly complex, reminding her of a mimic, except … she cursed as she sensed an eerie alien intelligence touch her mind, a jolt of alarm running through the whole system as it realised its mistress was in two places at once. It was smarter than any ward structure she’d ever seen, smart enough to realise it was probably being hacked and yet incapable of working out which version of Emily was actually in charge. That was odd … there should be a living mind linked to wards of such complexity, a wardmaster so tightly entangled with the spells that there was no room for any intruders to sink their minds into the system, but if there was any human mind she couldn’t sense it. The only mind she could feel was her own. It made little sense.\n\n“Crap,” Frieda muttered. “What is this place?”\n\nEmily looked around as the wards withdrew slightly, clearly watching from a safe distance. The chamber was massive, a workshop crammed with wooden workbenches, each piled high with devices that looked like Heath Robinson contraptions. The walls were lined with bookcases, groaning under the weight of hundreds of books; the ceiling, high overhead, was studded with glowing crystals that cast a surprisingly modern light over the chamber. It felt homely in a way she didn’t quite understand, something pulsing against her mind … Whitehall. They were in Whitehall. The nexus point she could feel in the distance was very familiar. But it wasn’t her Whitehall. It was somewhere else.\n\nThe door burst open. Emily raised her hands as two figures crashed into the room, trying to look harmless even though she doubted it would work. She’d met some pretty nasty customers who looked as if they wouldn’t harm a fly, customers who’d turned people into flies and laughed about it. Magic crackled around her, the wards tightening as they recognised their true mistress. Emily … no. The other Emily.\n\n“Who the …?”\n\nHer counterpart stared at her, then raised a wand. Emily stared. The wand looked more like a multitool than anything else – a sonic screwdriver, the irrelevant part of her mind whispered -  hardly the simple wooden sticks she’d seen in her own timeline. They were dangerous for magicians, teaching bad habits and hampering magical development in ways that couldn’t easily be overcome … was her counterpart dependent on her wand? Or was the device something more useful than the wand she knew?\n\n“Who the hell are you?”\n\nEmily stared at her counterpart, wonderingly. They were the same person and yet … this Emily wore a leather steampunk outfit that reminded her of Frieda’s, only far more so. She was slimmer than herself, as if she hadn’t quite filled out the same way; her long brown hair in pigtails rather than bound up in a single braid or hanging loosely down her back. She wore a pair of spectacles on her nose, something that struck Emily as odd. She’d never had any problem with her vision and most, if not all, problems could be corrected by a trained healer. And behind her …\n\nAdam?\n\n“I’m you, an alternate version of you,” Emily said. Her counterpart would understand the concept. “You’ll be pleased to know I don’t have a goatee.”\n\nHer counterpart eyed her warily. Emily could feel her mind brushing against the wards, could feel her directing her spells to probe the new arrivals carefully. There was no one else in the new timeline, she thought, who’d understand the reference … she reminded herself, sharply, that might not be true. She’d never tried to yank anyone else into the Nameless World, but there was no guarantee her counterpart hadn’t tried it. They might be the same person in many ways, yet … they were also very different. And Adam? What was he doing here?\n\n“You can’t be serious,” the other Emily said. “How …”\n\n“Search your feelings,” Emily said. “You know it to be true.”\n\nHer mind brushed against her counterpart’s, a rush of memories that were hers and yet not spilling through her head. Void and Shadye, Whitehall … half the impressions were of people she’d never met, or met in a different way, or … Adam’s face blazed in her mind’s eye, naked … she gritted her teeth, flushing helplessly. She had been sleeping with Adam … she felt as if she’d cheated on Caleb, betrayed Lilith, even though she knew she’d done nothing of the sort. It wasn’t her memories, and yet … in a sense, they were.\n\n“Emily?” Adam’s voice was stronger than she recalled, as if this Adam had grown up a great deal sooner. The wand-device in his hand was not quite pointed at Emily, but close enough … his eyes lingered on Frieda, as if he was trying to place her. It struck Emily, suddenly, that her counterpart had never met her Frieda. God alone knew what had happened to Frieda in this timeline. “Are you alright?”\n", "completion": "Emily barely had a second to take in the room around them before their arrival triggered the wards.\n\nThe magic flared around them, a wave of subtle and yet focused spells that tried to lock her in place and hold her prisoner until their caster arrived to take her into custody. She gritted her teeth and pushed back, her magic blurring into the wards in a manner that should have been impossible; it took her a moment, longer than it should have, to realise that her magic pervaded the wards … that she’d cast them. No, not her; another alternate of herself. The wards drew back, confused, as they brushed against her magic. They weren’t so kind to Frieda. Emily had to reach out and shove them away from her friend. Whatever version of herself had cast the wards, they were clearly unwilling to risk any intruders escaping. If she hadn’t been there, Frieda would have been stuck.\n\nShe brushed against the wards, sucking in her breath as she got a look at their inner structure. The spellware was astonishingly complex, reminding her of a mimic, except … she cursed as she sensed an eerie alien intelligence touch her mind, a jolt of alarm running through the whole system as it realised its mistress was in two places at once. It was smarter than any ward structure she’d ever seen, smart enough to realise it was probably being hacked and yet incapable of working out which version of Emily was actually in charge. That was odd … there should be a living mind linked to wards of such complexity, a wardmaster so tightly entangled with the spells that there was no room for any intruders to sink their minds into the system, but if there was any human mind she couldn’t sense it. The only mind she could feel was her own. It made little sense.\n\n“Crap,” Frieda muttered. “What is this place?”\n\nEmily looked around as the wards withdrew slightly, clearly watching from a safe distance. The chamber was massive, a workshop crammed with wooden workbenches, each piled high with devices that looked like Heath Robinson contraptions. The walls were lined with bookcases, groaning under the weight of hundreds of books; the ceiling, high overhead, was studded with glowing crystals that cast a surprisingly modern light over the chamber. It felt homely in a way she didn’t quite understand, something pulsing against her mind … Whitehall. They were in Whitehall. The nexus point she could feel in the distance was very familiar. But it wasn’t her Whitehall. It was somewhere else.\n\nThe door burst open. Emily raised her hands as two figures crashed into the room, trying to look harmless even though she doubted it would work. She’d met some pretty nasty customers who looked as if they wouldn’t harm a fly, customers who’d turned people into flies and laughed about it. Magic crackled around her, the wards tightening as they recognised their true mistress. Emily … no. The other Emily.\n\n“Who the …?”\n\nHer counterpart stared at her, then raised a wand. Emily stared. The wand looked more like a multitool than anything else – a sonic screwdriver, the irrelevant part of her mind whispered -  hardly the simple wooden sticks she’d seen in her own timeline. They were dangerous for magicians, teaching bad habits and hampering magical development in ways that couldn’t easily be overcome … was her counterpart dependent on her wand? Or was the device something more useful than the wand she knew?\n\n“Who the hell are you?”\n\nEmily stared at her counterpart, wonderingly. They were the same person and yet … this Emily wore a leather steampunk outfit that reminded her of Frieda’s, only far more so. She was slimmer than herself, as if she hadn’t quite filled out the same way; her long brown hair in pigtails rather than bound up in a single braid or hanging loosely down her back. She wore a pair of spectacles on her nose, something that struck Emily as odd. She’d never had any problem with her vision and most, if not all, problems could be corrected by a trained healer. And behind her …\n\nAdam?\n\n“I’m you, an alternate version of you,” Emily said. Her counterpart would understand the concept. “You’ll be pleased to know I don’t have a goatee.”\n\nHer counterpart eyed her warily. Emily could feel her mind brushing against the wards, could feel her directing her spells to probe the new arrivals carefully. There was no one else in the new timeline, she thought, who’d understand the reference … she reminded herself, sharply, that might not be true. She’d never tried to yank anyone else into the Nameless World, but there was no guarantee her counterpart hadn’t tried it. They might be the same person in many ways, yet … they were also very different. And Adam? What was he doing here?\n\n“You can’t be serious,” the other Emily said. “How …”\n\n“Search your feelings,” Emily said. “You know it to be true.”\n\nHer mind brushed against her counterpart’s, a rush of memories that were hers and yet not spilling through her head. Void and Shadye, Whitehall … half the impressions were of people she’d never met, or met in a different way, or … Adam’s face blazed in her mind’s eye, naked … she gritted her teeth, flushing helplessly. She had been sleeping with Adam … she felt as if she’d cheated on Caleb, betrayed Lilith, even though she knew she’d done nothing of the sort. It wasn’t her memories, and yet … in a sense, they were.\n\n“Emily?” Adam’s voice was stronger than she recalled, as if this Adam had grown up a great deal sooner. The wand-device in his hand was not quite pointed at Emily, but close enough … his eyes lingered on Frieda, as if he was trying to place her. It struck Emily, suddenly, that her counterpart had never met her Frieda. God alone knew what had happened to Frieda in this timeline. “Are you alright?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1020, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch08-P2", "chapter": "ch08", "packet": "P2", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAdam — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nVoid — capitalized.\nLilith — capitalized.\nHouse Ashworth — both words capitalized.\nRavenscroft — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nImaiqah — capitalized.\nCat — capitalized; do not expand.\nJade — capitalized.\nLady Barb — both words.\nGorgon — capitalized when naming the person.\nKava — capitalized.\nAlluvia — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nArrival triggers dense locking wards around them; Emily meets a steampunk technomage counterpart and feels shared-yet-not memories flood before Adam arrives with a wand-device in hand.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nComparing histories with her counterpart over seats and tea; noting Adam’s possessiveness; hungry for the sandwiches he brings.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nFirst-time host to dimensional visitors; different Whitehall/necromancer/Void outcomes; dating Adam; does not know Lilith as Emily does.\n\nAdam\nReluctant to leave them alone; returns with sandwich tray.\nFrieda — Present for the conference.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily stared at her counterpart, wonderingly. They were the same person and yet … this Emily wore a leather steampunk outfit that reminded her of Frieda’s, only far more so. She was slimmer than herself, as if she hadn’t quite filled out the same way; her long brown hair in pigtails rather than bound up in a single braid or hanging loosely down her back. She wore a pair of spectacles on her nose, something that struck Emily as odd. She’d never had any problem with her vision and most, if not all, problems could be corrected by a trained healer. And behind her …\n\nAdam?\n\n“I’m you, an alternate version of you,” Emily said. Her counterpart would understand the concept. “You’ll be pleased to know I don’t have a goatee.”\n\nHer counterpart eyed her warily. Emily could feel her mind brushing against the wards, could feel her directing her spells to probe the new arrivals carefully. There was no one else in the new timeline, she thought, who’d understand the reference … she reminded herself, sharply, that might not be true. She’d never tried to yank anyone else into the Nameless World, but there was no guarantee her counterpart hadn’t tried it. They might be the same person in many ways, yet … they were also very different. And Adam? What was he doing here?\n\n“You can’t be serious,” the other Emily said. “How …”\n\n“Search your feelings,” Emily said. “You know it to be true.”\n\nHer mind brushed against her counterpart’s, a rush of memories that were hers and yet not spilling through her head. Void and Shadye, Whitehall … half the impressions were of people she’d never met, or met in a different way, or … Adam’s face blazed in her mind’s eye, naked … she gritted her teeth, flushing helplessly. She had been sleeping with Adam … she felt as if she’d cheated on Caleb, betrayed Lilith, even though she knew she’d done nothing of the sort. It wasn’t her memories, and yet … in a sense, they were.\n\n“Emily?” Adam’s voice was stronger than she recalled, as if this Adam had grown up a great deal sooner. The wand-device in his hand was not quite pointed at Emily, but close enough … his eyes lingered on Frieda, as if he was trying to place her. It struck Emily, suddenly, that her counterpart had never met her Frieda. God alone knew what had happened to Frieda in this timeline. “Are you alright?”\n\n### NOTES\nSitting room beyond a door that was not there until the counterpart led.\nTea mugs; sandwich tray.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThey move to a sitting room; Adam leaves reluctantly; the counterparts compare first-time travel, Whitehall arrivals, Ravenscroft, necromancers, Void, and whether Lilith exists here. Tea is poured; Adam returns with sandwiches and Emily takes one with a twinge of unease.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Wary hospitality dialogue; keep timeline diffs concrete. Land on the sandwich tray.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Yeah,” the other Emily said. “This is strange. How much have you done?”\n\nShe cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should go into the next room,” she added. “We have much to discuss.”\n\nThe wards parted at her touch, drawing back as she turned and led the way through a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Emily glanced back at the mirror, somehow both mundane and magical, then shrugged and followed her counterpart, Frieda and Adam bringing up the rear. They both looked out of sorts, if for different reasons … Emily reminded herself that this Adam might wear the same face, but he wasn’t the same person. If he’d somehow fallen in with the alternate Emily, rather than Lilith … what had that made of him? The memoires offered no answer. How could they?\n\n“Please, take a seat,” her counterpart said. She moved with an odd delicacy that surprised Emily, as if she wasn’t quite comfortable in her own body. “Would you like some Kava? Or tea? Or …”\n\n“Can we get something to eat?” Frieda sounded as if she was trying to be practical, despite an endless series of shocks. “I’m starving.”\n\nThe other Emily smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Adam, would you mind fetching some sandwiches from the kitchen?”\n\n“You’ll be alright, here?” Adam sounded oddly reluctant to go. Emily couldn’t tell if it was concern or possessiveness, or a fear that he’d be excluded. “I can send someone else …”\n\n“I’ll be fine,” his partner assured him. “The wards are linked to me alone now.”\n\nEmily’s lips twitched. “It’s odd, meeting someone wearing your face and not you.”\n\n“It’s my first time,” her counterpart said. “I knew interdimensional travel was possible, of course, but …”\n\nShe shrugged, expressively. “It isn’t easy,” Emily agreed, as Adam closed the door behind him. “How did you two get together?”\n\n“You didn’t?” Her counterpart seemed stricken by the thought. “How come …?”\n\nHer eyes narrowed. “Was he at Whitehall when you arrived?”\n\nEmily shook her head. Her counterpart would have seen some of her memories too. “No.”\n\n“He was here,” her counterpart said. “Master Ravenscroft had taken him on as a manservant … apparently, he was amused by a young man’s determination to be a magician without magic. We became friends, we worked to introduce modern technology … we found ways to link science and magic together, creating a whole new field of magical research and development. And somewhere along the line, we became lovers.”\n\n“Interesting,” Emily said. She’d never heard the name Ravenscroft. Someone dead in her timeline, before he ever met Adam, or … who knew? If she ever got home … she made a mental note to look him up and see what she found, before putting the thought aside. Right now, she had other problems. “What happened to Alassa? And Imaiqah?”\n\nHer counterpart gave her an odd look. “Imaiqah and her family moved to Dragon’s Den after civil war broke out in Zangaria,” she said. “Alassa” – there was a hint of disdain in her voice, mingled with hatred – “begged sanctuary in Alluvia. I think she married Prince Hedrick. I don’t much care.”\n\nEmily swallowed. She wanted to ask about Caleb, about Jade and Cat and everyone else she’d known over the last few years, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to hear the answers. Was Lady Barb still alive? Was she even close to Emily … this Emily? Or Sergeant Miles…had he and Lady Barb been lovers in this universe, and was he still alive? What about Lilith and the Gorgon and … a hundred names and faces, friends and enemies, ran through her mind. Where were they, in this timeline? Where they the same, or different? Did they even exist? A wave of disorientation ran through her. This wasn’t her world. She could be misled by something she knew to be true, something that simply wasn’t … not here.\n\nShe forced herself to ask. “What happened to the necromancers? And Void?”\n\nHer counterpart looked oddly conflicted. “We found a way to kill them all, eight years ago,” she said. “And Void gave his life saving mine.”\n\nEmily sucked in her breath. Eight years ago? The necromancers had barely been broken for two, in her world. What had she missed, she asked herself, that could have ended the war far before the battle she recalled? A magiwriter … an improved magiwriter? If her counterpart had had far more time to research and develop the concept, who knew what she could do now? And …\n\nHer counterpart poured three mugs and handed them round. “What happened in your world?”\n\nThe discussion became faintly surreal as they compared notes. Her counterpart had never befriended Alassa, never known Lady Barb … never become involved in power politics or become a baroness or gained control of Heart’s Eye. There had been no trip to Mountaintop, no Frieda; no relationship with Jade, Cat, or Caleb. Her counterpart had never even met Caleb. It was just …\n\nShe wasn’t sure if she should envy or pity her counterpart. On one hand, she was an inventor and researcher as well as an instructor, free to do as she pleased within Whitehall; she had a peaceful life that wasn’t disturbed by anything more awkward than a student who wanted to become an apprentice. On the other, for better or worse, she had very little direct influence outside the school and … the tidal wave of change that had swept over the world in her wake, everything from the New Learning to magitech, had been very different here. Better or worse? She didn’t know. It could be argued either way.\n\n“And you’re dating Adam,” Emily mused. “Did you ever meet Lilith? Did he?”\n\n“Who?” Her counterpart shrugged. “There’s a Lilith in House Ashworth, if I recall correctly, but I’ve never met her.”\n\nAdam returned, carrying a large tray of sandwiches and placing it neatly on the table. Emily took one, feeling a twinge of something as she noted the bread, ham, hard cheese and chutney that made up a typical ploughman’s lunch … it looked as if her counterpart had never tried to introduce burgers, fries, pizza and other meals from their homeworld. Perhaps her doppelganger had never thought to ask, perhaps she lacked the influence to ensure they took off … Emily didn’t think she wanted to know. It was … disturbing to realise she could be easily misled. Everything she took for granted in her world might not be true here.\n", "completion": "“Yeah,” the other Emily said. “This is strange. How much have you done?”\n\nShe cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should go into the next room,” she added. “We have much to discuss.”\n\nThe wards parted at her touch, drawing back as she turned and led the way through a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Emily glanced back at the mirror, somehow both mundane and magical, then shrugged and followed her counterpart, Frieda and Adam bringing up the rear. They both looked out of sorts, if for different reasons … Emily reminded herself that this Adam might wear the same face, but he wasn’t the same person. If he’d somehow fallen in with the alternate Emily, rather than Lilith … what had that made of him? The memoires offered no answer. How could they?\n\n“Please, take a seat,” her counterpart said. She moved with an odd delicacy that surprised Emily, as if she wasn’t quite comfortable in her own body. “Would you like some Kava? Or tea? Or …”\n\n“Can we get something to eat?” Frieda sounded as if she was trying to be practical, despite an endless series of shocks. “I’m starving.”\n\nThe other Emily smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Adam, would you mind fetching some sandwiches from the kitchen?”\n\n“You’ll be alright, here?” Adam sounded oddly reluctant to go. Emily couldn’t tell if it was concern or possessiveness, or a fear that he’d be excluded. “I can send someone else …”\n\n“I’ll be fine,” his partner assured him. “The wards are linked to me alone now.”\n\nEmily’s lips twitched. “It’s odd, meeting someone wearing your face and not you.”\n\n“It’s my first time,” her counterpart said. “I knew interdimensional travel was possible, of course, but …”\n\nShe shrugged, expressively. “It isn’t easy,” Emily agreed, as Adam closed the door behind him. “How did you two get together?”\n\n“You didn’t?” Her counterpart seemed stricken by the thought. “How come …?”\n\nHer eyes narrowed. “Was he at Whitehall when you arrived?”\n\nEmily shook her head. Her counterpart would have seen some of her memories too. “No.”\n\n“He was here,” her counterpart said. “Master Ravenscroft had taken him on as a manservant … apparently, he was amused by a young man’s determination to be a magician without magic. We became friends, we worked to introduce modern technology … we found ways to link science and magic together, creating a whole new field of magical research and development. And somewhere along the line, we became lovers.”\n\n“Interesting,” Emily said. She’d never heard the name Ravenscroft. Someone dead in her timeline, before he ever met Adam, or … who knew? If she ever got home … she made a mental note to look him up and see what she found, before putting the thought aside. Right now, she had other problems. “What happened to Alassa? And Imaiqah?”\n\nHer counterpart gave her an odd look. “Imaiqah and her family moved to Dragon’s Den after civil war broke out in Zangaria,” she said. “Alassa” – there was a hint of disdain in her voice, mingled with hatred – “begged sanctuary in Alluvia. I think she married Prince Hedrick. I don’t much care.”\n\nEmily swallowed. She wanted to ask about Caleb, about Jade and Cat and everyone else she’d known over the last few years, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to hear the answers. Was Lady Barb still alive? Was she even close to Emily … this Emily? Or Sergeant Miles…had he and Lady Barb been lovers in this universe, and was he still alive? What about Lilith and the Gorgon and … a hundred names and faces, friends and enemies, ran through her mind. Where were they, in this timeline? Where they the same, or different? Did they even exist? A wave of disorientation ran through her. This wasn’t her world. She could be misled by something she knew to be true, something that simply wasn’t … not here.\n\nShe forced herself to ask. “What happened to the necromancers? And Void?”\n\nHer counterpart looked oddly conflicted. “We found a way to kill them all, eight years ago,” she said. “And Void gave his life saving mine.”\n\nEmily sucked in her breath. Eight years ago? The necromancers had barely been broken for two, in her world. What had she missed, she asked herself, that could have ended the war far before the battle she recalled? A magiwriter … an improved magiwriter? If her counterpart had had far more time to research and develop the concept, who knew what she could do now? And …\n\nHer counterpart poured three mugs and handed them round. “What happened in your world?”\n\nThe discussion became faintly surreal as they compared notes. Her counterpart had never befriended Alassa, never known Lady Barb … never become involved in power politics or become a baroness or gained control of Heart’s Eye. There had been no trip to Mountaintop, no Frieda; no relationship with Jade, Cat, or Caleb. Her counterpart had never even met Caleb. It was just …\n\nShe wasn’t sure if she should envy or pity her counterpart. On one hand, she was an inventor and researcher as well as an instructor, free to do as she pleased within Whitehall; she had a peaceful life that wasn’t disturbed by anything more awkward than a student who wanted to become an apprentice. On the other, for better or worse, she had very little direct influence outside the school and … the tidal wave of change that had swept over the world in her wake, everything from the New Learning to magitech, had been very different here. Better or worse? She didn’t know. It could be argued either way.\n\n“And you’re dating Adam,” Emily mused. “Did you ever meet Lilith? Did he?”\n\n“Who?” Her counterpart shrugged. “There’s a Lilith in House Ashworth, if I recall correctly, but I’ve never met her.”\n\nAdam returned, carrying a large tray of sandwiches and placing it neatly on the table. Emily took one, feeling a twinge of something as she noted the bread, ham, hard cheese and chutney that made up a typical ploughman’s lunch … it looked as if her counterpart had never tried to introduce burgers, fries, pizza and other meals from their homeworld. Perhaps her doppelganger had never thought to ask, perhaps she lacked the influence to ensure they took off … Emily didn’t think she wanted to know. It was … disturbing to realise she could be easily misled. Everything she took for granted in her world might not be true here.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1101, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch08-P3", "chapter": "ch08", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAdam — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nHasdrubal — capitalized.\nHierarchy — capitalized; faction name.\nHierarchists — capitalized plural.\nTechnomages — capitalized plural.\nBabylon — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nArrival triggers dense locking wards around them; Emily meets a steampunk technomage counterpart and feels shared-yet-not memories flood before Adam arrives with a wand-device in hand.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nEating; explaining the Master Wolfe threat via a glowing green globe; accepting shower, sleep, and trust from her counterpart.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nTests the globe; proposes magitech interaction; offers guest care; trusts herself-as-guest.\n\nAdam\nImpatient for answers before classes; blinks at instant trust.\nFrieda — Guest alongside Emily.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer counterpart looked oddly conflicted. “We found a way to kill them all, eight years ago,” she said. “And Void gave his life saving mine.”\n\nEmily sucked in her breath. Eight years ago? The necromancers had barely been broken for two, in her world. What had she missed, she asked herself, that could have ended the war far before the battle she recalled? A magiwriter … an improved magiwriter? If her counterpart had had far more time to research and develop the concept, who knew what she could do now? And …\n\nHer counterpart poured three mugs and handed them round. “What happened in your world?”\n\nThe discussion became faintly surreal as they compared notes. Her counterpart had never befriended Alassa, never known Lady Barb … never become involved in power politics or become a baroness or gained control of Heart’s Eye. There had been no trip to Mountaintop, no Frieda; no relationship with Jade, Cat, or Caleb. Her counterpart had never even met Caleb. It was just …\n\nShe wasn’t sure if she should envy or pity her counterpart. On one hand, she was an inventor and researcher as well as an instructor, free to do as she pleased within Whitehall; she had a peaceful life that wasn’t disturbed by anything more awkward than a student who wanted to become an apprentice. On the other, for better or worse, she had very little direct influence outside the school and … the tidal wave of change that had swept over the world in her wake, everything from the New Learning to magitech, had been very different here. Better or worse? She didn’t know. It could be argued either way.\n\n“And you’re dating Adam,” Emily mused. “Did you ever meet Lilith? Did he?”\n\n“Who?” Her counterpart shrugged. “There’s a Lilith in House Ashworth, if I recall correctly, but I’ve never met her.”\n\nAdam returned, carrying a large tray of sandwiches and placing it neatly on the table. Emily took one, feeling a twinge of something as she noted the bread, ham, hard cheese and chutney that made up a typical ploughman’s lunch … it looked as if her counterpart had never tried to introduce burgers, fries, pizza and other meals from their homeworld. Perhaps her doppelganger had never thought to ask, perhaps she lacked the influence to ensure they took off … Emily didn’t think she wanted to know. It was … disturbing to realise she could be easily misled. Everything she took for granted in her world might not be true here.\n\n### NOTES\nGlowing green globe as proof object under magical probing.\nClasses pending in about an hour in this Whitehall.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe thanks them for food while Adam presses for answers; her counterpart lets them eat, then watches the green globe prove the story. Talk turns to building interfaces for Wolfe’s power, Hasdrubal and Hierarchy gossip, then showers and sleep. Adam blinks at instant trust; the counterpart asks who you can trust if not yourself.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Proof and logistics; close on earned self-trust. Land on the trust line.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Thank you,” she said, feeling her stomach growl. The cheese was nice, the chutney flavourful without overpowering the rest of the meal; the bread was fresh-baked, just right. Beside her, Frieda ate with a rapidity that suggested she was too hungry to care about her table manners. “It’s very good.”\n\n“Glad to hear it,” Adam said, with a hint of impatience in his tone. “Why are you here? How did you even get here?”\n\nThe other Emily shot him a mischievous look. “Let them finish eating first.”\n\n“We have classes in an hour,” Adam reminded her. “We need to have some kind of answers before then.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. Holding up her hand, she shaped a simple lie-detector spell and cast it over her palm. A glowing green ball of light materialised over her bare skin, flickering oddly as it reacted to her magic – and, she noted, her counterpart’s. If she lied, the globe would turn red. It wasn’t perfect – it only reacted to an intentional lie – but it was the best she could do. Casting the spell on herself would only make it harder to fool and her counterpart would know it. Or … would she? Her magic seemed to have developed in different ways … it was hard to tell which of them was stronger. Perhaps they were too different to make any reasonable comparison between the two.\n\nThere was no point in trying to cushion the blow. “We’re at war with a mad god.”\n\nHer counterpart blinked, eyes flickering to the glowing green globe. Emily could feel magic poking and prodding at the globe, testing the spellware carefully. It was real. And yet … Emily understood her counterpart’s confusion. If she hadn’t encountered the mimics, if she hadn’t fallen back in time … if that were so, she asked herself, how had Whitehall even been founded? Time travel logic made her head hurt. If this Emily hadn’t gone back in time … she told herself not to worry about it. There were far worse problems dogging their heels.\n\n“I think you’d better explain,” Adam said, after glancing at his Emily and receiving a nod in return. “What sort of mad god?”\n\nEmily took a breath, then ran through the whole story. Her counterpart listened carefully, without showing her feelings too openly; Adam seemed torn between disbelief and reluctant acceptance. Emily wondered, suddenly, if the Hierarchy existed here … a flash of paranoia shot through her as she realised both her counterpart and Adam could be Hierarchists. It wasn’t impossible. The Hierarchy wasn’t snobbish towards mundanes, if they had the intelligence to make something of themselves in a magician’s world …\n\n“If this is true …” Her counterpart looked at the green globe, then back at Emily. “If this is true, how do we even begin to fight something like a god?”\n\n“He’s not a god,” Adam said. There was a hint of something Emily didn’t like in his tone. “He’s just a very powerful … entity.”\n\nEmily raised her eyebrows in surprise, then nodded in understanding. Adam had grown up in a world where the winners of the genetic lottery had godlike power, able to cast spells that did everything from launch fireballs towards their targets to turn innocent men and women into dumb animals. The concept of someone being vastly more powerful than himself was hardly new, nor was the simple awareness that magicians, for all their power, were still human. A punch in the nose would stun a magician as easy as a mundane. Master Wolfe might be a godlike entity, true, but he wasn’t God.\n\n“We should be able to build something to interact with his power,” Adam added. “The magiwriter we worked into the nexus point would be a good start …”\n\nHe winked. “It certainly shocked the tutors.”\n\nEmily had to smile, then stopped – dead – as a thought struck her. “Is Hasdrubal still alive?”\n\n“He retired, two years ago,” her counterpart said. “I don’t know what happened to him afterwards.”\n\n“I see.” Emily didn’t. She’d assumed Hasdrubal would stay at his post until death in all timelines. Perhaps things had been different here, with the necromancers defeated early. “I …”\n\nShe shook her head, unwilling to share that burden. “What now?”\n\n“I think you need a shower and some sleep,” her counterpart said, wrinkling her nose. “Both of you. Adam and I have classes to take, so …”\n\n“This is urgent,” Frieda said, sharply. “We need to get moving now.”\n\n“Panic won’t help,” Emily’s counterpart said. “We will move as fast as we can, but we do need to think about what to do, before we do it. We can’t afford mistakes.”\n\n“Agreed,” Emily said. They were guests here, in a world that was very different than theirs and yet disturbingly familiar. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with her counterpart. And besides, she was all too aware they both needed a wash and a rest. “We should have time.”\n\n“I’ll give you both copies of our latest research,” her counterpart added. “Perhaps we’ll make Technomages out of you.”\n\n“We call it magitech,” Emily said. Technomages? The only place she’d ever heard the name was Babylon 5. It struck her as oddly fitting. “Yeah, give us everything you can. We’re going to need it.”\n\n“Of course,” her counterpart said.\n\nAdam blinked. “Just like that?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily’s counterpart said. “If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?”\n", "completion": "“Thank you,” she said, feeling her stomach growl. The cheese was nice, the chutney flavourful without overpowering the rest of the meal; the bread was fresh-baked, just right. Beside her, Frieda ate with a rapidity that suggested she was too hungry to care about her table manners. “It’s very good.”\n\n“Glad to hear it,” Adam said, with a hint of impatience in his tone. “Why are you here? How did you even get here?”\n\nThe other Emily shot him a mischievous look. “Let them finish eating first.”\n\n“We have classes in an hour,” Adam reminded her. “We need to have some kind of answers before then.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. Holding up her hand, she shaped a simple lie-detector spell and cast it over her palm. A glowing green ball of light materialised over her bare skin, flickering oddly as it reacted to her magic – and, she noted, her counterpart’s. If she lied, the globe would turn red. It wasn’t perfect – it only reacted to an intentional lie – but it was the best she could do. Casting the spell on herself would only make it harder to fool and her counterpart would know it. Or … would she? Her magic seemed to have developed in different ways … it was hard to tell which of them was stronger. Perhaps they were too different to make any reasonable comparison between the two.\n\nThere was no point in trying to cushion the blow. “We’re at war with a mad god.”\n\nHer counterpart blinked, eyes flickering to the glowing green globe. Emily could feel magic poking and prodding at the globe, testing the spellware carefully. It was real. And yet … Emily understood her counterpart’s confusion. If she hadn’t encountered the mimics, if she hadn’t fallen back in time … if that were so, she asked herself, how had Whitehall even been founded? Time travel logic made her head hurt. If this Emily hadn’t gone back in time … she told herself not to worry about it. There were far worse problems dogging their heels.\n\n“I think you’d better explain,” Adam said, after glancing at his Emily and receiving a nod in return. “What sort of mad god?”\n\nEmily took a breath, then ran through the whole story. Her counterpart listened carefully, without showing her feelings too openly; Adam seemed torn between disbelief and reluctant acceptance. Emily wondered, suddenly, if the Hierarchy existed here … a flash of paranoia shot through her as she realised both her counterpart and Adam could be Hierarchists. It wasn’t impossible. The Hierarchy wasn’t snobbish towards mundanes, if they had the intelligence to make something of themselves in a magician’s world …\n\n“If this is true …” Her counterpart looked at the green globe, then back at Emily. “If this is true, how do we even begin to fight something like a god?”\n\n“He’s not a god,” Adam said. There was a hint of something Emily didn’t like in his tone. “He’s just a very powerful … entity.”\n\nEmily raised her eyebrows in surprise, then nodded in understanding. Adam had grown up in a world where the winners of the genetic lottery had godlike power, able to cast spells that did everything from launch fireballs towards their targets to turn innocent men and women into dumb animals. The concept of someone being vastly more powerful than himself was hardly new, nor was the simple awareness that magicians, for all their power, were still human. A punch in the nose would stun a magician as easy as a mundane. Master Wolfe might be a godlike entity, true, but he wasn’t God.\n\n“We should be able to build something to interact with his power,” Adam added. “The magiwriter we worked into the nexus point would be a good start …”\n\nHe winked. “It certainly shocked the tutors.”\n\nEmily had to smile, then stopped – dead – as a thought struck her. “Is Hasdrubal still alive?”\n\n“He retired, two years ago,” her counterpart said. “I don’t know what happened to him afterwards.”\n\n“I see.” Emily didn’t. She’d assumed Hasdrubal would stay at his post until death in all timelines. Perhaps things had been different here, with the necromancers defeated early. “I …”\n\nShe shook her head, unwilling to share that burden. “What now?”\n\n“I think you need a shower and some sleep,” her counterpart said, wrinkling her nose. “Both of you. Adam and I have classes to take, so …”\n\n“This is urgent,” Frieda said, sharply. “We need to get moving now.”\n\n“Panic won’t help,” Emily’s counterpart said. “We will move as fast as we can, but we do need to think about what to do, before we do it. We can’t afford mistakes.”\n\n“Agreed,” Emily said. They were guests here, in a world that was very different than theirs and yet disturbingly familiar. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with her counterpart. And besides, she was all too aware they both needed a wash and a rest. “We should have time.”\n\n“I’ll give you both copies of our latest research,” her counterpart added. “Perhaps we’ll make Technomages out of you.”\n\n“We call it magitech,” Emily said. Technomages? The only place she’d ever heard the name was Babylon 5. It struck her as oddly fitting. “Yeah, give us everything you can. We’re going to need it.”\n\n“Of course,” her counterpart said.\n\nAdam blinked. “Just like that?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily’s counterpart said. “If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 926, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch09-P1", "chapter": "ch09", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAdam — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nMountaintop — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\nCat — capitalized; do not expand.\nJade — capitalized.\nHedrick — capitalized.\nGreat Hall — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nArrival triggers dense locking wards around them; Emily meets a steampunk technomage counterpart and feels shared-yet-not memories flood before Adam arrives with a wand-device in hand.\n\nIn the next room they compare Whitehall paths, necromancers, Void, and dating Adam over poured tea until he returns with a large tray of sandwiches.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nShowered and changed; exhausted; weighing this Adam’s offness; inventing terms for three Emilys; morning diversion toward hall breakfast.\n\nFrieda\nNames Adam as off; asks what happened to her counterpart-self; shares the guest room.\n\nAdam — Not the Adam they know; different life; not on-page in the bedtime beat.\nMaid — Unrecognized young woman; addresses Emily as My Lady.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily raised her eyebrows in surprise, then nodded in understanding. Adam had grown up in a world where the winners of the genetic lottery had godlike power, able to cast spells that did everything from launch fireballs towards their targets to turn innocent men and women into dumb animals. The concept of someone being vastly more powerful than himself was hardly new, nor was the simple awareness that magicians, for all their power, were still human. A punch in the nose would stun a magician as easy as a mundane. Master Wolfe might be a godlike entity, true, but he wasn’t God.\n\n“We should be able to build something to interact with his power,” Adam added. “The magiwriter we worked into the nexus point would be a good start …”\n\nHe winked. “It certainly shocked the tutors.”\n\nEmily had to smile, then stopped – dead – as a thought struck her. “Is Hasdrubal still alive?”\n\n“He retired, two years ago,” her counterpart said. “I don’t know what happened to him afterwards.”\n\n“I see.” Emily didn’t. She’d assumed Hasdrubal would stay at his post until death in all timelines. Perhaps things had been different here, with the necromancers defeated early. “I …”\n\nShe shook her head, unwilling to share that burden. “What now?”\n\n“I think you need a shower and some sleep,” her counterpart said, wrinkling her nose. “Both of you. Adam and I have classes to take, so …”\n\n“This is urgent,” Frieda said, sharply. “We need to get moving now.”\n\n“Panic won’t help,” Emily’s counterpart said. “We will move as fast as we can, but we do need to think about what to do, before we do it. We can’t afford mistakes.”\n\n“Agreed,” Emily said. They were guests here, in a world that was very different than theirs and yet disturbingly familiar. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with her counterpart. And besides, she was all too aware they both needed a wash and a rest. “We should have time.”\n\n“I’ll give you both copies of our latest research,” her counterpart added. “Perhaps we’ll make Technomages out of you.”\n\n“We call it magitech,” Emily said. Technomages? The only place she’d ever heard the name was Babylon 5. It struck her as oddly fitting. “Yeah, give us everything you can. We’re going to need it.”\n\n“Of course,” her counterpart said.\n\nAdam blinked. “Just like that?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily’s counterpart said. “If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?”\n\n### NOTES\nGuest bedroom; nightgown ill-fitting.\nMorning maid service; Great Hall as breakfast choice.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nFrieda asks if Adam seems off; Emily says he is not their Adam. They puzzle Frieda’s absent counterpart and coin terminology for three Emilys, then sleep. Morning brings an unrecognized maid; they choose the hall for breakfast partly to feel out the school.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Quiet aftercare and unease; morning social navigation. Land on eating in the hall.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Is it just me,” Frieda said, “but does Adam seem a little … off … to you?”\n\nEmily said nothing for a long moment. She’d enjoyed a shower and a change of clothes and she could hear a bed calling her name … she didn’t want to think about anything else. A flash of paranoia shot through her, a reminder their opponent could rewrite chunks of reality at will … had she moved from one pocket dimension to another, one crafted to make her think she’d escaped prison without ever leaving her cell? Was anything real? She could still be trapped … no. It was unlikely. She’d never considered Adam a viable partner – his hero worship had made it unthinkable, even if they both hadn’t been involved with other people when they’d first met – and it was odd that a mental prison designed to keep her trapped would include details that would make her ask questions, questions that would eventually unravel the whole framework and make her free.  It had to be real. And yet …\n\n“He’s not the Adam we know,” Emily said. “He’s had a very different life.”\n\nShe shook her head. Adam had always wanted to go to magic school … he’d wanted to be a magician. Her Adam had gone to Heart’s Eye and developed a whole new branch of magic, this Adam had gone to Whitehall instead … she wondered, ideally, if the other Emily had met Adam before she became famous. No hero worship … how would their relationship develop? She’d been a very different person back then too.\n\n“I know,” Frieda said. “But …”\n\nShe shrugged, helplessly. Emily understood. The alternates wore familiar faces and carried familiar names, but they were not the same people. She wondered, idly, how she’d cope if she met this universe’s Caleb … did he even exist here? Or Frieda, if she was still alive. Her counterpart had spoken of Alassa as a rival, even an enemy, rather than a close friend. She could be blinded by her preconceptions, if she met this Alassa. And to think she’d married Hedrick …Emily’s stomach churned. It was not a pleasant thought.\n\nFrieda met her eyes. “What happened to me?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said, with the private thought that trying to find out would only lead to madness. Frieda had been a common-born magician, recruited to serve as a servant and then breeding stock … she would have remained a de facto slave, without Emily, if she hadn’t been fed to Mountaintop’s wards. Perhaps she would have found a good mistress, someone who would treat her kindly despite being a servant; perhaps she would have been beaten to death, her body dumped in an unmarked grave. “I think we both need to get some sleep.”\n\n“Yeah.” Frieda yawned. “But what about your other self?”\n\n“We’re going to need to invent a whole new terminology, aren’t we?” There were three versions of her now, one trapped in the nexus point and one native to this timeline. “There’s little we can do for her now.”\n\nAnd we can’t risk getting the two of us close together, her thoughts added. She was vaguely aware of her other self, something at the back of her mind that was only there when she thought about it, but if their bilocated mind tried to merge back into one it would be utterly disastrous. We can’t do anything for her.\n\nShe turned and led the way into the guest bedroom. Her nightgown did not fit very well, as if her alternate had filled out differently … interesting. This odd version of Emily hadn’t looked as strong as herself, which meant … nowhere near enough exercise? Emily had never been fond of exercising, at least until she’d befriended Jade and Cat, and the other Emily had never developed the habit. Adam had looked trim, rather than the muscular person she’d met … a wave of disorientation washed over her, a burst of something that reminded her it had been far too long since she’d slept. She wasn’t even sure how long. The pocket dimension had been so unstable, time or her perception of it so warped, that she couldn’t swear to just how long she’d been trapped there. Her memories might be nothing more than delusions shaped by her own mind.\n\n“Goodnight,” she said, climbing into bed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”\n\n“Sure,” Frieda said. “Good night.”\n\nThe bed was soft and warm, and she was so tired, and yet it felt like Emily hadn’t slept at all when she heard a knock at the door. She had been awake … no, but her quasi-sleep had been so disturbed by nightmares and shadows, lurking at the back of her mind, that she’d never been aware of sleeping. She sat up, muttering a charm to cast a light spell, as the door opened. A maid stepped in, wearing a simple uniform and carrying a handful of clothes under her arm. Emily felt an odd little twinge of unease as the young woman stared at her. She’d never been comfortable with personal servants and had only reluctantly hired one, when it had become clear she didn’t have time to research magic and take care of herself. This Emily was clearly a great deal more willing to make use of them.\n\nThe maid – Emily was perversely glad to note she didn’t recognise the young woman – stared at her for a long moment, then remembered herself and dropped a simple curtsey. “My Lady, it is morning,” she said. “Would you like your breakfast served here, or would you like to eat in the Great Hall?”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Frieda, then shrugged. “We’ll eat in the hall,” she said, partly out of personal inclination and partly to see if the maid had orders to make sure they were kept away from the rest of the school. She wasn’t sure how she would have reacted to an alternate version of herself showing up, let alone everyone else. “Can you give us a few moments to get dressed and splash water on our faces?”\n", "completion": "“Is it just me,” Frieda said, “but does Adam seem a little … off … to you?”\n\nEmily said nothing for a long moment. She’d enjoyed a shower and a change of clothes and she could hear a bed calling her name … she didn’t want to think about anything else. A flash of paranoia shot through her, a reminder their opponent could rewrite chunks of reality at will … had she moved from one pocket dimension to another, one crafted to make her think she’d escaped prison without ever leaving her cell? Was anything real? She could still be trapped … no. It was unlikely. She’d never considered Adam a viable partner – his hero worship had made it unthinkable, even if they both hadn’t been involved with other people when they’d first met – and it was odd that a mental prison designed to keep her trapped would include details that would make her ask questions, questions that would eventually unravel the whole framework and make her free.  It had to be real. And yet …\n\n“He’s not the Adam we know,” Emily said. “He’s had a very different life.”\n\nShe shook her head. Adam had always wanted to go to magic school … he’d wanted to be a magician. Her Adam had gone to Heart’s Eye and developed a whole new branch of magic, this Adam had gone to Whitehall instead … she wondered, ideally, if the other Emily had met Adam before she became famous. No hero worship … how would their relationship develop? She’d been a very different person back then too.\n\n“I know,” Frieda said. “But …”\n\nShe shrugged, helplessly. Emily understood. The alternates wore familiar faces and carried familiar names, but they were not the same people. She wondered, idly, how she’d cope if she met this universe’s Caleb … did he even exist here? Or Frieda, if she was still alive. Her counterpart had spoken of Alassa as a rival, even an enemy, rather than a close friend. She could be blinded by her preconceptions, if she met this Alassa. And to think she’d married Hedrick …Emily’s stomach churned. It was not a pleasant thought.\n\nFrieda met her eyes. “What happened to me?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said, with the private thought that trying to find out would only lead to madness. Frieda had been a common-born magician, recruited to serve as a servant and then breeding stock … she would have remained a de facto slave, without Emily, if she hadn’t been fed to Mountaintop’s wards. Perhaps she would have found a good mistress, someone who would treat her kindly despite being a servant; perhaps she would have been beaten to death, her body dumped in an unmarked grave. “I think we both need to get some sleep.”\n\n“Yeah.” Frieda yawned. “But what about your other self?”\n\n“We’re going to need to invent a whole new terminology, aren’t we?” There were three versions of her now, one trapped in the nexus point and one native to this timeline. “There’s little we can do for her now.”\n\nAnd we can’t risk getting the two of us close together, her thoughts added. She was vaguely aware of her other self, something at the back of her mind that was only there when she thought about it, but if their bilocated mind tried to merge back into one it would be utterly disastrous. We can’t do anything for her.\n\nShe turned and led the way into the guest bedroom. Her nightgown did not fit very well, as if her alternate had filled out differently … interesting. This odd version of Emily hadn’t looked as strong as herself, which meant … nowhere near enough exercise? Emily had never been fond of exercising, at least until she’d befriended Jade and Cat, and the other Emily had never developed the habit. Adam had looked trim, rather than the muscular person she’d met … a wave of disorientation washed over her, a burst of something that reminded her it had been far too long since she’d slept. She wasn’t even sure how long. The pocket dimension had been so unstable, time or her perception of it so warped, that she couldn’t swear to just how long she’d been trapped there. Her memories might be nothing more than delusions shaped by her own mind.\n\n“Goodnight,” she said, climbing into bed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”\n\n“Sure,” Frieda said. “Good night.”\n\nThe bed was soft and warm, and she was so tired, and yet it felt like Emily hadn’t slept at all when she heard a knock at the door. She had been awake … no, but her quasi-sleep had been so disturbed by nightmares and shadows, lurking at the back of her mind, that she’d never been aware of sleeping. She sat up, muttering a charm to cast a light spell, as the door opened. A maid stepped in, wearing a simple uniform and carrying a handful of clothes under her arm. Emily felt an odd little twinge of unease as the young woman stared at her. She’d never been comfortable with personal servants and had only reluctantly hired one, when it had become clear she didn’t have time to research magic and take care of herself. This Emily was clearly a great deal more willing to make use of them.\n\nThe maid – Emily was perversely glad to note she didn’t recognise the young woman – stared at her for a long moment, then remembered herself and dropped a simple curtsey. “My Lady, it is morning,” she said. “Would you like your breakfast served here, or would you like to eat in the Great Hall?”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Frieda, then shrugged. “We’ll eat in the hall,” she said, partly out of personal inclination and partly to see if the maid had orders to make sure they were kept away from the rest of the school. She wasn’t sure how she would have reacted to an alternate version of herself showing up, let alone everyone else. “Can you give us a few moments to get dressed and splash water on our faces?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1045, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch09-P2", "chapter": "ch09", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAdam — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nGreat Hall — both words capitalized.\nGrandmaster — capitalized as office.\nLady Princess Eve — keep the form.\nDragora — capitalized.\nVoid — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nMy Lady — form of address.\n\n### STORY\nAfter showers Emily and Frieda weigh how off this Adam is, invent terminology for three Emilys, sleep, and in the morning divert a maid so they can eat in the hall.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nBreakfasting under stares in a familiar-yet-wrong Great Hall; probing school politics.\n\nFrieda\nEdged questions about afterward and who is in charge.\n\nAdam\nEscorting, probing Whitehall comparisons; proud of his Emily’s rise to Grandmaster’s place.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe turned and led the way into the guest bedroom. Her nightgown did not fit very well, as if her alternate had filled out differently … interesting. This odd version of Emily hadn’t looked as strong as herself, which meant … nowhere near enough exercise? Emily had never been fond of exercising, at least until she’d befriended Jade and Cat, and the other Emily had never developed the habit. Adam had looked trim, rather than the muscular person she’d met … a wave of disorientation washed over her, a burst of something that reminded her it had been far too long since she’d slept. She wasn’t even sure how long. The pocket dimension had been so unstable, time or her perception of it so warped, that she couldn’t swear to just how long she’d been trapped there. Her memories might be nothing more than delusions shaped by her own mind.\n\n“Goodnight,” she said, climbing into bed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”\n\n“Sure,” Frieda said. “Good night.”\n\nThe bed was soft and warm, and she was so tired, and yet it felt like Emily hadn’t slept at all when she heard a knock at the door. She had been awake … no, but her quasi-sleep had been so disturbed by nightmares and shadows, lurking at the back of her mind, that she’d never been aware of sleeping. She sat up, muttering a charm to cast a light spell, as the door opened. A maid stepped in, wearing a simple uniform and carrying a handful of clothes under her arm. Emily felt an odd little twinge of unease as the young woman stared at her. She’d never been comfortable with personal servants and had only reluctantly hired one, when it had become clear she didn’t have time to research magic and take care of herself. This Emily was clearly a great deal more willing to make use of them.\n\nThe maid – Emily was perversely glad to note she didn’t recognise the young woman – stared at her for a long moment, then remembered herself and dropped a simple curtsey. “My Lady, it is morning,” she said. “Would you like your breakfast served here, or would you like to eat in the Great Hall?”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Frieda, then shrugged. “We’ll eat in the hall,” she said, partly out of personal inclination and partly to see if the maid had orders to make sure they were kept away from the rest of the school. She wasn’t sure how she would have reacted to an alternate version of herself showing up, let alone everyone else. “Can you give us a few moments to get dressed and splash water on our faces?”\n\n### NOTES\nGreat Hall visually identical; student body mixes mundanes and magicians differently.\nCounterpart Emily absent from the meal; credited with saving the school.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThe maid withdraws; Adam waits with a storm of emotion and compares Whitehalls on the way to a familiar Great Hall of unfamiliar students. Over food, stares prickle; Frieda asks who rules; Adam says his Emily saved the school and took the Grandmaster’s place—a story Emily is not sure she wants.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Social funhouse at breakfast; political reveal oblique. Land on the unwanted story.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Of course, My Lady,” the maid said. “I’ll wait outside.”\n\nShe curtseyed again, then withdrew. Emily felt a twinge of sympathy, which she put aside as she washed herself quickly, then changed into the new outfit. It was as ill-fitting as the nightgown, hanging oddly on her body; she reminded herself, again, that her counterpart had grown in a very different way. Frieda’s outfit suited her better … Emily shook her head, unsure if her counterpart was being inconsiderate or if she hadn’t quite realised they didn’t share the same bodies. If she’d been more isolated than this Emily …\n\nAdam was waiting outside, a flurry of emotions crossing his face as he saw her. It had to be a disorienting experience for him too … she was his lover, except she wasn’t … it was someone else, her and yet not her, who was his lover. She recalled a romantic comedy she’d read once, in which a boy had been dating a girl who had a twin and didn’t know it, and how confused he’d been when the girl seemed to move between being loving one moment and cold the next. Here … she shook her head. She didn’t look that much like her counterpart. There was no reason to think anyone would mix them up.\n\n“I understand you went to Whitehall too,” Adam said, quietly probing. “How do the two schools compare?”\n\nEmily shrugged as they walked down the corridor. It was the same and yet different. There were students wearing mundane clothes, without a trace of magic, rubbing shoulders with magicians from all walks of life. Adam seemed to slip closer to her every few moments, then catch himself and pull back … she wasn’t his lover and yet, she was close enough to confuse him. She didn’t think he was doing it deliberately and yet …\n\n“It’s different,” she said. “And I don’t quite know what to make of it.”\n\nThe Great Hall looked identical to her own, thankfully, but the students were very different. It wasn’t just mundanes and magicians, she noted; some students were old enough to be tutors, judging by their appearance, and others were strikingly young. Her Whitehall rarely took anyone younger than sixteen, knowing there was little point in trying to school someone in magic before they’d gone through puberty, but this Whitehall had children and young teenagers as well as young adults. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted a familiar face - Lady Princess Eve of Dragora – sitting amidst the children. She shouldn’t have been there at all.\n\nShe glanced at Adam. “You’re teaching children?”\n\n“Some came into their magic early,” Adam said. There was a hint of envy in his tone, for all that a prepubescent magician was unlikely to make it through puberty without killing himself or being killed. “Emily found a way to siphon off their magic and let them grow up properly. Others … they have talent. Potential. Not just in magic too. They just need training to make use of it.”\n\n“And then what?” Frieda’s voice was edged. “What happens afterwards?”\n\n“Some stay with us, others go on to change the world,” Adam said, vaguely. “It’s astonishing how much we’ve changed, over the past decade.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure she did. The whole scene was just … twisted. It was like living in a world that was so much like her own that she was constantly surprised and misled by the differences. “It’s very … different.”\n\nAdam nodded. “What would you like to eat?”\n\n“Anything,” Frieda said. “Please.”\n\nThe sense of looking through a funhouse mirror grew stronger as they helped themselves to breakfast and sat down. The food was plentiful, but nowhere near as varied as she recalled from her own first year, before she’d introduced concepts like burgers and pizza and a hundred other ideas. Perhaps her other self hadn’t been so concerned with what she ate. The atmosphere was odd too, as if someone had taken Whitehall and Heart’s Eye and merged them together. There was more chatter and less formality, which meant … what? It was hard to understand just how much the school had changed. Adam spoke almost as if he were in charge …\n\nHer skin prickled as she felt eyes looking at her. She was a stranger, sitting beside another stranger and Adam … she looked close enough to their Emily to pass for her sister, which meant they could easily be sisters to anyone who didn’t know about alternate worlds. Void had hinted that Emily was his daughter, when he’d sent her to Whitehall … had the other Void done the same? It was hardly unthinkable that a sorcerer with one bastard daughter could have another.\n\nShe glanced at Adam. “What did you tell the staff and students about me?”\n\n“Nothing,” Adam said. “It’s none of their business.”\n\nEmily raised her eyebrows. “And none thought to ask questions?”\n\n“We felt it would be best to handle the matter ourselves,” Adam said, stiffly. “We don’t want to give anyone ideas.”\n\n“They’re going to have them anyway,” Emily pointed out.\n\nFrieda leaned forward, pitching her voice low. “Who’s in charge here, anyway?”\n\nAdam reddened. “Emily is. Sort of. There’s a council that does the day-to-day running, but … she’s in charge. When she issues orders, what she says goes. Otherwise … the council is in charge.”\n\n“Oh.” Emily contemplated it for a long moment. “How did that happen?”\n\n“She saved the school, several times,” Adam said. “When the Grandmaster left, she took his place.”\n\nThere was a whole story there, Emily was sure, and she wasn’t certain she wanted to hear it. She couldn’t have taken over Whitehall … could she? She had access to the wards, true, but she doubted anyone would have tolerated her running the school. It made little sense. Was there more to it than Adam was saying, or … or what? Her eyes swept the room, noting the handful of familiar faces amidst the unfamiliar. What had happened to the old tutors? Had they died in the war? Or been fired? Or … she shook her head. She had far more serious problems to worry about right now.\n", "completion": "“Of course, My Lady,” the maid said. “I’ll wait outside.”\n\nShe curtseyed again, then withdrew. Emily felt a twinge of sympathy, which she put aside as she washed herself quickly, then changed into the new outfit. It was as ill-fitting as the nightgown, hanging oddly on her body; she reminded herself, again, that her counterpart had grown in a very different way. Frieda’s outfit suited her better … Emily shook her head, unsure if her counterpart was being inconsiderate or if she hadn’t quite realised they didn’t share the same bodies. If she’d been more isolated than this Emily …\n\nAdam was waiting outside, a flurry of emotions crossing his face as he saw her. It had to be a disorienting experience for him too … she was his lover, except she wasn’t … it was someone else, her and yet not her, who was his lover. She recalled a romantic comedy she’d read once, in which a boy had been dating a girl who had a twin and didn’t know it, and how confused he’d been when the girl seemed to move between being loving one moment and cold the next. Here … she shook her head. She didn’t look that much like her counterpart. There was no reason to think anyone would mix them up.\n\n“I understand you went to Whitehall too,” Adam said, quietly probing. “How do the two schools compare?”\n\nEmily shrugged as they walked down the corridor. It was the same and yet different. There were students wearing mundane clothes, without a trace of magic, rubbing shoulders with magicians from all walks of life. Adam seemed to slip closer to her every few moments, then catch himself and pull back … she wasn’t his lover and yet, she was close enough to confuse him. She didn’t think he was doing it deliberately and yet …\n\n“It’s different,” she said. “And I don’t quite know what to make of it.”\n\nThe Great Hall looked identical to her own, thankfully, but the students were very different. It wasn’t just mundanes and magicians, she noted; some students were old enough to be tutors, judging by their appearance, and others were strikingly young. Her Whitehall rarely took anyone younger than sixteen, knowing there was little point in trying to school someone in magic before they’d gone through puberty, but this Whitehall had children and young teenagers as well as young adults. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted a familiar face - Lady Princess Eve of Dragora – sitting amidst the children. She shouldn’t have been there at all.\n\nShe glanced at Adam. “You’re teaching children?”\n\n“Some came into their magic early,” Adam said. There was a hint of envy in his tone, for all that a prepubescent magician was unlikely to make it through puberty without killing himself or being killed. “Emily found a way to siphon off their magic and let them grow up properly. Others … they have talent. Potential. Not just in magic too. They just need training to make use of it.”\n\n“And then what?” Frieda’s voice was edged. “What happens afterwards?”\n\n“Some stay with us, others go on to change the world,” Adam said, vaguely. “It’s astonishing how much we’ve changed, over the past decade.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure she did. The whole scene was just … twisted. It was like living in a world that was so much like her own that she was constantly surprised and misled by the differences. “It’s very … different.”\n\nAdam nodded. “What would you like to eat?”\n\n“Anything,” Frieda said. “Please.”\n\nThe sense of looking through a funhouse mirror grew stronger as they helped themselves to breakfast and sat down. The food was plentiful, but nowhere near as varied as she recalled from her own first year, before she’d introduced concepts like burgers and pizza and a hundred other ideas. Perhaps her other self hadn’t been so concerned with what she ate. The atmosphere was odd too, as if someone had taken Whitehall and Heart’s Eye and merged them together. There was more chatter and less formality, which meant … what? It was hard to understand just how much the school had changed. Adam spoke almost as if he were in charge …\n\nHer skin prickled as she felt eyes looking at her. She was a stranger, sitting beside another stranger and Adam … she looked close enough to their Emily to pass for her sister, which meant they could easily be sisters to anyone who didn’t know about alternate worlds. Void had hinted that Emily was his daughter, when he’d sent her to Whitehall … had the other Void done the same? It was hardly unthinkable that a sorcerer with one bastard daughter could have another.\n\nShe glanced at Adam. “What did you tell the staff and students about me?”\n\n“Nothing,” Adam said. “It’s none of their business.”\n\nEmily raised her eyebrows. “And none thought to ask questions?”\n\n“We felt it would be best to handle the matter ourselves,” Adam said, stiffly. “We don’t want to give anyone ideas.”\n\n“They’re going to have them anyway,” Emily pointed out.\n\nFrieda leaned forward, pitching her voice low. “Who’s in charge here, anyway?”\n\nAdam reddened. “Emily is. Sort of. There’s a council that does the day-to-day running, but … she’s in charge. When she issues orders, what she says goes. Otherwise … the council is in charge.”\n\n“Oh.” Emily contemplated it for a long moment. “How did that happen?”\n\n“She saved the school, several times,” Adam said. “When the Grandmaster left, she took his place.”\n\nThere was a whole story there, Emily was sure, and she wasn’t certain she wanted to hear it. She couldn’t have taken over Whitehall … could she? She had access to the wards, true, but she doubted anyone would have tolerated her running the school. It made little sense. Was there more to it than Adam was saying, or … or what? Her eyes swept the room, noting the handful of familiar faces amidst the unfamiliar. What had happened to the old tutors? Had they died in the war? Or been fired? Or … she shook her head. She had far more serious problems to worry about right now.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1056, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch09-P3", "chapter": "ch09", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAdam — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nVoid — capitalized.\nAllied Lands — both words capitalized.\nBlackhall — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nAfter showers Emily and Frieda weigh how off this Adam is, invent terminology for three Emilys, sleep, and in the morning divert a maid so they can eat in the hall.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nTouring Adam’s necromancer-killing workshop; overwhelmed by sf-computer magitech; noting his possessiveness about her counterpart’s gifts.\n\nAdam\nProud, pushing limits; bitter about newborn-baby usefulness metaphors; voice possessive about the lab’s origin.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe sense of looking through a funhouse mirror grew stronger as they helped themselves to breakfast and sat down. The food was plentiful, but nowhere near as varied as she recalled from her own first year, before she’d introduced concepts like burgers and pizza and a hundred other ideas. Perhaps her other self hadn’t been so concerned with what she ate. The atmosphere was odd too, as if someone had taken Whitehall and Heart’s Eye and merged them together. There was more chatter and less formality, which meant … what? It was hard to understand just how much the school had changed. Adam spoke almost as if he were in charge …\n\nHer skin prickled as she felt eyes looking at her. She was a stranger, sitting beside another stranger and Adam … she looked close enough to their Emily to pass for her sister, which meant they could easily be sisters to anyone who didn’t know about alternate worlds. Void had hinted that Emily was his daughter, when he’d sent her to Whitehall … had the other Void done the same? It was hardly unthinkable that a sorcerer with one bastard daughter could have another.\n\nShe glanced at Adam. “What did you tell the staff and students about me?”\n\n“Nothing,” Adam said. “It’s none of their business.”\n\nEmily raised her eyebrows. “And none thought to ask questions?”\n\n“We felt it would be best to handle the matter ourselves,” Adam said, stiffly. “We don’t want to give anyone ideas.”\n\n“They’re going to have them anyway,” Emily pointed out.\n\nFrieda leaned forward, pitching her voice low. “Who’s in charge here, anyway?”\n\nAdam reddened. “Emily is. Sort of. There’s a council that does the day-to-day running, but … she’s in charge. When she issues orders, what she says goes. Otherwise … the council is in charge.”\n\n“Oh.” Emily contemplated it for a long moment. “How did that happen?”\n\n“She saved the school, several times,” Adam said. “When the Grandmaster left, she took his place.”\n\nThere was a whole story there, Emily was sure, and she wasn’t certain she wanted to hear it. She couldn’t have taken over Whitehall … could she? She had access to the wards, true, but she doubted anyone would have tolerated her running the school. It made little sense. Was there more to it than Adam was saying, or … or what? Her eyes swept the room, noting the handful of familiar faces amidst the unfamiliar. What had happened to the old tutors? Had they died in the war? Or been fired? Or … she shook her head. She had far more serious problems to worry about right now.\n\n### NOTES\nWorkshop/lab corridors behind wards keyed to Adam.\nDevices including an old-sf-computer analogue.\nHangar/war-adjacent talk in the air.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAfter breakfast Adam leads her through corridors to a lab designed to kill necromancers; he beams about pushing limits and sourcing wonders absent from her world. Wards answer him; she admits she is overwhelmed by the computer-like device; his voice turns clearly possessive—it all came from her.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Tour awe undercut by possessiveness. Land on “it all came from her.”\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She finished her breakfast and put the plate back where it belonged, then followed Adam through a maze of corridors to the arena. The playing fields she knew were gone, replaced by a towering collection of magitech and vessels right out of steampunk science-fantasy. A floating wooden ship, a flying saucer … the airships of her world had seemed advanced, once upon a time, but these craft were light-years ahead of anything she’d seen. She sucked in her breath as she saw a suit of powered combat armour making its way across the far side of the field, wrapped in an aura of magic so powerful she could feel it from quite some distance.\n\n“Designed to kill necromancers,” Adam said, with obvious pride. “What do you think of it?”\n\n“It’s remarkable,” Emily said, truthfully. There was nothing to be gained by trying to downplay the accomplishment. It was remarkable. “There’s nothing like it in our world.”\n\nAdam beamed. “We push the limits as far as they will go, and then we keep pushing,” he said, seriously. “What do you think we’ll accomplish in a few more years?”\n\nEmily shook her head as another flying vessel glided overhead, followed by a stream of youngsters riding metal broomsticks and a device that reminded her of a vacuum cleaner. Her counterpart’s idea of a joke, perhaps. She’d wondered why the Allied Lands had let the other Emily retain control of the castle … she knew now. The massed armies of the kings and princes would be worse than useless if they were pitted against magitech on such a scale, slaughtered as effortlessly as the human soldiers in The War of the Worlds. The sorcerers wouldn’t fare much better, not when their spells could be cancelled or drained before they reached their targets. She wondered, morbidly, if they’d tried to destroy the school when they realised just how badly the world had turned upside down, or if they’d been fearful of the consequences of trying. It was astonishing and terrifying at the same time.\n\nShe said nothing as they kept walking, across open spaces that had been woodland in her world and up to Blackhall. The training ground for martial magic had been transformed into a workshop, she realised dully, one so heavily warded by her counterpart that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for anyone else to enter without permission. Beyond it … she sucked in her breath as she saw row upon row of hangars, factories and warehouses, a grim reminder that progress always came with a price. Her counterpart had cut down hundreds of trees and cleared nature away in a manner that bothered her at a very primal level. Dozens of workers swarmed over the flying craft, making them ready for flight. It made her wonder if she’d done too little – or if her counterpart had done too much.\n\n“There’s a lot here that doesn’t exist in our world,” Emily commented. “How did you get it all set up here?”\n\nThere was a sudden hint of vindictiveness in Adam’s voice. “Do you know how much the guilds held us back? How hard it was to get anything done, without their permission? How many times they refused it to ensure no one ever changed the world?”\n\nHe waved a hand at the warehouses. “We don’t have them here. No old men telling youngsters they have to bow and scrape to get what they need, no aristo slugabeds bossing everyone else around … no rules on who can and can’t join the guilds, no laws against asking questions or trying to come up with new ways to do things ... that’s how we did it. They didn’t take us seriously until it was too late.”\n\nHis lips twisted. “What use is a newborn baby? What use indeed?”\n\n“You learnt that from me. Her, I mean.” Emily felt as if someone had walked over her grave. “It’s true.”\n\n“Of course it’s true,” Adam said. He looked as if he wanted to spit, his face twisting as if he’d suddenly tasted something very foul. “They couldn’t keep us down because they didn’t realise what we were until it was too late.”\n\nHe pushed the door open, the wards parting at his touch. Emily studied them thoughtfully. They were designed to respond to him in a way, to allow him to steer them even though he had no magic. Her counterpart had made them work … the complexity of the spells was an order of magnitude more advanced than anything she’d ever done herself, even when she’d been studying under Void. A flicker of hope ran through her. Perhaps they could best Master Wolfe after all.\n\n“This is where miracles are born,” Adam said, as he led them into the chamber. Someone had torn out the walls and booby-traps Emily recalled, replacing them with a workshop bigger than the one they’d seen earlier. There were so many devices in plain view, from a flying craft that reminded her of a bird to complex mechanical tools she couldn’t even begin to understand, that she felt as if she’d walked into Hangar 18. “What do you think?”\n\n“I’m overwhelmed,” Emily said, truthfully. A device that looked like a computer from an old science fiction novel, back when computers were massive machines crammed with vacuum tubes, was sitting next to something that reminded her of a model nuclear reactor. A giant abacus sat next to a printing press. Both were tinged with magic. “This is amazing.”\n\n“Yes, it is,” Adam said. The possessiveness in his voice was suddenly very clear. Emily shivered. “And it all came from her.”\n", "completion": "She finished her breakfast and put the plate back where it belonged, then followed Adam through a maze of corridors to the arena. The playing fields she knew were gone, replaced by a towering collection of magitech and vessels right out of steampunk science-fantasy. A floating wooden ship, a flying saucer … the airships of her world had seemed advanced, once upon a time, but these craft were light-years ahead of anything she’d seen. She sucked in her breath as she saw a suit of powered combat armour making its way across the far side of the field, wrapped in an aura of magic so powerful she could feel it from quite some distance.\n\n“Designed to kill necromancers,” Adam said, with obvious pride. “What do you think of it?”\n\n“It’s remarkable,” Emily said, truthfully. There was nothing to be gained by trying to downplay the accomplishment. It was remarkable. “There’s nothing like it in our world.”\n\nAdam beamed. “We push the limits as far as they will go, and then we keep pushing,” he said, seriously. “What do you think we’ll accomplish in a few more years?”\n\nEmily shook her head as another flying vessel glided overhead, followed by a stream of youngsters riding metal broomsticks and a device that reminded her of a vacuum cleaner. Her counterpart’s idea of a joke, perhaps. She’d wondered why the Allied Lands had let the other Emily retain control of the castle … she knew now. The massed armies of the kings and princes would be worse than useless if they were pitted against magitech on such a scale, slaughtered as effortlessly as the human soldiers in The War of the Worlds. The sorcerers wouldn’t fare much better, not when their spells could be cancelled or drained before they reached their targets. She wondered, morbidly, if they’d tried to destroy the school when they realised just how badly the world had turned upside down, or if they’d been fearful of the consequences of trying. It was astonishing and terrifying at the same time.\n\nShe said nothing as they kept walking, across open spaces that had been woodland in her world and up to Blackhall. The training ground for martial magic had been transformed into a workshop, she realised dully, one so heavily warded by her counterpart that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for anyone else to enter without permission. Beyond it … she sucked in her breath as she saw row upon row of hangars, factories and warehouses, a grim reminder that progress always came with a price. Her counterpart had cut down hundreds of trees and cleared nature away in a manner that bothered her at a very primal level. Dozens of workers swarmed over the flying craft, making them ready for flight. It made her wonder if she’d done too little – or if her counterpart had done too much.\n\n“There’s a lot here that doesn’t exist in our world,” Emily commented. “How did you get it all set up here?”\n\nThere was a sudden hint of vindictiveness in Adam’s voice. “Do you know how much the guilds held us back? How hard it was to get anything done, without their permission? How many times they refused it to ensure no one ever changed the world?”\n\nHe waved a hand at the warehouses. “We don’t have them here. No old men telling youngsters they have to bow and scrape to get what they need, no aristo slugabeds bossing everyone else around … no rules on who can and can’t join the guilds, no laws against asking questions or trying to come up with new ways to do things ... that’s how we did it. They didn’t take us seriously until it was too late.”\n\nHis lips twisted. “What use is a newborn baby? What use indeed?”\n\n“You learnt that from me. Her, I mean.” Emily felt as if someone had walked over her grave. “It’s true.”\n\n“Of course it’s true,” Adam said. He looked as if he wanted to spit, his face twisting as if he’d suddenly tasted something very foul. “They couldn’t keep us down because they didn’t realise what we were until it was too late.”\n\nHe pushed the door open, the wards parting at his touch. Emily studied them thoughtfully. They were designed to respond to him in a way, to allow him to steer them even though he had no magic. Her counterpart had made them work … the complexity of the spells was an order of magnitude more advanced than anything she’d ever done herself, even when she’d been studying under Void. A flicker of hope ran through her. Perhaps they could best Master Wolfe after all.\n\n“This is where miracles are born,” Adam said, as he led them into the chamber. Someone had torn out the walls and booby-traps Emily recalled, replacing them with a workshop bigger than the one they’d seen earlier. There were so many devices in plain view, from a flying craft that reminded her of a bird to complex mechanical tools she couldn’t even begin to understand, that she felt as if she’d walked into Hangar 18. “What do you think?”\n\n“I’m overwhelmed,” Emily said, truthfully. A device that looked like a computer from an old science fiction novel, back when computers were massive machines crammed with vacuum tubes, was sitting next to something that reminded her of a model nuclear reactor. A giant abacus sat next to a printing press. Both were tinged with magic. “This is amazing.”\n\n“Yes, it is,” Adam said. The possessiveness in his voice was suddenly very clear. Emily shivered. “And it all came from her.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 966, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch10-P1", "chapter": "ch10", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTechnomage Emily — both words; counterpart’s epithet form.\nAdam — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nnexus point — lowercase.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nAloha — capitalized.\nJacqui — capitalized; spelling as in text.\nMarkus — capitalized.\nMelissa — capitalized.\nMars — capitalized.\nVenus — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nAfter showers Emily and Frieda weigh how off this Adam is, invent terminology for three Emilys, sleep, and in the morning divert a maid so they can eat in the hall.\n\nAdam escorts them through a Whitehall Great Hall of mixed students; talk of leadership lands on Emily’s counterpart replacing the Grandmaster—a story Emily is not sure she wants.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nIn Technomage Emily’s lair assessing nexus tap and magitech; brainstorming Wolfe countermeasures for hours.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nHost; measures magic without mystery; offers a primer journal in Emily’s handwriting; plans contact with the bilocated other.\n\nFrieda — Present; calls Wolfe a god and is answered with history of cracked magician secrets.\nAdam — Present; backs understanding-over-awe.\nAloha, Jacqui — Present aides/friends in the discussion.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThere was a sudden hint of vindictiveness in Adam’s voice. “Do you know how much the guilds held us back? How hard it was to get anything done, without their permission? How many times they refused it to ensure no one ever changed the world?”\n\nHe waved a hand at the warehouses. “We don’t have them here. No old men telling youngsters they have to bow and scrape to get what they need, no aristo slugabeds bossing everyone else around … no rules on who can and can’t join the guilds, no laws against asking questions or trying to come up with new ways to do things ... that’s how we did it. They didn’t take us seriously until it was too late.”\n\nHis lips twisted. “What use is a newborn baby? What use indeed?”\n\n“You learnt that from me. Her, I mean.” Emily felt as if someone had walked over her grave. “It’s true.”\n\n“Of course it’s true,” Adam said. He looked as if he wanted to spit, his face twisting as if he’d suddenly tasted something very foul. “They couldn’t keep us down because they didn’t realise what we were until it was too late.”\n\nHe pushed the door open, the wards parting at his touch. Emily studied them thoughtfully. They were designed to respond to him in a way, to allow him to steer them even though he had no magic. Her counterpart had made them work … the complexity of the spells was an order of magnitude more advanced than anything she’d ever done herself, even when she’d been studying under Void. A flicker of hope ran through her. Perhaps they could best Master Wolfe after all.\n\n“This is where miracles are born,” Adam said, as he led them into the chamber. Someone had torn out the walls and booby-traps Emily recalled, replacing them with a workshop bigger than the one they’d seen earlier. There were so many devices in plain view, from a flying craft that reminded her of a bird to complex mechanical tools she couldn’t even begin to understand, that she felt as if she’d walked into Hangar 18. “What do you think?”\n\n“I’m overwhelmed,” Emily said, truthfully. A device that looked like a computer from an old science fiction novel, back when computers were massive machines crammed with vacuum tubes, was sitting next to something that reminded her of a model nuclear reactor. A giant abacus sat next to a printing press. Both were tinged with magic. “This is amazing.”\n\n“Yes, it is,” Adam said. The possessiveness in his voice was suddenly very clear. Emily shivered. “And it all came from her.”\n\n### NOTES\nLair/chamber with nexus power running like gas pipes through mansion and world.\nLeather-bound primer journal.\nHours-long technical discussion.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nTechnomage Emily welcomes her to the lair; Emily reads the nexus tap and they spar over measured magitech versus wonder. A primer journal in her own hand, tool-siphoned nexus control, and hours of charting Wolfe’s raw power lead to the plan to contact the other bilocated Emily for steering.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Technical conference energy; keep wonder vs measure in tension. Land on contacting the other her.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Welcome to my lair,” Technomage Emily said. “What do you make of it?”\n\nEmily studied the power running through the chamber, the mansion, and the world beyond … understood. “You managed to tap the nexus point,” she said, slowly. “You have magic on tap.”\n\n“Like gas pipes,” her counterpart said. “It’s the same basic idea.”\n\n“It’s incredible,” Emily said. Tapping the nexus point and channelling raw magic into the wards was one thing, but this … it was incredible. It wasn’t so much gas pipes as electric wiring … she'd figured out a way to use magic like electricity, to distribute and store and make it available to everyone. “You can practically plug and play magitech devices …”\n\nHer counterpart gave her a shy smile. “It doesn’t always work,” she said. “It’s a pain to try to keep the grid from filling in the cracks in the spellwork, which is great if you’re a magician and less so if you’re trying to make something anyone can use. And then the spellware has to remain intact … we set up spells to draw on background magic, a trickle of power to keep them alive, but again it doesn’t always work.”\n\n“It’s still incredible,” Emily said. She’d been encouraging people to develop technology that didn’t rely on magic, ensuring the new concepts spread rapidly as soon as they had a working model. Her counterpart had followed a different path. In many ways, she’d recreated the world she’d left behind, with magic in place of technology. “I never considered using something like this.”\n\n“It was Adam who came up with ways to use it,” Technomage Emily said. “If everyone can use magic, then they can improve the world.”\n\nEmily frowned, inwardly. If magic was just another form of technology, wouldn’t that erase the wonder of a world shaped by magic? She recalled all the early science-fiction stories, where nuclear power was the key to everything instead of a barely caged demon and radiation dangerous, yet easily handled, by a competent man who knew what he was doing. There had been wonder in those days, before Mars and Venus had turned out to be dead and the cost of space travel far outweighed the immediate benefits. Now … she wondered, grimly, what would happen as magic-based technology continued to spread. What sort of effect would it have on the world? Would it be worth the cost?\n\n“We measure magic here,” Technomage Emily said, primly. “It holds no mysteries for us.”\n\n“I’ll take your word for it,” Emily said. “Can you help us?”\n\n“I think so,” Technomage Emily said. “Our ...ah ... magitech is far in advance of yours. It should be possible to figure out how his power works, then take it apart from the inside.”\n\n“He’s a god,” Frieda pointed out, sharply.\n\n“They used to say that about magicians too,” Adam said. “They could do all sorts of things we couldn’t. But we figured out how to crack the secret and now … we make our own magic.”\n\n“We understand how they do what they do, even if it isn’t easy to duplicate,” Technomage Emily said. “And we’re learning more all the time.”\n\nEmily nodded. “If I had more time to study …”\n\n“I understand,” her counterpart said. She picked a leather-bound journal off the table and passed it to Emily. “This is a primer” – she winked – “of a sort.”\n\nEmily took the book and scanned the first few pages. It was eerie to see text written in her handwriting, a vague sense of unreality nagging at her mind; she had written the text and yet she had no memory of doing it. It was strange … she put the thought aside as she realised just how much her counterpart had done, when it came to understanding magic. The journal read like the diary of a mad scientist, putting herself at risk time and time again as she developed ways to track and measure magic, breaking spells down to their essential points and then putting them back together with nary a tick of wasted magic. She felt a sudden flicker of envy – she could have done the same, if she hadn’t had so many other things going on – which she suppressed savagely. She didn’t have time.\n\n“It’s clever,” she said, finally. “How do you keep from losing control of the nexus point? Or from going mad?”\n\n“I don’t channel the power directly,” Technomage Emily assured her. “I use tools to manipulate the magic, tools conjured from raw magic and designed to siphon off excess magic into storage vaults. No one goes mad because there’s no real mind, just … shaping tools.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said. She shook her head. “Shall we get started?”\n\nTechnomage Emily nodded. “Let’s.”\n\nEmily enjoyed discussing magic and brainstorming newer and better ways to cast spells, but she had to admit the discussion with her counterpart and her friends was easily the strangest discussion she’d ever had. Aloha and Jacqui, of all people, joined them; the former as smart as Emily recalled and the other so different that it was hard to believe they actually were counterparts. Emily wondered, idly, what had happened to Melissa and Markus, then decided she didn’t want to know. This Jacqui seemed to get on very well with Technomage Emily. It was disconcerting to realise that in another world they could have been friends.\n\nAlassa isn’t a friend here, she reminded herself, sharply. You can’t take anything for granted.\n\nThe discussion lasted for hours as they charted out how Master Wolfe absorbed and manipulated power – raw power, something more than magic – and how best to use magitech to hack his spellware and reprogram him from within. It would be a difficult task – Master Wolfe would presumably be aware of his own structure, alert to any attempt to change it – but they had no choice. There was no better idea.\n\n“We can get in touch with the other you,” Technomage Emily said. “She should be able to steer us to the right place.”\n", "completion": "“Welcome to my lair,” Technomage Emily said. “What do you make of it?”\n\nEmily studied the power running through the chamber, the mansion, and the world beyond … understood. “You managed to tap the nexus point,” she said, slowly. “You have magic on tap.”\n\n“Like gas pipes,” her counterpart said. “It’s the same basic idea.”\n\n“It’s incredible,” Emily said. Tapping the nexus point and channelling raw magic into the wards was one thing, but this … it was incredible. It wasn’t so much gas pipes as electric wiring … she'd figured out a way to use magic like electricity, to distribute and store and make it available to everyone. “You can practically plug and play magitech devices …”\n\nHer counterpart gave her a shy smile. “It doesn’t always work,” she said. “It’s a pain to try to keep the grid from filling in the cracks in the spellwork, which is great if you’re a magician and less so if you’re trying to make something anyone can use. And then the spellware has to remain intact … we set up spells to draw on background magic, a trickle of power to keep them alive, but again it doesn’t always work.”\n\n“It’s still incredible,” Emily said. She’d been encouraging people to develop technology that didn’t rely on magic, ensuring the new concepts spread rapidly as soon as they had a working model. Her counterpart had followed a different path. In many ways, she’d recreated the world she’d left behind, with magic in place of technology. “I never considered using something like this.”\n\n“It was Adam who came up with ways to use it,” Technomage Emily said. “If everyone can use magic, then they can improve the world.”\n\nEmily frowned, inwardly. If magic was just another form of technology, wouldn’t that erase the wonder of a world shaped by magic? She recalled all the early science-fiction stories, where nuclear power was the key to everything instead of a barely caged demon and radiation dangerous, yet easily handled, by a competent man who knew what he was doing. There had been wonder in those days, before Mars and Venus had turned out to be dead and the cost of space travel far outweighed the immediate benefits. Now … she wondered, grimly, what would happen as magic-based technology continued to spread. What sort of effect would it have on the world? Would it be worth the cost?\n\n“We measure magic here,” Technomage Emily said, primly. “It holds no mysteries for us.”\n\n“I’ll take your word for it,” Emily said. “Can you help us?”\n\n“I think so,” Technomage Emily said. “Our ...ah ... magitech is far in advance of yours. It should be possible to figure out how his power works, then take it apart from the inside.”\n\n“He’s a god,” Frieda pointed out, sharply.\n\n“They used to say that about magicians too,” Adam said. “They could do all sorts of things we couldn’t. But we figured out how to crack the secret and now … we make our own magic.”\n\n“We understand how they do what they do, even if it isn’t easy to duplicate,” Technomage Emily said. “And we’re learning more all the time.”\n\nEmily nodded. “If I had more time to study …”\n\n“I understand,” her counterpart said. She picked a leather-bound journal off the table and passed it to Emily. “This is a primer” – she winked – “of a sort.”\n\nEmily took the book and scanned the first few pages. It was eerie to see text written in her handwriting, a vague sense of unreality nagging at her mind; she had written the text and yet she had no memory of doing it. It was strange … she put the thought aside as she realised just how much her counterpart had done, when it came to understanding magic. The journal read like the diary of a mad scientist, putting herself at risk time and time again as she developed ways to track and measure magic, breaking spells down to their essential points and then putting them back together with nary a tick of wasted magic. She felt a sudden flicker of envy – she could have done the same, if she hadn’t had so many other things going on – which she suppressed savagely. She didn’t have time.\n\n“It’s clever,” she said, finally. “How do you keep from losing control of the nexus point? Or from going mad?”\n\n“I don’t channel the power directly,” Technomage Emily assured her. “I use tools to manipulate the magic, tools conjured from raw magic and designed to siphon off excess magic into storage vaults. No one goes mad because there’s no real mind, just … shaping tools.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said. She shook her head. “Shall we get started?”\n\nTechnomage Emily nodded. “Let’s.”\n\nEmily enjoyed discussing magic and brainstorming newer and better ways to cast spells, but she had to admit the discussion with her counterpart and her friends was easily the strangest discussion she’d ever had. Aloha and Jacqui, of all people, joined them; the former as smart as Emily recalled and the other so different that it was hard to believe they actually were counterparts. Emily wondered, idly, what had happened to Melissa and Markus, then decided she didn’t want to know. This Jacqui seemed to get on very well with Technomage Emily. It was disconcerting to realise that in another world they could have been friends.\n\nAlassa isn’t a friend here, she reminded herself, sharply. You can’t take anything for granted.\n\nThe discussion lasted for hours as they charted out how Master Wolfe absorbed and manipulated power – raw power, something more than magic – and how best to use magitech to hack his spellware and reprogram him from within. It would be a difficult task – Master Wolfe would presumably be aware of his own structure, alert to any attempt to change it – but they had no choice. There was no better idea.\n\n“We can get in touch with the other you,” Technomage Emily said. “She should be able to steer us to the right place.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1030, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch10-P2", "chapter": "ch10", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTechnomage Emily — both words.\nEmperor Joker — both words; scenario name.\nAdam — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nAloha — capitalized.\nJacquie — capitalized; spelling as in text.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nAfter showers Emily and Frieda weigh how off this Adam is, invent terminology for three Emilys, sleep, and in the morning divert a maid so they can eat in the hall.\n\nAdam escorts them through a Whitehall Great Hall of mixed students; talk of leadership lands on Emily’s counterpart replacing the Grandmaster—a story Emily is not sure she wants.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nPlanning move under possible Wolfe watch; blood-link worries among multiple Emilys; watching Adam’s odd tone when work pauses.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nNexus hide option; lunch then device-building; wants to compare notes privately with counterpart.\n\nAdam — Off when she stops work; clears throat for lunch.\nFrieda — Stays though she cannot follow half the theory.\nAloha — Sent for a big mirror.\nJacquie — Doubts safety and story until minds are vouched.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily took the book and scanned the first few pages. It was eerie to see text written in her handwriting, a vague sense of unreality nagging at her mind; she had written the text and yet she had no memory of doing it. It was strange … she put the thought aside as she realised just how much her counterpart had done, when it came to understanding magic. The journal read like the diary of a mad scientist, putting herself at risk time and time again as she developed ways to track and measure magic, breaking spells down to their essential points and then putting them back together with nary a tick of wasted magic. She felt a sudden flicker of envy – she could have done the same, if she hadn’t had so many other things going on – which she suppressed savagely. She didn’t have time.\n\n“It’s clever,” she said, finally. “How do you keep from losing control of the nexus point? Or from going mad?”\n\n“I don’t channel the power directly,” Technomage Emily assured her. “I use tools to manipulate the magic, tools conjured from raw magic and designed to siphon off excess magic into storage vaults. No one goes mad because there’s no real mind, just … shaping tools.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said. She shook her head. “Shall we get started?”\n\nTechnomage Emily nodded. “Let’s.”\n\nEmily enjoyed discussing magic and brainstorming newer and better ways to cast spells, but she had to admit the discussion with her counterpart and her friends was easily the strangest discussion she’d ever had. Aloha and Jacqui, of all people, joined them; the former as smart as Emily recalled and the other so different that it was hard to believe they actually were counterparts. Emily wondered, idly, what had happened to Melissa and Markus, then decided she didn’t want to know. This Jacqui seemed to get on very well with Technomage Emily. It was disconcerting to realise that in another world they could have been friends.\n\nAlassa isn’t a friend here, she reminded herself, sharply. You can’t take anything for granted.\n\nThe discussion lasted for hours as they charted out how Master Wolfe absorbed and manipulated power – raw power, something more than magic – and how best to use magitech to hack his spellware and reprogram him from within. It would be a difficult task – Master Wolfe would presumably be aware of his own structure, alert to any attempt to change it – but they had no choice. There was no better idea.\n\n“We can get in touch with the other you,” Technomage Emily said. “She should be able to steer us to the right place.”\n\n### NOTES\nNearly two o’clock; lunch brought in.\nLarge mirror emplaced behind linked wards; work slated to start tomorrow.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThey delay moving under possible watch, joke about an Emperor Joker scenario, break for lunch, and build toward mirror-channeled power. Blood-link ambiguity among Emilys is flagged; Aloha fetches a mirror; Jacquie challenges the story and is answered by mind-touch and Frieda. Work pauses until tomorrow so Technomage Emily can compare notes—Adam sounds off about stopping.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Workshop logistics and quiet discord. Land on comparing notes.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Once we’re ready to move,” Emily said. “I don’t know if he’s watching us.”\n\n“We can use the nexus point to hide ourselves,” Technomage Emily said. “But … I don’t know how it would affect your other self.”\n\nEmily grimaced. The theory suggested that, as long as her bilocated self was watching them, Master Wolfe couldn’t simply blink them out of existence. But that was a rough guess at best and they had no way to know what would happen if they stepped out of sight, or if Master Wolfe resorted to something a little more mundane. The wolf-thing she’d seen earlier haunted her nightmares and she had no doubt it could be sent after her a second time. Or he could find something else to throw at them. He had access to the entire multiverse. He could presumably find the greatest hunter in the known universe and send it into the current timeline.\n\n“We’ll have to find out the hard way,” Emily said. “We’re looking at a full Emperor Joker scenario here, without a nifty logic bomb.”\n\n“There’s nothing that cannot be understood, given time,” her counterpart assured her. “We will figure out how he does what he does, then …”\n\n“Go exploring,” Aloha said, quietly. “Could we travel into the multiversal threadlines ourselves?”\n\n“Afterwards, perhaps,” Technomage Emily said. “But now … we have other problems.”\n\nAdam cleared his throat. “It’s time for lunch,” he said. “Should I have it brought in?”\n\n“Yes, please,” Technomage Emily said. “And then we can carry on.”\n\nEmily glanced at the clock as her stomach growled. It was nearly two o’clock … where did the time go? She hoped she'd just gotten lost in the discussion instead of reality itself threatening to break down again … she put the thought aside as a trio of maids arrived with trays of sandwiches and glasses of juice. The discussion never ceased, even as they nibbled their food. Emily couldn’t help noticing that Frieda was looking quite bored.\n\n“I can’t follow half of this,” she admitted, when Emily asked. “It’s hard to offer anything.”\n\n“You could explore the school,” Adam offered. “Or we could find something else for you?”\n\n“I’ll stay here,” Frieda said. “I can’t …”\n\nShe shrugged. Adam didn’t seem inclined to ask questions as they finished their meal, then returned to work. Emily watched, impressed, as Adam and Technomage Emily started building a device, working together with the ease of long practice. She had spent hours working with Caleb, since they’d become friends and later lovers, but Adam and her counterpart were on a whole other level. There didn’t seem to be any gap between them as they worked, finishing each other’s sentences and passing each other tools before they were needed. Emily was torn between envy and something she didn’t care to look at too closely. Adam and Technomage Emily seemed dependent on each other, something that bothered her at a very primal level. She wasn’t sure why.\n\n“The trick will be channelling power into the device,” Technomage Emily said. “Can we run magic through the mirrors?”\n\n“I think so,” Emily said. Mirror magic had never been her thing – and accessing the threadlines was harder than using them as the key to pocket dimensions. “We did manage to use blood to channel magic through the threadlines.”\n\n“There are too many of us around,” Technomage Emily observed. “How do we know the blood won’t link to a third Emily?”\n\n“Good question.” Emily hadn’t previously considered the possibility. Technomage Emily and she might be very different people, but they shared the same DNA. They were closer than sisters. “I don’t know.”\n\nShe forced herself to mess around with the possibilities as Adam and Technomage Emily returned to work. Her blood could easily link to her bilocated self … perhaps it would be wiser to use someone else’s blood. Or an entangled piece of spellware … they had the power to make it work, although not for very long. Or they could use a battery instead. She’d never managed to make a battery that was anything more than a one-shot, but … she wished, suddenly, that her Adam was here. The magiwriter was his invention. It would have been easier to construct with his help.\n\nAnd oddly, this Adam didn’t follow the same path, she mused. Why?\n\n“Get a big mirror,” Technomage Emily said to Aloha. “The biggest you can. We’ll set up here, behind the wards.”\n\nAloha hurried off. Jacquie frowned. “Are we sure this is safe?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “But there’s no other choice.”\n\n“Assuming we believe your story,” Jacquie said. “How can it be so?”\n\n“I touched her memories,” Technomage Emily said. “She’s me. An alternate me. We’re the same and yet … not the same. It’s strange.”\n\n“And she’s telling the truth,” Adam added.\n\n“Of course she is,” Frieda said. “I was there.”\n\n“It’s not remotely safe,” Technomage Emily said. She shared an odd little grin with her partner. “But what would happen to progress if no one took any risks?”\n\nAdam looked oddly disconcerted, just for a second. Emily frowned inwardly. Adam – her Adam – was a master at taking calculated risks, gambling his life and soul in a relentless pursuit of magic. This Adam seemed different, almost jumpy; he veered between a certain willingness to do what must be done, whatever the cost, and a reluctance to commit himself. It was strange and worrying. She couldn’t tell what was passing through his mind.\n\n“We should be able to start tomorrow,” Technomage Emily said, once Aloha returned with the mirror and it was carefully emplaced behind a series of linked wards. “Once we’re on the far side of the mirror …”\n\n“You don’t want to keep working?” Adam sounded … off. “That’s strange.”\n\n“I want to compare notes with my counterpart,” Technomage Emily said, as she brushed down her tunic. “She’s followed a very different path than me.”\n", "completion": "“Once we’re ready to move,” Emily said. “I don’t know if he’s watching us.”\n\n“We can use the nexus point to hide ourselves,” Technomage Emily said. “But … I don’t know how it would affect your other self.”\n\nEmily grimaced. The theory suggested that, as long as her bilocated self was watching them, Master Wolfe couldn’t simply blink them out of existence. But that was a rough guess at best and they had no way to know what would happen if they stepped out of sight, or if Master Wolfe resorted to something a little more mundane. The wolf-thing she’d seen earlier haunted her nightmares and she had no doubt it could be sent after her a second time. Or he could find something else to throw at them. He had access to the entire multiverse. He could presumably find the greatest hunter in the known universe and send it into the current timeline.\n\n“We’ll have to find out the hard way,” Emily said. “We’re looking at a full Emperor Joker scenario here, without a nifty logic bomb.”\n\n“There’s nothing that cannot be understood, given time,” her counterpart assured her. “We will figure out how he does what he does, then …”\n\n“Go exploring,” Aloha said, quietly. “Could we travel into the multiversal threadlines ourselves?”\n\n“Afterwards, perhaps,” Technomage Emily said. “But now … we have other problems.”\n\nAdam cleared his throat. “It’s time for lunch,” he said. “Should I have it brought in?”\n\n“Yes, please,” Technomage Emily said. “And then we can carry on.”\n\nEmily glanced at the clock as her stomach growled. It was nearly two o’clock … where did the time go? She hoped she'd just gotten lost in the discussion instead of reality itself threatening to break down again … she put the thought aside as a trio of maids arrived with trays of sandwiches and glasses of juice. The discussion never ceased, even as they nibbled their food. Emily couldn’t help noticing that Frieda was looking quite bored.\n\n“I can’t follow half of this,” she admitted, when Emily asked. “It’s hard to offer anything.”\n\n“You could explore the school,” Adam offered. “Or we could find something else for you?”\n\n“I’ll stay here,” Frieda said. “I can’t …”\n\nShe shrugged. Adam didn’t seem inclined to ask questions as they finished their meal, then returned to work. Emily watched, impressed, as Adam and Technomage Emily started building a device, working together with the ease of long practice. She had spent hours working with Caleb, since they’d become friends and later lovers, but Adam and her counterpart were on a whole other level. There didn’t seem to be any gap between them as they worked, finishing each other’s sentences and passing each other tools before they were needed. Emily was torn between envy and something she didn’t care to look at too closely. Adam and Technomage Emily seemed dependent on each other, something that bothered her at a very primal level. She wasn’t sure why.\n\n“The trick will be channelling power into the device,” Technomage Emily said. “Can we run magic through the mirrors?”\n\n“I think so,” Emily said. Mirror magic had never been her thing – and accessing the threadlines was harder than using them as the key to pocket dimensions. “We did manage to use blood to channel magic through the threadlines.”\n\n“There are too many of us around,” Technomage Emily observed. “How do we know the blood won’t link to a third Emily?”\n\n“Good question.” Emily hadn’t previously considered the possibility. Technomage Emily and she might be very different people, but they shared the same DNA. They were closer than sisters. “I don’t know.”\n\nShe forced herself to mess around with the possibilities as Adam and Technomage Emily returned to work. Her blood could easily link to her bilocated self … perhaps it would be wiser to use someone else’s blood. Or an entangled piece of spellware … they had the power to make it work, although not for very long. Or they could use a battery instead. She’d never managed to make a battery that was anything more than a one-shot, but … she wished, suddenly, that her Adam was here. The magiwriter was his invention. It would have been easier to construct with his help.\n\nAnd oddly, this Adam didn’t follow the same path, she mused. Why?\n\n“Get a big mirror,” Technomage Emily said to Aloha. “The biggest you can. We’ll set up here, behind the wards.”\n\nAloha hurried off. Jacquie frowned. “Are we sure this is safe?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “But there’s no other choice.”\n\n“Assuming we believe your story,” Jacquie said. “How can it be so?”\n\n“I touched her memories,” Technomage Emily said. “She’s me. An alternate me. We’re the same and yet … not the same. It’s strange.”\n\n“And she’s telling the truth,” Adam added.\n\n“Of course she is,” Frieda said. “I was there.”\n\n“It’s not remotely safe,” Technomage Emily said. She shared an odd little grin with her partner. “But what would happen to progress if no one took any risks?”\n\nAdam looked oddly disconcerted, just for a second. Emily frowned inwardly. Adam – her Adam – was a master at taking calculated risks, gambling his life and soul in a relentless pursuit of magic. This Adam seemed different, almost jumpy; he veered between a certain willingness to do what must be done, whatever the cost, and a reluctance to commit himself. It was strange and worrying. She couldn’t tell what was passing through his mind.\n\n“We should be able to start tomorrow,” Technomage Emily said, once Aloha returned with the mirror and it was carefully emplaced behind a series of linked wards. “Once we’re on the far side of the mirror …”\n\n“You don’t want to keep working?” Adam sounded … off. “That’s strange.”\n\n“I want to compare notes with my counterpart,” Technomage Emily said, as she brushed down her tunic. “She’s followed a very different path than me.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1018, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch10-P3", "chapter": "ch10", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTechnomage Emily — both words.\nAdam — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nHeart’s Eye — keep the apostrophe form.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nLilith — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nAfter showers Emily and Frieda weigh how off this Adam is, invent terminology for three Emilys, sleep, and in the morning divert a maid so they can eat in the hall.\n\nAdam escorts them through a Whitehall Great Hall of mixed students; talk of leadership lands on Emily’s counterpart replacing the Grandmaster—a story Emily is not sure she wants.\n\nIn the nexus lair Emily and Technomage Emily compare measured magitech to wonder, study a primer journal, chart Master Wolfe’s power for hours, and plan to contact the bilocated other Emily for steering.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSees Adam’s jealousy; privacy-spells him in a corridor; names his fear of being nothing without Technomage Emily; assures him she loves him.\n\nAdam\nJealous, kabedon against the wall; claims he is not jealous; admits no magic or money.\n\nTechnomage Emily — Absent in the corridor talk; subject of the jealousy.\nFrieda — Stays behind to compare notes by Emily’s signal.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Good question.” Emily hadn’t previously considered the possibility. Technomage Emily and she might be very different people, but they shared the same DNA. They were closer than sisters. “I don’t know.”\n\nShe forced herself to mess around with the possibilities as Adam and Technomage Emily returned to work. Her blood could easily link to her bilocated self … perhaps it would be wiser to use someone else’s blood. Or an entangled piece of spellware … they had the power to make it work, although not for very long. Or they could use a battery instead. She’d never managed to make a battery that was anything more than a one-shot, but … she wished, suddenly, that her Adam was here. The magiwriter was his invention. It would have been easier to construct with his help.\n\nAnd oddly, this Adam didn’t follow the same path, she mused. Why?\n\n“Get a big mirror,” Technomage Emily said to Aloha. “The biggest you can. We’ll set up here, behind the wards.”\n\nAloha hurried off. Jacquie frowned. “Are we sure this is safe?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “But there’s no other choice.”\n\n“Assuming we believe your story,” Jacquie said. “How can it be so?”\n\n“I touched her memories,” Technomage Emily said. “She’s me. An alternate me. We’re the same and yet … not the same. It’s strange.”\n\n“And she’s telling the truth,” Adam added.\n\n“Of course she is,” Frieda said. “I was there.”\n\n“It’s not remotely safe,” Technomage Emily said. She shared an odd little grin with her partner. “But what would happen to progress if no one took any risks?”\n\nAdam looked oddly disconcerted, just for a second. Emily frowned inwardly. Adam – her Adam – was a master at taking calculated risks, gambling his life and soul in a relentless pursuit of magic. This Adam seemed different, almost jumpy; he veered between a certain willingness to do what must be done, whatever the cost, and a reluctance to commit himself. It was strange and worrying. She couldn’t tell what was passing through his mind.\n\n“We should be able to start tomorrow,” Technomage Emily said, once Aloha returned with the mirror and it was carefully emplaced behind a series of linked wards. “Once we’re on the far side of the mirror …”\n\n“You don’t want to keep working?” Adam sounded … off. “That’s strange.”\n\n“I want to compare notes with my counterpart,” Technomage Emily said, as she brushed down her tunic. “She’s followed a very different path than me.”\n\n### NOTES\nSealed mansion then walk back to a differently castled Whitehall.\nTechnomage Emily’s chambers; corridor privacy spell.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe clocks Adam’s jealousy, returns to Whitehall chambers, and fields questions about why she studied magic differently and befriended Alassa. Signaling Frieda to stay, she privacy-spells Adam in the corridor, names his fear of being nothing, shrugs off a kabedon, and insists—as the same person—that Technomage Emily loves him.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Jealousy confrontation; keep insight sharp not cruel. Land on she loves you.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily didn’t miss the sudden rush of jealously that crossed Adam’s face. What the hell did he have to be jealous of? It wasn’t as if she were an alternate version of himself.\n\nShe kept the thought to herself as they sealed up the mansion, then made their way back to Whitehall. The castle looked very different from the school she remembered, the towers and keep she knew contrasting oddly with flying machines and other steampunk devices. The low wall that marked the grounds was gone, replaced by a handful of glowing gems that were linked into the wards. There was a sense of raw power in the air, a warning that anyone who entered without permission would regret it. She frowned as she saw the road leading down to Dragon’s Den. It was wider than the road she recalled, wider and more modern; the trees cut back to allow plenty of room for travellers. She couldn’t decide if it were a good thing or not. It was just … different.\n\nThe thought nagged at her mind as they walked through the school and into Technomage Emily’s chambers. They were as disconcerting as always, the kind of place that was hers and yet … not. A table was already waiting for them, a stasis spell keeping the meal warm. Emily took the proffered seat and forced herself to relax, even though part of her wanted to get started at once. But they needed to rest before they gambled again …\n\n“Why didn’t you study magic the way I did?”\n\nEmily took a moment to consider the question. “I think we had very different life experiences,” she said, finally. “I didn’t meet Adam until much later.”\n\nAdam seemed stricken by the thought. “What happened to me?”\n\nEmily took a bite of her meal, considering her answer. “You went to Heart’s Eye. You created magitech. I met you shortly afterwards.”\n\n“Heart’s Eye was destroyed during the war,” Adam said. “Why …?”\n\n“Not in my world,” Emily said. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to discuss the matter further. Adam the Technomage wasn’t her Adam. “It became something a little different in mine.”\n\n“So I gather,” Technomage Emily said. “Why did you get so … involved … with politics?”\n\nEmily shrugged. “I befriended Alassa,” she said. Her counterpart gave her a look that suggested she’d just added two plus two and gotten purple monkey dishwasher or something equally nonsensical. “And everything went on from there.”\n\n“Strange,” Technomage Emily said. “How did you …?”\n\nShe shrugged. “How did she even learn to like you?”\n\n“You were useful,” Adam said. “As long as she could make use of you …”\n\nEmily felt her temper flare. “She got knocked down a peg or two,” she said, sharply. “It made her a better person.”\n\n“Leopards don’t change their spots,” Adam said.\n\n“Humans aren’t leopards,” Emily pointed out. “And she grew up a lot.”\n\nShe finished her meal, then glanced at Adam. “Would you mind showing me back to my room? I need to sleep.”\n\nAdam nodded. “Frieda?”\n\n“I’d like to”- Frieda saw Emily making a hand signal and changed her mind – “remain here and compare notes, if possible.”\n\n“As you wish.” Adam stood and headed for the door. “I’ll be back shortly.”\n\nEmily waited until they were outside, and the door was firmly closed behind them, then cast a privacy spell. “What is your problem?”\n\nShe didn’t try to hide her anger. “Why are you acting like … like that?”\n\nAdam flushed. “I …”\n\nEmily saw it, in a moment of sudden insight. This Adam thought he wouldn’t be anything without Technomage Emily and he might be right. He’d befriended her and they’d developed a whole new field of magic together and yet, lacking any inherent magic of his own, he must fear what’d happen if Technomage Emily was drawn away by someone else. No wonder he was so possessive, so jealous when someone else showed her attention. He thought he was nothing and … it was interesting to see the difference between the two versions of himself, between the girls they loved. Lilith wouldn’t have stood for such treatment, but she wouldn’t have worked so closely with him either. Not at first.\n\nShe felt a flash of exasperation. “You don’t have anything to fear. I touched her mind. She loves you”- as strange as that sounds, her thoughts added – “and she has no intention of leaving you. You don’t have to be a jealous ass …”\n\nAdam slammed his hand into the wall, a classic kabedon. Emily tried not to roll her eyes. She’d been through too much to be intimidated by something like that.\n\n“I’m not jealous,” Adam snapped. He wasn’t a very practiced liar. Emily wasn't that good at reading people and she could still see the lie. “I’m just …”\n\n“Afraid she’ll leave you, that you’ll go back to being nothing,” Emily said. She had no idea how much of this Adam’s background matched her friend’s, but they couldn’t be that different. “You are not nothing. You changed the world in both timelines and no one will ever be able to take that from you. The two of you go together. Enjoy it.”\n\n“I have neither magic nor money,” Adam said.\n\n“And she’s from a world where you are not always judged by the size of your wallet,” Emily said, a little untruthfully. “She’s not impressed by magic or money, Adam. She’s impressed by brains and human decency. And you have both, when you’re not being an ass.”\n\nAdam glared. “How can you say that?”\n\n“Because we are the same person,” Emily said. Adam wouldn’t believe her easily. He was from a world where birth wealth and magic mattered. The idea of a princess marrying a magicless commoner was utterly absurd, no matter how smart he was. “Slightly divergent, true, but still very similar. I know her thinking because we share the same mind. You don’t need to be jealous. Relax.”\n\n“I can try,” Adam said. “But …”\n\n“I do understand,” Emily assured him. “Trust me. She loves you.”\n", "completion": "Emily didn’t miss the sudden rush of jealously that crossed Adam’s face. What the hell did he have to be jealous of? It wasn’t as if she were an alternate version of himself.\n\nShe kept the thought to herself as they sealed up the mansion, then made their way back to Whitehall. The castle looked very different from the school she remembered, the towers and keep she knew contrasting oddly with flying machines and other steampunk devices. The low wall that marked the grounds was gone, replaced by a handful of glowing gems that were linked into the wards. There was a sense of raw power in the air, a warning that anyone who entered without permission would regret it. She frowned as she saw the road leading down to Dragon’s Den. It was wider than the road she recalled, wider and more modern; the trees cut back to allow plenty of room for travellers. She couldn’t decide if it were a good thing or not. It was just … different.\n\nThe thought nagged at her mind as they walked through the school and into Technomage Emily’s chambers. They were as disconcerting as always, the kind of place that was hers and yet … not. A table was already waiting for them, a stasis spell keeping the meal warm. Emily took the proffered seat and forced herself to relax, even though part of her wanted to get started at once. But they needed to rest before they gambled again …\n\n“Why didn’t you study magic the way I did?”\n\nEmily took a moment to consider the question. “I think we had very different life experiences,” she said, finally. “I didn’t meet Adam until much later.”\n\nAdam seemed stricken by the thought. “What happened to me?”\n\nEmily took a bite of her meal, considering her answer. “You went to Heart’s Eye. You created magitech. I met you shortly afterwards.”\n\n“Heart’s Eye was destroyed during the war,” Adam said. “Why …?”\n\n“Not in my world,” Emily said. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to discuss the matter further. Adam the Technomage wasn’t her Adam. “It became something a little different in mine.”\n\n“So I gather,” Technomage Emily said. “Why did you get so … involved … with politics?”\n\nEmily shrugged. “I befriended Alassa,” she said. Her counterpart gave her a look that suggested she’d just added two plus two and gotten purple monkey dishwasher or something equally nonsensical. “And everything went on from there.”\n\n“Strange,” Technomage Emily said. “How did you …?”\n\nShe shrugged. “How did she even learn to like you?”\n\n“You were useful,” Adam said. “As long as she could make use of you …”\n\nEmily felt her temper flare. “She got knocked down a peg or two,” she said, sharply. “It made her a better person.”\n\n“Leopards don’t change their spots,” Adam said.\n\n“Humans aren’t leopards,” Emily pointed out. “And she grew up a lot.”\n\nShe finished her meal, then glanced at Adam. “Would you mind showing me back to my room? I need to sleep.”\n\nAdam nodded. “Frieda?”\n\n“I’d like to”- Frieda saw Emily making a hand signal and changed her mind – “remain here and compare notes, if possible.”\n\n“As you wish.” Adam stood and headed for the door. “I’ll be back shortly.”\n\nEmily waited until they were outside, and the door was firmly closed behind them, then cast a privacy spell. “What is your problem?”\n\nShe didn’t try to hide her anger. “Why are you acting like … like that?”\n\nAdam flushed. “I …”\n\nEmily saw it, in a moment of sudden insight. This Adam thought he wouldn’t be anything without Technomage Emily and he might be right. He’d befriended her and they’d developed a whole new field of magic together and yet, lacking any inherent magic of his own, he must fear what’d happen if Technomage Emily was drawn away by someone else. No wonder he was so possessive, so jealous when someone else showed her attention. He thought he was nothing and … it was interesting to see the difference between the two versions of himself, between the girls they loved. Lilith wouldn’t have stood for such treatment, but she wouldn’t have worked so closely with him either. Not at first.\n\nShe felt a flash of exasperation. “You don’t have anything to fear. I touched her mind. She loves you”- as strange as that sounds, her thoughts added – “and she has no intention of leaving you. You don’t have to be a jealous ass …”\n\nAdam slammed his hand into the wall, a classic kabedon. Emily tried not to roll her eyes. She’d been through too much to be intimidated by something like that.\n\n“I’m not jealous,” Adam snapped. He wasn’t a very practiced liar. Emily wasn't that good at reading people and she could still see the lie. “I’m just …”\n\n“Afraid she’ll leave you, that you’ll go back to being nothing,” Emily said. She had no idea how much of this Adam’s background matched her friend’s, but they couldn’t be that different. “You are not nothing. You changed the world in both timelines and no one will ever be able to take that from you. The two of you go together. Enjoy it.”\n\n“I have neither magic nor money,” Adam said.\n\n“And she’s from a world where you are not always judged by the size of your wallet,” Emily said, a little untruthfully. “She’s not impressed by magic or money, Adam. She’s impressed by brains and human decency. And you have both, when you’re not being an ass.”\n\nAdam glared. “How can you say that?”\n\n“Because we are the same person,” Emily said. Adam wouldn’t believe her easily. He was from a world where birth wealth and magic mattered. The idea of a princess marrying a magicless commoner was utterly absurd, no matter how smart he was. “Slightly divergent, true, but still very similar. I know her thinking because we share the same mind. You don’t need to be jealous. Relax.”\n\n“I can try,” Adam said. “But …”\n\n“I do understand,” Emily assured him. “Trust me. She loves you.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1047, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch11-P1", "chapter": "ch11", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized; the magitech-timeline counterpart.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized; never Wolfe alone when the god-entity is meant.\nWhitehall — school name; capitalized; no article required.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written; both words capitalized.\nmagitech — lowercase compound; no hyphen.\nspellware — lowercase; same form singular and plural in casual use.\nNameless World — both words capitalized when naming Emily’s home timeline world.\n\n### STORY\nTechnomage Emily shows Emily the nexus-tapped mansion and magitech grid; they admit it is uneven; Frieda names Master Wolfe a god; Adam insists magicians were cracked the same way; they agree to reverse-engineer his power from inside.\nHours of planning map how Master Wolfe absorbs raw power and how magitech might rewrite his spellware; Aloha and a divergent Jacqui join; Emily takes a primer journal in her own handwriting she never wrote.\nTechnomage Emily says they can reach the other Emily to steer them; Adam’s jealousy flares when the counterparts plan to compare notes; Emily decides to speak with him alone.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSorceress from the Nameless World, presently in Technomage Emily’s timeline with Frieda. Has just finished bracing Adam about his jealousy and assuring him Technomage Emily loves him. Ready to enter Master Wolfe via magitech and mirrors; awed by the scale; braced for action. Knows an Evil Emily once at Heart’s Eye; does not yet know what waits in the threads.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nEmily’s magitech-timeline counterpart; Adam’s partner. Alive; operating the mirror and devices; insists on coming because they need her to run the magitech. Close with Adam; has offered a League of Extraordinary Emilys joke. Present.\n\nFrieda\nEmily’s younger friend and ally. Alive; impatient with inactivity; unsettled by the alternate Whitehall tour. Present and eager to move.\n\nAdam\nMundane-born magitech partner of Technomage Emily. Alive; insecure about lacking inherent magic; just heard Emily’s private reassurance. Present; shaken by what the portal will show.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nReferenced; the expanding god-entity they plan to hack. Not present as a person.\n\nLilith\nReferenced only; partner of Emily’s Adam in another timeline; contrast for this Adam’s jealousy.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nEmily and Frieda crossed into Technomage Emily’s world seeking help against Master Wolfe’s contamination of the multiverse; Technomage Emily has tapped a nexus into a distributed magitech grid and agreed to help hack him from within.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily waited until they were outside, and the door was firmly closed behind them, then cast a privacy spell. “What is your problem?”\n\nShe didn’t try to hide her anger. “Why are you acting like … like that?”\n\nAdam flushed. “I …”\n\nEmily saw it, in a moment of sudden insight. This Adam thought he wouldn’t be anything without Technomage Emily and he might be right. He’d befriended her and they’d developed a whole new field of magic together and yet, lacking any inherent magic of his own, he must fear what’d happen if Technomage Emily was drawn away by someone else. No wonder he was so possessive, so jealous when someone else showed her attention. He thought he was nothing and … it was interesting to see the difference between the two versions of himself, between the girls they loved. Lilith wouldn’t have stood for such treatment, but she wouldn’t have worked so closely with him either. Not at first.\n\nShe felt a flash of exasperation. “You don’t have anything to fear. I touched her mind. She loves you”- as strange as that sounds, her thoughts added – “and she has no intention of leaving you. You don’t have to be a jealous ass …”\n\nAdam slammed his hand into the wall, a classic kabedon. Emily tried not to roll her eyes. She’d been through too much to be intimidated by something like that.\n\n“I’m not jealous,” Adam snapped. He wasn’t a very practiced liar. Emily wasn't that good at reading people and she could still see the lie. “I’m just …”\n\n“Afraid she’ll leave you, that you’ll go back to being nothing,” Emily said. She had no idea how much of this Adam’s background matched her friend’s, but they couldn’t be that different. “You are not nothing. You changed the world in both timelines and no one will ever be able to take that from you. The two of you go together. Enjoy it.”\n\n“I have neither magic nor money,” Adam said.\n\n“And she’s from a world where you are not always judged by the size of your wallet,” Emily said, a little untruthfully. “She’s not impressed by magic or money, Adam. She’s impressed by brains and human decency. And you have both, when you’re not being an ass.”\n\nAdam glared. “How can you say that?”\n\n“Because we are the same person,” Emily said. Adam wouldn’t believe her easily. He was from a world where birth wealth and magic mattered. The idea of a princess marrying a magicless commoner was utterly absurd, no matter how smart he was. “Slightly divergent, true, but still very similar. I know her thinking because we share the same mind. You don’t need to be jealous. Relax.”\n\n“I can try,” Adam said. “But …”\n\n“I do understand,” Emily assured him. “Trust me. She loves you.”\n\n### NOTES\nMorning after the Adam talk; cluster of magitech devices in front of a mirror.\nAlternate Whitehall exists in this timeline; Frieda has already toured it.\nInterdimensional portal will open through the mirror as white light.\nBackpacks and devices are staged for immediate entry.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nTechnomage Emily declares they are ready; Emily eyes the magitech before the mirror and steadies herself against the immensity of Master Wolfe. Frieda pushes to move; Emily offers her counterpart a way out and is refused — they need her on the devices. Adam stands close; Emily parks their personal conflict for later. Banter about a League of Extraordinary Emilys turns sober when Emily admits one prior meeting went badly.\n\nTechnomage Emily opens the mirror into white light as the portal frays; Emily leads through into threadspace, standing on ripple-nothing under spinning timelines, and sees cancer spreading through the multiverse. Adam, Technomage Emily, and Frieda join; Adam is pale from seeing alternate selves. He asks if everything can happen and confesses visions of himself as magician, slave, husband, trader; his voice catches on how many are real.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Intimate close-third awe and dread; keep portal uncanny. Land on Adam’s question about which selves are real.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I think we’re ready to go,” Technomage Emily said, the following morning. “Any questions?”\n\nEmily shrugged, eying the cluster of magitech devices positioned in front of the mirror. They knew how to enter the threads between dimensions, they knew – they thought – how to navigate to the heart of the new god, they knew how to hack his spellware and rewrite him into something a little more tolerable, perhaps even use him to repair the contaminated or destroyed dimensions … the sheer scale of what they were planning awed her, even as she braced herself for action. It was hard to wrap her head around the immensity of what Master Wolfe had become, let alone what they’d need to do to stop him. It was like looking at the actor playing the Toymaker and realising that it was just a face covering a vastness that would never cease …\n\nShe shook her head. They didn’t need that kind of thinking. Who knew what it would attract in a realm where the normal laws, magic or science, broke down?\n\n“Let’s get on with it,” Frieda said. She hadn’t taken to inactivity well and she hadn’t enjoyed her tour of the alternate Whitehall. Emily didn’t blame her. There was enough familiar in the school for the differences to be very disconcerting. “Please.”\n\nEmily glanced at her counterpart. “You don’t have to come with us.”\n\nTechnomage Emily looked at Adam, then shrugged. “You need someone to help operate the magitech and we don’t have time to train you,” she said. “And besides … everything is at stake.”\n\nAdam nodded. Emily looked at the couple, standing close together, and wondered if her talk with Adam had produced anything of value. Adam’s insecurity was a problem, but … would he grow out of it? Her Adam had been older when he’d met Lilith, old enough to be a little more mature, a little more willing to come to terms with the cards he’d been dealt. Or … she told herself, sharply, that it wasn’t her problem. The entire universe was at stake. Their personal conflicts would have to wait.\n\n“Thanks,” she said, and meant it. “Shall we begin?”\n\nTechnomage Emily stepped up to the mirror and rested her hand against it. “Do you think there might be other alternates out there? We could form a League of Extraordinary Emilys.”\n\nEmily had to smile. “Wasn’t there a Simpsons comic about a League of Extraordinary Barts?”\n\nHer counterpart smiled, then sobered. “If there are more of us out there …”\n\n“I saw one, once,” Emily said. “The meeting didn’t go well.”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly. If every choice she made, for better or worse, spawned a whole new timeline … there could be an infinity of alternates out there, some likely as evil or unpleasant as the Evil Emily she’d faced at Heart’s Eye. She didn’t pretend to understand how some changes created new worlds, new universes, and others didn’t … she suspected she’d never know. The laws of multiversal travel didn’t quite seem to make sense, as if they’d been written randomly … or followed guidelines that existed outside her conceptual framework. It was frustrating to know there was something she might never understand …\n\nTechnomage Emily muttered a spell. The mirror shimmered, their reflections warping and twisting into alternate versions of themselves before the mirror became a glowing white square of light. Emily felt the universe itself take a breath, as if the entirety of existence was waiting to see what would happen next. She tensed as she felt the edges of the interdimensional portal start to fray, raising the spectre of extradimensional beings finding the cracks in reality and using them to break into the human realm. They had to move fast. Time was not on their side.\n\nShe scooped up her backpack, swung it over her shoulder, and walked into the light. It was suddenly very bright, as if a spotlight shone on every atom of her body, and then … she was standing on the far side of the mirror. An eerie light pulsed around her, everywhere and nowhere, not bright enough to hurt and yet … she glanced down and sucked in her breath. She was standing on nothing, save for a faint ripple … she looked up and saw the twisting timelines spinning through reality, merging and breaking and … she shuddered as she saw something spreading through the multiverse. Cancer. Something so vile just looking at it made her feel sick. The multiverse was dying. Ice ran down her spine. Master Wolfe was so big. How could four tiny mites hope to stop him?\n\nAdam joined her, Technomage Emily and Frieda bringing up the rear. Adam looked shaken, his face pale; Technomage Emily seemed to take it in stride.\n\n“I saw myself,” Adam said, quietly. “Was that real?”\n\n“Yeah, somewhere,” Emily said. She hadn’t seen any alternates when she’d stepped through the portal. “Anything can happen, once.”\n\nAdam glanced at her. “There must be some limits.”\n\nEmily felt a flicker of sympathy. Adam sounded like someone who was trying to rationalise away what he’d seen, as if he couldn’t bring himself to come to terms with it. She recalled how shocked she’d been when she’d seen magic for the first time, how hard it had been to comprehend what she’d seen … and at least, thanks to reading countless fantasy books, she had a mental framework for magical worlds. Adam hadn’t had that, at least until she’d arrived, and he hadn’t seen alternate worlds until today. She wondered, idly, what he’d seen. It could be anything, good or bad or somewhere in-between.\n\n“I mean, not everything can happen,” Adam added. “Can it?”\n\n“I wish I knew,” Emily admitted. “Do you want to talk about it?”\n\n“I saw myself as a magician,” Adam said. “And as a slave. A husband. A trader. A …”\n\nHis voice caught in his throat. “How many of those are real?”\n", "completion": "“I think we’re ready to go,” Technomage Emily said, the following morning. “Any questions?”\n\nEmily shrugged, eying the cluster of magitech devices positioned in front of the mirror. They knew how to enter the threads between dimensions, they knew – they thought – how to navigate to the heart of the new god, they knew how to hack his spellware and rewrite him into something a little more tolerable, perhaps even use him to repair the contaminated or destroyed dimensions … the sheer scale of what they were planning awed her, even as she braced herself for action. It was hard to wrap her head around the immensity of what Master Wolfe had become, let alone what they’d need to do to stop him. It was like looking at the actor playing the Toymaker and realising that it was just a face covering a vastness that would never cease …\n\nShe shook her head. They didn’t need that kind of thinking. Who knew what it would attract in a realm where the normal laws, magic or science, broke down?\n\n“Let’s get on with it,” Frieda said. She hadn’t taken to inactivity well and she hadn’t enjoyed her tour of the alternate Whitehall. Emily didn’t blame her. There was enough familiar in the school for the differences to be very disconcerting. “Please.”\n\nEmily glanced at her counterpart. “You don’t have to come with us.”\n\nTechnomage Emily looked at Adam, then shrugged. “You need someone to help operate the magitech and we don’t have time to train you,” she said. “And besides … everything is at stake.”\n\nAdam nodded. Emily looked at the couple, standing close together, and wondered if her talk with Adam had produced anything of value. Adam’s insecurity was a problem, but … would he grow out of it? Her Adam had been older when he’d met Lilith, old enough to be a little more mature, a little more willing to come to terms with the cards he’d been dealt. Or … she told herself, sharply, that it wasn’t her problem. The entire universe was at stake. Their personal conflicts would have to wait.\n\n“Thanks,” she said, and meant it. “Shall we begin?”\n\nTechnomage Emily stepped up to the mirror and rested her hand against it. “Do you think there might be other alternates out there? We could form a League of Extraordinary Emilys.”\n\nEmily had to smile. “Wasn’t there a Simpsons comic about a League of Extraordinary Barts?”\n\nHer counterpart smiled, then sobered. “If there are more of us out there …”\n\n“I saw one, once,” Emily said. “The meeting didn’t go well.”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly. If every choice she made, for better or worse, spawned a whole new timeline … there could be an infinity of alternates out there, some likely as evil or unpleasant as the Evil Emily she’d faced at Heart’s Eye. She didn’t pretend to understand how some changes created new worlds, new universes, and others didn’t … she suspected she’d never know. The laws of multiversal travel didn’t quite seem to make sense, as if they’d been written randomly … or followed guidelines that existed outside her conceptual framework. It was frustrating to know there was something she might never understand …\n\nTechnomage Emily muttered a spell. The mirror shimmered, their reflections warping and twisting into alternate versions of themselves before the mirror became a glowing white square of light. Emily felt the universe itself take a breath, as if the entirety of existence was waiting to see what would happen next. She tensed as she felt the edges of the interdimensional portal start to fray, raising the spectre of extradimensional beings finding the cracks in reality and using them to break into the human realm. They had to move fast. Time was not on their side.\n\nShe scooped up her backpack, swung it over her shoulder, and walked into the light. It was suddenly very bright, as if a spotlight shone on every atom of her body, and then … she was standing on the far side of the mirror. An eerie light pulsed around her, everywhere and nowhere, not bright enough to hurt and yet … she glanced down and sucked in her breath. She was standing on nothing, save for a faint ripple … she looked up and saw the twisting timelines spinning through reality, merging and breaking and … she shuddered as she saw something spreading through the multiverse. Cancer. Something so vile just looking at it made her feel sick. The multiverse was dying. Ice ran down her spine. Master Wolfe was so big. How could four tiny mites hope to stop him?\n\nAdam joined her, Technomage Emily and Frieda bringing up the rear. Adam looked shaken, his face pale; Technomage Emily seemed to take it in stride.\n\n“I saw myself,” Adam said, quietly. “Was that real?”\n\n“Yeah, somewhere,” Emily said. She hadn’t seen any alternates when she’d stepped through the portal. “Anything can happen, once.”\n\nAdam glanced at her. “There must be some limits.”\n\nEmily felt a flicker of sympathy. Adam sounded like someone who was trying to rationalise away what he’d seen, as if he couldn’t bring himself to come to terms with it. She recalled how shocked she’d been when she’d seen magic for the first time, how hard it had been to comprehend what she’d seen … and at least, thanks to reading countless fantasy books, she had a mental framework for magical worlds. Adam hadn’t had that, at least until she’d arrived, and he hadn’t seen alternate worlds until today. She wondered, idly, what he’d seen. It could be anything, good or bad or somewhere in-between.\n\n“I mean, not everything can happen,” Adam added. “Can it?”\n\n“I wish I knew,” Emily admitted. “Do you want to talk about it?”\n\n“I saw myself as a magician,” Adam said. “And as a slave. A husband. A trader. A …”\n\nHis voice caught in his throat. “How many of those are real?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1012, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch11-P2", "chapter": "ch11", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized; magitech-timeline counterpart.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nNameless World — both words capitalized.\nHierarchy — capitalized when naming Master Wolfe’s assimilation order.\nspellware — lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nTechnomage Emily shows the nexus-tapped magitech grid and agrees to help reverse-engineer Master Wolfe from inside; planning stretches for hours with divergent allies; Emily takes a primer in her own unremembered hand.\nAdam’s jealousy flares over the counterparts comparing notes; Emily pulls him aside, names his fear of being nothing without Technomage Emily, and assures him she loves him.\nTechnomage Emily opens the mirror portal; the four enter threadspace under spinning timelines and see multiversal cancer; Adam, shaken by alternate selves, asks how many of those lives are real.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust answered Adam’s shock with patience; standing in interdimensional threadspace with the team. Determined to find the path into Master Wolfe despite the urge to flee into Technomage Emily’s safer world. Aware of scratching extradimensional presence.\n\nAdam\nAlive in threadspace; pale; still arguing that the alternate lives make no sense. Will be battered by the path-walk.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nAlive; takes threadspace in stride; trusts the plan; shielded somehow from the worst path-battering.\n\nFrieda\nAlive; present; will suffer the path’s mental battering with Adam.\n\nEmily’s doppelganger\nProjection of Emily that materializes to warn them time is breaking down; will watch but cannot see everything while focused on them. Not the necromancer.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nMaster Wolfe has become a living multiplicity devouring dimensions; the Hierarchy funnels ambitious magicians into willing assimilation.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nTechnomage Emily muttered a spell. The mirror shimmered, their reflections warping and twisting into alternate versions of themselves before the mirror became a glowing white square of light. Emily felt the universe itself take a breath, as if the entirety of existence was waiting to see what would happen next. She tensed as she felt the edges of the interdimensional portal start to fray, raising the spectre of extradimensional beings finding the cracks in reality and using them to break into the human realm. They had to move fast. Time was not on their side.\n\nShe scooped up her backpack, swung it over her shoulder, and walked into the light. It was suddenly very bright, as if a spotlight shone on every atom of her body, and then … she was standing on the far side of the mirror. An eerie light pulsed around her, everywhere and nowhere, not bright enough to hurt and yet … she glanced down and sucked in her breath. She was standing on nothing, save for a faint ripple … she looked up and saw the twisting timelines spinning through reality, merging and breaking and … she shuddered as she saw something spreading through the multiverse. Cancer. Something so vile just looking at it made her feel sick. The multiverse was dying. Ice ran down her spine. Master Wolfe was so big. How could four tiny mites hope to stop him?\n\nAdam joined her, Technomage Emily and Frieda bringing up the rear. Adam looked shaken, his face pale; Technomage Emily seemed to take it in stride.\n\n“I saw myself,” Adam said, quietly. “Was that real?”\n\n“Yeah, somewhere,” Emily said. She hadn’t seen any alternates when she’d stepped through the portal. “Anything can happen, once.”\n\nAdam glanced at her. “There must be some limits.”\n\nEmily felt a flicker of sympathy. Adam sounded like someone who was trying to rationalise away what he’d seen, as if he couldn’t bring himself to come to terms with it. She recalled how shocked she’d been when she’d seen magic for the first time, how hard it had been to comprehend what she’d seen … and at least, thanks to reading countless fantasy books, she had a mental framework for magical worlds. Adam hadn’t had that, at least until she’d arrived, and he hadn’t seen alternate worlds until today. She wondered, idly, what he’d seen. It could be anything, good or bad or somewhere in-between.\n\n“I mean, not everything can happen,” Adam added. “Can it?”\n\n“I wish I knew,” Emily admitted. “Do you want to talk about it?”\n\n“I saw myself as a magician,” Adam said. “And as a slave. A husband. A trader. A …”\n\nHis voice caught in his throat. “How many of those are real?”\n\n### NOTES\nInterdimensional threadspace: light everywhere and nowhere; paths like nightmare corridors; a dark mirror-square against burning light.\nDevice from Emily’s backpack navigates multiversal threads.\nHeartbeat and living-boundary sensation mark entry into Master Wolfe’s substance.\nNo ordinary time except what they bring.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily tells Adam the alternates are not him and must not consume him, then greets a projection doppelganger who warns that time is breaking down. She raises the navigation device; threads open like a dungeon of passageways; she traces power back to Master Wolfe while things scratch at awareness wanting in. She finds the path, refuses the urge to stay in Technomage Emily’s world, and leads them onward under the doppelganger’s watch.\n\nThe walk batters minds with never-were images; Technomage Emily seems shielded while Adam and Frieda suffer; exhaustion and dream-logic urge retreat. The device shifts; a heartbeat rises as they step through Wolfe’s living substance in silence. They reach his heart — a spinning nexus of rewriting spellware with hundreds of assimilated souls — and Emily grasps the Hierarchy’s trap even as she recoils from the permanent living death.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Sustained uncanny pressure on the path; admiration and horror at the heart. Land on the Hierarchy’s living-death cost.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily met his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Those alternates … they’re not you. They’re what you could have been, if things were different. They had different starts in life, they had different opportunities, different partners” – she tried not to think about the fact Adam hadn’t seen her Adam and his partner, fearing it wasn’t a good sign – “and … they’re not you. You can’t let yourself become obsessed with them.”\n\n“That makes no sense,” Adam protested.\n\n“If you grow up in different circumstances, you’ll be a different person,” Emily said. How different would she have been if she’d had a loving mother and stepfather? She might have spent her time trying to get home, rather than making a new life in the Nameless World. “But those people aren’t you, and you can’t afford to let yourself be consumed by them.”\n\nShe glanced up again, then grinned as a projection materialised in front of them. “Hello me. Hello, me too.”\n\n“You’re me too?” Technomage Emily seemed surprised, even though she’d known what to expect. “Pleased to meet you, me.”\n\nEmily’s doppelganger smirked, then sobered. “You have to act fast,” she said. “Time itself is breaking down.”\n\n“Understood.” Emily took the device from her backpack and held it out. The multiversal threads seemed to open around her, a tangled web of passageways and corridors that seemed to twist and turn in directions her mind wasn’t built to comprehend … she reminded herself, sharply, that her mind was trying to force what she was seeing into something she could understand. It reminded her of something … a dungeon, perhaps, one right out of nightmares. “If this works …”\n\n“It will,” Technomage Emily assured her.\n\nEmily smiled, rather wanly, as she traced threadlines of power running all the way back to Master Wolfe. All times were one in the interdimensional threadlines, everywhere right next door and yet unimaginably distant … she thought suddenly of a giant whale, lying dead on the seabed, the body turned into a home for all manner of tiny creatures. Master Wolfe had become just such a monster and yet … he was still alive. She felt something scratching at the back of her awareness and cursed under her breath. There were things out there, tapping on the door and trying to convince her to let them in. It was just a matter of time before they broke down the barriers and stormed reality …\n\n“I’ve found the path,” she said. She looked at the mirror, a dark square set against the burning light, then shook her head. The urge to turn and run, to try to carve out a life in Technomage Emily’s world, was almost overpowering, but … she knew better. It was just a matter of time until that reality was contaminated too. “Let’s go.”\n\n“I’ll be watching you,” her doppelganger said. “But there are things I can’t see as long as I keep my eyes focused on you.”\n\nEmily nodded. “Understood.”\n\nThe paths seemed to shift around them as they started to walk. Emily felt her mind shudder under the endless battering, odd images of things that never were and never would be dancing in front of her eyes, coming and going so quickly she couldn’t get a proper look at them. She was almost grateful. What little she did see was far from reassuring. Technomage Emily didn’t seem to be affected, for reasons Emily couldn’t understand, but both Adam and Frieda were taking a battering as well. Perhaps it was her presence that was shielding Technomage Emily. They were the same person, in a sense. Or perhaps she was missing something …\n\nA terrible exhaustion washed through her body as she kept walking, a sense of tiredness so extreme she couldn’t muster the energy to go to sleep. It felt like a dream, a nightmare; she had to pinch herself twice to force herself to keep going, despite the ever-growing urge to just stop and turn back. Her thoughts felt sluggish, her mind warping and twisting as if the realm between realms was no longer willing to support their presence. There was no time here, save what they brought with them … she wondered, suddenly, why the pathways were so empty. Were there no others exploring the threads between dimensions?\n\nThe device shifted in her hand, the realm shifting a moment later. It had been silent, an eerie silence that was somehow loud in a manner that puzzled her, but now … she felt a quiet heartbeat running through the air, a sense that she was brushing against the boundaries of a living thing. Master Wolfe was vast on a scale beyond imagination and yet … they were stepping through the atoms of his body, penetrating him as surely as he penetrated reality itself. No one spoke as they kept walking, not daring to make a sound for fear he’d hear them. She tried to tell herself that he couldn’t, but it wasn’t convincing. Her awareness staggered under the sheer weight of what he’d made himself …\n\n“There,” Technomage Emily breathed.\n\nEmily sucked in her breath. It was a heart, except … it was something more. A spinning nexus of spellware … no, more than spellware. Master Wolfe was rewriting himself as he went along, each surge in power leading to more transformations … she recalled, suddenly, a boy who’d tried to improve his genitals and accidentally given himself a form of cancer. Was that why the multiverse was breaking apart? Or … she shook her head as she saw the hundreds upon hundreds of souls woven into the multiplicity, their power and memories and drive becoming part of a greater whole. She had to admire the brilliance of his scheme, even as she recoiled in horror. He’d crafted the Hierarchy to encourage the most driven and determined of magicians to self-select for assimilation, practically handing themselves over to him willingly. And in doing so … how many had he condemned to a permanent living death?\n", "completion": "Emily met his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Those alternates … they’re not you. They’re what you could have been, if things were different. They had different starts in life, they had different opportunities, different partners” – she tried not to think about the fact Adam hadn’t seen her Adam and his partner, fearing it wasn’t a good sign – “and … they’re not you. You can’t let yourself become obsessed with them.”\n\n“That makes no sense,” Adam protested.\n\n“If you grow up in different circumstances, you’ll be a different person,” Emily said. How different would she have been if she’d had a loving mother and stepfather? She might have spent her time trying to get home, rather than making a new life in the Nameless World. “But those people aren’t you, and you can’t afford to let yourself be consumed by them.”\n\nShe glanced up again, then grinned as a projection materialised in front of them. “Hello me. Hello, me too.”\n\n“You’re me too?” Technomage Emily seemed surprised, even though she’d known what to expect. “Pleased to meet you, me.”\n\nEmily’s doppelganger smirked, then sobered. “You have to act fast,” she said. “Time itself is breaking down.”\n\n“Understood.” Emily took the device from her backpack and held it out. The multiversal threads seemed to open around her, a tangled web of passageways and corridors that seemed to twist and turn in directions her mind wasn’t built to comprehend … she reminded herself, sharply, that her mind was trying to force what she was seeing into something she could understand. It reminded her of something … a dungeon, perhaps, one right out of nightmares. “If this works …”\n\n“It will,” Technomage Emily assured her.\n\nEmily smiled, rather wanly, as she traced threadlines of power running all the way back to Master Wolfe. All times were one in the interdimensional threadlines, everywhere right next door and yet unimaginably distant … she thought suddenly of a giant whale, lying dead on the seabed, the body turned into a home for all manner of tiny creatures. Master Wolfe had become just such a monster and yet … he was still alive. She felt something scratching at the back of her awareness and cursed under her breath. There were things out there, tapping on the door and trying to convince her to let them in. It was just a matter of time before they broke down the barriers and stormed reality …\n\n“I’ve found the path,” she said. She looked at the mirror, a dark square set against the burning light, then shook her head. The urge to turn and run, to try to carve out a life in Technomage Emily’s world, was almost overpowering, but … she knew better. It was just a matter of time until that reality was contaminated too. “Let’s go.”\n\n“I’ll be watching you,” her doppelganger said. “But there are things I can’t see as long as I keep my eyes focused on you.”\n\nEmily nodded. “Understood.”\n\nThe paths seemed to shift around them as they started to walk. Emily felt her mind shudder under the endless battering, odd images of things that never were and never would be dancing in front of her eyes, coming and going so quickly she couldn’t get a proper look at them. She was almost grateful. What little she did see was far from reassuring. Technomage Emily didn’t seem to be affected, for reasons Emily couldn’t understand, but both Adam and Frieda were taking a battering as well. Perhaps it was her presence that was shielding Technomage Emily. They were the same person, in a sense. Or perhaps she was missing something …\n\nA terrible exhaustion washed through her body as she kept walking, a sense of tiredness so extreme she couldn’t muster the energy to go to sleep. It felt like a dream, a nightmare; she had to pinch herself twice to force herself to keep going, despite the ever-growing urge to just stop and turn back. Her thoughts felt sluggish, her mind warping and twisting as if the realm between realms was no longer willing to support their presence. There was no time here, save what they brought with them … she wondered, suddenly, why the pathways were so empty. Were there no others exploring the threads between dimensions?\n\nThe device shifted in her hand, the realm shifting a moment later. It had been silent, an eerie silence that was somehow loud in a manner that puzzled her, but now … she felt a quiet heartbeat running through the air, a sense that she was brushing against the boundaries of a living thing. Master Wolfe was vast on a scale beyond imagination and yet … they were stepping through the atoms of his body, penetrating him as surely as he penetrated reality itself. No one spoke as they kept walking, not daring to make a sound for fear he’d hear them. She tried to tell herself that he couldn’t, but it wasn’t convincing. Her awareness staggered under the sheer weight of what he’d made himself …\n\n“There,” Technomage Emily breathed.\n\nEmily sucked in her breath. It was a heart, except … it was something more. A spinning nexus of spellware … no, more than spellware. Master Wolfe was rewriting himself as he went along, each surge in power leading to more transformations … she recalled, suddenly, a boy who’d tried to improve his genitals and accidentally given himself a form of cancer. Was that why the multiverse was breaking apart? Or … she shook her head as she saw the hundreds upon hundreds of souls woven into the multiplicity, their power and memories and drive becoming part of a greater whole. She had to admire the brilliance of his scheme, even as she recoiled in horror. He’d crafted the Hierarchy to encourage the most driven and determined of magicians to self-select for assimilation, practically handing themselves over to him willingly. And in doing so … how many had he condemned to a permanent living death?\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1016, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch11-P3", "chapter": "ch11", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nShadye — capitalized; necromancer name as written.\nspellware — lowercase.\nmagitech — lowercase compound.\n\n### STORY\nTechnomage Emily opens the mirror; the team enters threadspace, sees multiversal cancer, and Adam confesses alternate selves while Emily insists those lives are not him and must not consume him.\nA doppelganger projection warns that time is breaking down and steers them along living paths into Master Wolfe’s heart of rewriting spellware and Hierarchy souls.\nThey begin the hack knowing each change will force a restart; Frieda watches the paths sheet-white as something unseen closes in around the heart.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nAt Master Wolfe’s heart with the flimsy hack-device; terrified as when she first faced Shadye; accepts the responsibility of the insert. Does not yet know thinking of him will alert him.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nAlive; finishes configuring the device; refuses to leave; calls the work informative. Present for the hack.\n\nAdam\nAlive; sweating in cold air; wand ready; refuses to leave with Technomage Emily. Present.\n\nFrieda\nAlive; path watch; sheet-white; will shield Emily when the device shatters.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nAwake and aware as a vast slow-fast mind; will register Emily the moment she thinks of him and strike the device.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nEmily’s first encounter with Shadye left her powerless and at his mercy — the terror benchmark she still uses.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nA terrible exhaustion washed through her body as she kept walking, a sense of tiredness so extreme she couldn’t muster the energy to go to sleep. It felt like a dream, a nightmare; she had to pinch herself twice to force herself to keep going, despite the ever-growing urge to just stop and turn back. Her thoughts felt sluggish, her mind warping and twisting as if the realm between realms was no longer willing to support their presence. There was no time here, save what they brought with them … she wondered, suddenly, why the pathways were so empty. Were there no others exploring the threads between dimensions?\n\nThe device shifted in her hand, the realm shifting a moment later. It had been silent, an eerie silence that was somehow loud in a manner that puzzled her, but now … she felt a quiet heartbeat running through the air, a sense that she was brushing against the boundaries of a living thing. Master Wolfe was vast on a scale beyond imagination and yet … they were stepping through the atoms of his body, penetrating him as surely as he penetrated reality itself. No one spoke as they kept walking, not daring to make a sound for fear he’d hear them. She tried to tell herself that he couldn’t, but it wasn’t convincing. Her awareness staggered under the sheer weight of what he’d made himself …\n\n“There,” Technomage Emily breathed.\n\nEmily sucked in her breath. It was a heart, except … it was something more. A spinning nexus of spellware … no, more than spellware. Master Wolfe was rewriting himself as he went along, each surge in power leading to more transformations … she recalled, suddenly, a boy who’d tried to improve his genitals and accidentally given himself a form of cancer. Was that why the multiverse was breaking apart? Or … she shook her head as she saw the hundreds upon hundreds of souls woven into the multiplicity, their power and memories and drive becoming part of a greater whole. She had to admire the brilliance of his scheme, even as she recoiled in horror. He’d crafted the Hierarchy to encourage the most driven and determined of magicians to self-select for assimilation, practically handing themselves over to him willingly. And in doing so … how many had he condemned to a permanent living death?\n\n### NOTES\nMaster Wolfe’s heart: above, around, and beyond them; cold air; shifting shadows; heartbeat loud.\nHack device: crystals and metal etching boards existing in multiple states at once.\nAfter shatter: holographic translucent maze; debris pile; bright red eyes ahead.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily hisses them to work and sets Frieda on the paths while unseen pressure and monster-movie dread close in. The heartbeat proves Master Wolfe awake; Technomage Emily finishes the device; Emily owns the risk and both counterparts refuse to leave. She inserts into the spellware like a virus, feels his vast mind, and realizes too late that thinking of him warned him — he cannot cut her out without cutting his own throat, yet something slams the device to shards.\n\nShe falls back into a spinning translucent maze; Frieda screams and shields her; Adam flails with a wand; Technomage Emily is down; and bright red eyes face her.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Tightening terror into the hack; break off on the red eyes. Do not resolve the confrontation.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Get started,” Emily hissed. The heart was above them and around them and beyond them. It was already too complex for easy study, let alone hacking. Each successive change would force them to start again and again, wasting time they didn’t have. “Frieda, watch the paths.”\n\nFrieda nodded, her face sheet-white. “Got it.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth as they started to work. The sense of being in the middle of something big was overpowering, the sense of being surrounded by a sound that wasn’t a sound … she felt something prickling down the back of her spine, as if someone was breathing on the back of her neck … she glanced behind her and saw nothing, yet … her head swam. There were things out there. She could feel them.\n\nAdam’s hair was dank with sweat, though the air was cold. “There’s something out there.”\n\n“Yeah.” Technomage Emily looked grim. “I feel like I’m caught in a bad monster movie.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. Something was behind them, closing in … she wanted to run and hide, or fight, but there was nothing to fight. A flicker of panic nagged at her, a demand she raise her hand and start casting spells at nothing … she jumped as she saw the shadows shift, as if there was something right behind them. She wiped the sweat from her brow, then kept working as fast as she dared. This wasn’t a human place. They didn’t belong here.\n\nThe heartbeat grew louder. Master Wolfe was awake and aware … she had the sudden sense of a kid hiding under the blankets, all too aware that something was out there … too scared to move and yet knowing all too well that the blanket would provide no cover if the thing outside chose to pull it away. She hadn’t felt such terror since facing Shadye for the very first time, when she hadn’t known a thing about magic and she’d been completely at his mercy. The world blew hot and cold, gusts of a wind that wasn’t blowing against her face. It was …\n\n“There,” Technomage Emily said. “It’s done.”\n\nEmily stared at the device. It looked unbearably flimsy, for something designed to hack into the mind of a god. Magic seemed to shimmer around it, in potential rather than reality … she found it hard to get a good idea of what it looked like, beyond a twisted network of crystals and metal etching boards. It existed in multiple different states simultaneously. She felt a flicker of admiration for her other self. Technomage Emily had gone further than she’d ever dreamed.\n\n“The responsibility is mine,” Emily said. “If you two want to go back …”\n\n“I'm not leaving,” Technomage Emily said. Beside her, Adam nodded. “This is going to be very informative.”\n\nAnd perhaps we’ll learn nothing more than the folly of trying to fight a god, Emily thought. It had been easy to talk about the plan in the safety of Whitehall, but here, surrounded by power on a scale she couldn’t comprehend and spellware so far beyond her understanding it might as well be godlike power, she found it hard to think clearly. The reality far outstripped her imagination. If this goes wrong …\n\nShe placed her hands against the device, silently grateful for Technomage Emily’s insights into magitech. The spellware rose up around her, a network so complex that she had to force herself to narrow her sight, to focus on a single fragment of the greater whole. Her mind ached as she started to insert herself into the spellware, telling herself – firmly – that an ant could bring down an elephant. Or a virus bring down a human … she kept pressing gently, trying to introduce new pieces of spellware into the network. She was hacking a god!\n\nMaster Wolfe’s thoughts felt odd, vast and slow and yet lightning-quick. She could feel them swimming through his mind, so far above her that it was impossible to get any solid idea of what he was thinking. Was he aware of her … she realised her mistake an instant too late. The moment she’d thought of him, she’d warned him … he knew she was here. A shock ran through the entire multiplicity, moving at infinite speed and yet trying to cover infinite ground … she cursed under her breath, thrusting her mind forward as his thoughts scattered. She’d been right! She was inside him. He couldn’t cut her out of his heart without cutting his own throat.\n\nMove, she told herself. She could feel his awareness thrashing about, suddenly very alert to the danger. He wasn’t remotely human any longer, but did he know it? Was he still limited by his concept of himself as a human? A sufficiently advanced computer program could scrutinise every last line of coding to find the virus or hidden backdoors; it could simply unleash a proper antiviral program to hunt down, isolate, and remove any threats to the system. There isn’t time …\n\nSomething slammed into her, the device shattering. Emily fell back into her own body, hard. Her head spun, a stab of pain shooting through her; she staggered back, tripping over herself and falling to the floor. Her vision was gone … no, her eyes were having problems adapting to the sudden change. She felt as if she were trapped in a holographic maze, a network of translucent structures … some real, some little more than illusion. It was hard to tell which ones were solid and which were … she closed her eyes and tried to focus. The world was spinning.\n\n“No!” There was real terror in Frieda’s voice. “Not you!”\n\nEmily opened her eyes. Frieda was shielding her. The device was a pile of debris. Adam was waving a wand, trying desperately to cast a spell, while Technomage Emily was on the ground …\n\nAnd, right in front of her, there was a pair of bright red eyes.\n", "completion": "“Get started,” Emily hissed. The heart was above them and around them and beyond them. It was already too complex for easy study, let alone hacking. Each successive change would force them to start again and again, wasting time they didn’t have. “Frieda, watch the paths.”\n\nFrieda nodded, her face sheet-white. “Got it.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth as they started to work. The sense of being in the middle of something big was overpowering, the sense of being surrounded by a sound that wasn’t a sound … she felt something prickling down the back of her spine, as if someone was breathing on the back of her neck … she glanced behind her and saw nothing, yet … her head swam. There were things out there. She could feel them.\n\nAdam’s hair was dank with sweat, though the air was cold. “There’s something out there.”\n\n“Yeah.” Technomage Emily looked grim. “I feel like I’m caught in a bad monster movie.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. Something was behind them, closing in … she wanted to run and hide, or fight, but there was nothing to fight. A flicker of panic nagged at her, a demand she raise her hand and start casting spells at nothing … she jumped as she saw the shadows shift, as if there was something right behind them. She wiped the sweat from her brow, then kept working as fast as she dared. This wasn’t a human place. They didn’t belong here.\n\nThe heartbeat grew louder. Master Wolfe was awake and aware … she had the sudden sense of a kid hiding under the blankets, all too aware that something was out there … too scared to move and yet knowing all too well that the blanket would provide no cover if the thing outside chose to pull it away. She hadn’t felt such terror since facing Shadye for the very first time, when she hadn’t known a thing about magic and she’d been completely at his mercy. The world blew hot and cold, gusts of a wind that wasn’t blowing against her face. It was …\n\n“There,” Technomage Emily said. “It’s done.”\n\nEmily stared at the device. It looked unbearably flimsy, for something designed to hack into the mind of a god. Magic seemed to shimmer around it, in potential rather than reality … she found it hard to get a good idea of what it looked like, beyond a twisted network of crystals and metal etching boards. It existed in multiple different states simultaneously. She felt a flicker of admiration for her other self. Technomage Emily had gone further than she’d ever dreamed.\n\n“The responsibility is mine,” Emily said. “If you two want to go back …”\n\n“I'm not leaving,” Technomage Emily said. Beside her, Adam nodded. “This is going to be very informative.”\n\nAnd perhaps we’ll learn nothing more than the folly of trying to fight a god, Emily thought. It had been easy to talk about the plan in the safety of Whitehall, but here, surrounded by power on a scale she couldn’t comprehend and spellware so far beyond her understanding it might as well be godlike power, she found it hard to think clearly. The reality far outstripped her imagination. If this goes wrong …\n\nShe placed her hands against the device, silently grateful for Technomage Emily’s insights into magitech. The spellware rose up around her, a network so complex that she had to force herself to narrow her sight, to focus on a single fragment of the greater whole. Her mind ached as she started to insert herself into the spellware, telling herself – firmly – that an ant could bring down an elephant. Or a virus bring down a human … she kept pressing gently, trying to introduce new pieces of spellware into the network. She was hacking a god!\n\nMaster Wolfe’s thoughts felt odd, vast and slow and yet lightning-quick. She could feel them swimming through his mind, so far above her that it was impossible to get any solid idea of what he was thinking. Was he aware of her … she realised her mistake an instant too late. The moment she’d thought of him, she’d warned him … he knew she was here. A shock ran through the entire multiplicity, moving at infinite speed and yet trying to cover infinite ground … she cursed under her breath, thrusting her mind forward as his thoughts scattered. She’d been right! She was inside him. He couldn’t cut her out of his heart without cutting his own throat.\n\nMove, she told herself. She could feel his awareness thrashing about, suddenly very alert to the danger. He wasn’t remotely human any longer, but did he know it? Was he still limited by his concept of himself as a human? A sufficiently advanced computer program could scrutinise every last line of coding to find the virus or hidden backdoors; it could simply unleash a proper antiviral program to hunt down, isolate, and remove any threats to the system. There isn’t time …\n\nSomething slammed into her, the device shattering. Emily fell back into her own body, hard. Her head spun, a stab of pain shooting through her; she staggered back, tripping over herself and falling to the floor. Her vision was gone … no, her eyes were having problems adapting to the sudden change. She felt as if she were trapped in a holographic maze, a network of translucent structures … some real, some little more than illusion. It was hard to tell which ones were solid and which were … she closed her eyes and tried to focus. The world was spinning.\n\n“No!” There was real terror in Frieda’s voice. “Not you!”\n\nEmily opened her eyes. Frieda was shielding her. The device was a pile of debris. Adam was waving a wand, trying desperately to cast a spell, while Technomage Emily was on the ground …\n\nAnd, right in front of her, there was a pair of bright red eyes.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1004, "split": "holdout", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch12-P1", "chapter": "ch12", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized; red-eyed dark counterpart.\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized.\nShadye — capitalized.\nspellware — lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nTechnomage Emily opens the mirror; the team enters threadspace, sees multiversal cancer, and Adam confesses alternate selves; Emily tells him those lives are not him.\nA doppelganger projection steers them along living paths into Master Wolfe’s heart, where rewriting spellware and Hierarchy souls are woven into one multiplicity.\nThey hack; Emily’s thought of Wolfe alerts him; the device shatters; Frieda shields Emily; Technomage Emily is down; bright red eyes confront them at last.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nReeling after the failed hack; facing bright red eyes that resolve as Necromancer Emily — pale, raven-haired, starving aura, elegant dark dress, surprisingly refined necromantic spellware. Drained and desperate to make her listen.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nAlive and present; claims she is Emily without weakness; hunger and tainted power; not the crude blunt-force of Shadye’s kind. Dangerous and contemptuous of weakness.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nAlive; rejects the necromancer’s claim of identity; present in the fight about to unfold.\n\nAdam\nAlive; present; his knowledge will become a prize.\n\nFrieda\nAlive; has been shielding Emily; present.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nEmily once met an Evil Emily at Heart’s Eye; newborn necromancers often destroy themselves or fall to weaker rational foes — this one has not.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe placed her hands against the device, silently grateful for Technomage Emily’s insights into magitech. The spellware rose up around her, a network so complex that she had to force herself to narrow her sight, to focus on a single fragment of the greater whole. Her mind ached as she started to insert herself into the spellware, telling herself – firmly – that an ant could bring down an elephant. Or a virus bring down a human … she kept pressing gently, trying to introduce new pieces of spellware into the network. She was hacking a god!\n\nMaster Wolfe’s thoughts felt odd, vast and slow and yet lightning-quick. She could feel them swimming through his mind, so far above her that it was impossible to get any solid idea of what he was thinking. Was he aware of her … she realised her mistake an instant too late. The moment she’d thought of him, she’d warned him … he knew she was here. A shock ran through the entire multiplicity, moving at infinite speed and yet trying to cover infinite ground … she cursed under her breath, thrusting her mind forward as his thoughts scattered. She’d been right! She was inside him. He couldn’t cut her out of his heart without cutting his own throat.\n\nMove, she told herself. She could feel his awareness thrashing about, suddenly very alert to the danger. He wasn’t remotely human any longer, but did he know it? Was he still limited by his concept of himself as a human? A sufficiently advanced computer program could scrutinise every last line of coding to find the virus or hidden backdoors; it could simply unleash a proper antiviral program to hunt down, isolate, and remove any threats to the system. There isn’t time …\n\nSomething slammed into her, the device shattering. Emily fell back into her own body, hard. Her head spun, a stab of pain shooting through her; she staggered back, tripping over herself and falling to the floor. Her vision was gone … no, her eyes were having problems adapting to the sudden change. She felt as if she were trapped in a holographic maze, a network of translucent structures … some real, some little more than illusion. It was hard to tell which ones were solid and which were … she closed her eyes and tried to focus. The world was spinning.\n\n“No!” There was real terror in Frieda’s voice. “Not you!”\n\nEmily opened her eyes. Frieda was shielding her. The device was a pile of debris. Adam was waving a wand, trying desperately to cast a spell, while Technomage Emily was on the ground …\n\nAnd, right in front of her, there was a pair of bright red eyes.\n\n### NOTES\nStill in Master Wolfe’s heart-realm after the shattered hack.\nNecromancer Emily’s aura: tangled tainted magic; network of spellware elegant for a necromancer.\nCombat about to start in non-human space.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThe red eyes resolve into Necromancer Emily — wrong in a primal way, starving, black-dressed, spellware refined beyond Shadye’s blunt will. Emily tries to force a hearing; Technomage Emily denies the kinship; the necromancer insists they are the same except she is not weak. The confrontation escalates into violence and magic; Adam is caught in the exchange until Emily realizes everything he knows now belongs to her counterpart — they are in deep shit.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Visceral first contact with the necromancer; rising fight. Land on the recognition that Adam’s mind is compromised.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It was … herself.\n\nEmily stared, feeling time itself seeming to slow down to a trickle as her other self gazed back at her. It was harder to believe they were the same person, or an alternate version of the same person, and yet she knew it to be true. Necromancer Emily had raven-black hair, a face so pale it was practically bloodless, and bright red eyes alight with a hunger that could never be sated, but … Emily swallowed hard. Her counterpart was fundamentally wrong on a very primal level. Her outfit was striking, the kind of black pimped-out dress Emily would never have dared to wear herself, yet … it was hard to put her feelings into words. This was a person who didn’t have to care about anyone’s opinions. Anyone’s opinions but her own.\n\n“You …” Emily gritted her teeth. Was Necromancer Emily the same alternate she’d encountered years ago or was she someone else? Did the question have any meaning? There could be hundreds or thousands or millions of alternate worlds where she’d gone down a very dark path, too many for her peace of mind. “You have to listen to me.”\n\nNecromancer Emily stared at her for a long moment, the hunger clearly visible in her eyes. She was little different from Emily herself, in the body, and yet she gave the impression of being permanently on the verge of starvation. She was, if she were a necromancer. Emily could feel the tangled web of power surrounding her, the aura of tainted magic that had poisoned her mind and turned her into a monster. She might have avoided the fate of many newborn necromancers, when they lost control and destroyed themselves or let their madness leave them vulnerable to a weaker but more rational opponent, but that only made her all the more dangerous. The network of spellware surrounding her was surprisingly elegant, for a necromancer; Shadye and his peers had controlled their magic through sheer force of will, wielding power as a blunt instrument rather than any form of subtle manipulation, but this necromancer seemed to have found a way to make proper use of the vast magic at her disposal. Emily cursed under her breath. Nothing about her counterpart was going to be easy. The last time she’d faced an evil alternate had been quite bad enough.\n\n“You’re not me,” Technomage Emily said. “You’re not …”\n\n“I am you,” Necromancer Emily corrected. Her voice was odd, as if a multitude of voices were speaking in harmony. “We’re the same person. The only difference is that I am not weak!”\n\n“Listen to me,” Emily said. She kicked herself for the mistake. She’d underestimated Master Wolfe. Sure, he couldn’t get to them as long as they were lurking inside his body, and as long as they were watched by her bilocated counterpart, but there was no reason he couldn’t send someone else to get them. Set an Emily to catch an Emily. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so dire. “We have to stop him.”\n\n“Why?” Necromancer Emily seemed curious. “What does it matter if the universe dies?”\n\n“You’re not thinking,” Emily said, desperately. Necromancer Emily was mad. Of course she was. “It isn’t one universe, or many … it’s all of them. Everything is at risk. Everything!”\n\nNecromancer Emily seemed oddly amused. “Do you really think I care?”\n\nEmily swallowed. “You’re me …” – she shook her head and carried on – “and even if you don’t care about the universe, what of self-preservation? If he kills everything, he’ll kill you too.”\n\nNecromancer Emily leaned forward, her eyes blazing red. “What is life, when life is lived like this …?”\n\nShe raised her hand, throwing a curse. Emily jumped to one side, rather than try to deflect or block it. She didn’t recognise the spell, but the raw power behind it was frightening. Void hadn’t been that powerful and … she swallowed, again, as she recalled Void hadn’t been trying to kill her. He could have punched through her wards, if he’d wanted her dead … her counterpart lashed out again, throwing a second curse at Emily’s face. It was powerful enough to make her wards scream in agony, even though it only brushed against the edge of the spellware. Emily threw a force punch back, more to disconcert her counterpart than any hope of actually hurting her. It sank into the spellware surrounding the necromancer and vanished without trace.\n\nShit, Emily thought.\n\nTechnomage Emily was staring at the pile of rubble. Adam lunged forward, raising a mechanical wand and shoving it at the necromancer. Emily blinked in surprise as raw power cascaded around the tip of the wand, when it collided with the necromancer’s wards. It was absurd to think Adam could stand against her for a second and yet he was, the wand slowly being pushed right through her defences … beside him, Frieda hurled curse after curse, her face twisted with horror and rage. Necromancer Emily seemed oddly disconcerted by the attack, right up to the moment she stepped towards the wand and, moving with astonishing speed, grabbed Adam by the throat. He was a big man. She shouldn’t have been able to lift him. But she did.\n\n“And who,” Necromancer Emily asked coolly, “are you?”\n\nEmily shuddered as she felt the soul magic spinning around the two, her counterpart literally raping Adam’s mind and spilling his secrets … she’d never felt anything like it, save perhaps for a mimic, but this was something different. Adam screamed as his mind was violated, his thoughts ripped open and exposed … Emily felt her heart sink as she realised everything Adam knew now belonged to her counterpart. They were in deep shit.\n", "completion": "It was … herself.\n\nEmily stared, feeling time itself seeming to slow down to a trickle as her other self gazed back at her. It was harder to believe they were the same person, or an alternate version of the same person, and yet she knew it to be true. Necromancer Emily had raven-black hair, a face so pale it was practically bloodless, and bright red eyes alight with a hunger that could never be sated, but … Emily swallowed hard. Her counterpart was fundamentally wrong on a very primal level. Her outfit was striking, the kind of black pimped-out dress Emily would never have dared to wear herself, yet … it was hard to put her feelings into words. This was a person who didn’t have to care about anyone’s opinions. Anyone’s opinions but her own.\n\n“You …” Emily gritted her teeth. Was Necromancer Emily the same alternate she’d encountered years ago or was she someone else? Did the question have any meaning? There could be hundreds or thousands or millions of alternate worlds where she’d gone down a very dark path, too many for her peace of mind. “You have to listen to me.”\n\nNecromancer Emily stared at her for a long moment, the hunger clearly visible in her eyes. She was little different from Emily herself, in the body, and yet she gave the impression of being permanently on the verge of starvation. She was, if she were a necromancer. Emily could feel the tangled web of power surrounding her, the aura of tainted magic that had poisoned her mind and turned her into a monster. She might have avoided the fate of many newborn necromancers, when they lost control and destroyed themselves or let their madness leave them vulnerable to a weaker but more rational opponent, but that only made her all the more dangerous. The network of spellware surrounding her was surprisingly elegant, for a necromancer; Shadye and his peers had controlled their magic through sheer force of will, wielding power as a blunt instrument rather than any form of subtle manipulation, but this necromancer seemed to have found a way to make proper use of the vast magic at her disposal. Emily cursed under her breath. Nothing about her counterpart was going to be easy. The last time she’d faced an evil alternate had been quite bad enough.\n\n“You’re not me,” Technomage Emily said. “You’re not …”\n\n“I am you,” Necromancer Emily corrected. Her voice was odd, as if a multitude of voices were speaking in harmony. “We’re the same person. The only difference is that I am not weak!”\n\n“Listen to me,” Emily said. She kicked herself for the mistake. She’d underestimated Master Wolfe. Sure, he couldn’t get to them as long as they were lurking inside his body, and as long as they were watched by her bilocated counterpart, but there was no reason he couldn’t send someone else to get them. Set an Emily to catch an Emily. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so dire. “We have to stop him.”\n\n“Why?” Necromancer Emily seemed curious. “What does it matter if the universe dies?”\n\n“You’re not thinking,” Emily said, desperately. Necromancer Emily was mad. Of course she was. “It isn’t one universe, or many … it’s all of them. Everything is at risk. Everything!”\n\nNecromancer Emily seemed oddly amused. “Do you really think I care?”\n\nEmily swallowed. “You’re me …” – she shook her head and carried on – “and even if you don’t care about the universe, what of self-preservation? If he kills everything, he’ll kill you too.”\n\nNecromancer Emily leaned forward, her eyes blazing red. “What is life, when life is lived like this …?”\n\nShe raised her hand, throwing a curse. Emily jumped to one side, rather than try to deflect or block it. She didn’t recognise the spell, but the raw power behind it was frightening. Void hadn’t been that powerful and … she swallowed, again, as she recalled Void hadn’t been trying to kill her. He could have punched through her wards, if he’d wanted her dead … her counterpart lashed out again, throwing a second curse at Emily’s face. It was powerful enough to make her wards scream in agony, even though it only brushed against the edge of the spellware. Emily threw a force punch back, more to disconcert her counterpart than any hope of actually hurting her. It sank into the spellware surrounding the necromancer and vanished without trace.\n\nShit, Emily thought.\n\nTechnomage Emily was staring at the pile of rubble. Adam lunged forward, raising a mechanical wand and shoving it at the necromancer. Emily blinked in surprise as raw power cascaded around the tip of the wand, when it collided with the necromancer’s wards. It was absurd to think Adam could stand against her for a second and yet he was, the wand slowly being pushed right through her defences … beside him, Frieda hurled curse after curse, her face twisted with horror and rage. Necromancer Emily seemed oddly disconcerted by the attack, right up to the moment she stepped towards the wand and, moving with astonishing speed, grabbed Adam by the throat. He was a big man. She shouldn’t have been able to lift him. But she did.\n\n“And who,” Necromancer Emily asked coolly, “are you?”\n\nEmily shuddered as she felt the soul magic spinning around the two, her counterpart literally raping Adam’s mind and spilling his secrets … she’d never felt anything like it, save perhaps for a mimic, but this was something different. Adam screamed as his mind was violated, his thoughts ripped open and exposed … Emily felt her heart sink as she realised everything Adam knew now belonged to her counterpart. They were in deep shit.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 978, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch12-P2", "chapter": "ch12", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "front", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nThe hack on Master Wolfe fails when Emily’s attention alerts him; red eyes resolve into Necromancer Emily, refined and starving, who claims she is Emily without weakness.\nFighting erupts in the heart-realm as Technomage Emily denies the kinship and Emily tries to force a hearing through hunger, contempt, and tainted spellware.\nAdam is seized in the exchange until Emily realizes his knowledge now belongs to the necromancer, and the four of them are suddenly in deep shit.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill fighting after Adam’s compromise; watching Necromancer Emily discard him; protecting what she can of Technomage Emily and Frieda. Horrified at mind damage.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nAlive; hurls Adam into nothingness; engages the others with contempt and power.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nAlive; screams for Adam; present and fighting.\n\nAdam\nAlive but discarded into nothingness; mind likely badly damaged; may not even know what happened.\n\nFrieda\nAlive; present in the melee.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“You’re not thinking,” Emily said, desperately. Necromancer Emily was mad. Of course she was. “It isn’t one universe, or many … it’s all of them. Everything is at risk. Everything!”\n\nNecromancer Emily seemed oddly amused. “Do you really think I care?”\n\nEmily swallowed. “You’re me …” – she shook her head and carried on – “and even if you don’t care about the universe, what of self-preservation? If he kills everything, he’ll kill you too.”\n\nNecromancer Emily leaned forward, her eyes blazing red. “What is life, when life is lived like this …?”\n\nShe raised her hand, throwing a curse. Emily jumped to one side, rather than try to deflect or block it. She didn’t recognise the spell, but the raw power behind it was frightening. Void hadn’t been that powerful and … she swallowed, again, as she recalled Void hadn’t been trying to kill her. He could have punched through her wards, if he’d wanted her dead … her counterpart lashed out again, throwing a second curse at Emily’s face. It was powerful enough to make her wards scream in agony, even though it only brushed against the edge of the spellware. Emily threw a force punch back, more to disconcert her counterpart than any hope of actually hurting her. It sank into the spellware surrounding the necromancer and vanished without trace.\n\nShit, Emily thought.\n\nTechnomage Emily was staring at the pile of rubble. Adam lunged forward, raising a mechanical wand and shoving it at the necromancer. Emily blinked in surprise as raw power cascaded around the tip of the wand, when it collided with the necromancer’s wards. It was absurd to think Adam could stand against her for a second and yet he was, the wand slowly being pushed right through her defences … beside him, Frieda hurled curse after curse, her face twisted with horror and rage. Necromancer Emily seemed oddly disconcerted by the attack, right up to the moment she stepped towards the wand and, moving with astonishing speed, grabbed Adam by the throat. He was a big man. She shouldn’t have been able to lift him. But she did.\n\n“And who,” Necromancer Emily asked coolly, “are you?”\n\nEmily shuddered as she felt the soul magic spinning around the two, her counterpart literally raping Adam’s mind and spilling his secrets … she’d never felt anything like it, save perhaps for a mimic, but this was something different. Adam screamed as his mind was violated, his thoughts ripped open and exposed … Emily felt her heart sink as she realised everything Adam knew now belonged to her counterpart. They were in deep shit.\n\n### NOTES\nHeart-realm still non-Euclidean; Adam’s body can be hurled into apparent nothingness.\nMind-damage may leave a victim unaware of the injury.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nNecromancer Emily tosses Adam aside into nothingness; Technomage Emily screams; the fight tears onward as Emily measures how far her counterpart will go. Adam’s mind may already be wrecked beyond awareness — a mercy or a horror — and Emily has to keep moving while that cost sinks in.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Brutal mid-fight aftermath; keep Adam’s fate unresolved and ugly. Land on the mercy-or-horror beat.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Necromancer Emily tossed Adam aside, hurling his body into nothingness. Technomage Emily screamed, in horror and loss, and cast a spell of her own, channelling it through her wand. The power rose sharply, her magic crackling against her counterpart’s … Emily forced herself to think, even as she cast a handful of spells of her own. They couldn’t win a contest of raw power, not against a necromancer and … there was nowhere to run, unless they wanted to jump out of the threadlines completely. She could feel the internal dimensions of the godform shifting around them. There was nowhere to hide.\n\n“You killed him,” Technomage Emily screamed. “You killed him …”\n\n“And he took advantage of you,” Necromancer Emily said. She sounded disgusted. “You could have made yourself great, if you’d stood up for yourself just once. But you let him walk all over you.”\n\n“He didn’t,” Technomage Emily said. Her magic faded. “He …”\n\n“You were so scared of losing him that you never pushed back, not once,” Necromancer Emily said, contemptuously. “You could have put him in his place with ease. You could have turned him into a toad or a slave or a pile of ashes and no one would have given a damn. But instead, you put up with his mistreatment because you were afraid of losing him. You’re a weak little creature, no better than our mother. She let him abuse us because she was fearful he would leave.”\n\n“Enough,” Emily said. Necromancer Emily was expressing the same doubts she’d had about herself, and her counterpart. “It’s me you want, not her.”\n\n“I want all of you,” Necromancer Emily hissed. “I’ll be the only Emily when all is said and done.”\n\n“The last person in a universe dominated by a mad god,” Emily said. Did Necromancer Emily dream of supplementing Master Wolfe? That wouldn’t work out well – or would it? She had all Adam’s knowledge now, and more than enough power to conjure anything she might need to duplicate the device they’d built. “There’s no happy ending for any of us if he wins.”\n\nShe glanced at Frieda, who shot her a questioning look. Emily didn’t know what to do. There was no way they could win, unless she pulled a rabbit out of her hat, and her counterpart was … was her. Necromancer Emily could presumably anticipate anything she could do and that meant … shit. Master Wolfe had chosen his champion well. A handful of ideas ran through her mind, each crazier than the last. None were likely to work, not against an opponent who could predict her every move. What could she do?\n\n“You killed him,” Technomage Emily said. “He was my everything and you killed him.”\n\n“You sound like a bad romantic heroine,” Necromancer Emily said, dismissively. “You only loved him because you saw no alternative. You never met others because he kept you from them. You were trapped in a web of deceit you lacked the experience to see …”\n\nTechnomage Emily lashed out, her magic boiling on the air as she pulled a handful of devices from her belt and unleashed hell. Necromancer Emily staggered under the blow, her spellware seeming to weaken as raw power battered her defences. Emily closed her eyes for a long moment and reached out, trying to analyse the spell-structure before it tightened up again. It was strikingly complex and yet … it shouldn’t have existed at all. She’d never seen anything like it. It moved in response to her counterpart’s thoughts and … had she turned herself into a mimic? It was difficult to believe, and yet it was possible …\n\nNecromancer Emily snapped back, a blast of raw magic slamming into Technomage Emily’s defences. She was hurled backwards, right towards the threadlines … Emily barely managed to summon her before she fell out of reality itself. Necromancer Emily giggled – an insane sound – and turned to face Emily, shrugging off Frieda’s curses as if they were droplets of water. Perhaps they were, to her.\n\n“Now,” she said, walking forward. “There’s nowhere to run.”\n\nEmily felt reality itself twisting around them and knew her counterpart was right. The interdimensional walls were closing in, trapping her. Raw power and madness beat on the air as Necromancer Emily approached, her bright red eyes boring into hers. Emily shuddered, helplessly, as the magic grew stronger. It felt as if someone was molesting her, ghostly hands running over her body and slipping under her clothes … she gritted her teeth, trying to think of something – anything – before it was too late. Her counterpart was just too powerful. Her insanity only made it worse. She had no moral limits, no sense there was anything like justice or morality …\n\nShe closed her eyes, braced herself, and split her attention as much as she dared. She didn’t dare risk bilocating again, not when she was already in two places at once, but … she focused and cast an attacking spell, trying to keep her counterpart’s attention on her as much as possible. The spell was strong enough to be dangerous, vague enough to keep the target from blocking her with a single counterspell … hopefully, distracting her long enough for the real attack to work. Emily reached out with her mind, trying to sneak into her counterpart’s defences. They were the same person, as much as she hated to admit it. She didn’t know how her counterpart had shaped her wards, but she had the same magical signature and … the trick had worked once before. This time … this time, it might work again.\n\nRed fire cascaded against her mind as she touched utter madness, a raging storm of raw power that threatened to burn her thoughts to ash. Images shot through her mind – Sergeant Miles, Imaiqah, Jade, Alassa – each one twisted and perverted, as if everything good and decent about them had been warped into something monstrous. She staggered backwards as one memory hit her – Jade had been inside her, but she’d been inside him­ – her gorge rising in naked horror at just what her counterpart had done. She’d hollowed him out from within, stripping out everything that made him a good person and replacing it with servitude, damaging his mind so badly that he might not even be aware of what had happened to him. Perhaps that was a mercy, of sorts. Or perhaps …\n", "completion": "Necromancer Emily tossed Adam aside, hurling his body into nothingness. Technomage Emily screamed, in horror and loss, and cast a spell of her own, channelling it through her wand. The power rose sharply, her magic crackling against her counterpart’s … Emily forced herself to think, even as she cast a handful of spells of her own. They couldn’t win a contest of raw power, not against a necromancer and … there was nowhere to run, unless they wanted to jump out of the threadlines completely. She could feel the internal dimensions of the godform shifting around them. There was nowhere to hide.\n\n“You killed him,” Technomage Emily screamed. “You killed him …”\n\n“And he took advantage of you,” Necromancer Emily said. She sounded disgusted. “You could have made yourself great, if you’d stood up for yourself just once. But you let him walk all over you.”\n\n“He didn’t,” Technomage Emily said. Her magic faded. “He …”\n\n“You were so scared of losing him that you never pushed back, not once,” Necromancer Emily said, contemptuously. “You could have put him in his place with ease. You could have turned him into a toad or a slave or a pile of ashes and no one would have given a damn. But instead, you put up with his mistreatment because you were afraid of losing him. You’re a weak little creature, no better than our mother. She let him abuse us because she was fearful he would leave.”\n\n“Enough,” Emily said. Necromancer Emily was expressing the same doubts she’d had about herself, and her counterpart. “It’s me you want, not her.”\n\n“I want all of you,” Necromancer Emily hissed. “I’ll be the only Emily when all is said and done.”\n\n“The last person in a universe dominated by a mad god,” Emily said. Did Necromancer Emily dream of supplementing Master Wolfe? That wouldn’t work out well – or would it? She had all Adam’s knowledge now, and more than enough power to conjure anything she might need to duplicate the device they’d built. “There’s no happy ending for any of us if he wins.”\n\nShe glanced at Frieda, who shot her a questioning look. Emily didn’t know what to do. There was no way they could win, unless she pulled a rabbit out of her hat, and her counterpart was … was her. Necromancer Emily could presumably anticipate anything she could do and that meant … shit. Master Wolfe had chosen his champion well. A handful of ideas ran through her mind, each crazier than the last. None were likely to work, not against an opponent who could predict her every move. What could she do?\n\n“You killed him,” Technomage Emily said. “He was my everything and you killed him.”\n\n“You sound like a bad romantic heroine,” Necromancer Emily said, dismissively. “You only loved him because you saw no alternative. You never met others because he kept you from them. You were trapped in a web of deceit you lacked the experience to see …”\n\nTechnomage Emily lashed out, her magic boiling on the air as she pulled a handful of devices from her belt and unleashed hell. Necromancer Emily staggered under the blow, her spellware seeming to weaken as raw power battered her defences. Emily closed her eyes for a long moment and reached out, trying to analyse the spell-structure before it tightened up again. It was strikingly complex and yet … it shouldn’t have existed at all. She’d never seen anything like it. It moved in response to her counterpart’s thoughts and … had she turned herself into a mimic? It was difficult to believe, and yet it was possible …\n\nNecromancer Emily snapped back, a blast of raw magic slamming into Technomage Emily’s defences. She was hurled backwards, right towards the threadlines … Emily barely managed to summon her before she fell out of reality itself. Necromancer Emily giggled – an insane sound – and turned to face Emily, shrugging off Frieda’s curses as if they were droplets of water. Perhaps they were, to her.\n\n“Now,” she said, walking forward. “There’s nowhere to run.”\n\nEmily felt reality itself twisting around them and knew her counterpart was right. The interdimensional walls were closing in, trapping her. Raw power and madness beat on the air as Necromancer Emily approached, her bright red eyes boring into hers. Emily shuddered, helplessly, as the magic grew stronger. It felt as if someone was molesting her, ghostly hands running over her body and slipping under her clothes … she gritted her teeth, trying to think of something – anything – before it was too late. Her counterpart was just too powerful. Her insanity only made it worse. She had no moral limits, no sense there was anything like justice or morality …\n\nShe closed her eyes, braced herself, and split her attention as much as she dared. She didn’t dare risk bilocating again, not when she was already in two places at once, but … she focused and cast an attacking spell, trying to keep her counterpart’s attention on her as much as possible. The spell was strong enough to be dangerous, vague enough to keep the target from blocking her with a single counterspell … hopefully, distracting her long enough for the real attack to work. Emily reached out with her mind, trying to sneak into her counterpart’s defences. They were the same person, as much as she hated to admit it. She didn’t know how her counterpart had shaped her wards, but she had the same magical signature and … the trick had worked once before. This time … this time, it might work again.\n\nRed fire cascaded against her mind as she touched utter madness, a raging storm of raw power that threatened to burn her thoughts to ash. Images shot through her mind – Sergeant Miles, Imaiqah, Jade, Alassa – each one twisted and perverted, as if everything good and decent about them had been warped into something monstrous. She staggered backwards as one memory hit her – Jade had been inside her, but she’d been inside him­ – her gorge rising in naked horror at just what her counterpart had done. She’d hollowed him out from within, stripping out everything that made him a good person and replacing it with servitude, damaging his mind so badly that he might not even be aware of what had happened to him. Perhaps that was a mercy, of sorts. Or perhaps …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1077, "split": "train", "region": "front", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch12-P3", "chapter": "ch12", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nNecromancer Emily appears at Master Wolfe’s heart after the failed hack; she claims superiority over weak Emilys and seizes advantage through Adam’s compromised mind.\nShe hurls Adam into nothingness while Technomage Emily screams; the fight continues amid likely permanent mental damage that may leave him unaware of the theft.\nEmily begins to understand her counterpart’s bitterness and resentment even as the battle leaves no room for pity and a scream of rage and fear cuts the air.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nGrasping that Necromancer Emily’s path was an accident of bitterness and resentment; still in lethal danger; listening for what comes next.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nAlive; bitter, resentment-driven; dangerous whether the origin was accident or choice.\n\nTechnomage Emily\nAlive; present; Adam lost to the throw.\n\nFrieda\nAlive; present.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nNecromancer Emily snapped back, a blast of raw magic slamming into Technomage Emily’s defences. She was hurled backwards, right towards the threadlines … Emily barely managed to summon her before she fell out of reality itself. Necromancer Emily giggled – an insane sound – and turned to face Emily, shrugging off Frieda’s curses as if they were droplets of water. Perhaps they were, to her.\n\n“Now,” she said, walking forward. “There’s nowhere to run.”\n\nEmily felt reality itself twisting around them and knew her counterpart was right. The interdimensional walls were closing in, trapping her. Raw power and madness beat on the air as Necromancer Emily approached, her bright red eyes boring into hers. Emily shuddered, helplessly, as the magic grew stronger. It felt as if someone was molesting her, ghostly hands running over her body and slipping under her clothes … she gritted her teeth, trying to think of something – anything – before it was too late. Her counterpart was just too powerful. Her insanity only made it worse. She had no moral limits, no sense there was anything like justice or morality …\n\nShe closed her eyes, braced herself, and split her attention as much as she dared. She didn’t dare risk bilocating again, not when she was already in two places at once, but … she focused and cast an attacking spell, trying to keep her counterpart’s attention on her as much as possible. The spell was strong enough to be dangerous, vague enough to keep the target from blocking her with a single counterspell … hopefully, distracting her long enough for the real attack to work. Emily reached out with her mind, trying to sneak into her counterpart’s defences. They were the same person, as much as she hated to admit it. She didn’t know how her counterpart had shaped her wards, but she had the same magical signature and … the trick had worked once before. This time … this time, it might work again.\n\nRed fire cascaded against her mind as she touched utter madness, a raging storm of raw power that threatened to burn her thoughts to ash. Images shot through her mind – Sergeant Miles, Imaiqah, Jade, Alassa – each one twisted and perverted, as if everything good and decent about them had been warped into something monstrous. She staggered backwards as one memory hit her – Jade had been inside her, but she’d been inside him­ – her gorge rising in naked horror at just what her counterpart had done. She’d hollowed him out from within, stripping out everything that made him a good person and replacing it with servitude, damaging his mind so badly that he might not even be aware of what had happened to him. Perhaps that was a mercy, of sorts. Or perhaps …\n\n### NOTES\nCombat space still Master Wolfe’s heart-adjacent thread realm.\nA scream of rage and fear is about to cut through.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily understands, dully, that her counterpart is a bitter woman shaped by resentment and accident as much as choice — insight that does not make her safer. The fight’s momentum carries forward under that bitter recognition until a scream of rage and fear tears the air and ends the beat mid-crisis.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Bitter recognition under fire; break off on the scream. Do not identify the screamer in DIRECTIVE.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It was an accident, she realised dully. Her counterpart was a bitter woman, driven by resentments and the drunken sensation that came with having power without the maturity to handle it. She wanted to make him suffer.\n\nThe sheer complexity of the spellware enveloped her. It was closely linked to her mind – naturally – but in a manner that let it manipulate and channel power … she thought, suddenly, of the magiwriter and cursed under her breath. It was as if she’d linked her mind to a powerful computer and then … she had to admire the raw brilliance of the spellware, even as she recoiled. It absorbed and channelled the power of human sacrifice without any danger of losing control. No necromancer ever born could do that, indefinitely, or so she’d thought. Her counterpart had managed it. And it made her effectively unstoppable.\n\nGET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT!\n\nEmily staggered back, her mind falling back into her own body as Necromancer Emily shoved her out. Her eyes snapped open, revealing her counterpart was right on top of her. She was far too close …\n\n“Did you like what you saw?” Necromancer Emily leaned forward. The cold anger in her voice was striking. “Did you?”\n\n“No.” Emily gritted her teeth as she tried, desperately, to think of a plan. If she reached out and wrenched the spellware apart … it might kill everyone, literally. The explosion would be right at the core of a godlike entity, one linked to uncounted billions of timelines. Would it rip the entire universe asunder? She didn’t know. There were too many variables for her to take the risk. “You’re insane.”\n\n“And you’re a fool,” Necromancer Emily said. She reached out and grabbed Emily’s neck, oddly bony fingers burning hot against her skin. “Now …”\n\nEmily barely had a second to react before something slammed into her mind. Her shields tightened automatically, but parted uselessly a moment later … of course they did. They were the same person, and Necromancer Emily had finally realised it. Her thoughts lay open … she felt sick, feeling her counterpart rustling through her thoughts and memories, yet she could barely move. She tried to shove her out, but … it was too late. A wave of pure horror ran through her. She was beaten. It was over.\n\nTechnomage Emily shoved a device into Necromancer Emily’s back. She screamed in agony, letting go of Emily and stumbling back. Emily retched helplessly, feeling someone help her to her feet … her vision was so blurred it took her a second to realise it was Frieda. The other two Emilys were fighting like mad, spellware crackling around them as Technomage Emily conjured devices out of raw magic and threw them at her dark counterpart. Her face was streaked with tears – she’d loved Adam, even if their relationship had been far from healthy – and yet she kept fighting. She didn’t want to live any longer.\n\n“I can’t touch her,” Frieda said, as Emily leaned against her. She looked as drained as Emily felt … Emily wondered, numbly, why she was still alive. Necromancer Emily might not have met her counterpart any more than she’d met Adam’s. “She’s too strong.”\n\nEmily nodded in grim agreement. She’d only been able to make progress because they were the same person and it hadn’t been enough, even for her. Technomage Emily was fighting well, but it was clear she didn’t have the experience to make a stand … Necromancer Emily was slowly winning, her magic burning through the conjured devices and tearing into Technomage Emily’s defences. Her wards were nowhere near as solid as Emily’s and Emily’s had taken one hell of a beating. Emily wracked her mind for an idea and drew a blank. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t hide, they couldn’t fight … and she didn’t dare gamble with everything. She couldn’t even get them out of the threadlines and back into the multiverse.\n\nShe reached out with her mind, studying her counterpart’s magic … and how it was linked to the mirrors. Necromancer Emily was linked to a specific timeline … the one the first alternate had come from or one very much like it. Emily didn’t know and she had no time to check. Necromancer Emily could follow them everywhere, except … could they hide in her shadow? Would it be enough …?\n\nTechnomage Emily screamed as a blade of raw magic sliced through her defences and straight into her heart. Power crackled around her, the remnants of her life force slipping out of her body and straight into Necromancer Emily’s spellware. Emily felt sick just looking at it … it was a kind of cannibalism, her counterpart eating a person’s magic and life force to keep herself alive a few days longer. Necromancer Emily raised her head and looked at Emily, a sickeningly pleasant smile on her face. She’d enjoyed eating her counterpart’s soul.\n\nThere was no time to mourn. Emily grabbed Frieda’s hand and, throwing caution to the winds, reached out for the threadlines surrounding Necromancer Emily. The world twisted around them, going white as they fell through the interstices and out of Master Wolfe’s godform … she was aware of his shadow, his presence, radiating utter satisfaction at her defeat. She had lost to herself and … the threadlines shifted again, a series of impressions assaulting her mind. Frieda jerked suddenly, her hand yanked away before Emily could tighten her grip … there was a sense of falling, the world screaming around them, the light painfully bright before going black with a sudden terrible finality. She felt the mirror shattering around her as she fell through, landing hard on her backside. Her eyes snapped open. The world was dim and yet oppressively warm …\n\nAnd then she heard the scream of rage and fear.\n", "completion": "It was an accident, she realised dully. Her counterpart was a bitter woman, driven by resentments and the drunken sensation that came with having power without the maturity to handle it. She wanted to make him suffer.\n\nThe sheer complexity of the spellware enveloped her. It was closely linked to her mind – naturally – but in a manner that let it manipulate and channel power … she thought, suddenly, of the magiwriter and cursed under her breath. It was as if she’d linked her mind to a powerful computer and then … she had to admire the raw brilliance of the spellware, even as she recoiled. It absorbed and channelled the power of human sacrifice without any danger of losing control. No necromancer ever born could do that, indefinitely, or so she’d thought. Her counterpart had managed it. And it made her effectively unstoppable.\n\nGET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT!\n\nEmily staggered back, her mind falling back into her own body as Necromancer Emily shoved her out. Her eyes snapped open, revealing her counterpart was right on top of her. She was far too close …\n\n“Did you like what you saw?” Necromancer Emily leaned forward. The cold anger in her voice was striking. “Did you?”\n\n“No.” Emily gritted her teeth as she tried, desperately, to think of a plan. If she reached out and wrenched the spellware apart … it might kill everyone, literally. The explosion would be right at the core of a godlike entity, one linked to uncounted billions of timelines. Would it rip the entire universe asunder? She didn’t know. There were too many variables for her to take the risk. “You’re insane.”\n\n“And you’re a fool,” Necromancer Emily said. She reached out and grabbed Emily’s neck, oddly bony fingers burning hot against her skin. “Now …”\n\nEmily barely had a second to react before something slammed into her mind. Her shields tightened automatically, but parted uselessly a moment later … of course they did. They were the same person, and Necromancer Emily had finally realised it. Her thoughts lay open … she felt sick, feeling her counterpart rustling through her thoughts and memories, yet she could barely move. She tried to shove her out, but … it was too late. A wave of pure horror ran through her. She was beaten. It was over.\n\nTechnomage Emily shoved a device into Necromancer Emily’s back. She screamed in agony, letting go of Emily and stumbling back. Emily retched helplessly, feeling someone help her to her feet … her vision was so blurred it took her a second to realise it was Frieda. The other two Emilys were fighting like mad, spellware crackling around them as Technomage Emily conjured devices out of raw magic and threw them at her dark counterpart. Her face was streaked with tears – she’d loved Adam, even if their relationship had been far from healthy – and yet she kept fighting. She didn’t want to live any longer.\n\n“I can’t touch her,” Frieda said, as Emily leaned against her. She looked as drained as Emily felt … Emily wondered, numbly, why she was still alive. Necromancer Emily might not have met her counterpart any more than she’d met Adam’s. “She’s too strong.”\n\nEmily nodded in grim agreement. She’d only been able to make progress because they were the same person and it hadn’t been enough, even for her. Technomage Emily was fighting well, but it was clear she didn’t have the experience to make a stand … Necromancer Emily was slowly winning, her magic burning through the conjured devices and tearing into Technomage Emily’s defences. Her wards were nowhere near as solid as Emily’s and Emily’s had taken one hell of a beating. Emily wracked her mind for an idea and drew a blank. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t hide, they couldn’t fight … and she didn’t dare gamble with everything. She couldn’t even get them out of the threadlines and back into the multiverse.\n\nShe reached out with her mind, studying her counterpart’s magic … and how it was linked to the mirrors. Necromancer Emily was linked to a specific timeline … the one the first alternate had come from or one very much like it. Emily didn’t know and she had no time to check. Necromancer Emily could follow them everywhere, except … could they hide in her shadow? Would it be enough …?\n\nTechnomage Emily screamed as a blade of raw magic sliced through her defences and straight into her heart. Power crackled around her, the remnants of her life force slipping out of her body and straight into Necromancer Emily’s spellware. Emily felt sick just looking at it … it was a kind of cannibalism, her counterpart eating a person’s magic and life force to keep herself alive a few days longer. Necromancer Emily raised her head and looked at Emily, a sickeningly pleasant smile on her face. She’d enjoyed eating her counterpart’s soul.\n\nThere was no time to mourn. Emily grabbed Frieda’s hand and, throwing caution to the winds, reached out for the threadlines surrounding Necromancer Emily. The world twisted around them, going white as they fell through the interstices and out of Master Wolfe’s godform … she was aware of his shadow, his presence, radiating utter satisfaction at her defeat. She had lost to herself and … the threadlines shifted again, a series of impressions assaulting her mind. Frieda jerked suddenly, her hand yanked away before Emily could tighten her grip … there was a sense of falling, the world screaming around them, the light painfully bright before going black with a sudden terrible finality. She felt the mirror shattering around her as she fell through, landing hard on her backside. Her eyes snapped open. The world was dim and yet oppressively warm …\n\nAnd then she heard the scream of rage and fear.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 987, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch13-P1", "chapter": "ch13", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized; this timeline’s scarred queen/ally.\nJade — capitalized; muscular companion with sword here.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized when the dark counterpart is meant.\nDesert of Death — place name; capitalize as written.\n\n### STORY\nNecromancer Emily wrecks the heart-hack, seizes Adam’s knowledge, and hurls him aside; Technomage Emily screams; a scream of rage and fear tears through the realm.\nEmily is ripped out of that fight into another place and moment, dangerously drained, magic wild and tainted around her as hard ground hits her spine.\nA naked scarred Alassa lands on her with a cursed blade while a barbarian-muscled Jade rushes in with a sword, ready to kill the face they fear.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nDangerously drained after the prior fight; just slammed to hard ground under a naked blonde attacker with a cursed blade; magic wild and tainted around her. Must convince this Alassa she is friend, not Necromancer Emily.\n\nAlassa\nThis timeline’s Alassa: thinner, blonde shading white, scarred face, damaged magic, desperate. Attacks with a knife rather than spells. May become an ally if convinced Emily is real.\n\nJade\nNaked muscular swordsman rushing to Alassa; will be frozen by Emily’s spell. Companion/lover figure in this camp. Not Emily’s Jade.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nNecromancer Emily wears Emily’s face and has been tormenting this world’s survivors; anyone seeing Emily’s features may assume she is the enemy.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily nodded in grim agreement. She’d only been able to make progress because they were the same person and it hadn’t been enough, even for her. Technomage Emily was fighting well, but it was clear she didn’t have the experience to make a stand … Necromancer Emily was slowly winning, her magic burning through the conjured devices and tearing into Technomage Emily’s defences. Her wards were nowhere near as solid as Emily’s and Emily’s had taken one hell of a beating. Emily wracked her mind for an idea and drew a blank. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t hide, they couldn’t fight … and she didn’t dare gamble with everything. She couldn’t even get them out of the threadlines and back into the multiverse.\n\nShe reached out with her mind, studying her counterpart’s magic … and how it was linked to the mirrors. Necromancer Emily was linked to a specific timeline … the one the first alternate had come from or one very much like it. Emily didn’t know and she had no time to check. Necromancer Emily could follow them everywhere, except … could they hide in her shadow? Would it be enough …?\n\nTechnomage Emily screamed as a blade of raw magic sliced through her defences and straight into her heart. Power crackled around her, the remnants of her life force slipping out of her body and straight into Necromancer Emily’s spellware. Emily felt sick just looking at it … it was a kind of cannibalism, her counterpart eating a person’s magic and life force to keep herself alive a few days longer. Necromancer Emily raised her head and looked at Emily, a sickeningly pleasant smile on her face. She’d enjoyed eating her counterpart’s soul.\n\nThere was no time to mourn. Emily grabbed Frieda’s hand and, throwing caution to the winds, reached out for the threadlines surrounding Necromancer Emily. The world twisted around them, going white as they fell through the interstices and out of Master Wolfe’s godform … she was aware of his shadow, his presence, radiating utter satisfaction at her defeat. She had lost to herself and … the threadlines shifted again, a series of impressions assaulting her mind. Frieda jerked suddenly, her hand yanked away before Emily could tighten her grip … there was a sense of falling, the world screaming around them, the light painfully bright before going black with a sudden terrible finality. She felt the mirror shattering around her as she fell through, landing hard on her backside. Her eyes snapped open. The world was dim and yet oppressively warm …\n\nAnd then she heard the scream of rage and fear.\n\n### NOTES\nHard ground; attacker naked; cursed blade; wild tainted magic in the air.\nEmily’s magic is drained; focus is difficult.\nA refugee/war camp context surrounds them though the tent interior is not yet walked.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nSomeone lands on her hard — a naked scarred Alassa driving a cursed blade at her head. Emily catches the wrist, nearly stunned, magic tainted and hard to cast. A muscular Jade rushes with a sword; she freezes him and stares up at this thinner, white-shaded, scarred Alassa who does not know her. She forces recognition — it’s me — and fights to keep the knife off her skin until fear and rage can turn toward alliance. If this is real they can work together; if not, at least it will be over quickly.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Close-quarters shock and recognition; keep the knife threat live. Land on Alassa’s conditional alliance line.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Someone landed on top of her, hard.\n\nEmily grunted in pain, barely managing to catch her attacker’s wrist before she drove the blade into her head. The attacker was naked, a naked woman, blonde hair brushing against Emily’s skin as she tried to yank her hand free and knife Emily … Emily felt her head swim as it was knocked against the hard ground underneath her, the impact nearly stunning her. Magic, wild and yet tainted, swirled around her. It was hard to focus, harder still to cast a spell. She was dangerously drained.\n\n“You,” a familiar voice snapped. “You …”\n\n“Alassa,” another voice snapped. Emily glanced to the side and saw a naked man, so muscular that he could have passed for a barbarian right out of a dubious romantic novel. He was holding a sword, hurrying towards them. “Alassa …”\n\nEmily froze him with a spell and looked up. Alassa … it was Alassa, but it wasn’t her Alassa. The woman on top of her, eyes wide with fear and rage, was thinner, her blonde hair shading to white and a nasty scar marring her too-perfect face … her magic felt damaged, as if she’d pushed it too far too fast. She certainly hadn’t tried to attack Emily with magic … why had she attacked in the first place? They were friends, weren’t they? They were, but perhaps not here.\n\n“It’s me,” Emily managed. Alassa was stronger than she looked, but this Alassa was stronger too. It was hard to keep the knife, the cursed blade, from her skin. “Alassa …”\n\n“You come here?” Alassa broke free and raised her blade. “You dare …”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. “I surrender,” she said. “Why …”\n\nAlassa stared at her, then glanced at Hedrick. “You didn’t kill him …?”\n\n“No!” Emily took a long breath. Hedrick had been an intolerable ass in her timeline, a picture-perfect upper-class twit, but she wouldn’t have killed him on a whim. There’d certainly been no need to kill him. Hedrick had no magic and could be stopped in his tracks by a simple spell. “Alassa, what happened here?”\n\nAlassa shifted backwards, straddling her. “One false move and I gut you,” she said. There was a hint of hope in her voice, mingled with fear. “You get me?”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily managed. She was starting to have a very nasty idea of just what had gone so badly wrong in this timeline. “There’s another me here, isn’t there?”\n\nThe question was wishful thinking, she realised dully. She’d followed Necromancer Emily’s threadlines … she was either in that alternate’s home timeline or one very close to it. She wasn’t sure how much of what she’d yanked from her counterpart’s mind was useful here, if the timeline was just close enough to be misleading rather than her homeworld, but … there was little to reassure her in those memories. Alassa looked like a shell-shocked veteran, a soldier who had been pushed far past the breaking point, and the wards around her felt dangerously frayed. And …\n\nAlassa looked her up and down, her eyes missing nothing. “What are you?”\n\nEmily swallowed. “It’s kind of a long story,” she said, her mind racing. Where was Frieda? There was no sign of her in the tent. “Can I sit up?”\n\n“You don’t like being sat on by a naked woman?” Alassa’s voice was more contemplative than thoughtful. “Your hair is different and your eyes …”\n\nShe leaned forward, one hand brushing against Emily’s forehead. Emily braced herself as she felt Alassa’s magic crawling over her, looking for glamours and subtle compulsion spells and other tricks that might convince the unwary to believe whatever she said. There were none to be found … of course not. Every instinct in Emily's body screamed at her to push Alassa away before it was too late, but she held herself still. Alassa had been through a lot in her world; this Alassa had been through a great deal more. The fear in her eyes was bone-chilling.\n\n“Emily,” Alassa said, finally. “What happened to you?”\n\n“I need to cast a truth spell,” Emily said. “You won’t believe me otherwise.”\n\n“One spell.” Alassa held the knife at the ready. “Do it slowly and carefully and don’t try to do anything else.”\n\nEmily nodded and put the spell together piece by piece, allowing Alassa to see every piece of spellware slotting neatly into place. A memory darted though her mind – she hadn’t had to do anything like that since she’d taught Marah the basics of magic – and vanished as quickly as it had come. There was no time to dwell on her failures as she cast the spell, a ball of green light materialising over her chest. Alassa tensed, her fingers gripping the knife so tightly they turned white. She looked as if she expected to be attacked, by surprise, at any moment.\n\n“It’s like this,” Emily said. She ran through the whole story, from Master Wolfe’s ascension to godhood to their failed attempt to stop him, the death of Technomage Emily and Adam and her own desperate leap back into the multiverse. “And” – she took a breath – “there’s another version of me here, isn’t there?”\n\nAlassa studied her for a long moment, her eyes grim. She’d always been far better at reading people than Emily herself, once she’d become her father’s acknowledged heir and later ruler of the kingdom, but this Alassa … she might not have the skill of her counterpart. It was clear she didn’t trust Emily – her Emily – either. And … Alassa had nerve as well as brains and magic, a willingness to gamble that surprised and sometimes worried Emily, but this one …\n\nThe princess staggered to her feet, returning the knife to its sleeve. “If this is real, we can work together,” she said, more to herself than to Emily. “And if it is not, at least it will be over quickly.”\n", "completion": "Someone landed on top of her, hard.\n\nEmily grunted in pain, barely managing to catch her attacker’s wrist before she drove the blade into her head. The attacker was naked, a naked woman, blonde hair brushing against Emily’s skin as she tried to yank her hand free and knife Emily … Emily felt her head swim as it was knocked against the hard ground underneath her, the impact nearly stunning her. Magic, wild and yet tainted, swirled around her. It was hard to focus, harder still to cast a spell. She was dangerously drained.\n\n“You,” a familiar voice snapped. “You …”\n\n“Alassa,” another voice snapped. Emily glanced to the side and saw a naked man, so muscular that he could have passed for a barbarian right out of a dubious romantic novel. He was holding a sword, hurrying towards them. “Alassa …”\n\nEmily froze him with a spell and looked up. Alassa … it was Alassa, but it wasn’t her Alassa. The woman on top of her, eyes wide with fear and rage, was thinner, her blonde hair shading to white and a nasty scar marring her too-perfect face … her magic felt damaged, as if she’d pushed it too far too fast. She certainly hadn’t tried to attack Emily with magic … why had she attacked in the first place? They were friends, weren’t they? They were, but perhaps not here.\n\n“It’s me,” Emily managed. Alassa was stronger than she looked, but this Alassa was stronger too. It was hard to keep the knife, the cursed blade, from her skin. “Alassa …”\n\n“You come here?” Alassa broke free and raised her blade. “You dare …”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. “I surrender,” she said. “Why …”\n\nAlassa stared at her, then glanced at Hedrick. “You didn’t kill him …?”\n\n“No!” Emily took a long breath. Hedrick had been an intolerable ass in her timeline, a picture-perfect upper-class twit, but she wouldn’t have killed him on a whim. There’d certainly been no need to kill him. Hedrick had no magic and could be stopped in his tracks by a simple spell. “Alassa, what happened here?”\n\nAlassa shifted backwards, straddling her. “One false move and I gut you,” she said. There was a hint of hope in her voice, mingled with fear. “You get me?”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily managed. She was starting to have a very nasty idea of just what had gone so badly wrong in this timeline. “There’s another me here, isn’t there?”\n\nThe question was wishful thinking, she realised dully. She’d followed Necromancer Emily’s threadlines … she was either in that alternate’s home timeline or one very close to it. She wasn’t sure how much of what she’d yanked from her counterpart’s mind was useful here, if the timeline was just close enough to be misleading rather than her homeworld, but … there was little to reassure her in those memories. Alassa looked like a shell-shocked veteran, a soldier who had been pushed far past the breaking point, and the wards around her felt dangerously frayed. And …\n\nAlassa looked her up and down, her eyes missing nothing. “What are you?”\n\nEmily swallowed. “It’s kind of a long story,” she said, her mind racing. Where was Frieda? There was no sign of her in the tent. “Can I sit up?”\n\n“You don’t like being sat on by a naked woman?” Alassa’s voice was more contemplative than thoughtful. “Your hair is different and your eyes …”\n\nShe leaned forward, one hand brushing against Emily’s forehead. Emily braced herself as she felt Alassa’s magic crawling over her, looking for glamours and subtle compulsion spells and other tricks that might convince the unwary to believe whatever she said. There were none to be found … of course not. Every instinct in Emily's body screamed at her to push Alassa away before it was too late, but she held herself still. Alassa had been through a lot in her world; this Alassa had been through a great deal more. The fear in her eyes was bone-chilling.\n\n“Emily,” Alassa said, finally. “What happened to you?”\n\n“I need to cast a truth spell,” Emily said. “You won’t believe me otherwise.”\n\n“One spell.” Alassa held the knife at the ready. “Do it slowly and carefully and don’t try to do anything else.”\n\nEmily nodded and put the spell together piece by piece, allowing Alassa to see every piece of spellware slotting neatly into place. A memory darted though her mind – she hadn’t had to do anything like that since she’d taught Marah the basics of magic – and vanished as quickly as it had come. There was no time to dwell on her failures as she cast the spell, a ball of green light materialising over her chest. Alassa tensed, her fingers gripping the knife so tightly they turned white. She looked as if she expected to be attacked, by surprise, at any moment.\n\n“It’s like this,” Emily said. She ran through the whole story, from Master Wolfe’s ascension to godhood to their failed attempt to stop him, the death of Technomage Emily and Adam and her own desperate leap back into the multiverse. “And” – she took a breath – “there’s another version of me here, isn’t there?”\n\nAlassa studied her for a long moment, her eyes grim. She’d always been far better at reading people than Emily herself, once she’d become her father’s acknowledged heir and later ruler of the kingdom, but this Alassa … she might not have the skill of her counterpart. It was clear she didn’t trust Emily – her Emily – either. And … Alassa had nerve as well as brains and magic, a willingness to gamble that surprised and sometimes worried Emily, but this one …\n\nThe princess staggered to her feet, returning the knife to its sleeve. “If this is real, we can work together,” she said, more to herself than to Emily. “And if it is not, at least it will be over quickly.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1014, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch13-P2", "chapter": "ch13", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written.\n\n### STORY\nEmily is slammed by a scarred naked Alassa with a cursed blade; she freezes a rushing Jade and forces recognition that she is friend, not Necromancer Emily.\nThey reach a provisional pact to work together if this is real, and to end it quickly if it is not, while every glance still tests for a lie.\nEmily has never heard her Alassa sound like this — despair without bottom, measured only in days until the necromancer comes and they die.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nAlive in Alassa’s confidence; hearing despair she never heard from her own Alassa; learning this world is days from annihilation when Necromancer Emily comes.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; despairing; believes there’s nothing left but to hold a few more days before death. Present; briefing Emily.\n\nJade\nAlive; previously frozen; present in camp context as Alassa’s man.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nIn Emily’s home timeline Alassa was a prisoner yet did not sound like this; that contrast frames how broken this world’s war has become.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe leaned forward, one hand brushing against Emily’s forehead. Emily braced herself as she felt Alassa’s magic crawling over her, looking for glamours and subtle compulsion spells and other tricks that might convince the unwary to believe whatever she said. There were none to be found … of course not. Every instinct in Emily's body screamed at her to push Alassa away before it was too late, but she held herself still. Alassa had been through a lot in her world; this Alassa had been through a great deal more. The fear in her eyes was bone-chilling.\n\n“Emily,” Alassa said, finally. “What happened to you?”\n\n“I need to cast a truth spell,” Emily said. “You won’t believe me otherwise.”\n\n“One spell.” Alassa held the knife at the ready. “Do it slowly and carefully and don’t try to do anything else.”\n\nEmily nodded and put the spell together piece by piece, allowing Alassa to see every piece of spellware slotting neatly into place. A memory darted though her mind – she hadn’t had to do anything like that since she’d taught Marah the basics of magic – and vanished as quickly as it had come. There was no time to dwell on her failures as she cast the spell, a ball of green light materialising over her chest. Alassa tensed, her fingers gripping the knife so tightly they turned white. She looked as if she expected to be attacked, by surprise, at any moment.\n\n“It’s like this,” Emily said. She ran through the whole story, from Master Wolfe’s ascension to godhood to their failed attempt to stop him, the death of Technomage Emily and Adam and her own desperate leap back into the multiverse. “And” – she took a breath – “there’s another version of me here, isn’t there?”\n\nAlassa studied her for a long moment, her eyes grim. She’d always been far better at reading people than Emily herself, once she’d become her father’s acknowledged heir and later ruler of the kingdom, but this Alassa … she might not have the skill of her counterpart. It was clear she didn’t trust Emily – her Emily – either. And … Alassa had nerve as well as brains and magic, a willingness to gamble that surprised and sometimes worried Emily, but this one …\n\nThe princess staggered to her feet, returning the knife to its sleeve. “If this is real, we can work together,” she said, more to herself than to Emily. “And if it is not, at least it will be over quickly.”\n\n### NOTES\nRefugee camp under threat; timeline measured in days.\nNecromancer Emily is expected to come personally.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily shivers at despair she never heard from her Alassa — not even as a prisoner. The briefing is bleak: their world cannot be saved; they can only hold a few more days before Necromancer Emily comes and they die.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Quiet devastated briefing; no false hope. Land on the coming-death line.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily shivered. She’d never heard Alassa in despair before. Not even when she’d been a prisoner in the tower. But this wasn’t her Alassa … even naked, Alassa had been a force to be reckoned with. There’d never been any sense of vulnerability about her, something Emily envied and rather wished she shared. This Alassa … it felt worse, somehow, than confronting her alternate self. She wasn’t sure why.\n\nShe glanced at Hedrick. “If I release him, can you get him to behave himself?”\n\nAlassa said nothing for a long moment. “I guess so,” she said. Another change, a worrying one … Emily didn’t know what to make of it. “You are going to behave yourself, aren’t you?”\n\nEmily braced herself, then released the spell. Hedrick staggered, his eyes meeting hers with a combination of pure rage, sullen anger, hatred and bitter helplessness that made her shudder in horror. This wasn’t the Hedrick she knew, but someone else … someone who had been forced to grow up in a very different way. His nakedness should have bothered her, and in a way it did, but … it bothered him far more. She cursed under her breath. What had her counterpart done to break him in such a way?\n\n“I’m going to check the guardposts,” Hedrick said, brusquely. “Don’t let her out of the tent.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “I don’t take orders from you.”\n\nHedrick glared, then grabbed his cloak, wrapped it around his nakedness and swept out of the tent. Emily hoped there was no one outside as she looked around, the uncomfortably warm air making her skin prickle unpleasantly. The tent was bigger than she’d thought, but surprisingly crude for a princess and a prince; they’d been sleeping on a pile of blankets, rather than a camp bed, and the only sign of any refreshments was a simple bucket of water resting by the side of the makeshift bed. The canvas was thin, allowing some light to seep into the tent … she wondered, suddenly, just where they were. It didn’t feel like Whitehall.\n\n“You married him?” Emily was surprised. Hedrick had been one of Alassa’s suitors, in her world, but she’d never been interested. “Why …?”\n\nAlassa made a face. “We’re not married,” she said, her voice dark. “It’s just” – she waved a hand in the air – “a way of feeling alive, just for a while.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said. She sat up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. The Alassa she’d known would never have had sex out of wedlock, just to ensure there was no doubt about the paternity of her child. This Alassa … what had she gone through, to make her want someone like Hedrick in her bed? “I … what happened?”\n\n“What happened?” Alassa’s eyes darkened with remembered horror. “What happened was a goddamn nightmare.”\n\nShe stared down at her hands. “We didn’t know what had happened, not at first. We put bits of it together later, but … by then it was far too late. Shadye died in an explosion you caused, taking Sergeant Miles and a bunch of others with him … we didn’t work out that you’d used necromancy to cause the blast until it was far too late. I was close to you and I didn’t see it …”\n\nEmily swallowed. “You don’t have to tell me.”\n\n“I do.” Alassa looked up, her bright blue eyes now dull and lifeless. “You started to slip slowly …there were strange incidents, moments of cruelty … I didn’t see them for what they were at the time. You came with me to Zangaria and put down the coup and” – her voice shook – “Lady Barb realised what you were becoming, I think, and confronted you. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. We never saw her again. There were more incidents …\n\n“You were building a circle of friends. Jade, Cat, a bunch of others … I thought you were doing something great, something to beat the necromancers, until I realised the truth. You were breaking them somehow, making them wholly loyal to you … your behaviour worsened, the incidents growing worse, until … Imaiqah came to me, to share her concerns, and to my eternal shame I dismissed her. I didn’t realise …”\n\nTears shone in her eyes. “The Grandmaster took steps. I think Imaiqah went to him. You fought back and Whitehall fell, the Grandmaster vanishing somewhere within the castle. You butchered Imaiqah right in front of me and … I escaped, somehow, and made it home … only to discover you had smashed the necromancers and taken control of their armies for yourself. And then the next invasion started … you were everywhere, cracking through defences that had stood for decades and taking the entire world. My father … he tried to be one of your allies, when he realised you couldn’t be stopped. You killed him.”\n\n“Impossible,” Emily breathed. And yet, she knew better. She’d seen her counterpart’s memories. If anything, the story was understated. “I …”\n\nAlassa kept talking, mercilessly. “Hedrick and I … we gathered what remained of the armies, and every last sorcerer we could find, and tried to stop you. Stop her. You kicked our asses, again and again … I think you were toying with us, rather than genuinely wanting to destroy us. We … you drove us east, time and time again, until … here we are, on the edge of the Desert of Death, unable to go further, unable to go back, unable even to surrender. And now we’re dying.”\n\nShe eyed the bed. “Fucking Hedrick lets me forget, as loveless as it is.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said. It sounded pitifully inadequate. “I …”\n\n“What good is sorry?” Alassa looked like her old self, just for a second. “The world I knew is gone. The Blighted Lands are sweeping north. Kings and princes, magicians and sorcerers, merchants and commoners, serfs and slaves … they’re all falling before you. Even if we somehow managed to kill her, there’s nothing we can do to save our world. All we can do is hold on a few more days. She’s coming for us and … when she comes, we’ll die.”\n", "completion": "Emily shivered. She’d never heard Alassa in despair before. Not even when she’d been a prisoner in the tower. But this wasn’t her Alassa … even naked, Alassa had been a force to be reckoned with. There’d never been any sense of vulnerability about her, something Emily envied and rather wished she shared. This Alassa … it felt worse, somehow, than confronting her alternate self. She wasn’t sure why.\n\nShe glanced at Hedrick. “If I release him, can you get him to behave himself?”\n\nAlassa said nothing for a long moment. “I guess so,” she said. Another change, a worrying one … Emily didn’t know what to make of it. “You are going to behave yourself, aren’t you?”\n\nEmily braced herself, then released the spell. Hedrick staggered, his eyes meeting hers with a combination of pure rage, sullen anger, hatred and bitter helplessness that made her shudder in horror. This wasn’t the Hedrick she knew, but someone else … someone who had been forced to grow up in a very different way. His nakedness should have bothered her, and in a way it did, but … it bothered him far more. She cursed under her breath. What had her counterpart done to break him in such a way?\n\n“I’m going to check the guardposts,” Hedrick said, brusquely. “Don’t let her out of the tent.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “I don’t take orders from you.”\n\nHedrick glared, then grabbed his cloak, wrapped it around his nakedness and swept out of the tent. Emily hoped there was no one outside as she looked around, the uncomfortably warm air making her skin prickle unpleasantly. The tent was bigger than she’d thought, but surprisingly crude for a princess and a prince; they’d been sleeping on a pile of blankets, rather than a camp bed, and the only sign of any refreshments was a simple bucket of water resting by the side of the makeshift bed. The canvas was thin, allowing some light to seep into the tent … she wondered, suddenly, just where they were. It didn’t feel like Whitehall.\n\n“You married him?” Emily was surprised. Hedrick had been one of Alassa’s suitors, in her world, but she’d never been interested. “Why …?”\n\nAlassa made a face. “We’re not married,” she said, her voice dark. “It’s just” – she waved a hand in the air – “a way of feeling alive, just for a while.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said. She sat up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. The Alassa she’d known would never have had sex out of wedlock, just to ensure there was no doubt about the paternity of her child. This Alassa … what had she gone through, to make her want someone like Hedrick in her bed? “I … what happened?”\n\n“What happened?” Alassa’s eyes darkened with remembered horror. “What happened was a goddamn nightmare.”\n\nShe stared down at her hands. “We didn’t know what had happened, not at first. We put bits of it together later, but … by then it was far too late. Shadye died in an explosion you caused, taking Sergeant Miles and a bunch of others with him … we didn’t work out that you’d used necromancy to cause the blast until it was far too late. I was close to you and I didn’t see it …”\n\nEmily swallowed. “You don’t have to tell me.”\n\n“I do.” Alassa looked up, her bright blue eyes now dull and lifeless. “You started to slip slowly …there were strange incidents, moments of cruelty … I didn’t see them for what they were at the time. You came with me to Zangaria and put down the coup and” – her voice shook – “Lady Barb realised what you were becoming, I think, and confronted you. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. We never saw her again. There were more incidents …\n\n“You were building a circle of friends. Jade, Cat, a bunch of others … I thought you were doing something great, something to beat the necromancers, until I realised the truth. You were breaking them somehow, making them wholly loyal to you … your behaviour worsened, the incidents growing worse, until … Imaiqah came to me, to share her concerns, and to my eternal shame I dismissed her. I didn’t realise …”\n\nTears shone in her eyes. “The Grandmaster took steps. I think Imaiqah went to him. You fought back and Whitehall fell, the Grandmaster vanishing somewhere within the castle. You butchered Imaiqah right in front of me and … I escaped, somehow, and made it home … only to discover you had smashed the necromancers and taken control of their armies for yourself. And then the next invasion started … you were everywhere, cracking through defences that had stood for decades and taking the entire world. My father … he tried to be one of your allies, when he realised you couldn’t be stopped. You killed him.”\n\n“Impossible,” Emily breathed. And yet, she knew better. She’d seen her counterpart’s memories. If anything, the story was understated. “I …”\n\nAlassa kept talking, mercilessly. “Hedrick and I … we gathered what remained of the armies, and every last sorcerer we could find, and tried to stop you. Stop her. You kicked our asses, again and again … I think you were toying with us, rather than genuinely wanting to destroy us. We … you drove us east, time and time again, until … here we are, on the edge of the Desert of Death, unable to go further, unable to go back, unable even to surrender. And now we’re dying.”\n\nShe eyed the bed. “Fucking Hedrick lets me forget, as loveless as it is.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said. It sounded pitifully inadequate. “I …”\n\n“What good is sorry?” Alassa looked like her old self, just for a second. “The world I knew is gone. The Blighted Lands are sweeping north. Kings and princes, magicians and sorcerers, merchants and commoners, serfs and slaves … they’re all falling before you. Even if we somehow managed to kill her, there’s nothing we can do to save our world. All we can do is hold on a few more days. She’s coming for us and … when she comes, we’ll die.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1046, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch13-P3", "chapter": "ch13", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nmagitech — lowercase compound.\n\n### STORY\nScarred Alassa attacks Emily then accepts a fragile alliance after Jade is frozen and the cursed blade is finally held away from bare skin.\nAlassa briefs utter despair without softening it: they can only hold a few more days, then Necromancer Emily comes and everyone in the camp dies.\nEmily needs to move from despair into action without promising miracles, clinging to plans and work because ideas are all that hold her upright.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nPulling on trousers; refusing paralysis; preparing to offer what help she can even without certainty.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; drinking despair; will hear Emily’s caution that help may be limited.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I do.” Alassa looked up, her bright blue eyes now dull and lifeless. “You started to slip slowly …there were strange incidents, moments of cruelty … I didn’t see them for what they were at the time. You came with me to Zangaria and put down the coup and” – her voice shook – “Lady Barb realised what you were becoming, I think, and confronted you. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. We never saw her again. There were more incidents …\n\n“You were building a circle of friends. Jade, Cat, a bunch of others … I thought you were doing something great, something to beat the necromancers, until I realised the truth. You were breaking them somehow, making them wholly loyal to you … your behaviour worsened, the incidents growing worse, until … Imaiqah came to me, to share her concerns, and to my eternal shame I dismissed her. I didn’t realise …”\n\nTears shone in her eyes. “The Grandmaster took steps. I think Imaiqah went to him. You fought back and Whitehall fell, the Grandmaster vanishing somewhere within the castle. You butchered Imaiqah right in front of me and … I escaped, somehow, and made it home … only to discover you had smashed the necromancers and taken control of their armies for yourself. And then the next invasion started … you were everywhere, cracking through defences that had stood for decades and taking the entire world. My father … he tried to be one of your allies, when he realised you couldn’t be stopped. You killed him.”\n\n“Impossible,” Emily breathed. And yet, she knew better. She’d seen her counterpart’s memories. If anything, the story was understated. “I …”\n\nAlassa kept talking, mercilessly. “Hedrick and I … we gathered what remained of the armies, and every last sorcerer we could find, and tried to stop you. Stop her. You kicked our asses, again and again … I think you were toying with us, rather than genuinely wanting to destroy us. We … you drove us east, time and time again, until … here we are, on the edge of the Desert of Death, unable to go further, unable to go back, unable even to surrender. And now we’re dying.”\n\nShe eyed the bed. “Fucking Hedrick lets me forget, as loveless as it is.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said. It sounded pitifully inadequate. “I …”\n\n“What good is sorry?” Alassa looked like her old self, just for a second. “The world I knew is gone. The Blighted Lands are sweeping north. Kings and princes, magicians and sorcerers, merchants and commoners, serfs and slaves … they’re all falling before you. Even if we somehow managed to kill her, there’s nothing we can do to save our world. All we can do is hold on a few more days. She’s coming for us and … when she comes, we’ll die.”\n\n### NOTES\nTent interior; clothing to cover; ideas are the only bulwark against despair.\nNo certainty the plans will work.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlassa stands and dresses; she cannot help as she once might have. Emily answers with whatever she can offer — ideas, work, stubborn planning — knowing certainty is impossible and that busying herself with schemes is all that stands between her and utter despair.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Low, determined close after despair; land on ideas as the only shield.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She stood, reaching for a pair of trousers and pulling them on to cover herself. “I can’t help you with your problem, Emily,” she said. “I just can’t. All I can do is wait to die.”\n\nEmily watched, numbly, as Alassa pulled a shirt over her breasts. She had never seen Alassa wear anything like it, not in her world. Aristocratic women were discouraged from wearing anything of the sort. It was another reminder this was a very different time and place …\n\n“What happened to Void?”\n\n“Your father?” Alassa shook her head. “I don’t know. No one has heard from him in years. I guess you – the other you – killed him. But I simply don’t know.”\n\nEmily frowned. If Void had realised what she was becoming … would he have tried to make use of her, or would he have tried to stop her? And if her counterpart had killed him …\n\nShe poured herself a glass of water and drank it, sharply. “Stay here,” she said. “I have to consult with the council. You can do whatever the hell you like as long as you stay inside the tent.”\n\nEmily nodded, unwilling to do anything that might risk a fight. This wasn’t her Alassa – she had to keep reminding herself of that – and this Alassa had been through utter hell, a hell created by a monster who wore Emily’s face. It was easy for her to look at Necromancer Emily and see a very different person, harder for someone who had seen her slow slide into madness and failed to stop it … who hadn’t even realised there was a problem until it was far too late. She wondered, numbly, if Alassa’s preconceptions had blinded her to the truth. Magicians did cruel things all the time, particularly the ones who had little real power until they did … had her counterpart’s madness gone undetected for so long because she hadn’t done anything that wasn’t out of the ordinary for a common or garden magician? Many magicians saw turning a random stranger into a toad as the height of humour, laughing themselves sick as the helpless victim hopped away; to her, such a crime – and it was a crime – was horrific beyond words. And yet …\n\nShe wasn’t sure she wanted to know.\n\nAlassa swept out, closing the flap behind her. Emily settled back and forced herself to think. Her body ached, her head pounded, her magic weak and drained … she needed rest and yet she wasn’t sure she dared sleep here. Alassa might believe her story, after she’d used the truth spell to prove herself, but others would be far less inclined to listen. Why should they? She looked very much like their tormentor and they knew nothing about alternate universes. They might assume it was just a tissue of lies, told by a sadist who didn’t even need to lie. It was just too much.\n\nShe rubbed her forehead. She’d blown it. Technomage Emily was gone – it crossed Emily’s mind to wonder if she could recruit another version of Technomage Emily – and Master Wolfe knew what they’d tried to do. He would unravel the magitech they’d tried to use against him very quickly, if he hadn’t done it already, and then … take precautions. She couldn’t imagine what he’d do … she cursed under her breath. She understood, suddenly, why so many brave warriors and fighting men were afraid of magic. If you couldn’t comprehend your opponent, if you couldn’t wrap your head around the limits of their abilities, you couldn’t even begin to put numbers on their capabilities, let alone prepare for what they might do. There were worse fates out there than being turned into toads …\n\nHe has options, she reminded herself. Master Wolfe might not be able to rewrite his own programming from the inside, probably, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find other ways to get her. He was so powerful that it was hard to comprehend the limits of her abilities. She felt like a primitive soldier from The War of the Worlds, staring up at a giant Fighting Machine. And most of what he can do is beyond me.\n\nShe scowled, her eyes narrowing. He could tear the timeline apart or send her counterpart back to her world to fight Emily there … if he knew where she’d gone. Did he? She didn’t know. The mingled threadlines should keep him from spotting her, but … she felt like a 2D creature who’d drawn a 2D wall around herself, unaware that a 3D creature could easily step over what was, to him, little more than a pencil line. He could unpick her personal timeline, come at her from a direction beyond her comprehension, even leave a time bomb in her childhood, prepped to explode when she reached her present age. It made her head hurt just thinking about it. And yet, she had no other choice. She was all that was left of her world.\n\nExcept Frieda, she reminded herself. But what has happened to her?\n\nShe helped herself to some water, then sat down to consider possibilities. She was no slouch, when it came to magic and magitech, and she had the memories of two alternate versions of herself to draw on. She could come up with something to help Alassa, something to turn the war around … a thought crossed her mind and she smiled. It was just possible her counterpart was no longer around, if Master Wolfe had yanked her out of her homeworld and put her to work. Her armies could be beaten, if she wasn’t there to reinforce them …\n\nIt wasn’t much, she reminded herself. There was just no way to be sure. But clinging to the thought, and busying herself coming up with ideas, was all that stood between her and utter despair.\n", "completion": "She stood, reaching for a pair of trousers and pulling them on to cover herself. “I can’t help you with your problem, Emily,” she said. “I just can’t. All I can do is wait to die.”\n\nEmily watched, numbly, as Alassa pulled a shirt over her breasts. She had never seen Alassa wear anything like it, not in her world. Aristocratic women were discouraged from wearing anything of the sort. It was another reminder this was a very different time and place …\n\n“What happened to Void?”\n\n“Your father?” Alassa shook her head. “I don’t know. No one has heard from him in years. I guess you – the other you – killed him. But I simply don’t know.”\n\nEmily frowned. If Void had realised what she was becoming … would he have tried to make use of her, or would he have tried to stop her? And if her counterpart had killed him …\n\nShe poured herself a glass of water and drank it, sharply. “Stay here,” she said. “I have to consult with the council. You can do whatever the hell you like as long as you stay inside the tent.”\n\nEmily nodded, unwilling to do anything that might risk a fight. This wasn’t her Alassa – she had to keep reminding herself of that – and this Alassa had been through utter hell, a hell created by a monster who wore Emily’s face. It was easy for her to look at Necromancer Emily and see a very different person, harder for someone who had seen her slow slide into madness and failed to stop it … who hadn’t even realised there was a problem until it was far too late. She wondered, numbly, if Alassa’s preconceptions had blinded her to the truth. Magicians did cruel things all the time, particularly the ones who had little real power until they did … had her counterpart’s madness gone undetected for so long because she hadn’t done anything that wasn’t out of the ordinary for a common or garden magician? Many magicians saw turning a random stranger into a toad as the height of humour, laughing themselves sick as the helpless victim hopped away; to her, such a crime – and it was a crime – was horrific beyond words. And yet …\n\nShe wasn’t sure she wanted to know.\n\nAlassa swept out, closing the flap behind her. Emily settled back and forced herself to think. Her body ached, her head pounded, her magic weak and drained … she needed rest and yet she wasn’t sure she dared sleep here. Alassa might believe her story, after she’d used the truth spell to prove herself, but others would be far less inclined to listen. Why should they? She looked very much like their tormentor and they knew nothing about alternate universes. They might assume it was just a tissue of lies, told by a sadist who didn’t even need to lie. It was just too much.\n\nShe rubbed her forehead. She’d blown it. Technomage Emily was gone – it crossed Emily’s mind to wonder if she could recruit another version of Technomage Emily – and Master Wolfe knew what they’d tried to do. He would unravel the magitech they’d tried to use against him very quickly, if he hadn’t done it already, and then … take precautions. She couldn’t imagine what he’d do … she cursed under her breath. She understood, suddenly, why so many brave warriors and fighting men were afraid of magic. If you couldn’t comprehend your opponent, if you couldn’t wrap your head around the limits of their abilities, you couldn’t even begin to put numbers on their capabilities, let alone prepare for what they might do. There were worse fates out there than being turned into toads …\n\nHe has options, she reminded herself. Master Wolfe might not be able to rewrite his own programming from the inside, probably, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find other ways to get her. He was so powerful that it was hard to comprehend the limits of her abilities. She felt like a primitive soldier from The War of the Worlds, staring up at a giant Fighting Machine. And most of what he can do is beyond me.\n\nShe scowled, her eyes narrowing. He could tear the timeline apart or send her counterpart back to her world to fight Emily there … if he knew where she’d gone. Did he? She didn’t know. The mingled threadlines should keep him from spotting her, but … she felt like a 2D creature who’d drawn a 2D wall around herself, unaware that a 3D creature could easily step over what was, to him, little more than a pencil line. He could unpick her personal timeline, come at her from a direction beyond her comprehension, even leave a time bomb in her childhood, prepped to explode when she reached her present age. It made her head hurt just thinking about it. And yet, she had no other choice. She was all that was left of her world.\n\nExcept Frieda, she reminded herself. But what has happened to her?\n\nShe helped herself to some water, then sat down to consider possibilities. She was no slouch, when it came to magic and magitech, and she had the memories of two alternate versions of herself to draw on. She could come up with something to help Alassa, something to turn the war around … a thought crossed her mind and she smiled. It was just possible her counterpart was no longer around, if Master Wolfe had yanked her out of her homeworld and put her to work. Her armies could be beaten, if she wasn’t there to reinforce them …\n\nIt wasn’t much, she reminded herself. There was just no way to be sure. But clinging to the thought, and busying herself coming up with ideas, was all that stood between her and utter despair.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 998, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch14-P1", "chapter": "ch14", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nMarah — capitalized; glamour template name.\nDesert of Death — place name as written.\nHedrick — capitalized.\nFulvia — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily survives Alassa’s knife assault, freezes Jade, and wins a fragile alliance in a despairing refugee camp on the edge of the Desert of Death.\nAlassa explains they can only hold a handful of days before Necromancer Emily arrives; Emily clings to ideas and hard work against utter despair.\nHours later Alassa returns with curt orders: cast a glamour, hide the real face, and walk into a camp that will kill Emily on sight.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nWaiting in the tent; angry at being ordered yet compliant; will glamours herself to resemble Marah. Ready to face a camp that hates her face.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; curt; returns to fetch Emily under glamour. Commands without Emily’s Alassa’s courtesy.\n\nMarah\nReferenced; face used for the glamour; likely no special counterpart here.\n\nHedrick\nNot yet fully engaged; will be among those who hear Emily’s offer to help.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nNecromancer Emily’s face is Emily’s face; the camp’s survivors have every reason to kill on sight.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHe has options, she reminded herself. Master Wolfe might not be able to rewrite his own programming from the inside, probably, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find other ways to get her. He was so powerful that it was hard to comprehend the limits of her abilities. She felt like a primitive soldier from The War of the Worlds, staring up at a giant Fighting Machine. And most of what he can do is beyond me.\n\nShe scowled, her eyes narrowing. He could tear the timeline apart or send her counterpart back to her world to fight Emily there … if he knew where she’d gone. Did he? She didn’t know. The mingled threadlines should keep him from spotting her, but … she felt like a 2D creature who’d drawn a 2D wall around herself, unaware that a 3D creature could easily step over what was, to him, little more than a pencil line. He could unpick her personal timeline, come at her from a direction beyond her comprehension, even leave a time bomb in her childhood, prepped to explode when she reached her present age. It made her head hurt just thinking about it. And yet, she had no other choice. She was all that was left of her world.\n\nExcept Frieda, she reminded herself. But what has happened to her?\n\nShe helped herself to some water, then sat down to consider possibilities. She was no slouch, when it came to magic and magitech, and she had the memories of two alternate versions of herself to draw on. She could come up with something to help Alassa, something to turn the war around … a thought crossed her mind and she smiled. It was just possible her counterpart was no longer around, if Master Wolfe had yanked her out of her homeworld and put her to work. Her armies could be beaten, if she wasn’t there to reinforce them …\n\nIt wasn’t much, she reminded herself. There was just no way to be sure. But clinging to the thought, and busying herself coming up with ideas, was all that stood between her and utter despair.\n\n### NOTES\nTent flap opens onto Desert of Death stench: burning, corpses, tainted magic tingles.\nSun glare; horror-camp exterior.\nGlamour must hide Emily’s real features.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlassa returns and orders a glamour and secrecy; Emily swallows anger and masks herself as Marah. Outside, Desert of Death stench and sun hit; the camp is unimagined horror. Asked if her friend arrived, Alassa shrugs no. Emily moves toward the people who must hear her — and when pressed, admits it’s a long story, but she can help.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Harsh camp entry; keep the glamour and stench concrete. Land on the offer to help.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Alassa returned what felt like hours later.\n\n“Cast a glamour around yourself and come with me,” she ordered, curtly. “Don’t let anyone see your real face.”\n\nEmily felt a spark of anger – she’d never liked being ordered around and her Alassa made a point of not trying – which she ruthlessly suppressed. It was common sense. The camp was crammed with people who feared and hated a monster who wore her face, people who might try to attack her because they thought she was her counterpart … she muttered a spell, hiding herself behind a glamour that made her look a little like Marah. She probably didn’t have a counterpart here … and if she did, there was nothing that special about her. Emily was fairly certain Necromancer Emily had never taken her as an apprentice.\n\n“There,” she said. A thought crossed her mind. “Did anyone else show up?”\n\n“Your friend?” Alassa shrugged. “Not as far as I know.”\n\nShe opened the flap. Emily raised her hand to protect her eyes from the sun, gritting her teeth as the stench of the Desert of Death swept into the tent. It was worse than she recalled, a scent of burning mingled with the aroma of dead bodies and tainted magic, the latter sending unpleasant tingles down her tongue as she took a breath. It felt as if she was being pinched and prodded by invisible hands … she gritted her teeth, calming herself as her eyes grew accustomed to the light and looked around. It was a scene of unimagined horror.\n\nShe’d seen refugee camps before, when war had swept over the Allied Lands. Civilians always fled, all too aware that invading armies were no respecters of persons and that most aristo commanders didn’t care if commoners were raped, murdered, or stripped of all their possessions, but this camp … she shuddered as another stench swept through the air, the stink of too many unwashed humans in too close of a proximity. There were hundreds of tents and thousands of people lying on the ground, a strange cluster of aristocrats in ruined clothes and commoners … the latter, more used to hardship, holding up better than their former masters. She saw children sitting listlessly, too hungry and thirsty to play; their mothers sitting beside them, eyes bleak with utter hopelessness. The soldiers looked ragged, as if they too were on the verge of despair. They knew their time was running out. She was mildly surprised they hadn’t broken already.\n\nAlassa led her through a maze of tents, from a handful of tents that had clearly been designed for luxury – once upon a time – to others that had been taken from military camps and pressed into service here. Emily kept her eyes open and sharp, noting the stockade and the lack of any real gunpowder weapons … or magitech. The former had taken several years to develop – she guessed Necromancer Emily had been reluctant to risk introducing weapons that could easily be turned against her – and the latter had come from a university, one that presumably didn’t exist in this timeline. A thought crossed her mind, the start of something that refused to come into the light. If the nexus point nearby was still dead, it was just possible it could be reignited. It had happened in her timeline …\n\nThe mood grew darker as they kept walking. One tent was a brothel, a handful of women standing outside, waiting for customers. Another was a bar … she shuddered as she saw a number of soldiers drinking heavily, trying to sing a song that should have been rollicking and managed to sound sad instead. It was the end of the line … she thought she recognised a couple of men, but they were so different it was hard to be sure. Alassa ignored them, moving on with a brittle briskness that could shatter at any moment. Emily followed, keeping her thoughts to herself. It was an utter nightmare.\n\nAlassa stopped in front of a tent and glanced at her. “I told them who you are,” she said. “They needed to be calmed down, after Hedrick told them … I don’t know how much they believed.”\n\nEmily nodded, although she would have preferred to avoid meeting anyone. Alassa looked her up and down, her face unreadable, then pushed open the flap and led the way into the tent. Emily followed, feeling wards brushing against her, their steady pressure weakening the glamour concealing her face. The tent was larger than Alassa’s, the interior dominated by a fragile wooden table and a handful of camp chairs. There were seven people waiting for her; she let her eyes sweep the room, noting a handful of familiar faces. Hedrick, Lady Damia, Fulvia … Emily blinked, a rush of near-panic shooting through her. Fulvia had been an enemy in her timeline, a ruthless manipulator who’d come very close to killing both Frieda and herself. The man beside her was someone she vaguely knew from the broadsheets, Captain-General Sir James Hawkwood. In her world, he'd liberated Kentigern from the orcs; here … she guessed Kentigern was still far behind enemy lines. They’d all had very different lives.\n\n“I find this tale of alternate worlds hard to believe,” Fulvia said. Her tone lacked the cold arrogance Emily recalled from her counterpart, but it still grated. “How can it be true?”\n\n“My existence alone is proof,” Emily said, reluctantly. She didn’t want to discuss anything with Fulvia – or the people at the table she didn’t know. If Hedrick had kept his mouth shut … she shook her head. You couldn’t go back in time and change the past. “You can see I’m not her.”\n\n“No,” Damia agreed. She looked beaten, her face worn down by the last few years. “Why are you here?”\n\nEmily hesitated. How much had Hedrick told them? “It’s a long story,” she said, finally. “But I can help you …”\n", "completion": "Alassa returned what felt like hours later.\n\n“Cast a glamour around yourself and come with me,” she ordered, curtly. “Don’t let anyone see your real face.”\n\nEmily felt a spark of anger – she’d never liked being ordered around and her Alassa made a point of not trying – which she ruthlessly suppressed. It was common sense. The camp was crammed with people who feared and hated a monster who wore her face, people who might try to attack her because they thought she was her counterpart … she muttered a spell, hiding herself behind a glamour that made her look a little like Marah. She probably didn’t have a counterpart here … and if she did, there was nothing that special about her. Emily was fairly certain Necromancer Emily had never taken her as an apprentice.\n\n“There,” she said. A thought crossed her mind. “Did anyone else show up?”\n\n“Your friend?” Alassa shrugged. “Not as far as I know.”\n\nShe opened the flap. Emily raised her hand to protect her eyes from the sun, gritting her teeth as the stench of the Desert of Death swept into the tent. It was worse than she recalled, a scent of burning mingled with the aroma of dead bodies and tainted magic, the latter sending unpleasant tingles down her tongue as she took a breath. It felt as if she was being pinched and prodded by invisible hands … she gritted her teeth, calming herself as her eyes grew accustomed to the light and looked around. It was a scene of unimagined horror.\n\nShe’d seen refugee camps before, when war had swept over the Allied Lands. Civilians always fled, all too aware that invading armies were no respecters of persons and that most aristo commanders didn’t care if commoners were raped, murdered, or stripped of all their possessions, but this camp … she shuddered as another stench swept through the air, the stink of too many unwashed humans in too close of a proximity. There were hundreds of tents and thousands of people lying on the ground, a strange cluster of aristocrats in ruined clothes and commoners … the latter, more used to hardship, holding up better than their former masters. She saw children sitting listlessly, too hungry and thirsty to play; their mothers sitting beside them, eyes bleak with utter hopelessness. The soldiers looked ragged, as if they too were on the verge of despair. They knew their time was running out. She was mildly surprised they hadn’t broken already.\n\nAlassa led her through a maze of tents, from a handful of tents that had clearly been designed for luxury – once upon a time – to others that had been taken from military camps and pressed into service here. Emily kept her eyes open and sharp, noting the stockade and the lack of any real gunpowder weapons … or magitech. The former had taken several years to develop – she guessed Necromancer Emily had been reluctant to risk introducing weapons that could easily be turned against her – and the latter had come from a university, one that presumably didn’t exist in this timeline. A thought crossed her mind, the start of something that refused to come into the light. If the nexus point nearby was still dead, it was just possible it could be reignited. It had happened in her timeline …\n\nThe mood grew darker as they kept walking. One tent was a brothel, a handful of women standing outside, waiting for customers. Another was a bar … she shuddered as she saw a number of soldiers drinking heavily, trying to sing a song that should have been rollicking and managed to sound sad instead. It was the end of the line … she thought she recognised a couple of men, but they were so different it was hard to be sure. Alassa ignored them, moving on with a brittle briskness that could shatter at any moment. Emily followed, keeping her thoughts to herself. It was an utter nightmare.\n\nAlassa stopped in front of a tent and glanced at her. “I told them who you are,” she said. “They needed to be calmed down, after Hedrick told them … I don’t know how much they believed.”\n\nEmily nodded, although she would have preferred to avoid meeting anyone. Alassa looked her up and down, her face unreadable, then pushed open the flap and led the way into the tent. Emily followed, feeling wards brushing against her, their steady pressure weakening the glamour concealing her face. The tent was larger than Alassa’s, the interior dominated by a fragile wooden table and a handful of camp chairs. There were seven people waiting for her; she let her eyes sweep the room, noting a handful of familiar faces. Hedrick, Lady Damia, Fulvia … Emily blinked, a rush of near-panic shooting through her. Fulvia had been an enemy in her timeline, a ruthless manipulator who’d come very close to killing both Frieda and herself. The man beside her was someone she vaguely knew from the broadsheets, Captain-General Sir James Hawkwood. In her world, he'd liberated Kentigern from the orcs; here … she guessed Kentigern was still far behind enemy lines. They’d all had very different lives.\n\n“I find this tale of alternate worlds hard to believe,” Fulvia said. Her tone lacked the cold arrogance Emily recalled from her counterpart, but it still grated. “How can it be true?”\n\n“My existence alone is proof,” Emily said, reluctantly. She didn’t want to discuss anything with Fulvia – or the people at the table she didn’t know. If Hedrick had kept his mouth shut … she shook her head. You couldn’t go back in time and change the past. “You can see I’m not her.”\n\n“No,” Damia agreed. She looked beaten, her face worn down by the last few years. “Why are you here?”\n\nEmily hesitated. How much had Hedrick told them? “It’s a long story,” she said, finally. “But I can help you …”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 997, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch14-P2", "chapter": "ch14", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHedrick — capitalized.\nFulvia — capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized when needed.\nnecromancer — lowercase common noun.\n\n### STORY\nAlassa glamours Emily as Marah and walks her into the Desert of Death camp, into stench of burning, corpses, and tainted magic that tingles on the tongue.\nEmily tells the council-side listeners it is a long story, then offers the only useful claim she has: she can help against the necromancer.\nSkepticism and old politics wait in Hedrick’s humorless laugh and in Fulvia’s dark stare at anyone who sounds like giving orders.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nUnder Marah-glamour; offering help against a necromancer without becoming one; facing scorn.\n\nHedrick\nAlive; humorless laugh; challenges whether anyone can stop a necromancer without becoming one.\n\nFulvia\nAlive; dark-eyed; bristling at Emily giving orders.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; present as escort/sponsor into the discussion.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe mood grew darker as they kept walking. One tent was a brothel, a handful of women standing outside, waiting for customers. Another was a bar … she shuddered as she saw a number of soldiers drinking heavily, trying to sing a song that should have been rollicking and managed to sound sad instead. It was the end of the line … she thought she recognised a couple of men, but they were so different it was hard to be sure. Alassa ignored them, moving on with a brittle briskness that could shatter at any moment. Emily followed, keeping her thoughts to herself. It was an utter nightmare.\n\nAlassa stopped in front of a tent and glanced at her. “I told them who you are,” she said. “They needed to be calmed down, after Hedrick told them … I don’t know how much they believed.”\n\nEmily nodded, although she would have preferred to avoid meeting anyone. Alassa looked her up and down, her face unreadable, then pushed open the flap and led the way into the tent. Emily followed, feeling wards brushing against her, their steady pressure weakening the glamour concealing her face. The tent was larger than Alassa’s, the interior dominated by a fragile wooden table and a handful of camp chairs. There were seven people waiting for her; she let her eyes sweep the room, noting a handful of familiar faces. Hedrick, Lady Damia, Fulvia … Emily blinked, a rush of near-panic shooting through her. Fulvia had been an enemy in her timeline, a ruthless manipulator who’d come very close to killing both Frieda and herself. The man beside her was someone she vaguely knew from the broadsheets, Captain-General Sir James Hawkwood. In her world, he'd liberated Kentigern from the orcs; here … she guessed Kentigern was still far behind enemy lines. They’d all had very different lives.\n\n“I find this tale of alternate worlds hard to believe,” Fulvia said. Her tone lacked the cold arrogance Emily recalled from her counterpart, but it still grated. “How can it be true?”\n\n“My existence alone is proof,” Emily said, reluctantly. She didn’t want to discuss anything with Fulvia – or the people at the table she didn’t know. If Hedrick had kept his mouth shut … she shook her head. You couldn’t go back in time and change the past. “You can see I’m not her.”\n\n“No,” Damia agreed. She looked beaten, her face worn down by the last few years. “Why are you here?”\n\nEmily hesitated. How much had Hedrick told them? “It’s a long story,” she said, finally. “But I can help you …”\n\n### NOTES\nCouncil or command gathering in the camp; politics as sharp as the war.\nTime pressure remains absolute.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHedrick laughs without humour — stop a necromancer without becoming one? The argument grinds through fear and pride until Fulvia eyes Emily darkly and asks if she likes giving orders.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Political friction under war pressure; land on Fulvia’s jab about orders.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Hedrick laughed. There was no humour in the sound. “You can stop a necromancer without becoming a necromancer?”\n\n“Yes.” Emily kept her voice under tight control. “There are ways …”\n\n“I bet there are,” Hedrick said. His voice echoed with injured pride. “And you expect us to trust you?”\n\nI should have punched him out instead, Emily thought, although she doubted it would have ended well for her if she’d thrown a punch instead of a spell. Her Hedrick had been tough and this one could have passed for Conan the Barbarian. She had the sudden uncomfortable image of Hedrick scooping Alassa up, throwing him over his shoulder and carrying her back to his cave … she fought it down, hard. Alassa would never have put up with it. As it is, I've bruised his pride and he’ll never forgive it.\n\n“Do you have any better ideas?” There was an edge to Alassa’s tone that made Emily blink in shock. They clearly weren’t in love, no matter how long they spent in bed together. “We are trapped.”\n\nShe tapped the map on the table. It didn’t look that accurate to Emily’s eyes, but … it was clear the refugee camp was pushed right up against the Desert of Death. The Kingdom of Tarsier was shrouded in red … Emily wondered, suddenly, what had happened to the princess she’d met before deciding she didn’t want to know. The refugee camp was big, but it should have been bigger … dear God, how many people had her counterpart killed? She didn’t want to know. It was a crime that rivalled the Holocaust, maybe worse because Hitler hadn’t killed any Jews personally. Her counterpart had sacrificed untold thousands to keep herself alive.\n\n“There’s no way to cross the desert and no reason to expect anything better on the far side, even if we could,” Alassa said. “There’s nowhere to go and if we stay here, we will either die when we run out of water or she decides to move in for the kill. We don’t have contact with any other armies and even if we did, we couldn’t reach them. We are trapped. If this … person … can help us, we need her.”\n\n“Quite right,” Sir James said. He shot Emily a brilliant smile that grated on her nerves. “How can you help us?”\n\n“It depends on what you have available,” Emily told him, bluntly. A professional soldier was unlikely to be impressed by hyperbole. Sergeant Miles had told her, more than once, that soldiers had to deal with the world as it was, rather than letting themselves believe the world was something else. “If you have blacksmiths and carpenters, alchemists and enchanters, we may be able to do something. If not, there are other possibilities.”\n\nHedrick and Sir James exchanged glances. “We have some,” Sir James said, finally. “But our supplies are very limited.”\n\n“I can show you some tricks,” Emily said. “How many magicians do you have?”\n\n“Several hundred,” Alassa said. “But many of the strongest died at Blaisdon Fields.”\n\n“We fought you there,” a man she didn’t recognise hissed.\n\n“Not her,” Alassa snapped.\n\n“Can you be sure?”\n\n“Yes,” Alassa said, simply. “If this was our Emily, we would all be dead.”\n\nEmily shuddered. She’d killed before – she knew she’d killed, as much as she might wish to deny it – but she’d never killed to kill so many, so quickly. Human life was precious to her; her counterpart, it seemed, disagreed. She knew how deadly necromancers could be …\n\n“So you say,” the stranger said. “What if this is just another of her twisted games?”\n\n“There’s no stench of necromancy around her,” Damia said. “Her story is likely true.”\n\n“Then is there a world out there where my wife is still alive?” The stranger looked Emily in the eye, his voice quivering. “A world where our children still live and play? Could we go there?”\n\nEmily swallowed, hard. She should have expected the question. No one in this world would want to stay, if it could be avoided, and .. in theory, she could take them all into the threadlines, she could take them to another world. But it would be utterly disastrous even if Master Wolfe didn’t see and stop them. How would a happy couple in one world cope with the arrival of a husband or wife from another, one convinced they could fit into the marriage … or mad enough to try a kill and replace stunt? She wondered how she’d cope, if another Emily turned up convinced she had the right to sleep with Caleb. Would that count as an odd form of cheating, if Caleb slept with her, or would it be little different from sleeping with her? The two versions of herself would be the same person …\n\nAnd she was trying to avoid the question. “I don’t think so,” she said. “The mirror threadline was snapped and I’m not sure I can reopen the gate, let alone navigate from universe to universe. I don’t think it can be done.”\n\nWhich isn’t entirely true, her thoughts pointed out, sharply. There might be a way to get them out of here.\n\nThe stranger rose and left the table. Emily felt her heart twist in pity. The man had lost so much and it was all her fault … no, her counterpart’s fault. His family, his life … nothing would ever be the same again, even if they did find a way to turn everything around before it was too late. If he’d gone to another world … sure, his wife’s alternate would probably have a husband of her own, but … she shook her head. It wasn’t something she could do.\n\n“Right …” Sir James looked tired. “What else can we do?”\n\nThe Nuke-Spell, Emily’s mind whispered. Building proper magitech would take more time than they had, even assuming they had the supplies. Or something just as nasty …\n\n“Get everyone ready first,” she said. “Alassa and I need to talk.”\n\nFulvia eyed her, darkly. “You like giving orders, do you?”\n", "completion": "Hedrick laughed. There was no humour in the sound. “You can stop a necromancer without becoming a necromancer?”\n\n“Yes.” Emily kept her voice under tight control. “There are ways …”\n\n“I bet there are,” Hedrick said. His voice echoed with injured pride. “And you expect us to trust you?”\n\nI should have punched him out instead, Emily thought, although she doubted it would have ended well for her if she’d thrown a punch instead of a spell. Her Hedrick had been tough and this one could have passed for Conan the Barbarian. She had the sudden uncomfortable image of Hedrick scooping Alassa up, throwing him over his shoulder and carrying her back to his cave … she fought it down, hard. Alassa would never have put up with it. As it is, I've bruised his pride and he’ll never forgive it.\n\n“Do you have any better ideas?” There was an edge to Alassa’s tone that made Emily blink in shock. They clearly weren’t in love, no matter how long they spent in bed together. “We are trapped.”\n\nShe tapped the map on the table. It didn’t look that accurate to Emily’s eyes, but … it was clear the refugee camp was pushed right up against the Desert of Death. The Kingdom of Tarsier was shrouded in red … Emily wondered, suddenly, what had happened to the princess she’d met before deciding she didn’t want to know. The refugee camp was big, but it should have been bigger … dear God, how many people had her counterpart killed? She didn’t want to know. It was a crime that rivalled the Holocaust, maybe worse because Hitler hadn’t killed any Jews personally. Her counterpart had sacrificed untold thousands to keep herself alive.\n\n“There’s no way to cross the desert and no reason to expect anything better on the far side, even if we could,” Alassa said. “There’s nowhere to go and if we stay here, we will either die when we run out of water or she decides to move in for the kill. We don’t have contact with any other armies and even if we did, we couldn’t reach them. We are trapped. If this … person … can help us, we need her.”\n\n“Quite right,” Sir James said. He shot Emily a brilliant smile that grated on her nerves. “How can you help us?”\n\n“It depends on what you have available,” Emily told him, bluntly. A professional soldier was unlikely to be impressed by hyperbole. Sergeant Miles had told her, more than once, that soldiers had to deal with the world as it was, rather than letting themselves believe the world was something else. “If you have blacksmiths and carpenters, alchemists and enchanters, we may be able to do something. If not, there are other possibilities.”\n\nHedrick and Sir James exchanged glances. “We have some,” Sir James said, finally. “But our supplies are very limited.”\n\n“I can show you some tricks,” Emily said. “How many magicians do you have?”\n\n“Several hundred,” Alassa said. “But many of the strongest died at Blaisdon Fields.”\n\n“We fought you there,” a man she didn’t recognise hissed.\n\n“Not her,” Alassa snapped.\n\n“Can you be sure?”\n\n“Yes,” Alassa said, simply. “If this was our Emily, we would all be dead.”\n\nEmily shuddered. She’d killed before – she knew she’d killed, as much as she might wish to deny it – but she’d never killed to kill so many, so quickly. Human life was precious to her; her counterpart, it seemed, disagreed. She knew how deadly necromancers could be …\n\n“So you say,” the stranger said. “What if this is just another of her twisted games?”\n\n“There’s no stench of necromancy around her,” Damia said. “Her story is likely true.”\n\n“Then is there a world out there where my wife is still alive?” The stranger looked Emily in the eye, his voice quivering. “A world where our children still live and play? Could we go there?”\n\nEmily swallowed, hard. She should have expected the question. No one in this world would want to stay, if it could be avoided, and .. in theory, she could take them all into the threadlines, she could take them to another world. But it would be utterly disastrous even if Master Wolfe didn’t see and stop them. How would a happy couple in one world cope with the arrival of a husband or wife from another, one convinced they could fit into the marriage … or mad enough to try a kill and replace stunt? She wondered how she’d cope, if another Emily turned up convinced she had the right to sleep with Caleb. Would that count as an odd form of cheating, if Caleb slept with her, or would it be little different from sleeping with her? The two versions of herself would be the same person …\n\nAnd she was trying to avoid the question. “I don’t think so,” she said. “The mirror threadline was snapped and I’m not sure I can reopen the gate, let alone navigate from universe to universe. I don’t think it can be done.”\n\nWhich isn’t entirely true, her thoughts pointed out, sharply. There might be a way to get them out of here.\n\nThe stranger rose and left the table. Emily felt her heart twist in pity. The man had lost so much and it was all her fault … no, her counterpart’s fault. His family, his life … nothing would ever be the same again, even if they did find a way to turn everything around before it was too late. If he’d gone to another world … sure, his wife’s alternate would probably have a husband of her own, but … she shook her head. It wasn’t something she could do.\n\n“Right …” Sir James looked tired. “What else can we do?”\n\nThe Nuke-Spell, Emily’s mind whispered. Building proper magitech would take more time than they had, even assuming they had the supplies. Or something just as nasty …\n\n“Get everyone ready first,” she said. “Alassa and I need to talk.”\n\nFulvia eyed her, darkly. “You like giving orders, do you?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1032, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch14-P3", "chapter": "ch14", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nFulvia — capitalized.\nHedrick — capitalized.\nmagitech — lowercase compound.\n\n### STORY\nGlamoured Emily enters the despairing camp and offers help; Hedrick scorns the idea of stopping a necromancer cleanly without joining the dark path.\nFulvia bristles at Emily’s tone of command, reading wartime urgency as arrogance from a stranger who still wears a false face.\nTime is not on their side; Emily needs speed, reluctant cooperation, and one more card to play if the first ideas begin to work.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nTemper fraying; insisting on speed; promising Alassa she will try — and that if the ideas work, there is one other thing.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; receiving Emily’s assurance.\n\nFulvia\nAlive; still hostile to Emily’s authority.\n\nHedrick\nAlive; still skeptical.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“So you say,” the stranger said. “What if this is just another of her twisted games?”\n\n“There’s no stench of necromancy around her,” Damia said. “Her story is likely true.”\n\n“Then is there a world out there where my wife is still alive?” The stranger looked Emily in the eye, his voice quivering. “A world where our children still live and play? Could we go there?”\n\nEmily swallowed, hard. She should have expected the question. No one in this world would want to stay, if it could be avoided, and .. in theory, she could take them all into the threadlines, she could take them to another world. But it would be utterly disastrous even if Master Wolfe didn’t see and stop them. How would a happy couple in one world cope with the arrival of a husband or wife from another, one convinced they could fit into the marriage … or mad enough to try a kill and replace stunt? She wondered how she’d cope, if another Emily turned up convinced she had the right to sleep with Caleb. Would that count as an odd form of cheating, if Caleb slept with her, or would it be little different from sleeping with her? The two versions of herself would be the same person …\n\nAnd she was trying to avoid the question. “I don’t think so,” she said. “The mirror threadline was snapped and I’m not sure I can reopen the gate, let alone navigate from universe to universe. I don’t think it can be done.”\n\nWhich isn’t entirely true, her thoughts pointed out, sharply. There might be a way to get them out of here.\n\nThe stranger rose and left the table. Emily felt her heart twist in pity. The man had lost so much and it was all her fault … no, her counterpart’s fault. His family, his life … nothing would ever be the same again, even if they did find a way to turn everything around before it was too late. If he’d gone to another world … sure, his wife’s alternate would probably have a husband of her own, but … she shook her head. It wasn’t something she could do.\n\n“Right …” Sir James looked tired. “What else can we do?”\n\nThe Nuke-Spell, Emily’s mind whispered. Building proper magitech would take more time than they had, even assuming they had the supplies. Or something just as nasty …\n\n“Get everyone ready first,” she said. “Alassa and I need to talk.”\n\nFulvia eyed her, darkly. “You like giving orders, do you?”\n\n### NOTES\nSame camp council context; clock running on Necromancer Emily’s arrival.\n“One other thing” remains unnamed in NOTES.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily’s temper frays; she snaps that they must work fast. She assures Alassa she will follow through — and if these ideas work, there is one other thing they can try.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Urgency over pride; land on the hint of one further option.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily felt her temper fray. “We need to work fast,” she said. “Time is not on our side.”\n\n“See to it,” Alassa ordered, quietly. “I’ll take her to the next tent.”\n\nThe air outside seemed warmer as Alassa led her outside and into another tent. “Don’t irritate the council too much,” she said, tiredly. “Holding everyone together is hard enough without them snapping and snarling at you.”\n\n“Sorry,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure if she was sincere or not. “Why did you choose them …?”\n\n“I didn’t,” Alassa said, waving Emily to sit. “Sir James commands the largest band of troops to escape Blaisdon Fields. Fulvia and Lady Damia each control factions of magicians. Hedrick … his forces are smaller, but … he and I have royal blood. They’re all people who have to be kept inside the tent, pissing outside, so they don’t piss inside instead.”\n\n“Charming,” Emily muttered. Her Alassa rarely resorted to such crudity. “How many people do you have in this camp?”\n\nAlassa hesitated. “Around twenty thousand in total, but the number isn’t very precise. We get runaways from the kingdom, and some of our people run from us … some go back to her, in hopes of making peace, and others just try to find a place to hide. Who knows? Perhaps it works.”\n\nEmily frowned. “And does it?”\n\n“I’d like to think it does,” Alassa said. “But I don’t believe it.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily’s counterpart was playing from a far more sophisticated political textbook than any of her local enemies, assuming – of course – that she was interested in empire-building rather than simply creating a land of the dead. There were ways to farm humans for power, if you were ruthless enough to try and controlled enough to make it work. “She won’t leave the old system intact once it no longer serves her purposes.”\n\nShe took a breath. “Did she introduce any new ideas? Science or magical devices?”\n\nAlassa hesitated. “Some,” she said. “But not many.”\n\n“And no gunpowder?” Emily leaned forward, feeling a flicker of excitement. “No guns?”\n\n“Guns?”\n\nEmily smiled. “Guess not,” she said. She knew the formula for gunpowder. She knew how to produce it … in theory. She’d never tried herself, not when hundreds of gunsmiths and chemists had injured themselves trying. “That’s something we can try …”\n\nGiven enough time, her thoughts added, silently. How long does it take to produce gunpowder? How long does it take to make primitive guns?\n\n“I didn’t invent magitech, not in my world,” Emily said. In both timelines where magitech had been invented, Adam had been involved. In this timeline, it was unlikely Necromancer Emily had ever met Adam, let alone seen him as anything other than a tasty snack. “That might catch her by surprise …”\n\nShe frowned, inwardly. How much had Necromancer Emily taken from Technomage Emily? Was it even the same Necromancer Emily?\n\n“There’s a few other things we can try,” she added. She would solve that mystery when the time came. “Did she manage to make batteries?”\n\n“Batteries?” Alassa shook her head. “What are those?”\n\n“A way to store magic,” Emily said. An idea shot through her head. She could combine a few concepts from Necromancer Emily with her own, working them together into a greater whole. It would be tricky, but if she could make it work … “And if she doesn’t know how to make them herself, we should be able to hit her hard.”\n\nAlassa leaned forward. “Hard enough to kill her?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. A regular necromancer? Yes. Necromancer Emily … she didn’t know. The spells she’d seen her counterpart use might be affected by the battery-powered spell or they might not … she simply didn’t know. She’d have to find out. “But they’ll give us a fighting chance.”\n\nShe sobered, suddenly. “But I still don’t know what happened to Frieda.”\n\nAlassa frowned. “Wouldn’t she have landed nearby?”\n\n“I wish I knew.” Emily thought so, but near was relative when talking about entire universes. Frieda could have landed in the next universe, relatively close to Emily on a multiversal scale and yet impossibly far away as far as humans were concerned. Worry gnawed at her mind, despite her best efforts. Frieda was all she had left and she could be anywhere. “If you keep an eye out for her …”\n\n“I’ll spread the word to the pickets,” Alassa said. “But we know very little of what’s happening outside this kingdom.”\n\n“And if she landed near Whitehall, she might go there without realising the danger,” Emily said, grimly. Frieda was smart, but she’d know next to nothing about the new world. “Or nearly anywhere else …”\n\nShe looked up. “What happened to Laughter? Or Mountaintop?”\n\n“Mountaintop was destroyed, I believe.” Alassa hesitated, noticeably. “Apparently, there was some kind of uprising in Laughter, the students declaring themselves for you and attacking the staff … I don’t know for sure. Damia fled with a handful of others and eventually joined up with us. She rarely talks about her old life and nothing about just what happened at the end.”\n\nEmily shuddered. “Why did they declare themselves for me? For her?”\n\n“There’s nothing but rumours,” Alassa said. She looked as if she’d sooner be discussing something – anything – else. “Some insist they thought you were bringing a world where women would be in charge and men would do as they were told. Others thought you’d corrupted them somehow … those stories range from the salacious to the horrific. And still others insist you broke into the school and enslaved them all in the blink of an eye. I don’t know.”\n\n“Not me,” Emily said, quietly.\n\n“Keep your face covered at all times,” Alassa said. Her voice was very firm, yet there was a shaky undertone that bothered Emily at a very primal level. “Not everyone is going to believe you’re not her.”\n\n“I will,” Emily assured her. “And if these ideas work … there is one other thing we can try.”\n", "completion": "Emily felt her temper fray. “We need to work fast,” she said. “Time is not on our side.”\n\n“See to it,” Alassa ordered, quietly. “I’ll take her to the next tent.”\n\nThe air outside seemed warmer as Alassa led her outside and into another tent. “Don’t irritate the council too much,” she said, tiredly. “Holding everyone together is hard enough without them snapping and snarling at you.”\n\n“Sorry,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure if she was sincere or not. “Why did you choose them …?”\n\n“I didn’t,” Alassa said, waving Emily to sit. “Sir James commands the largest band of troops to escape Blaisdon Fields. Fulvia and Lady Damia each control factions of magicians. Hedrick … his forces are smaller, but … he and I have royal blood. They’re all people who have to be kept inside the tent, pissing outside, so they don’t piss inside instead.”\n\n“Charming,” Emily muttered. Her Alassa rarely resorted to such crudity. “How many people do you have in this camp?”\n\nAlassa hesitated. “Around twenty thousand in total, but the number isn’t very precise. We get runaways from the kingdom, and some of our people run from us … some go back to her, in hopes of making peace, and others just try to find a place to hide. Who knows? Perhaps it works.”\n\nEmily frowned. “And does it?”\n\n“I’d like to think it does,” Alassa said. “But I don’t believe it.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily’s counterpart was playing from a far more sophisticated political textbook than any of her local enemies, assuming – of course – that she was interested in empire-building rather than simply creating a land of the dead. There were ways to farm humans for power, if you were ruthless enough to try and controlled enough to make it work. “She won’t leave the old system intact once it no longer serves her purposes.”\n\nShe took a breath. “Did she introduce any new ideas? Science or magical devices?”\n\nAlassa hesitated. “Some,” she said. “But not many.”\n\n“And no gunpowder?” Emily leaned forward, feeling a flicker of excitement. “No guns?”\n\n“Guns?”\n\nEmily smiled. “Guess not,” she said. She knew the formula for gunpowder. She knew how to produce it … in theory. She’d never tried herself, not when hundreds of gunsmiths and chemists had injured themselves trying. “That’s something we can try …”\n\nGiven enough time, her thoughts added, silently. How long does it take to produce gunpowder? How long does it take to make primitive guns?\n\n“I didn’t invent magitech, not in my world,” Emily said. In both timelines where magitech had been invented, Adam had been involved. In this timeline, it was unlikely Necromancer Emily had ever met Adam, let alone seen him as anything other than a tasty snack. “That might catch her by surprise …”\n\nShe frowned, inwardly. How much had Necromancer Emily taken from Technomage Emily? Was it even the same Necromancer Emily?\n\n“There’s a few other things we can try,” she added. She would solve that mystery when the time came. “Did she manage to make batteries?”\n\n“Batteries?” Alassa shook her head. “What are those?”\n\n“A way to store magic,” Emily said. An idea shot through her head. She could combine a few concepts from Necromancer Emily with her own, working them together into a greater whole. It would be tricky, but if she could make it work … “And if she doesn’t know how to make them herself, we should be able to hit her hard.”\n\nAlassa leaned forward. “Hard enough to kill her?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. A regular necromancer? Yes. Necromancer Emily … she didn’t know. The spells she’d seen her counterpart use might be affected by the battery-powered spell or they might not … she simply didn’t know. She’d have to find out. “But they’ll give us a fighting chance.”\n\nShe sobered, suddenly. “But I still don’t know what happened to Frieda.”\n\nAlassa frowned. “Wouldn’t she have landed nearby?”\n\n“I wish I knew.” Emily thought so, but near was relative when talking about entire universes. Frieda could have landed in the next universe, relatively close to Emily on a multiversal scale and yet impossibly far away as far as humans were concerned. Worry gnawed at her mind, despite her best efforts. Frieda was all she had left and she could be anywhere. “If you keep an eye out for her …”\n\n“I’ll spread the word to the pickets,” Alassa said. “But we know very little of what’s happening outside this kingdom.”\n\n“And if she landed near Whitehall, she might go there without realising the danger,” Emily said, grimly. Frieda was smart, but she’d know next to nothing about the new world. “Or nearly anywhere else …”\n\nShe looked up. “What happened to Laughter? Or Mountaintop?”\n\n“Mountaintop was destroyed, I believe.” Alassa hesitated, noticeably. “Apparently, there was some kind of uprising in Laughter, the students declaring themselves for you and attacking the staff … I don’t know for sure. Damia fled with a handful of others and eventually joined up with us. She rarely talks about her old life and nothing about just what happened at the end.”\n\nEmily shuddered. “Why did they declare themselves for me? For her?”\n\n“There’s nothing but rumours,” Alassa said. She looked as if she’d sooner be discussing something – anything – else. “Some insist they thought you were bringing a world where women would be in charge and men would do as they were told. Others thought you’d corrupted them somehow … those stories range from the salacious to the horrific. And still others insist you broke into the school and enslaved them all in the blink of an eye. I don’t know.”\n\n“Not me,” Emily said, quietly.\n\n“Keep your face covered at all times,” Alassa said. Her voice was very firm, yet there was a shaky undertone that bothered Emily at a very primal level. “Not everyone is going to believe you’re not her.”\n\n“I will,” Emily assured her. “And if these ideas work … there is one other thing we can try.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1022, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch15-P1", "chapter": "ch15", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCasper — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nmagitech — lowercase compound.\nSuperiority — capitalized when naming the disaster-story reference.\n\n### STORY\nGlamoured Emily faces camp leaders; Hedrick doubts anyone can stop a necromancer without becoming one; Fulvia bristles when Emily sounds like she is giving orders.\nEmily pushes for speed despite frayed tempers and hints that if the first ideas work there is one further option left to try.\nCraftsmen with looted, limited resources must now build magitech tools that barely exist in this world, under secrecy and famine pressure.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nIn a workshop tent teaching basic magitech to skeptical craftsmen; magic recovering slowly; hungry; identity still secret beyond the council. Irritated at being doubted yet understanding why.\n\nCasper\nAlive; this timeline’s version; sketches a basic tile; warns that someone has had a hard life — don’t talk unless you mean well. More caring toward a younger brother than Emily’s Casper was.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; running a losing war; has looted to survive; not present in every beat but camp-authority backdrop.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nTechnomage Emily’s world had advanced magitech; this timeline has none — Emily must bootstrap from basics under looting-war scarcity.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAlassa leaned forward. “Hard enough to kill her?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. A regular necromancer? Yes. Necromancer Emily … she didn’t know. The spells she’d seen her counterpart use might be affected by the battery-powered spell or they might not … she simply didn’t know. She’d have to find out. “But they’ll give us a fighting chance.”\n\nShe sobered, suddenly. “But I still don’t know what happened to Frieda.”\n\nAlassa frowned. “Wouldn’t she have landed nearby?”\n\n“I wish I knew.” Emily thought so, but near was relative when talking about entire universes. Frieda could have landed in the next universe, relatively close to Emily on a multiversal scale and yet impossibly far away as far as humans were concerned. Worry gnawed at her mind, despite her best efforts. Frieda was all she had left and she could be anywhere. “If you keep an eye out for her …”\n\n“I’ll spread the word to the pickets,” Alassa said. “But we know very little of what’s happening outside this kingdom.”\n\n“And if she landed near Whitehall, she might go there without realising the danger,” Emily said, grimly. Frieda was smart, but she’d know next to nothing about the new world. “Or nearly anywhere else …”\n\nShe looked up. “What happened to Laughter? Or Mountaintop?”\n\n“Mountaintop was destroyed, I believe.” Alassa hesitated, noticeably. “Apparently, there was some kind of uprising in Laughter, the students declaring themselves for you and attacking the staff … I don’t know for sure. Damia fled with a handful of others and eventually joined up with us. She rarely talks about her old life and nothing about just what happened at the end.”\n\nEmily shuddered. “Why did they declare themselves for me? For her?”\n\n“There’s nothing but rumours,” Alassa said. She looked as if she’d sooner be discussing something – anything – else. “Some insist they thought you were bringing a world where women would be in charge and men would do as they were told. Others thought you’d corrupted them somehow … those stories range from the salacious to the horrific. And still others insist you broke into the school and enslaved them all in the blink of an eye. I don’t know.”\n\n“Not me,” Emily said, quietly.\n\n“Keep your face covered at all times,” Alassa said. Her voice was very firm, yet there was a shaky undertone that bothered Emily at a very primal level. “Not everyone is going to believe you’re not her.”\n\n“I will,” Emily assured her. “And if these ideas work … there is one other thing we can try.”\n\n### NOTES\nWorkshop is a large packable tent: tools, benches, looted supplies.\nArmy has conscripted and stripped towns; rationing and secrecy bind Emily.\nNo advanced batteries/valves without first making tools.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nCraftsmen doubt her magitech sketches in a looted-workshop tent; she hides irritation and knows their fear of a Superiority-style disaster. She works within scarcity, wishing she’d learned more metalwork herself. A familiar voice — Casper — offers a basic tile for judgment and warns her that a hard-used someone shouldn’t be spoken to without meaning well.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Workshop grit and secrecy; land on Casper’s warning.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“You’re sure this will work?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, concealing her irritation. There was no magitech in this universe, no sense that there was any way to allow mundanes to use magic on more than a very limited basis. The craftsmen, mundane as well as magical, had to be wondering if she was mistaken, lying, or setting them up for a Superiority­­-style disaster. She couldn’t blame them. Their resources were limited and whatever they used to craft magitech couldn’t be used to craft something a little more tried and true. “It’ll work.”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly, and looked around the workshop. It was a grand name for what was little more than a large tent, crammed with tools, workbenches, and supplies that could be packed up at a moment’s notice and carried off to save them from enemy armies. Reading between the lines, it was clear this army had looted every town and village it had marched through, conscripting young men and women and carrying off everything that wasn't nailed down. Par for the course in local warfare, Emily knew, but disheartening nonetheless. Her Alassa had been careful not to prey on the civilian population, flogging men for looting and hanging them for rape. But this Alassa knew she was on the wrong side of a losing war.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she sketched out the basics of magitech, so simple and mundane compared to the wonders Technomage Emily had created. There was no time to build more advanced devices – they needed to build the basic tools in order to build the more advanced ones– and even trying something as simple as batteries and valves was putting immense strain on their resources. Emily wished, not for the first time, that she’d done more metalworking and carpentry herself, rather than leave it to Adam and the other craftsmen. She didn’t know how much she didn’t know and that was a problem when dealing with craftsmen who’d been doing it longer than she’d been alive.\n\nAt least they don’t know who I really am, she reminded herself. That particular secret hadn’t spread beyond the council, thankfully. There’d be panic in the ranks, they’d come for her and … she’d have to fight or run and she wasn’t in any state to do either. Her magic was slowly recovering from the last battle, but lack of enough food and drink was slowing the process … there was little she could do about it. And …\n\n“I sketched out a basic tile,” a very familiar voice said. “What do you think?”\n\nEmily stared, unable to speak. It was Caleb … a very different Caleb. The confident man she knew had been replaced by a shadow of himself, a thin, prematurely balding shadow that looked permanently on the verge of a fatal heart attack. If she hadn’t known his voice so well, she might have missed it … her heart twisted painfully, a flurry of madcap emotions running through her. She wanted to take him to bed, she wanted to hug him and comfort him and tell him it was going to be all right; she wanted to recoil in horror, to run from what she – her counterpart – had inflicted on her lover. It was … her counterpart had never met Caleb as far as she knew, certainly not fallen in love with him, and yet it still felt as if the necromancer wearing her face had crossed the line.\n\nCaleb stared back at her, then lowered his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I …”\n\n“And what,” a different voice said, “are you doing with my brother?”\n\nEmily’s heart twisted again. Casper? Caleb’s brother had died at Heart’s Eye, in her world; here … she guessed her counterpart had never met him either. He looked like a younger version of Hedrick, wearing a shabby tunic that showed off his muscles … unlike her Casper, he didn’t seem to be showing them off deliberately. There was a shadow in his eyes that worried her; the arrogant man she’d known knocked down so hard he was only a fragment of his former self …\n\n“He reminded me of someone I used to know,” Emily said. She should have expected it. Caleb had been at Whitehall when all hell had broken loose, unless that was different too … she didn’t want to know. “And I’m sorry.”\n\nShe wanted to ask what had happened to the rest of the family, their parents and their sisters, but she didn’t want to hear more bad news. There was no happiness here, just an endless struggle to remain alive one more day. And it was all her fault …\n\n“Sorry for what?” Casper glanced at her chest, but there was something about the movement that suggested it was less lecherous and more a desperate attempt to keep up appearances. Or perhaps to feel something, anything, before the oncoming storm finally washed over them. “Check my brother’s work and then let him go.”\n\nEmily hesitated, then did as she was told. “It should work,” she said to Caleb. The tile wasn’t as neat as the ones she’d seen at Heart’s Eye, but the craftsmen here didn’t have the tools or practice to churn them out in a hurry. A magiwriter was as far beyond them as a piece of steampunk technology. “Try and put it into production, then we can test it.”\n\nCaleb turned and hurried away. Emily’s eyes lingered on his rear. He’d always been thin, but this Caleb was strikingly bony, clothes hanging from his frame as if they’d been designed for a far larger man. She felt a pang of guilt for staring, even though she knew she was staring at an alternate version of her lover rather than another man … she missed her Caleb so much, so intensely, that she found tears prickling in her eyes. If he was with her …\n\n“He’s had a hard life,” Casper said, warningly. “Don’t talk to him unless you mean well.”\n", "completion": "“You’re sure this will work?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, concealing her irritation. There was no magitech in this universe, no sense that there was any way to allow mundanes to use magic on more than a very limited basis. The craftsmen, mundane as well as magical, had to be wondering if she was mistaken, lying, or setting them up for a Superiority­­-style disaster. She couldn’t blame them. Their resources were limited and whatever they used to craft magitech couldn’t be used to craft something a little more tried and true. “It’ll work.”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly, and looked around the workshop. It was a grand name for what was little more than a large tent, crammed with tools, workbenches, and supplies that could be packed up at a moment’s notice and carried off to save them from enemy armies. Reading between the lines, it was clear this army had looted every town and village it had marched through, conscripting young men and women and carrying off everything that wasn't nailed down. Par for the course in local warfare, Emily knew, but disheartening nonetheless. Her Alassa had been careful not to prey on the civilian population, flogging men for looting and hanging them for rape. But this Alassa knew she was on the wrong side of a losing war.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she sketched out the basics of magitech, so simple and mundane compared to the wonders Technomage Emily had created. There was no time to build more advanced devices – they needed to build the basic tools in order to build the more advanced ones– and even trying something as simple as batteries and valves was putting immense strain on their resources. Emily wished, not for the first time, that she’d done more metalworking and carpentry herself, rather than leave it to Adam and the other craftsmen. She didn’t know how much she didn’t know and that was a problem when dealing with craftsmen who’d been doing it longer than she’d been alive.\n\nAt least they don’t know who I really am, she reminded herself. That particular secret hadn’t spread beyond the council, thankfully. There’d be panic in the ranks, they’d come for her and … she’d have to fight or run and she wasn’t in any state to do either. Her magic was slowly recovering from the last battle, but lack of enough food and drink was slowing the process … there was little she could do about it. And …\n\n“I sketched out a basic tile,” a very familiar voice said. “What do you think?”\n\nEmily stared, unable to speak. It was Caleb … a very different Caleb. The confident man she knew had been replaced by a shadow of himself, a thin, prematurely balding shadow that looked permanently on the verge of a fatal heart attack. If she hadn’t known his voice so well, she might have missed it … her heart twisted painfully, a flurry of madcap emotions running through her. She wanted to take him to bed, she wanted to hug him and comfort him and tell him it was going to be all right; she wanted to recoil in horror, to run from what she – her counterpart – had inflicted on her lover. It was … her counterpart had never met Caleb as far as she knew, certainly not fallen in love with him, and yet it still felt as if the necromancer wearing her face had crossed the line.\n\nCaleb stared back at her, then lowered his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I …”\n\n“And what,” a different voice said, “are you doing with my brother?”\n\nEmily’s heart twisted again. Casper? Caleb’s brother had died at Heart’s Eye, in her world; here … she guessed her counterpart had never met him either. He looked like a younger version of Hedrick, wearing a shabby tunic that showed off his muscles … unlike her Casper, he didn’t seem to be showing them off deliberately. There was a shadow in his eyes that worried her; the arrogant man she’d known knocked down so hard he was only a fragment of his former self …\n\n“He reminded me of someone I used to know,” Emily said. She should have expected it. Caleb had been at Whitehall when all hell had broken loose, unless that was different too … she didn’t want to know. “And I’m sorry.”\n\nShe wanted to ask what had happened to the rest of the family, their parents and their sisters, but she didn’t want to hear more bad news. There was no happiness here, just an endless struggle to remain alive one more day. And it was all her fault …\n\n“Sorry for what?” Casper glanced at her chest, but there was something about the movement that suggested it was less lecherous and more a desperate attempt to keep up appearances. Or perhaps to feel something, anything, before the oncoming storm finally washed over them. “Check my brother’s work and then let him go.”\n\nEmily hesitated, then did as she was told. “It should work,” she said to Caleb. The tile wasn’t as neat as the ones she’d seen at Heart’s Eye, but the craftsmen here didn’t have the tools or practice to churn them out in a hurry. A magiwriter was as far beyond them as a piece of steampunk technology. “Try and put it into production, then we can test it.”\n\nCaleb turned and hurried away. Emily’s eyes lingered on his rear. He’d always been thin, but this Caleb was strikingly bony, clothes hanging from his frame as if they’d been designed for a far larger man. She felt a pang of guilt for staring, even though she knew she was staring at an alternate version of her lover rather than another man … she missed her Caleb so much, so intensely, that she found tears prickling in her eyes. If he was with her …\n\n“He’s had a hard life,” Casper said, warningly. “Don’t talk to him unless you mean well.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1021, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch15-P2", "chapter": "ch15", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCasper — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nJade — capitalized when referenced.\n\n### STORY\nEmily bootstraps magitech in a looted workshop tent until Casper presents a basic tile and warns her to mean well toward someone who has had a hard life.\nThis Casper’s care for a younger brother startles her hard against the teasing, uncaring Casper she knew in her own timeline.\nEvening talk with Alassa turns toward other people’s happiness, drained wine glasses, and a brittle insistence that she is really glad.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSurprised by Casper’s gentleness; moving into camp-social evening with Alassa; reading wine and tone carefully.\n\nCasper\nAlive; caring about his younger brother in a way Emily’s Casper never showed.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; drinking wine; saying she’s glad — really — about someone’s happiness; swallowing a glass and pouring another.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nCaleb stared back at her, then lowered his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I …”\n\n“And what,” a different voice said, “are you doing with my brother?”\n\nEmily’s heart twisted again. Casper? Caleb’s brother had died at Heart’s Eye, in her world; here … she guessed her counterpart had never met him either. He looked like a younger version of Hedrick, wearing a shabby tunic that showed off his muscles … unlike her Casper, he didn’t seem to be showing them off deliberately. There was a shadow in his eyes that worried her; the arrogant man she’d known knocked down so hard he was only a fragment of his former self …\n\n“He reminded me of someone I used to know,” Emily said. She should have expected it. Caleb had been at Whitehall when all hell had broken loose, unless that was different too … she didn’t want to know. “And I’m sorry.”\n\nShe wanted to ask what had happened to the rest of the family, their parents and their sisters, but she didn’t want to hear more bad news. There was no happiness here, just an endless struggle to remain alive one more day. And it was all her fault …\n\n“Sorry for what?” Casper glanced at her chest, but there was something about the movement that suggested it was less lecherous and more a desperate attempt to keep up appearances. Or perhaps to feel something, anything, before the oncoming storm finally washed over them. “Check my brother’s work and then let him go.”\n\nEmily hesitated, then did as she was told. “It should work,” she said to Caleb. The tile wasn’t as neat as the ones she’d seen at Heart’s Eye, but the craftsmen here didn’t have the tools or practice to churn them out in a hurry. A magiwriter was as far beyond them as a piece of steampunk technology. “Try and put it into production, then we can test it.”\n\nCaleb turned and hurried away. Emily’s eyes lingered on his rear. He’d always been thin, but this Caleb was strikingly bony, clothes hanging from his frame as if they’d been designed for a far larger man. She felt a pang of guilt for staring, even though she knew she was staring at an alternate version of her lover rather than another man … she missed her Caleb so much, so intensely, that she found tears prickling in her eyes. If he was with her …\n\n“He’s had a hard life,” Casper said, warningly. “Don’t talk to him unless you mean well.”\n\n### NOTES\nCamp evening; wine available despite scarcity.\nEmotional undercurrents around relationships and counterparts.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily blinks at a Casper who cares about his younger brother in a way her Casper never did, the dissonance sharp enough to unsettle her between workshop tasks. Camp conversation carries her into evening with Alassa, where wine and brittle cheer take over the table.\n\nAlassa toasts someone else’s happiness, drains her glass in a gulp, and pours again — glad, she insists, really glad — while Emily hears the crack under the words and does not yet know how to mend it.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Character dissonance and brittle cheer; land on Alassa’s second glass.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily blinked. Her Casper had never been so caring, not about his younger brother. He’d teased and tormented instead, from what she’d heard … it boded ill for the rest of the family if Casper was so caring. Their parents and sisters might be dead … or worse.\n\n“I won’t,” Emily assured him. Words were so inadequate. “I’ll be back shortly.”\n\nShe turned and stepped out of the tent, so tired she was almost unwell. The long day was drawing to a close, the sun sinking in the distance and darkness falling over the land … she sucked in her breath, tasting the scent of tainted magic on the air. There were fewer people visible now, everyone who had a tent hurrying under canvas before darkness fell ... she shuddered as she spotted a young girl, so thin it was a marvel she was still alive. She would never recover completely, even with proper medical treatment and food. The rest of her life would be overshadowed by her time in the camp.\n\nAlassa walked towards her, face grim. “The council isn’t sure what to make of your concepts, but … they’re desperate.”\n\n“They might give you a fighting chance,” Emily said. “Did you manage to get donors for the batteries?”\n\n“Yeah.” Alassa seemed to sag, suddenly. “I led the way myself. Not a good place to be.”\n\nEmily put out a steadying hand. Alassa leaned against her, a display of weakness her other self would never have tolerated. Emily wasn't sure if it was a gesture of trust, a subtle test to make sure she could be trusted, or simply exhaustion. Her Alassa had Jade, a man she could rely on completely; this Alassa had Hedrick, a man who couldn’t be trusted. Emily tried not to think about what years of warfare, against a powerful and implacable foe, would do to her. It wasn’t as if she’d been locked in endless war against the necromancers.\n\nAnd this Emily is worse than any of them, she reflected, sourly. She killed them all to make room for herself.\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said. Alassa straightened and led the way back to the tent. “I wish things had been different.”\n\n“Wishing never made anything any better,” Alassa said. “You’ll be sleeping with me tonight.”\n\nEmily hesitated. “What about …?”\n\n“He’s busy with his men,” Alassa told her. “He has a lot of work to do. And I don’t want you out of my sight any more than necessary.”\n\n“Got it.” Emily shook her head as Alassa opened the flap, the wards bending around her as she led the way inside. “I don’t blame you.”\n\nAlassa glanced back. “Most people would be shocked at such distrust.”\n\n“I’ve seen too many enemies wearing friendly faces,” Emily said. “You have no reason to trust me.”\n\nShe took a seat, wondering if Alassa was going to insist she be tied up. That would be a problem. Her magic was dangerously depleted, leaving her vulnerable if someone turned up with bad intentions. Alassa sat on the blankets instead, rustling through a knapsack to produce a bottle of wine and two glasses. Emily shook her head, firmly. She knew the dangers of drinking all too well.\n\n“More for me,” Alassa said. She poured herself a glass of red wine and took a sip. “Do you want something to eat? We have rations if you’re interested.”\n\n“Please,” Emily said.\n\n“I used to laugh at my father’s table, groaning under the weight of food,” Alassa said. “All the noblemen would try to outdo one another, serving dishes rare and expensive … stuffed mice and snake meat and other delicacies from all over the world. They tried to prove their wealth by serving the very best … one fool of a countess even served a dissolved pearl, just to win a bet over who could serve the most expensive meal. And now …”\n\nShe took another sip of her drink, then started to rummage through the bag. “I wish I’d listened, when Lady Barb tried to warn me about you. The other you. I would give anything to go back to those days and stop her before it was too late.”\n\n“I know,” Emily said, quietly. Her Alassa had never known true hardship, even when she’d been the princess in the tower. It had been a cage, true, but a gilded one. This Alassa had lost everything that gave her life meaning. “You never know what you’ve lost until you lose it.”\n\n“Yeah.” Alassa passed her a packet of salt beef, hardtack biscuits and oatmeal. “You never do.”\n\nShe sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a proper dinner.”\n\n“I’ve eaten worse,” Emily assured her. The oatmeal was bland, the salt beef was a little too salty, the hardtack threatening to break her teeth … she poured herself some water and used it to wash the meal down. It could easily have been a great deal worse. “I wish …”\n\nAlassa stared into her wine. “Is she happy? The other me?”\n\nEmily hesitated. Would it be wise to discuss it? Would it …?\n\n“Tell me,” Alassa said. “Tell me there’s a world where I’m happy.”\n\n“You’re married to Jade,” Emily said. “One child, a daughter. Named after me. You might be pregnant again” – she refused to believe her world was completely gone, everyone from Alassa to Caleb existing only in her mind – “and … oh, you rule your kingdom. I …”\n\nAlassa let out a sound, half-laugh and half-sob. “And my father?”\n\n“Dead,” Emily said. There was no point in pretending otherwise. Alassa knew perfectly well there could only be one monarch. “He …”\n\n“I don’t want to know,” Alassa said. “Do you think she’s happy?”\n\n“Yes.” Emily couldn’t imagine her Alassa putting up with any mistreatment. If she wasn’t happy, she would find a way to do something about it. “She seems very much so.”\n\n“Good for her,” Alassa said. She swallowed the rest of her wine in a single gulp, then poured herself a second glass. “Good for her. I’m glad. Really, I am.”\n", "completion": "Emily blinked. Her Casper had never been so caring, not about his younger brother. He’d teased and tormented instead, from what she’d heard … it boded ill for the rest of the family if Casper was so caring. Their parents and sisters might be dead … or worse.\n\n“I won’t,” Emily assured him. Words were so inadequate. “I’ll be back shortly.”\n\nShe turned and stepped out of the tent, so tired she was almost unwell. The long day was drawing to a close, the sun sinking in the distance and darkness falling over the land … she sucked in her breath, tasting the scent of tainted magic on the air. There were fewer people visible now, everyone who had a tent hurrying under canvas before darkness fell ... she shuddered as she spotted a young girl, so thin it was a marvel she was still alive. She would never recover completely, even with proper medical treatment and food. The rest of her life would be overshadowed by her time in the camp.\n\nAlassa walked towards her, face grim. “The council isn’t sure what to make of your concepts, but … they’re desperate.”\n\n“They might give you a fighting chance,” Emily said. “Did you manage to get donors for the batteries?”\n\n“Yeah.” Alassa seemed to sag, suddenly. “I led the way myself. Not a good place to be.”\n\nEmily put out a steadying hand. Alassa leaned against her, a display of weakness her other self would never have tolerated. Emily wasn't sure if it was a gesture of trust, a subtle test to make sure she could be trusted, or simply exhaustion. Her Alassa had Jade, a man she could rely on completely; this Alassa had Hedrick, a man who couldn’t be trusted. Emily tried not to think about what years of warfare, against a powerful and implacable foe, would do to her. It wasn’t as if she’d been locked in endless war against the necromancers.\n\nAnd this Emily is worse than any of them, she reflected, sourly. She killed them all to make room for herself.\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said. Alassa straightened and led the way back to the tent. “I wish things had been different.”\n\n“Wishing never made anything any better,” Alassa said. “You’ll be sleeping with me tonight.”\n\nEmily hesitated. “What about …?”\n\n“He’s busy with his men,” Alassa told her. “He has a lot of work to do. And I don’t want you out of my sight any more than necessary.”\n\n“Got it.” Emily shook her head as Alassa opened the flap, the wards bending around her as she led the way inside. “I don’t blame you.”\n\nAlassa glanced back. “Most people would be shocked at such distrust.”\n\n“I’ve seen too many enemies wearing friendly faces,” Emily said. “You have no reason to trust me.”\n\nShe took a seat, wondering if Alassa was going to insist she be tied up. That would be a problem. Her magic was dangerously depleted, leaving her vulnerable if someone turned up with bad intentions. Alassa sat on the blankets instead, rustling through a knapsack to produce a bottle of wine and two glasses. Emily shook her head, firmly. She knew the dangers of drinking all too well.\n\n“More for me,” Alassa said. She poured herself a glass of red wine and took a sip. “Do you want something to eat? We have rations if you’re interested.”\n\n“Please,” Emily said.\n\n“I used to laugh at my father’s table, groaning under the weight of food,” Alassa said. “All the noblemen would try to outdo one another, serving dishes rare and expensive … stuffed mice and snake meat and other delicacies from all over the world. They tried to prove their wealth by serving the very best … one fool of a countess even served a dissolved pearl, just to win a bet over who could serve the most expensive meal. And now …”\n\nShe took another sip of her drink, then started to rummage through the bag. “I wish I’d listened, when Lady Barb tried to warn me about you. The other you. I would give anything to go back to those days and stop her before it was too late.”\n\n“I know,” Emily said, quietly. Her Alassa had never known true hardship, even when she’d been the princess in the tower. It had been a cage, true, but a gilded one. This Alassa had lost everything that gave her life meaning. “You never know what you’ve lost until you lose it.”\n\n“Yeah.” Alassa passed her a packet of salt beef, hardtack biscuits and oatmeal. “You never do.”\n\nShe sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a proper dinner.”\n\n“I’ve eaten worse,” Emily assured her. The oatmeal was bland, the salt beef was a little too salty, the hardtack threatening to break her teeth … she poured herself some water and used it to wash the meal down. It could easily have been a great deal worse. “I wish …”\n\nAlassa stared into her wine. “Is she happy? The other me?”\n\nEmily hesitated. Would it be wise to discuss it? Would it …?\n\n“Tell me,” Alassa said. “Tell me there’s a world where I’m happy.”\n\n“You’re married to Jade,” Emily said. “One child, a daughter. Named after me. You might be pregnant again” – she refused to believe her world was completely gone, everyone from Alassa to Caleb existing only in her mind – “and … oh, you rule your kingdom. I …”\n\nAlassa let out a sound, half-laugh and half-sob. “And my father?”\n\n“Dead,” Emily said. There was no point in pretending otherwise. Alassa knew perfectly well there could only be one monarch. “He …”\n\n“I don’t want to know,” Alassa said. “Do you think she’s happy?”\n\n“Yes.” Emily couldn’t imagine her Alassa putting up with any mistreatment. If she wasn’t happy, she would find a way to do something about it. “She seems very much so.”\n\n“Good for her,” Alassa said. She swallowed the rest of her wine in a single gulp, then poured herself a second glass. “Good for her. I’m glad. Really, I am.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1032, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch15-P3", "chapter": "ch15", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nCasper’s unexpected gentleness and Alassa’s wine-soaked gladness mark a camp evening after the first magitech work begins under forced secrecy.\nAlassa is drinking too fast for Emily’s comfort, pouring a second glass after swallowing the first in a single hard gulp.\nEmily is exhausted past reason, protective of Alassa, and still not ready for the sleep that will be a long time coming.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nHeart sinking at Alassa’s drinking; tired beyond reason; protective; will not sleep easily.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; drinking; raw; needs steering away from another glass.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I used to laugh at my father’s table, groaning under the weight of food,” Alassa said. “All the noblemen would try to outdo one another, serving dishes rare and expensive … stuffed mice and snake meat and other delicacies from all over the world. They tried to prove their wealth by serving the very best … one fool of a countess even served a dissolved pearl, just to win a bet over who could serve the most expensive meal. And now …”\n\nShe took another sip of her drink, then started to rummage through the bag. “I wish I’d listened, when Lady Barb tried to warn me about you. The other you. I would give anything to go back to those days and stop her before it was too late.”\n\n“I know,” Emily said, quietly. Her Alassa had never known true hardship, even when she’d been the princess in the tower. It had been a cage, true, but a gilded one. This Alassa had lost everything that gave her life meaning. “You never know what you’ve lost until you lose it.”\n\n“Yeah.” Alassa passed her a packet of salt beef, hardtack biscuits and oatmeal. “You never do.”\n\nShe sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a proper dinner.”\n\n“I’ve eaten worse,” Emily assured her. The oatmeal was bland, the salt beef was a little too salty, the hardtack threatening to break her teeth … she poured herself some water and used it to wash the meal down. It could easily have been a great deal worse. “I wish …”\n\nAlassa stared into her wine. “Is she happy? The other me?”\n\nEmily hesitated. Would it be wise to discuss it? Would it …?\n\n“Tell me,” Alassa said. “Tell me there’s a world where I’m happy.”\n\n“You’re married to Jade,” Emily said. “One child, a daughter. Named after me. You might be pregnant again” – she refused to believe her world was completely gone, everyone from Alassa to Caleb existing only in her mind – “and … oh, you rule your kingdom. I …”\n\nAlassa let out a sound, half-laugh and half-sob. “And my father?”\n\n“Dead,” Emily said. There was no point in pretending otherwise. Alassa knew perfectly well there could only be one monarch. “He …”\n\n“I don’t want to know,” Alassa said. “Do you think she’s happy?”\n\n“Yes.” Emily couldn’t imagine her Alassa putting up with any mistreatment. If she wasn’t happy, she would find a way to do something about it. “She seems very much so.”\n\n“Good for her,” Alassa said. She swallowed the rest of her wine in a single gulp, then poured herself a second glass. “Good for her. I’m glad. Really, I am.”\n\n### NOTES\nNight in camp; sleep will come slowly despite exhaustion.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily’s heart sinks as she asks Alassa not to drink any more, trying to pull her friend back from the second glass and the raw night behind it. Exhaustion presses in from every side — famine, secrecy, magitech strain — but sleep still takes a long time to claim her.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Quieting night close; land on delayed sleep.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily felt her heart sink. “Don’t drink any more, please.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “When did you become such a prude?”\n\n“I never liked watching people get drunk,” Emily said. “Did she …?”\n\n“She was quite the sybarite,” Alassa said, darkly. “She’d drink, she’d eat, she had a harem of men … women too. She enjoyed herself, until those pleasures paled for her. Did you …?”\n\n“No.” The idea of having a harem was absurd, at least to her. Alassa’s father hadn’t been the only king to have a series of mistresses, each one raised high for a short period and then passed on once the king got bored of them. “I never did …”\n\n“Jade.” Alassa sounded reflective. “How could I marry Jade? He’s yours.”\n\n“My Jade isn’t mine,” Emily said. She shuddered at the memories she’d seen in her counterpart’s mind. “He … you and he fell in love, during our third year at school.”\n\n“Lucky them, I guess.” Alassa stared at her glass. “He comes here, he fucks me or I fuck him, and then … we just part. There’s nothing here for me, just … a moment of feeling, just for a second, before he’s gone.”\n\nIt took Emily a moment to realise Alassa was talking about Hedrick. “I’m sorry.”\n\n“You’re sorry,” Alassa repeated. She finished her wine and poured a third glass. “Do you know what it’s like, to have everyone here depending on you? There are so many different gangs here that it’s hard to keep them from coming to blows, even with her breathing down our necks. I don’t get anything for myself any longer, not even hope. There’s no way out.”\n\nShe stared into her glass. “I’m glad she’s happy,” she said. “I hope it all goes well for her. But here …”\n\nEmily reached for the glass. “I think you’ve had enough.”\n\nAlassa glared at her, sparks flickering around her fingertips. “You dare?”\n\n“You’ve had too much,” Emily said. She could feel the magic flickering and flaring, a grim reminder that drunk magicians were very dangerous. There was a reason magicians were discouraged from drinking. “Give me the glass.”\n\nAlassa surrendered it, then threw herself at Emily. Emily wasn’t sure if she was trying to hug her or to attack her, Alassa’s arms flailing around as if Alassa wasn’t sure herself. Emily felt tears pricking in her eye as she hugged Alassa back, rubbing her back as she broke down and cried. It wasn’t easy for Alassa to share anything with anyone, not when she had no confidante in the camp … Emily wondered, numbly, if that was why she’d turned to drink. The hopelessness would eat anyone alive.\n\n“You want to fuck?” Alassa’s lips were suddenly very close to hers. “We could …”\n\nEmily started, honestly shocked. It wasn’t her Alassa … she was suddenly very aware of the body pressed against hers, of the casual desperation in her friend’s eyes. It was … she gritted her teeth, feeling a multitude of emotions she didn’t know how to process. She was engaged, damn it, and Alassa was her friend … but this Alassa was someone different … and she was drunk. She wasn’t in her right mind. And that meant she needed help.\n\n“No,” Emily said, finally. “But you need to get some sleep.”\n\nShe helped Alassa to lie back on the blankets, careful to remove her boots. Alassa caught her hand and pulled her down, holding her tightly as she closed her eyes. Not for sex, Emily realised, but for comfort … it was an odd little insight into her relationship with Hedrick worked, one Emily would have preferred not to have. The bastard could have done more than just have sex with her and … Emily didn’t want to think about it. She missed Caleb. She missed waking up next to him, and sharing a life with him, and …\n\nAnd the Caleb here had his life ruined by you, her thoughts pointed out. Her counterpart had no reason to hate Caleb, no reason to even know him. Somehow, that made it even worse. The sheer impersonal quality to what was effectively a genocide was chilling. He doesn’t know who you are and if he did, he’d hate you.\n\nAlassa snuggled up to her, then went to sleep. Emily sighed and closed her eyes. There was no point in trying to pull away, when Alassa was drunk and emotionally vulnerable … vulnerable in other ways too. If Hedrick turned up … Emily had known for years that some royal relationships were nothing more than battlegrounds, but still … she didn’t want to think about it. Jade and Alassa were unusual in sharing the same bed.\n\nShe forced herself to think, even as she tried to sleep. They might have a chance, if they used magitech … but would it last? Her counterpart could throw the resources of an entire continent at them, drowning Alassa’s army in bodies … if she was still alive. Had Master Wolfe returned her to her timeline? Or duplicated her? Or … who knew? Emily feared she’d be finding out the hard way.\n\nWe can’t fight this battle and hope to win, not conventionally, Emily thought. Military affairs were hardly her forte, but she’d picked up quite a bit over the years. The ragtag army was on the verge of coming apart, held together by a handful of leaders by nothing but will alone. One more defeat would break the army, once and for all. We need to buy time.\n\nAlassa shifted against her. Emily let her.\n\nAnd what happened to Frieda? Emily had tried a handful of spells to find her friend, but none had worked. If she was in a whole other timeline … would the spells work? She doubted it. he question ran through her head, time and time again. Where is she?\n\nShe was tired beyond all reason, but it was still a long time before sleep claimed her.\n", "completion": "Emily felt her heart sink. “Don’t drink any more, please.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “When did you become such a prude?”\n\n“I never liked watching people get drunk,” Emily said. “Did she …?”\n\n“She was quite the sybarite,” Alassa said, darkly. “She’d drink, she’d eat, she had a harem of men … women too. She enjoyed herself, until those pleasures paled for her. Did you …?”\n\n“No.” The idea of having a harem was absurd, at least to her. Alassa’s father hadn’t been the only king to have a series of mistresses, each one raised high for a short period and then passed on once the king got bored of them. “I never did …”\n\n“Jade.” Alassa sounded reflective. “How could I marry Jade? He’s yours.”\n\n“My Jade isn’t mine,” Emily said. She shuddered at the memories she’d seen in her counterpart’s mind. “He … you and he fell in love, during our third year at school.”\n\n“Lucky them, I guess.” Alassa stared at her glass. “He comes here, he fucks me or I fuck him, and then … we just part. There’s nothing here for me, just … a moment of feeling, just for a second, before he’s gone.”\n\nIt took Emily a moment to realise Alassa was talking about Hedrick. “I’m sorry.”\n\n“You’re sorry,” Alassa repeated. She finished her wine and poured a third glass. “Do you know what it’s like, to have everyone here depending on you? There are so many different gangs here that it’s hard to keep them from coming to blows, even with her breathing down our necks. I don’t get anything for myself any longer, not even hope. There’s no way out.”\n\nShe stared into her glass. “I’m glad she’s happy,” she said. “I hope it all goes well for her. But here …”\n\nEmily reached for the glass. “I think you’ve had enough.”\n\nAlassa glared at her, sparks flickering around her fingertips. “You dare?”\n\n“You’ve had too much,” Emily said. She could feel the magic flickering and flaring, a grim reminder that drunk magicians were very dangerous. There was a reason magicians were discouraged from drinking. “Give me the glass.”\n\nAlassa surrendered it, then threw herself at Emily. Emily wasn’t sure if she was trying to hug her or to attack her, Alassa’s arms flailing around as if Alassa wasn’t sure herself. Emily felt tears pricking in her eye as she hugged Alassa back, rubbing her back as she broke down and cried. It wasn’t easy for Alassa to share anything with anyone, not when she had no confidante in the camp … Emily wondered, numbly, if that was why she’d turned to drink. The hopelessness would eat anyone alive.\n\n“You want to fuck?” Alassa’s lips were suddenly very close to hers. “We could …”\n\nEmily started, honestly shocked. It wasn’t her Alassa … she was suddenly very aware of the body pressed against hers, of the casual desperation in her friend’s eyes. It was … she gritted her teeth, feeling a multitude of emotions she didn’t know how to process. She was engaged, damn it, and Alassa was her friend … but this Alassa was someone different … and she was drunk. She wasn’t in her right mind. And that meant she needed help.\n\n“No,” Emily said, finally. “But you need to get some sleep.”\n\nShe helped Alassa to lie back on the blankets, careful to remove her boots. Alassa caught her hand and pulled her down, holding her tightly as she closed her eyes. Not for sex, Emily realised, but for comfort … it was an odd little insight into her relationship with Hedrick worked, one Emily would have preferred not to have. The bastard could have done more than just have sex with her and … Emily didn’t want to think about it. She missed Caleb. She missed waking up next to him, and sharing a life with him, and …\n\nAnd the Caleb here had his life ruined by you, her thoughts pointed out. Her counterpart had no reason to hate Caleb, no reason to even know him. Somehow, that made it even worse. The sheer impersonal quality to what was effectively a genocide was chilling. He doesn’t know who you are and if he did, he’d hate you.\n\nAlassa snuggled up to her, then went to sleep. Emily sighed and closed her eyes. There was no point in trying to pull away, when Alassa was drunk and emotionally vulnerable … vulnerable in other ways too. If Hedrick turned up … Emily had known for years that some royal relationships were nothing more than battlegrounds, but still … she didn’t want to think about it. Jade and Alassa were unusual in sharing the same bed.\n\nShe forced herself to think, even as she tried to sleep. They might have a chance, if they used magitech … but would it last? Her counterpart could throw the resources of an entire continent at them, drowning Alassa’s army in bodies … if she was still alive. Had Master Wolfe returned her to her timeline? Or duplicated her? Or … who knew? Emily feared she’d be finding out the hard way.\n\nWe can’t fight this battle and hope to win, not conventionally, Emily thought. Military affairs were hardly her forte, but she’d picked up quite a bit over the years. The ragtag army was on the verge of coming apart, held together by a handful of leaders by nothing but will alone. One more defeat would break the army, once and for all. We need to buy time.\n\nAlassa shifted against her. Emily let her.\n\nAnd what happened to Frieda? Emily had tried a handful of spells to find her friend, but none had worked. If she was in a whole other timeline … would the spells work? She doubted it. he question ran through her head, time and time again. Where is she?\n\nShe was tired beyond all reason, but it was still a long time before sleep claimed her.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1012, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch16-P1", "chapter": "ch16", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nJade — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized.\nHedrick — capitalized.\norc — lowercase common noun; plural orcs.\n\n### STORY\nEmily bootstraps basic magitech under looted-camp scarcity while Casper shows unexpected care for a hard-used brother and Alassa drinks through brittle gladness.\nNearly a week of recovery, secrecy, and awkward forgiveness after the shared bed passes without the enemy appearing on the horizon.\nThe enemy army finally comes into view — orcs, humans, monsters from the Blighted Lands, and a fanatic Jade in gigolo finery whose eyes may be red.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nOn the glass with a telescope; horrified at Necromancer Emily’s host and at Jade’s zealot face and possible red eyes. Awkwardness with Alassa after sharing a bed platonically is easing.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; beside Emily; disdainful that Emily ever married “him”; still Emily’s local ally.\n\nJade\nEnemy commander figure in gigolo-bright outfit with a glowing blade; fanatic expression; eyes may be red; not free.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nAfter a drunk night Alassa apologized; they slept in one another’s arms without more; embarrassment lingered days.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“No,” Emily said, finally. “But you need to get some sleep.”\n\nShe helped Alassa to lie back on the blankets, careful to remove her boots. Alassa caught her hand and pulled her down, holding her tightly as she closed her eyes. Not for sex, Emily realised, but for comfort … it was an odd little insight into her relationship with Hedrick worked, one Emily would have preferred not to have. The bastard could have done more than just have sex with her and … Emily didn’t want to think about it. She missed Caleb. She missed waking up next to him, and sharing a life with him, and …\n\nAnd the Caleb here had his life ruined by you, her thoughts pointed out. Her counterpart had no reason to hate Caleb, no reason to even know him. Somehow, that made it even worse. The sheer impersonal quality to what was effectively a genocide was chilling. He doesn’t know who you are and if he did, he’d hate you.\n\nAlassa snuggled up to her, then went to sleep. Emily sighed and closed her eyes. There was no point in trying to pull away, when Alassa was drunk and emotionally vulnerable … vulnerable in other ways too. If Hedrick turned up … Emily had known for years that some royal relationships were nothing more than battlegrounds, but still … she didn’t want to think about it. Jade and Alassa were unusual in sharing the same bed.\n\nShe forced herself to think, even as she tried to sleep. They might have a chance, if they used magitech … but would it last? Her counterpart could throw the resources of an entire continent at them, drowning Alassa’s army in bodies … if she was still alive. Had Master Wolfe returned her to her timeline? Or duplicated her? Or … who knew? Emily feared she’d be finding out the hard way.\n\nWe can’t fight this battle and hope to win, not conventionally, Emily thought. Military affairs were hardly her forte, but she’d picked up quite a bit over the years. The ragtag army was on the verge of coming apart, held together by a handful of leaders by nothing but will alone. One more defeat would break the army, once and for all. We need to buy time.\n\nAlassa shifted against her. Emily let her.\n\nAnd what happened to Frieda? Emily had tried a handful of spells to find her friend, but none had worked. If she was in a whole other timeline … would the spells work? She doubted it. he question ran through her head, time and time again. Where is she?\n\nShe was tired beyond all reason, but it was still a long time before sleep claimed her.\n\n### NOTES\nNearly a week since earlier camp beats; enemy host includes Blighted Lands summons.\nBright general outfits stand out against the horde.\nTelescope observation before contact.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nA week later the enemy fills her telescope — madness of orcs, monsters, and generals in bright clothes. She recognizes Jade as a zealot gigolo with a glowing blade and possibly red eyes. Alassa joins her; leftover awkwardness from the drunk night is named and set aside; Alassa’s disdain for the marriage idea cuts as the host closes. They are about to be hit.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Dread of the host; keep Jade uncanny. Land on imminent contact.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It was nearly a week before the enemy army came into view.\n\nEmily studied the enemy force through her telescope, wondering at the sheer madness of her counterpart. It was immense, thousands upon thousands of orcs, humans and monsters beyond the bonds of sanity, all produced by mad sorcerers working under her counterpart’s direction or summoned from the Blighted Lands. A handful of generals were clearly visible, wearing bright outfits that made them stand out against the horde. Emily sucked in her breath as she recognised Jade, wearing an outfit that made him look like a gigolo and carrying a blade that glowed with powerful magic. His face … never, in all her life, had she seen him make a face like that. He looked like a religious fanatic, consumed with zeal to destroy the infidel and spread the faith with fire and sword. And his eyes …\n\nIt was hard to be sure, at such a distance, but they looked red.\n\nAlassa stepped up beside her. Emily was almost relieved. Things had been awkward, when they’d woken up in each other’s arms, even if they hadn’t done anything more than sleep. Alassa had apologised, for getting drunk and everything else; Emily had hugged her and forgiven her and told her to put the whole affair in the past. It had still taken a couple of days to work past the embarrassment, no matter how much they wanted to let it go. If it had been her Alassa …\n\nShe would never have come on to me like that, Emily thought. And she never would have gotten drunk.\n\n“And you say I married him,” Alassa said. The disdain in her voice would have made Emily laugh, or get offended on her friend’s behalf, if the situation wasn’t so dire. “Really?”\n\n“That’s not my Jade,” Emily said. “Or yours.”\n\nShe sucked in her breath as her eyes swept over the army. The orcs were as tough as always, the humans … she frowned as she saw the slave collars, nailed firmly into place around their necks. She was a little disappointed in her counterpart. It shouldn’t have been hard to recruit any number of sociopaths, men who would happily rape, kill and burn their way across the world, for her armies. Using slaves instead … Emily wondered, bitterly, if her counterpart was more driven by childhood abuse than herself. It wasn’t uncommon for abused children to seek control over their surroundings, and everyone around them, and what could be more effective than enslaving everyone? Her slaves wouldn’t be able to say no, let alone resist in other ways …\n\nAlassa glanced at her. “Do you think this is going to work?”\n\n“I think we’re about to find out,” Emily said. The army had mustered as soon as the enemy came into view, but it was clear the good guys were pathetically outnumbered. Hedrick and Sir James were walking up and down the trenches, speaking words of encouragement in a manner that reminded Emily of the famous speech from Henry V, yet … she was sure a handful of men had already deserted, even though they had nowhere to go, and it was just a matter of time before others followed. “Are you ready to start the march?”\n\n“As long as we don’t get caught on the hop,” Alassa said. “That could end very badly indeed.”\n\nEmily nodded. Orcs were stronger and faster than any mere human, their raw strength making up for their primitive weapons. If the humans had had guns, the odds would have been even; here, there were no guns and no way to make them in a hurry. The makeshift gunpowder wasn’t good enough to serve as propellant, even if they’d had the time. The orcs would be bad enough when they charged the trenches, but if they caught the army in the field, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of refugees … it would be a bloody slaughter.\n\nHedrick joined them, his face flushed. “A fine day for a fight,” he said. Emily couldn’t tell if he was trying to cheer them up, convince himself, or just be annoying. He swept Alassa up and gave her a long kiss, the movement so forceful that Emily winced. She was going to be bruised even if she didn’t mind being kissed. “We’ll give them a damn good thrashing.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily felt her magic spark and gritted her teeth. She couldn’t kill him. “If everything is ready …”\n\nA trumpet blew. She looked up, just in time to see the enemy army surge forward. They showed no sign of fear or hesitation, the orcs too dumb to understand the dangers and the slaves unable to stop themselves from following orders. Jade stayed at the rear, leaving a handful of subordinates to lead the army. Emily couldn’t tell if they were slaves, in any sense of the word, but they were advancing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Perhaps they didn’t. They had to know Alassa’s army was on the verge of collapse.\n\n“They’ll be on us in seconds,” Hedrick said. He raised his hand. “Archers … loose!”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth as his aides took up the cry. The archers fired as one, unleashing a hail of arrows into the oncoming storm. Hundreds of orcs staggered, but kept coming; the slaves tumbled to the ground, their bodies trampled into a bloody pulp as the second and third lines marched over them and kept going. The archers reloaded and fired again, aiming to kill as many orcs and masters as possible. Hedrick whooped as a general fell, a dozen arrows lodged in his body, but the army didn’t seem to notice. It just kept coming.\n\n“No human army could take such a beating,” Alassa muttered. “And yet, they keep coming.”\n\n“Get the first battery ready to go,” Emily advised. Orcs were too tough to go down easily. She’d seen them take arrows through the eye and keep going, despite the injury. “They’ll be on us in a moment.”\n", "completion": "It was nearly a week before the enemy army came into view.\n\nEmily studied the enemy force through her telescope, wondering at the sheer madness of her counterpart. It was immense, thousands upon thousands of orcs, humans and monsters beyond the bonds of sanity, all produced by mad sorcerers working under her counterpart’s direction or summoned from the Blighted Lands. A handful of generals were clearly visible, wearing bright outfits that made them stand out against the horde. Emily sucked in her breath as she recognised Jade, wearing an outfit that made him look like a gigolo and carrying a blade that glowed with powerful magic. His face … never, in all her life, had she seen him make a face like that. He looked like a religious fanatic, consumed with zeal to destroy the infidel and spread the faith with fire and sword. And his eyes …\n\nIt was hard to be sure, at such a distance, but they looked red.\n\nAlassa stepped up beside her. Emily was almost relieved. Things had been awkward, when they’d woken up in each other’s arms, even if they hadn’t done anything more than sleep. Alassa had apologised, for getting drunk and everything else; Emily had hugged her and forgiven her and told her to put the whole affair in the past. It had still taken a couple of days to work past the embarrassment, no matter how much they wanted to let it go. If it had been her Alassa …\n\nShe would never have come on to me like that, Emily thought. And she never would have gotten drunk.\n\n“And you say I married him,” Alassa said. The disdain in her voice would have made Emily laugh, or get offended on her friend’s behalf, if the situation wasn’t so dire. “Really?”\n\n“That’s not my Jade,” Emily said. “Or yours.”\n\nShe sucked in her breath as her eyes swept over the army. The orcs were as tough as always, the humans … she frowned as she saw the slave collars, nailed firmly into place around their necks. She was a little disappointed in her counterpart. It shouldn’t have been hard to recruit any number of sociopaths, men who would happily rape, kill and burn their way across the world, for her armies. Using slaves instead … Emily wondered, bitterly, if her counterpart was more driven by childhood abuse than herself. It wasn’t uncommon for abused children to seek control over their surroundings, and everyone around them, and what could be more effective than enslaving everyone? Her slaves wouldn’t be able to say no, let alone resist in other ways …\n\nAlassa glanced at her. “Do you think this is going to work?”\n\n“I think we’re about to find out,” Emily said. The army had mustered as soon as the enemy came into view, but it was clear the good guys were pathetically outnumbered. Hedrick and Sir James were walking up and down the trenches, speaking words of encouragement in a manner that reminded Emily of the famous speech from Henry V, yet … she was sure a handful of men had already deserted, even though they had nowhere to go, and it was just a matter of time before others followed. “Are you ready to start the march?”\n\n“As long as we don’t get caught on the hop,” Alassa said. “That could end very badly indeed.”\n\nEmily nodded. Orcs were stronger and faster than any mere human, their raw strength making up for their primitive weapons. If the humans had had guns, the odds would have been even; here, there were no guns and no way to make them in a hurry. The makeshift gunpowder wasn’t good enough to serve as propellant, even if they’d had the time. The orcs would be bad enough when they charged the trenches, but if they caught the army in the field, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of refugees … it would be a bloody slaughter.\n\nHedrick joined them, his face flushed. “A fine day for a fight,” he said. Emily couldn’t tell if he was trying to cheer them up, convince himself, or just be annoying. He swept Alassa up and gave her a long kiss, the movement so forceful that Emily winced. She was going to be bruised even if she didn’t mind being kissed. “We’ll give them a damn good thrashing.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily felt her magic spark and gritted her teeth. She couldn’t kill him. “If everything is ready …”\n\nA trumpet blew. She looked up, just in time to see the enemy army surge forward. They showed no sign of fear or hesitation, the orcs too dumb to understand the dangers and the slaves unable to stop themselves from following orders. Jade stayed at the rear, leaving a handful of subordinates to lead the army. Emily couldn’t tell if they were slaves, in any sense of the word, but they were advancing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Perhaps they didn’t. They had to know Alassa’s army was on the verge of collapse.\n\n“They’ll be on us in seconds,” Hedrick said. He raised his hand. “Archers … loose!”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth as his aides took up the cry. The archers fired as one, unleashing a hail of arrows into the oncoming storm. Hundreds of orcs staggered, but kept coming; the slaves tumbled to the ground, their bodies trampled into a bloody pulp as the second and third lines marched over them and kept going. The archers reloaded and fired again, aiming to kill as many orcs and masters as possible. Hedrick whooped as a general fell, a dozen arrows lodged in his body, but the army didn’t seem to notice. It just kept coming.\n\n“No human army could take such a beating,” Alassa muttered. “And yet, they keep coming.”\n\n“Get the first battery ready to go,” Emily advised. Orcs were too tough to go down easily. She’d seen them take arrows through the eye and keep going, despite the injury. “They’ll be on us in a moment.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1026, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch16-P2", "chapter": "ch16", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHedrick — capitalized.\nJade — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nThe enemy host fills the glass with orcs, monsters, and a fanatic Jade whose eyes may be red under Necromancer Emily’s widening banner.\nAlassa stands with Emily through leftover awkwardness as disdain for the marriage idea cuts and contact becomes inevitable.\nHedrick insists the coming strike is a matter of timing so they do not get the opening wrong and waste what little force they have.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nIn the fight’s timing window; watching Jade operate as an enslaved weapon; terrified that Necromancer Emily might look through his eyes.\n\nHedrick\nAlive; calling timing for the defense/strike.\n\nJade\nAlive as a slave so complete he may not know it; casting; horrific to Emily who loved another Jade.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; fighting beside Emily’s concern.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily nodded. Orcs were stronger and faster than any mere human, their raw strength making up for their primitive weapons. If the humans had had guns, the odds would have been even; here, there were no guns and no way to make them in a hurry. The makeshift gunpowder wasn’t good enough to serve as propellant, even if they’d had the time. The orcs would be bad enough when they charged the trenches, but if they caught the army in the field, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of refugees … it would be a bloody slaughter.\n\nHedrick joined them, his face flushed. “A fine day for a fight,” he said. Emily couldn’t tell if he was trying to cheer them up, convince himself, or just be annoying. He swept Alassa up and gave her a long kiss, the movement so forceful that Emily winced. She was going to be bruised even if she didn’t mind being kissed. “We’ll give them a damn good thrashing.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily felt her magic spark and gritted her teeth. She couldn’t kill him. “If everything is ready …”\n\nA trumpet blew. She looked up, just in time to see the enemy army surge forward. They showed no sign of fear or hesitation, the orcs too dumb to understand the dangers and the slaves unable to stop themselves from following orders. Jade stayed at the rear, leaving a handful of subordinates to lead the army. Emily couldn’t tell if they were slaves, in any sense of the word, but they were advancing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Perhaps they didn’t. They had to know Alassa’s army was on the verge of collapse.\n\n“They’ll be on us in seconds,” Hedrick said. He raised his hand. “Archers … loose!”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth as his aides took up the cry. The archers fired as one, unleashing a hail of arrows into the oncoming storm. Hundreds of orcs staggered, but kept coming; the slaves tumbled to the ground, their bodies trampled into a bloody pulp as the second and third lines marched over them and kept going. The archers reloaded and fired again, aiming to kill as many orcs and masters as possible. Hedrick whooped as a general fell, a dozen arrows lodged in his body, but the army didn’t seem to notice. It just kept coming.\n\n“No human army could take such a beating,” Alassa muttered. “And yet, they keep coming.”\n\n“Get the first battery ready to go,” Emily advised. Orcs were too tough to go down easily. She’d seen them take arrows through the eye and keep going, despite the injury. “They’ll be on us in a moment.”\n\n### NOTES\nActive battle timing; Jade’s spells are live threats.\nEnslavement may be total enough to erase self-awareness.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHedrick makes it a matter of timing. The clash unfolds until Emily understands Jade is enslaved beyond knowledge of his slavery — and that her counterpart may be looking through his eyes. The horror of that theft lands fully.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Battle pressure into moral horror; land on Jade’s unknowing slavery.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“It’s a matter of timing,” Hedrick said. “We don’t want to get it wrong.”\n\nEmily nodded, watching as Hedrick snapped orders to an aide, who hurried off to where Damia was waiting with the first battery. Magic sparked a moment later, a wave of spellware rushing across the battlefield … the most powerful cancelation charm this world had ever seen. The slave troopers stopped, disoriented, as the spells keeping them in slavery evaporated. Emily allowed herself a tight smile as they started attacking their masters, the orcs somehow continuing their charge even as their former allies broke off. It wasn’t going to end well.\n\n“They’ll all be killed,” she breathed.\n\n“Good,” Hedrick said, dismissively. “This way, their deaths will mean something.”\n\nEmily opened her mouth to say something cutting, then shut it again as the orcs reached the trenches. They cared nothing for caltrops and other traps, charging right over them to hurl themselves upon their foes. The line wavered and threatened to break, swordsmen struggling to hold back the orcs. They were experienced, she knew, but few could stand up to a full orcish charge. It was only a matter of time before the line broke completely.\n\n“Signal the retreat, as planned,” Hedrick ordered, a sudden urgency in his voice. Emily realised the line was about to break anyway, forcing Hedrick to give the order in hopes of keeping some control over his men. “And prep the surprise.”\n\n“Aye, sir.”\n\nEmily watched the enemy army split up, the orcs pressing their advantage as the outer trenches were evacuated. The retreating soldiers fled, the orcs howling as they gave chase; it didn’t look as if they were following any orders now, merely trying to kill as many soldiers as possible before their masters regained control. Hedrick snapped an order and the ground heaved, an earthquake shaking the entire camp as the gunpowder detonated … Emily smirked, despite herself, as the blast wiped out most of the orcs. But there were always more …\n\n“It worked,” Hedrick said. He clapped Emily on the back, hard enough to hurt. “And to think I doubted you.”\n\n“Of course it worked,” Emily said. Her back stung. “It’s basic chemistry.”\n\nShe leaned forward as the enemy army wavered, the freed slaves running for their lives while the rest hastily reassembled their lines. She had no idea if Jade and the rest of his men could recast the slave spells and it looked as if the slaves didn’t know either, given how desperately they were trying to get away. The monsters were moving forward, their jaws open wide as they prepared themselves for battle. She was surprised they hadn’t been sent in first, although she supposed it made a certain kind of sense. They were presumably far harder to produce than any number of orcs. Her counterpart might not consider them expendable.\n\n“Use the second battery,” she said, quickly. “And the third. We don’t have time for anything more subtle.”\n\nHedrick snapped orders. Emily felt a surge of magic as the batteries were triggered, channelling magic through the valves and out into the open air. Fire blazed across the sandy landscape, burning hundreds of monsters before they could reach the trenches. Emily felt a flicker of pity as the creatures died, even though she knew they had to be destroyed. A beast – a strange combination of lion and hawk – tried to fly up, only to be swatted out of the air; she felt her stomach churn as the aroma of roasting flesh drifted across the battlefield. The holocaust she’d unleashed was frighteningly powerful …\n\nYou didn’t unleash it, her thoughts pointed out. You just taught them how to do it.\n\nShe frowned as she spotted Jade, standing with the remainder of the army. He was studying the battlefield, an annoyed expression clearly visible on his face. She shuddered. They’d killed hundreds of his troopers, slaves as well as orcs and monsters, and he simply didn’t seem concerned. She’d seen other commanders show more concern for their horses than their men – she’d heard of a king who’d fired arrows into a mêlée, killing men from both sides in a desperate attempt to win the battle – and yet, Jade had never treated his men as if they were disposable. He’d been loyal to them and they’d been loyal to him in return …\n\n“Smug bastard,” Hedrick commented. “He knows he has the edge.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. Jade was gathering the rest of his troops, preparing to advance once again … and, if Alassa was correct, there were several other armies nearby. Something had to be done …\n\n“Keep an eye on him,” she ordered, as the army started to advance. “I’ve got an idea.”\n\nShe took one of the batteries, carefully crafted a teleport spell into the aura of raw magic she’d woven into the valve, and triggered it. The world went white, then black, then shuddered back into being … she was standing right behind Jade, her legs aching as she hit the ground. It was better than the first time she’d experimented with a teleport gem, but … Jade spun around, his eyes going wide as he saw her. Emily met them and shuddered helplessly. They weren’t wholly red, not yet, but he was well on the way.\n\n“My Lady?” Jade sounded puzzled. She looked like his Emily and yet she wasn’t … there was no link between them, nothing binding him to her. “Are you …?”\n\nEmily reached out, assessing the magic surrounding him. It was odd, a subtle spell intending to boost his magic and yet weaken him at the same time; she wondered, again, just how far her counterpart had fallen if she was prepared to mess around with the most dangerous as well as immoral magics. Did Jade have a mind of his own, behind the familiar and yet terrifyingly unfamiliar face, or was he just a puppet? Would she see him staring back, if she looked closely, or would she see her counterpart looking through his eyes? Jade was a slave who had been enslaved so completely he wasn’t even aware of it. It was utterly terrifying.\n", "completion": "“It’s a matter of timing,” Hedrick said. “We don’t want to get it wrong.”\n\nEmily nodded, watching as Hedrick snapped orders to an aide, who hurried off to where Damia was waiting with the first battery. Magic sparked a moment later, a wave of spellware rushing across the battlefield … the most powerful cancelation charm this world had ever seen. The slave troopers stopped, disoriented, as the spells keeping them in slavery evaporated. Emily allowed herself a tight smile as they started attacking their masters, the orcs somehow continuing their charge even as their former allies broke off. It wasn’t going to end well.\n\n“They’ll all be killed,” she breathed.\n\n“Good,” Hedrick said, dismissively. “This way, their deaths will mean something.”\n\nEmily opened her mouth to say something cutting, then shut it again as the orcs reached the trenches. They cared nothing for caltrops and other traps, charging right over them to hurl themselves upon their foes. The line wavered and threatened to break, swordsmen struggling to hold back the orcs. They were experienced, she knew, but few could stand up to a full orcish charge. It was only a matter of time before the line broke completely.\n\n“Signal the retreat, as planned,” Hedrick ordered, a sudden urgency in his voice. Emily realised the line was about to break anyway, forcing Hedrick to give the order in hopes of keeping some control over his men. “And prep the surprise.”\n\n“Aye, sir.”\n\nEmily watched the enemy army split up, the orcs pressing their advantage as the outer trenches were evacuated. The retreating soldiers fled, the orcs howling as they gave chase; it didn’t look as if they were following any orders now, merely trying to kill as many soldiers as possible before their masters regained control. Hedrick snapped an order and the ground heaved, an earthquake shaking the entire camp as the gunpowder detonated … Emily smirked, despite herself, as the blast wiped out most of the orcs. But there were always more …\n\n“It worked,” Hedrick said. He clapped Emily on the back, hard enough to hurt. “And to think I doubted you.”\n\n“Of course it worked,” Emily said. Her back stung. “It’s basic chemistry.”\n\nShe leaned forward as the enemy army wavered, the freed slaves running for their lives while the rest hastily reassembled their lines. She had no idea if Jade and the rest of his men could recast the slave spells and it looked as if the slaves didn’t know either, given how desperately they were trying to get away. The monsters were moving forward, their jaws open wide as they prepared themselves for battle. She was surprised they hadn’t been sent in first, although she supposed it made a certain kind of sense. They were presumably far harder to produce than any number of orcs. Her counterpart might not consider them expendable.\n\n“Use the second battery,” she said, quickly. “And the third. We don’t have time for anything more subtle.”\n\nHedrick snapped orders. Emily felt a surge of magic as the batteries were triggered, channelling magic through the valves and out into the open air. Fire blazed across the sandy landscape, burning hundreds of monsters before they could reach the trenches. Emily felt a flicker of pity as the creatures died, even though she knew they had to be destroyed. A beast – a strange combination of lion and hawk – tried to fly up, only to be swatted out of the air; she felt her stomach churn as the aroma of roasting flesh drifted across the battlefield. The holocaust she’d unleashed was frighteningly powerful …\n\nYou didn’t unleash it, her thoughts pointed out. You just taught them how to do it.\n\nShe frowned as she spotted Jade, standing with the remainder of the army. He was studying the battlefield, an annoyed expression clearly visible on his face. She shuddered. They’d killed hundreds of his troopers, slaves as well as orcs and monsters, and he simply didn’t seem concerned. She’d seen other commanders show more concern for their horses than their men – she’d heard of a king who’d fired arrows into a mêlée, killing men from both sides in a desperate attempt to win the battle – and yet, Jade had never treated his men as if they were disposable. He’d been loyal to them and they’d been loyal to him in return …\n\n“Smug bastard,” Hedrick commented. “He knows he has the edge.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. Jade was gathering the rest of his troops, preparing to advance once again … and, if Alassa was correct, there were several other armies nearby. Something had to be done …\n\n“Keep an eye on him,” she ordered, as the army started to advance. “I’ve got an idea.”\n\nShe took one of the batteries, carefully crafted a teleport spell into the aura of raw magic she’d woven into the valve, and triggered it. The world went white, then black, then shuddered back into being … she was standing right behind Jade, her legs aching as she hit the ground. It was better than the first time she’d experimented with a teleport gem, but … Jade spun around, his eyes going wide as he saw her. Emily met them and shuddered helplessly. They weren’t wholly red, not yet, but he was well on the way.\n\n“My Lady?” Jade sounded puzzled. She looked like his Emily and yet she wasn’t … there was no link between them, nothing binding him to her. “Are you …?”\n\nEmily reached out, assessing the magic surrounding him. It was odd, a subtle spell intending to boost his magic and yet weaken him at the same time; she wondered, again, just how far her counterpart had fallen if she was prepared to mess around with the most dangerous as well as immoral magics. Did Jade have a mind of his own, behind the familiar and yet terrifyingly unfamiliar face, or was he just a puppet? Would she see him staring back, if she looked closely, or would she see her counterpart looking through his eyes? Jade was a slave who had been enslaved so completely he wasn’t even aware of it. It was utterly terrifying.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1040, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch16-P3", "chapter": "ch16", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nJade — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nThe host engages under Hedrick’s timing while Emily recognizes Jade as a slave so complete he may not know it — and that her counterpart may look through his eyes.\nJade raises a hand and snaps an odd little spell toward them in the crush of battle, fanatic and emptied out at once.\nEmily’s deflection is automatic, skill fused with grief, and her next thought turns personal toward Alassa standing in the line beside her.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nDeflects Jade’s spell on reflex; heart breaking; glances to Alassa with unspoken care.\n\nJade\nAlive; casting; enslaved.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; recipient of Emily’s silent dedication.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nYou didn’t unleash it, her thoughts pointed out. You just taught them how to do it.\n\nShe frowned as she spotted Jade, standing with the remainder of the army. He was studying the battlefield, an annoyed expression clearly visible on his face. She shuddered. They’d killed hundreds of his troopers, slaves as well as orcs and monsters, and he simply didn’t seem concerned. She’d seen other commanders show more concern for their horses than their men – she’d heard of a king who’d fired arrows into a mêlée, killing men from both sides in a desperate attempt to win the battle – and yet, Jade had never treated his men as if they were disposable. He’d been loyal to them and they’d been loyal to him in return …\n\n“Smug bastard,” Hedrick commented. “He knows he has the edge.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. Jade was gathering the rest of his troops, preparing to advance once again … and, if Alassa was correct, there were several other armies nearby. Something had to be done …\n\n“Keep an eye on him,” she ordered, as the army started to advance. “I’ve got an idea.”\n\nShe took one of the batteries, carefully crafted a teleport spell into the aura of raw magic she’d woven into the valve, and triggered it. The world went white, then black, then shuddered back into being … she was standing right behind Jade, her legs aching as she hit the ground. It was better than the first time she’d experimented with a teleport gem, but … Jade spun around, his eyes going wide as he saw her. Emily met them and shuddered helplessly. They weren’t wholly red, not yet, but he was well on the way.\n\n“My Lady?” Jade sounded puzzled. She looked like his Emily and yet she wasn’t … there was no link between them, nothing binding him to her. “Are you …?”\n\nEmily reached out, assessing the magic surrounding him. It was odd, a subtle spell intending to boost his magic and yet weaken him at the same time; she wondered, again, just how far her counterpart had fallen if she was prepared to mess around with the most dangerous as well as immoral magics. Did Jade have a mind of his own, behind the familiar and yet terrifyingly unfamiliar face, or was he just a puppet? Would she see him staring back, if she looked closely, or would she see her counterpart looking through his eyes? Jade was a slave who had been enslaved so completely he wasn’t even aware of it. It was utterly terrifying.\n\n### NOTES\nMid-battle; spell deflection is instantaneous.\nEmotional address to Alassa is internal.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nJade snaps an odd little spell through the battle haze; Emily deflects it automatically, combat skill and grief fused into one motion. The enslaved face of a man she loved in another life burns behind her eyes as she glances at Alassa — and for you too.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Sharp combat beat into quiet dedication; land on the glance to Alassa.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Jade raised a hand and snapped off an odd little spell. Emily deflected it automatically, one part of her mind analysing it even as the spellware shattered into harmless fragments. It was clever as well as deadly, she noted; her counterpart had weaponised soul magic, creating a spell that would turn the target into Jade’s puppet and, by extension, her puppet. The victim’s magic would seep up the chain … a chill ran down her spine as she realised it wasn’t necromancy. It was something worse. Something she didn’t know how to handle …\n\n“Do you remember the person you used to be?” Emily gritted her teeth as Jade lashed out again, aiming another conjoined spell at her. If she hadn’t been so experienced, she might have been fooled … it was a clever little trick, something deadly hidden behind a sheet of raw power that made the caster look incompetent. A necromancer rarely showed anything resembling subtlety. No one expected it from them. “Do you remember …?”\n\nJade darted forward with astonishing speed and rammed a fist into her stomach. Emily doubled over, gasping for breath as the air was knocked from her lungs. Jade didn’t give her any time to recover. He slammed her to the ground, straddled her, and pressed his hands against the side of her head. Emily felt the soul magic building up again, ready to violate her so completely she’d never be the same again, and reached out with her own magic. The spells surrounding him were hers … no, they were her counterpart’s. Emily felt sick as she shoved her awareness into them, suddenly very aware of just how deeply Jade had been compromised; she tasted a flicker of her counterpart’s glee within the spellware, her sick exultation at bending Jade to her will. She was so far gone …\n\nEmily felt her other self’s spells yield to her. Gritting her teeth, she ripped them apart. Jade convulsed and fell off her, his entire body twitching violently. Emily stumbled to her feet, bracing herself. Mind control spells always left a scar, even if they were quickly removed; perversely, the more brutal and obvious the spell, the easier it was for the victim to recover. They knew what had happened even if they couldn’t fight it. The more subtle spells were harder to overcome, not least because the victim could never be sure just how much they’d been influenced, which decisions had been theirs and which had been made for them. Jade had been in the grip of the spell for years … could he recover? Or would he blame her for his woes?\n\nJade stared up at her, his face twisted with a hatred beyond all reason. Emily cursed under her breath as he jumped up and came at her, magic spinning around him. He blamed her because she looked exactly like the person who’d enchanted him … she was the same person, as far as he was concerned. The fury on his face chilled her … she threw caution to the winds and launched herself into the air, wrapping magic around her as Jade’s power grew and grew. He threw his head back and screamed, raw power blazing through the air … Emily flew faster, heading back to the camp, as behind her the enemy army broke. The remnants were running in all directions … Jade’s scream beat on the air. It wasn’t a sound any longer. It was something far more deadly …\n\nEmily blinked away tears as she landed beside Alassa. Jade was dead … not her Jade, but still a Jade. He’d been raped mentally, and then physically … her stomach churned as the memories bubbled up, so much hers that it was difficult to believe they weren’t. She hadn’t done anything like it, never in her entire life had she ever been tempted by such power, but … her counterpart had. And that meant she could be tempted too.\n\nI’m not her, she thought, again and again. I’m not.\n\n“We won.” Hedrick sounded oddly surprised, as if he’d prepared for death. “We won!”\n\n“There’s no time to cheer,” Alassa said, sharply. “We have to get moving.”\n\nHedrick looked at Emily. She wasn’t good at reading people, but even she could tell he was having second thoughts about the plan. He was wondering if he could take the army, the batteries and the rest of the magitech west, if he could use it to crush the enemy armies one by one until none remained. She knew better. Necromancer Emily might not have invented the batteries herself, let alone magitech, but she’d deduce what they’d done and find a countermeasure very quickly. If Hedrick was fool enough to try …\n\n“Fine.” Hedrick turned and kissed Alassa hard, again. “I’ll see to it.”\n\nAlassa rubbed her lips. “Ouch.”\n\nEmily eyed her, concerned. “Why do you …?”\n\n“Because sometimes it’s the only way to feel something,” Alassa said. “Don’t you know that?”\n\nEmily said nothing as she turned to look at the battlefield. The troops were moving out of the trenches, making sure the enemy soldiers were dead and looting their bodies. Jade was nothing more than ash now … he’d tapped into his own life energy to power his final spell. He’d died rather than confront what he’d become, what he’d been made to do … Emily understood, better than she cared to admit. It would have been a long and difficult journey even if he had managed to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze. Or the other Emily’s neck.\n\nI’m sorry, she thought. She knew it hadn’t been her fault, but she still felt responsible. If things had been different, it could have been her casting the cursed spells. I wish things had been better for you.\n\nShe glanced at Alassa. And for you too.\n", "completion": "Jade raised a hand and snapped off an odd little spell. Emily deflected it automatically, one part of her mind analysing it even as the spellware shattered into harmless fragments. It was clever as well as deadly, she noted; her counterpart had weaponised soul magic, creating a spell that would turn the target into Jade’s puppet and, by extension, her puppet. The victim’s magic would seep up the chain … a chill ran down her spine as she realised it wasn’t necromancy. It was something worse. Something she didn’t know how to handle …\n\n“Do you remember the person you used to be?” Emily gritted her teeth as Jade lashed out again, aiming another conjoined spell at her. If she hadn’t been so experienced, she might have been fooled … it was a clever little trick, something deadly hidden behind a sheet of raw power that made the caster look incompetent. A necromancer rarely showed anything resembling subtlety. No one expected it from them. “Do you remember …?”\n\nJade darted forward with astonishing speed and rammed a fist into her stomach. Emily doubled over, gasping for breath as the air was knocked from her lungs. Jade didn’t give her any time to recover. He slammed her to the ground, straddled her, and pressed his hands against the side of her head. Emily felt the soul magic building up again, ready to violate her so completely she’d never be the same again, and reached out with her own magic. The spells surrounding him were hers … no, they were her counterpart’s. Emily felt sick as she shoved her awareness into them, suddenly very aware of just how deeply Jade had been compromised; she tasted a flicker of her counterpart’s glee within the spellware, her sick exultation at bending Jade to her will. She was so far gone …\n\nEmily felt her other self’s spells yield to her. Gritting her teeth, she ripped them apart. Jade convulsed and fell off her, his entire body twitching violently. Emily stumbled to her feet, bracing herself. Mind control spells always left a scar, even if they were quickly removed; perversely, the more brutal and obvious the spell, the easier it was for the victim to recover. They knew what had happened even if they couldn’t fight it. The more subtle spells were harder to overcome, not least because the victim could never be sure just how much they’d been influenced, which decisions had been theirs and which had been made for them. Jade had been in the grip of the spell for years … could he recover? Or would he blame her for his woes?\n\nJade stared up at her, his face twisted with a hatred beyond all reason. Emily cursed under her breath as he jumped up and came at her, magic spinning around him. He blamed her because she looked exactly like the person who’d enchanted him … she was the same person, as far as he was concerned. The fury on his face chilled her … she threw caution to the winds and launched herself into the air, wrapping magic around her as Jade’s power grew and grew. He threw his head back and screamed, raw power blazing through the air … Emily flew faster, heading back to the camp, as behind her the enemy army broke. The remnants were running in all directions … Jade’s scream beat on the air. It wasn’t a sound any longer. It was something far more deadly …\n\nEmily blinked away tears as she landed beside Alassa. Jade was dead … not her Jade, but still a Jade. He’d been raped mentally, and then physically … her stomach churned as the memories bubbled up, so much hers that it was difficult to believe they weren’t. She hadn’t done anything like it, never in her entire life had she ever been tempted by such power, but … her counterpart had. And that meant she could be tempted too.\n\nI’m not her, she thought, again and again. I’m not.\n\n“We won.” Hedrick sounded oddly surprised, as if he’d prepared for death. “We won!”\n\n“There’s no time to cheer,” Alassa said, sharply. “We have to get moving.”\n\nHedrick looked at Emily. She wasn’t good at reading people, but even she could tell he was having second thoughts about the plan. He was wondering if he could take the army, the batteries and the rest of the magitech west, if he could use it to crush the enemy armies one by one until none remained. She knew better. Necromancer Emily might not have invented the batteries herself, let alone magitech, but she’d deduce what they’d done and find a countermeasure very quickly. If Hedrick was fool enough to try …\n\n“Fine.” Hedrick turned and kissed Alassa hard, again. “I’ll see to it.”\n\nAlassa rubbed her lips. “Ouch.”\n\nEmily eyed her, concerned. “Why do you …?”\n\n“Because sometimes it’s the only way to feel something,” Alassa said. “Don’t you know that?”\n\nEmily said nothing as she turned to look at the battlefield. The troops were moving out of the trenches, making sure the enemy soldiers were dead and looting their bodies. Jade was nothing more than ash now … he’d tapped into his own life energy to power his final spell. He’d died rather than confront what he’d become, what he’d been made to do … Emily understood, better than she cared to admit. It would have been a long and difficult journey even if he had managed to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze. Or the other Emily’s neck.\n\nI’m sorry, she thought. She knew it hadn’t been her fault, but she still felt responsible. If things had been different, it could have been her casting the cursed spells. I wish things had been better for you.\n\nShe glanced at Alassa. And for you too.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 994, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch17-P1", "chapter": "ch17", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSergeant Miles — both words; keep rank capitalised as written.\nDesert of Death — place name.\nHedrick — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written.\n\n### STORY\nThe enemy host hits; Emily sees Jade enslaved possibly as Necromancer Emily’s eyes; she deflects his spell and dedicates the fight to Alassa too.\nAfter the clash, survival means moving the whole refugee army before famine and the next assault erase what remains of hope.\nThe army marches into the Desert of Death toward a desperate castle destination under rising heat and failing protective spells.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nMarching under rising heat; spells against sunburn flickering out in taint; doubting the clever plan; fearing famine-cannibalism in the ranks. Quotes Sergeant Miles inwardly.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; sweat-soaked blonde hair; asking how much longer.\n\nHedrick\nAlive; will be ordered to organize marchers and keep people from mirrors.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nSergeant Miles once said a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; Emily’s prior Desert of Death crossing was under better circumstances.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily blinked away tears as she landed beside Alassa. Jade was dead … not her Jade, but still a Jade. He’d been raped mentally, and then physically … her stomach churned as the memories bubbled up, so much hers that it was difficult to believe they weren’t. She hadn’t done anything like it, never in her entire life had she ever been tempted by such power, but … her counterpart had. And that meant she could be tempted too.\n\nI’m not her, she thought, again and again. I’m not.\n\n“We won.” Hedrick sounded oddly surprised, as if he’d prepared for death. “We won!”\n\n“There’s no time to cheer,” Alassa said, sharply. “We have to get moving.”\n\nHedrick looked at Emily. She wasn’t good at reading people, but even she could tell he was having second thoughts about the plan. He was wondering if he could take the army, the batteries and the rest of the magitech west, if he could use it to crush the enemy armies one by one until none remained. She knew better. Necromancer Emily might not have invented the batteries herself, let alone magitech, but she’d deduce what they’d done and find a countermeasure very quickly. If Hedrick was fool enough to try …\n\n“Fine.” Hedrick turned and kissed Alassa hard, again. “I’ll see to it.”\n\nAlassa rubbed her lips. “Ouch.”\n\nEmily eyed her, concerned. “Why do you …?”\n\n“Because sometimes it’s the only way to feel something,” Alassa said. “Don’t you know that?”\n\nEmily said nothing as she turned to look at the battlefield. The troops were moving out of the trenches, making sure the enemy soldiers were dead and looting their bodies. Jade was nothing more than ash now … he’d tapped into his own life energy to power his final spell. He’d died rather than confront what he’d become, what he’d been made to do … Emily understood, better than she cared to admit. It would have been a long and difficult journey even if he had managed to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze. Or the other Emily’s neck.\n\nI’m sorry, she thought. She knew it hadn’t been her fault, but she still felt responsible. If things had been different, it could have been her casting the cursed spells. I wish things had been better for you.\n\nShe glanced at Alassa. And for you too.\n\n### NOTES\nDesert of Death: rising temperature, tainted magic, fading protective spells.\nArmy includes camp followers, refugees, children begging water.\nFood days from gone even with rationing.\nMirrors may be dangerous.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily morbidly recalls Sergeant Miles as she marches into the Desert of Death, spells failing in the taint, children crying, famine ethics rotting. Alassa asks how much longer; Emily lies that it isn’t far. She tells Hedrick to keep people away from the mirrors — they might be dangerous.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. March misery and contamination; land on the mirrors warning.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The journey of a thousand miles, Emily thought morbidly, begins with a single step.\n\nSergeant Miles had said that, unknowingly cribbing from a Chinese proverb. She recalled it too as she marched with the rest of the army into the Desert of Death, following a route she knew could easily lead to doom. The temperature kept rising, the sun beating down; sweat poured down her back, staining her clothes and pooling in her boots. She muttered a pair of spells to keep her skin from burning, only to feel them flicker and fade as they walked further into the tainted land. The necromancer who had invaded the neighbouring kingdom in her timeline might be gone, destroyed by her counterpart, but the damage he’d left in his wake remained. It was just a matter of time until the tainted magic started to take a toll on the marching army.\n\nWe’d be better off marching through a nuclear wasteland, Emily told herself. There’s no way to safeguard the entire army from magical contamination.\n\nShe gritted her teeth and kept walking, trying to ignore the cries from children begging for water and rest. The army wasn’t just soldiers, but an endless multitude of camp followers and refugees … she had no idea how many had left the old camp, how many would make it to their destination … if their destination even existed. The idea had sounded clever, when she’d put it together, but now she had her doubts. There were too many things that could go wrong, too many things that could lead to utter disaster … not, she reminded herself, that utter disaster wasn’t on the cards anyway. She’d seen the stockpiles, such as they were. The army was so short of food that, even with harshly enforced rationing, they were going to run out in a few days. At that point … Emily would sooner die than eat human flesh, and she was sure Alassa would agree, but not everyone would. The urge to survive was strong, almost overwhelming, and human decency had been ground down by years of bloody war against an implacable and unstoppable enemy. It was just a matter of time until the strong started eating the weak.\n\nAlassa glanced at her, her long blonde hair sodden with sweat. “How much longer?”\n\n“Not much longer,” Emily said, although in truth she had no idea. The march hadn’t taken that long, the first time around, but it had been under better circumstances. Here … she felt the back of her neck start to burn and cursed under her breath. “Just keep going.”\n\n“I’m trying,” Alassa said. “Did you ever do this with me? The other me?”\n\nEmily shook her head. Alassa had never joined her in martial magic. She’d never carried out a forced march, never had the sergeants encourage her to keep marching despite everything … Emily glanced at the marchers and winced. It was hard to be sure, but she thought a number of people had already dropped out, their bodies abandoned to the sand. They’d hopefully be buried before the orcs caught up with them. Orcs had no qualms about eating human flesh.\n\n“I’m not surprised,” Alassa said. “I …”\n\nShe broke off as they stumbled into the ruins of a town, almost completely buried in sand. Heart’s Ease? Emily hoped so. The town had been a necromantic stronghold in her timeline, then a growing city … here, it was a dead nightmare, the remains of homes so worn down she could barely pick out the walls. Things shifted at the corner of her eyes, tricks of the light or worse … she was silently grateful there was no sign of shelter, nothing that might keep the army from marching onwards. They wanted a rest and yet … she had the horrible feeling that, if they stopped, they might never get started again.\n\n“Keep walking,” she said, quietly. “We’re nearly there.”\n\nAlassa shot her a sharp look as they walked up what might, in happier times, have been a road. The haze was growing stronger, a shimmering impression in the distance that chilled her to the bone … there could be anything out there, anything at all. The ground crunched beneath her feet, the endless sand finally giving way to rocks and burnt remnants of long-gone experiments … the stench of tainted magic grew stronger, battering against her wards and giving her a headache. Alassa moaned, just slightly, before catching herself. She was reluctant to show any kind of weakness in front of the crowd. They were already on the edge of breaking …\n\nSomeone cheered. Emily looked up. Heart’s Eye was coming into view, a fairy tale castle set against the bright blue sky. It looked dull and degraded, the towers and minarets damaged and broken by the storm, but … she breathed a sigh of relief as the marchers picked up speed, heading right for the open doors. They needed shelter, despite the risk of encountering something dangerous within the castle. It was only a matter of time before another sandstorm swept over the desert. Anyone caught within the storm would be lucky to survive unchained, if they survived at all.\n\nHedrick galloped up to them. “Well, we made it,” he said, cheerfully. He slipped off the horse and delivered a flamboyant, vaguely sarcastic bow. “What now?”\n\nEmily thought dark thoughts about men who rode when their lovers stayed on foot, but kept them to herself. “You gather everyone in the great hall,” she said. The chamber was dark and silent – the magicians had to cast lightspells to provide some illumination – but appeared to be relatively safe. “The other magicians can clear nearby chambers. Alassa and I will go in search of … of what we need to get this place back online.”\n\n“Of course,” Hedrick said. “And if you don’t return?”\n\n“Do as you see fit,” Alassa said, dryly.\n\n“And keep people away from the mirrors,” Emily added. “They might be dangerous.”\n", "completion": "The journey of a thousand miles, Emily thought morbidly, begins with a single step.\n\nSergeant Miles had said that, unknowingly cribbing from a Chinese proverb. She recalled it too as she marched with the rest of the army into the Desert of Death, following a route she knew could easily lead to doom. The temperature kept rising, the sun beating down; sweat poured down her back, staining her clothes and pooling in her boots. She muttered a pair of spells to keep her skin from burning, only to feel them flicker and fade as they walked further into the tainted land. The necromancer who had invaded the neighbouring kingdom in her timeline might be gone, destroyed by her counterpart, but the damage he’d left in his wake remained. It was just a matter of time until the tainted magic started to take a toll on the marching army.\n\nWe’d be better off marching through a nuclear wasteland, Emily told herself. There’s no way to safeguard the entire army from magical contamination.\n\nShe gritted her teeth and kept walking, trying to ignore the cries from children begging for water and rest. The army wasn’t just soldiers, but an endless multitude of camp followers and refugees … she had no idea how many had left the old camp, how many would make it to their destination … if their destination even existed. The idea had sounded clever, when she’d put it together, but now she had her doubts. There were too many things that could go wrong, too many things that could lead to utter disaster … not, she reminded herself, that utter disaster wasn’t on the cards anyway. She’d seen the stockpiles, such as they were. The army was so short of food that, even with harshly enforced rationing, they were going to run out in a few days. At that point … Emily would sooner die than eat human flesh, and she was sure Alassa would agree, but not everyone would. The urge to survive was strong, almost overwhelming, and human decency had been ground down by years of bloody war against an implacable and unstoppable enemy. It was just a matter of time until the strong started eating the weak.\n\nAlassa glanced at her, her long blonde hair sodden with sweat. “How much longer?”\n\n“Not much longer,” Emily said, although in truth she had no idea. The march hadn’t taken that long, the first time around, but it had been under better circumstances. Here … she felt the back of her neck start to burn and cursed under her breath. “Just keep going.”\n\n“I’m trying,” Alassa said. “Did you ever do this with me? The other me?”\n\nEmily shook her head. Alassa had never joined her in martial magic. She’d never carried out a forced march, never had the sergeants encourage her to keep marching despite everything … Emily glanced at the marchers and winced. It was hard to be sure, but she thought a number of people had already dropped out, their bodies abandoned to the sand. They’d hopefully be buried before the orcs caught up with them. Orcs had no qualms about eating human flesh.\n\n“I’m not surprised,” Alassa said. “I …”\n\nShe broke off as they stumbled into the ruins of a town, almost completely buried in sand. Heart’s Ease? Emily hoped so. The town had been a necromantic stronghold in her timeline, then a growing city … here, it was a dead nightmare, the remains of homes so worn down she could barely pick out the walls. Things shifted at the corner of her eyes, tricks of the light or worse … she was silently grateful there was no sign of shelter, nothing that might keep the army from marching onwards. They wanted a rest and yet … she had the horrible feeling that, if they stopped, they might never get started again.\n\n“Keep walking,” she said, quietly. “We’re nearly there.”\n\nAlassa shot her a sharp look as they walked up what might, in happier times, have been a road. The haze was growing stronger, a shimmering impression in the distance that chilled her to the bone … there could be anything out there, anything at all. The ground crunched beneath her feet, the endless sand finally giving way to rocks and burnt remnants of long-gone experiments … the stench of tainted magic grew stronger, battering against her wards and giving her a headache. Alassa moaned, just slightly, before catching herself. She was reluctant to show any kind of weakness in front of the crowd. They were already on the edge of breaking …\n\nSomeone cheered. Emily looked up. Heart’s Eye was coming into view, a fairy tale castle set against the bright blue sky. It looked dull and degraded, the towers and minarets damaged and broken by the storm, but … she breathed a sigh of relief as the marchers picked up speed, heading right for the open doors. They needed shelter, despite the risk of encountering something dangerous within the castle. It was only a matter of time before another sandstorm swept over the desert. Anyone caught within the storm would be lucky to survive unchained, if they survived at all.\n\nHedrick galloped up to them. “Well, we made it,” he said, cheerfully. He slipped off the horse and delivered a flamboyant, vaguely sarcastic bow. “What now?”\n\nEmily thought dark thoughts about men who rode when their lovers stayed on foot, but kept them to herself. “You gather everyone in the great hall,” she said. The chamber was dark and silent – the magicians had to cast lightspells to provide some illumination – but appeared to be relatively safe. “The other magicians can clear nearby chambers. Alassa and I will go in search of … of what we need to get this place back online.”\n\n“Of course,” Hedrick said. “And if you don’t return?”\n\n“Do as you see fit,” Alassa said, dryly.\n\n“And keep people away from the mirrors,” Emily added. “They might be dangerous.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1002, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch17-P2", "chapter": "ch17", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHedrick — capitalized.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written.\n\n### STORY\nThe refugee army pushes into the Desert of Death under failing sun-wards, children’s cries, and the fear that famine will break human decency.\nEmily warns Hedrick to organize the marchers carefully and keep people away from the mirrors because they might be dangerous to touch.\nThey reach a castle-school site with too little space, where original researchers left something captured that is still present in the wards.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nArriving into the site; shivering at the captured research-thing still present; facing huge work.\n\nHedrick\nAlive; organizing marchers into limited space.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nPrior researchers at this site captured something that remains — a presence Emily can feel.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe broke off as they stumbled into the ruins of a town, almost completely buried in sand. Heart’s Ease? Emily hoped so. The town had been a necromantic stronghold in her timeline, then a growing city … here, it was a dead nightmare, the remains of homes so worn down she could barely pick out the walls. Things shifted at the corner of her eyes, tricks of the light or worse … she was silently grateful there was no sign of shelter, nothing that might keep the army from marching onwards. They wanted a rest and yet … she had the horrible feeling that, if they stopped, they might never get started again.\n\n“Keep walking,” she said, quietly. “We’re nearly there.”\n\nAlassa shot her a sharp look as they walked up what might, in happier times, have been a road. The haze was growing stronger, a shimmering impression in the distance that chilled her to the bone … there could be anything out there, anything at all. The ground crunched beneath her feet, the endless sand finally giving way to rocks and burnt remnants of long-gone experiments … the stench of tainted magic grew stronger, battering against her wards and giving her a headache. Alassa moaned, just slightly, before catching herself. She was reluctant to show any kind of weakness in front of the crowd. They were already on the edge of breaking …\n\nSomeone cheered. Emily looked up. Heart’s Eye was coming into view, a fairy tale castle set against the bright blue sky. It looked dull and degraded, the towers and minarets damaged and broken by the storm, but … she breathed a sigh of relief as the marchers picked up speed, heading right for the open doors. They needed shelter, despite the risk of encountering something dangerous within the castle. It was only a matter of time before another sandstorm swept over the desert. Anyone caught within the storm would be lucky to survive unchained, if they survived at all.\n\nHedrick galloped up to them. “Well, we made it,” he said, cheerfully. He slipped off the horse and delivered a flamboyant, vaguely sarcastic bow. “What now?”\n\nEmily thought dark thoughts about men who rode when their lovers stayed on foot, but kept them to herself. “You gather everyone in the great hall,” she said. The chamber was dark and silent – the magicians had to cast lightspells to provide some illumination – but appeared to be relatively safe. “The other magicians can clear nearby chambers. Alassa and I will go in search of … of what we need to get this place back online.”\n\n“Of course,” Hedrick said. “And if you don’t return?”\n\n“Do as you see fit,” Alassa said, dryly.\n\n“And keep people away from the mirrors,” Emily added. “They might be dangerous.”\n\n### NOTES\nCastle/school destination with limited room for the host.\nCaptured entity from original researchers still present.\nMirrors remain a hazard.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHedrick hurries to organize the marchers into too-little space. Emily feels the captured research-thing still there and knows they have a lot of work to do.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Arrival unease; land on the workload against the lingering captive presence.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Hedrick nodded, then hurried off to get the marchers organised. Emily hoped there was enough room for everyone. The hall itself might be safe, but she had no idea about the rest of the castle. Finding and defusing any traps would take time … time she wasn’t sure they had. There’d been no sign of an army following them, but her counterpart was clearly not someone to let the grass grow under her feet. The moment she heard the news, she’d work out what Emily had in mind and give chase. And if she got to Heart’s Eye in time to stop them …\n\nShe glanced at Alassa, then led the way through a hidden doorway and into the maze of corridors pervading the former school. The walls were lined with mirrors, each dull and yet reflective … she sucked in a breath as she saw another alternate version of herself, a great lady wearing a crown … she blinked and the image was gone, replaced by a version that was only slightly different. Beside her, Alassa let out a tight little sob. She’d seen something too. Emily knew better than to ask. If Alassa wanted to talk about it, she would.\n\n“Fancied themselves, did they?” Alassa sounded shaken. “There are mirrors everywhere.”\n\n“Don’t try to walk through them,” Emily said. Heart’s Eye had been the epicentre of magical research, once upon a time. The researchers had been messing around with mirror magic, trying to find ways to use it … they’d bitten off far more than they could chew, a problem made worse by the necromancer choosing to attack at the worst possible moment. “You never know where you might end up.”\n\n“Better warn everyone else,” Alassa said. “What’ll we do with the mirrors?”\n\n“Nothing, yet.” Emily suspected the right answer was to smash the mirrors, but she needed them … if her plan worked. “We might have a use for them.”\n\nShe kept the thought to herself as they found the way down to the nexus point chamber. The air grew thicker, the stench of … something … pressing against her nostrils and making it harder to breathe properly. A sense of being watched prickled down her spine, even though she knew they were alone … or were they? She eyed the mirrors warily, all too aware they’d once been part of an interdimensional network … an attempt, she suspected, to duplicate Whitehall’s transdimensional nature without being dependent on the nexus point. It was hard to be sure just what the original designers had had in mind. Most of the records had been lost or deliberately destroyed. And who knew what might be watching them from behind the mirrors?\n\nThe nexus point chamber felt dead and cold, a fireplace abandoned for so long it was hard to believe it had ever been warm. It was just like she remembered, a seemingly bottomless pit riddled with bridges that crossed from one door to another … the nexus point itself existing only in potential, a dull feeling at the back of her mind that was so light it was easy to fear she was merely imagining it. Ice prickled at her spine, her legs wobbling as she forced herself to step onto the bridge. It was thin and fragile, with nothing to keep someone from walking off the edge and plummeting to their doom. The pit was … she looked up, into the darkness, and shuddered helplessly. The original founders had twisted space-time to breaking point. The pit wasn’t bottomless so much as it was a twist in space, two portals perfectly positioned to ensure anyone who fell would keep falling … until they hit a bridge. And then …\n\nAlassa stayed by the door. “Are you sure about this?”\n\nEmily took the battery from her bag and fitted the valve into place. “No,” she admitted. Last time, she’d tossed a necromancer into the nexus point. Now, she had to rely on magic donated by every last magician in the camp. Would it be enough? “But we have to try.”\n\nShe triggered the spell, bracing herself as raw magic flared into the nexus point. Her counterpart had never tried to reignite it, never tried to take control … did she even know it was possible? If she hadn’t gone back in time … Emily contemplated the headache of time travel and interdimensional manipulations, even as the tidal wave of raw magic came to an end. Darkness fell, just long enough for her to feel a flicker of panic, before the first spark of light blazed out of the nexus point. Alassa cried out as the magic surged, an ever-lasting flame blazing up and around them … Emily barely heard her, too intent on casting spells to tame the fire before it was too late. Magic crashed around her, an endless wave of raw power … she breathed a sigh of relief as it reignited the wards, bringing the castle back to life. They were lucky she’d done it once before, she reflected, as the outer defences powered up. Last time, there had been a lot of guesswork involved. This time, she knew what she was doing.\n\nAlassa grinned. “It worked!”\n\n“Barely,” Emily said. She could feel the magic flowing through the castle, forcing her to mentally catalogue the number of spellstones and relays that would have to be replaced. The castle had been in cold storage for a very long time, the necromancer never bothering to carry out basic maintenance let alone repairs. She touched the knot at the heart of the nexus point gingerly, shivering slightly as she realised the … thing … the original researchers had captured was still there. “We have a lot of work to do.”\n", "completion": "Hedrick nodded, then hurried off to get the marchers organised. Emily hoped there was enough room for everyone. The hall itself might be safe, but she had no idea about the rest of the castle. Finding and defusing any traps would take time … time she wasn’t sure they had. There’d been no sign of an army following them, but her counterpart was clearly not someone to let the grass grow under her feet. The moment she heard the news, she’d work out what Emily had in mind and give chase. And if she got to Heart’s Eye in time to stop them …\n\nShe glanced at Alassa, then led the way through a hidden doorway and into the maze of corridors pervading the former school. The walls were lined with mirrors, each dull and yet reflective … she sucked in a breath as she saw another alternate version of herself, a great lady wearing a crown … she blinked and the image was gone, replaced by a version that was only slightly different. Beside her, Alassa let out a tight little sob. She’d seen something too. Emily knew better than to ask. If Alassa wanted to talk about it, she would.\n\n“Fancied themselves, did they?” Alassa sounded shaken. “There are mirrors everywhere.”\n\n“Don’t try to walk through them,” Emily said. Heart’s Eye had been the epicentre of magical research, once upon a time. The researchers had been messing around with mirror magic, trying to find ways to use it … they’d bitten off far more than they could chew, a problem made worse by the necromancer choosing to attack at the worst possible moment. “You never know where you might end up.”\n\n“Better warn everyone else,” Alassa said. “What’ll we do with the mirrors?”\n\n“Nothing, yet.” Emily suspected the right answer was to smash the mirrors, but she needed them … if her plan worked. “We might have a use for them.”\n\nShe kept the thought to herself as they found the way down to the nexus point chamber. The air grew thicker, the stench of … something … pressing against her nostrils and making it harder to breathe properly. A sense of being watched prickled down her spine, even though she knew they were alone … or were they? She eyed the mirrors warily, all too aware they’d once been part of an interdimensional network … an attempt, she suspected, to duplicate Whitehall’s transdimensional nature without being dependent on the nexus point. It was hard to be sure just what the original designers had had in mind. Most of the records had been lost or deliberately destroyed. And who knew what might be watching them from behind the mirrors?\n\nThe nexus point chamber felt dead and cold, a fireplace abandoned for so long it was hard to believe it had ever been warm. It was just like she remembered, a seemingly bottomless pit riddled with bridges that crossed from one door to another … the nexus point itself existing only in potential, a dull feeling at the back of her mind that was so light it was easy to fear she was merely imagining it. Ice prickled at her spine, her legs wobbling as she forced herself to step onto the bridge. It was thin and fragile, with nothing to keep someone from walking off the edge and plummeting to their doom. The pit was … she looked up, into the darkness, and shuddered helplessly. The original founders had twisted space-time to breaking point. The pit wasn’t bottomless so much as it was a twist in space, two portals perfectly positioned to ensure anyone who fell would keep falling … until they hit a bridge. And then …\n\nAlassa stayed by the door. “Are you sure about this?”\n\nEmily took the battery from her bag and fitted the valve into place. “No,” she admitted. Last time, she’d tossed a necromancer into the nexus point. Now, she had to rely on magic donated by every last magician in the camp. Would it be enough? “But we have to try.”\n\nShe triggered the spell, bracing herself as raw magic flared into the nexus point. Her counterpart had never tried to reignite it, never tried to take control … did she even know it was possible? If she hadn’t gone back in time … Emily contemplated the headache of time travel and interdimensional manipulations, even as the tidal wave of raw magic came to an end. Darkness fell, just long enough for her to feel a flicker of panic, before the first spark of light blazed out of the nexus point. Alassa cried out as the magic surged, an ever-lasting flame blazing up and around them … Emily barely heard her, too intent on casting spells to tame the fire before it was too late. Magic crashed around her, an endless wave of raw power … she breathed a sigh of relief as it reignited the wards, bringing the castle back to life. They were lucky she’d done it once before, she reflected, as the outer defences powered up. Last time, there had been a lot of guesswork involved. This time, she knew what she was doing.\n\nAlassa grinned. “It worked!”\n\n“Barely,” Emily said. She could feel the magic flowing through the castle, forcing her to mentally catalogue the number of spellstones and relays that would have to be replaced. The castle had been in cold storage for a very long time, the necromancer never bothering to carry out basic maintenance let alone repairs. She touched the knot at the heart of the nexus point gingerly, shivering slightly as she realised the … thing … the original researchers had captured was still there. “We have a lot of work to do.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 957, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch17-P3", "chapter": "ch17", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nnexus point — lowercase common; capitalize Nexus only if used as a title (prefer lowercase).\n\n### STORY\nMarchers pack into the desert castle while Hedrick organizes limited space and Emily shivers at the captured research-thing still caught in the wards.\nShe sends her awareness through aquifers and power channels, racing to shape defenses before the enemy arrives across the sand.\nThey may not have time to prepare a fitting reception for what is coming, and every unfinished ward is a wager against death.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSending awareness through the castle; finding aquifers; racing prep against an enemy clock.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; implied co-defender in the reception race.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAlassa stayed by the door. “Are you sure about this?”\n\nEmily took the battery from her bag and fitted the valve into place. “No,” she admitted. Last time, she’d tossed a necromancer into the nexus point. Now, she had to rely on magic donated by every last magician in the camp. Would it be enough? “But we have to try.”\n\nShe triggered the spell, bracing herself as raw magic flared into the nexus point. Her counterpart had never tried to reignite it, never tried to take control … did she even know it was possible? If she hadn’t gone back in time … Emily contemplated the headache of time travel and interdimensional manipulations, even as the tidal wave of raw magic came to an end. Darkness fell, just long enough for her to feel a flicker of panic, before the first spark of light blazed out of the nexus point. Alassa cried out as the magic surged, an ever-lasting flame blazing up and around them … Emily barely heard her, too intent on casting spells to tame the fire before it was too late. Magic crashed around her, an endless wave of raw power … she breathed a sigh of relief as it reignited the wards, bringing the castle back to life. They were lucky she’d done it once before, she reflected, as the outer defences powered up. Last time, there had been a lot of guesswork involved. This time, she knew what she was doing.\n\nAlassa grinned. “It worked!”\n\n“Barely,” Emily said. She could feel the magic flowing through the castle, forcing her to mentally catalogue the number of spellstones and relays that would have to be replaced. The castle had been in cold storage for a very long time, the necromancer never bothering to carry out basic maintenance let alone repairs. She touched the knot at the heart of the nexus point gingerly, shivering slightly as she realised the … thing … the original researchers had captured was still there. “We have a lot of work to do.”\n\n### NOTES\nCastle aquifers intact enough to matter.\nReception = defenses against Necromancer Emily’s host.\nTime may be insufficient.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe grittedly sends her awareness through the castle, finding aquifers still present and power channels she can shape into defense. Every preparation is a race against a host that may arrive before the work is ready. They might not have time to prepare a fitting reception.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Preparatory urgency; land on the insufficient-time beat.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She gritted her teeth, then sent her awareness roaming the castle. The aquifers were still there, thankfully … she opened the stopcocks, allowing water to flow into the plumbing. It was far from perfect, and they’d probably have to start replacing pipes too, but it was better than nothing. The water would need to be boiled … the magicians could take care of that. Food was going to be a more serious problem. She had plenty of raw magic under her control, but conjuring enough food to feed an army was going to be a nightmare. They’d need to come up with another solution and quickly. Perhaps she could open portals to somewhere her counterpart had barely touched and take food from there.\n\n“It’s better than we had,” Alassa said. “What now?”\n\nEmily swept the school for traps, cursing under her breath as she realised just how many there were. The students had done what they could to slow the necromancer before they fled – she hoped they’d gotten out in time – and the necromancer himself had left other traps … there was no time to be delicate, so she erased them all and hoped she hadn’t missed any. Some traps were designed to be subtle, hidden from even the most determined searches … she swept the school a second time and found nothing, then stepped back from the nexus point. There were a number of other things she needed to do.\n\n“We go tell everyone the good news, then you start turning Heart’s Eye into a fortress,” she said. “The wards should buy you some time even if she has enough power to break them.”\n\nAlassa shot her a sharp look. “You’re not staying?”\n\n“I don’t know yet,” Emily said. The march had distracted her, but now … she couldn’t keep from worrying about Frieda. Where the hell was she? “I have other problems to tackle.”\n\nHer mind raced, as they started to walk back to the hall. The crystals embedded in the ceiling were glowing with light, the radiance slightly odd to her eyes. The mirrors were glowing faintly too, their surfaces seemingly unstable as she looked at them … she reminded herself, sharply, that the original founders had intended them to serve as makeshift portals. There was no way to know how much of the network reminded intact – her experience last time had not been reassuring – or what they could do with it. A handful of ideas ran through her mind … she promised herself that, when she had a moment, she’d inspect the network more thoroughly and figure out how it really worked. If the mirrors opened onto the threadlines …\n\nI might be able to sneak back into the interdimensional roads without being noticed, she thought, feeling a twinge of hope. The nexus point offered enough power to conjure the magitech she needed to challenge Master Wolfe, without being spotted before it was too late. If I can get into place, he might not see me until it is too late.\n\nHedrick greeted them as they reached the hall. “Everything is coming back to life,” he said, brightly. “Your work?”\n\n“Yeah, the wards are back up,” Emily said. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. “I’ve removed most of the traps” – she refused to make a definite statement – “so we can spread out a little. Warn everyone to be careful, there might be some nasty surprises waiting for us.”\n\n“Good work,” Hedrick said. He gave Alassa a forceful hug. “I knew you could do it.”\n\n“And get the magicians set up too,” Emily added. She saw a faint flicker of anger cross his face – she’d known too many men who hated taking orders, particularly from a woman – but found it hard to care. “We have a lot of work to do.”\n\n“Of course,” Hedrick said, with heavy sarcasm. “Is there anything else?”\n\nEmily shook her head, walking past him to the edge of the great hall. The sky was darkening rapidly, even though it was the middle of the afternoon … a sandstorm was coming. Emily shivered, despite the heat, as she saw the shifting cloud advancing towards them. It was an eerie reddish colour, the pulsing mass seeming to move with evil intent even though she knew it wasn’t alive. She could imagine hellish eyes, driven by hate, peering at her as it swept towards the wards. It was a force of nature, riddled with tainted magic, and yet …\n\nAlassa joined her, her face unreadable. “She won’t be far behind.”\n\n“No,” Emily agreed. Her counterpart had to know Jade had been defeated, even if she didn’t know precisely what had happened. She’d be on her way already … assuming she still existed in this timeline. There was just no way to know if this Necromancer Emily was the one she’d faced earlier, or if she was just another variant on a theme. “We don’t have much time.”\n\n“There’s enough food for three more days, if we ration carefully,” Alassa said. “Five, if we slaughter the horses too.”\n\n“We should be able to do something about that,” Emily said. “The nexus point will give us a fighting chance, if we have time to develop it.”\n\n“And then what?” Alassa glanced at her. Her voice was flat, but Emily knew her well enough to  hear a hint of desperation – so very unlike Alassa – hidden under the tone. She had good reason to despair, even if they now had a nexus point and hope for the future. “If you’re not staying …”\n\n“I’ll give you control before I go,” Emily promised. “You’ll be able to make use of it.”\n\nShe felt like a heel as she said the words, like she was running away and betraying her friends. But this Alassa wasn’t her Alassa and the entire universe was at stake … she had no choice and yet she still felt bad. How could she not? The sandstorm howled in the distance, growing closer with every passing second … she shuddered helplessly, all too aware of what could be lurking under the cloud. Her counterpart was already on her way …\n\nAnd they might not have time to prepare a fitting reception.\n", "completion": "She gritted her teeth, then sent her awareness roaming the castle. The aquifers were still there, thankfully … she opened the stopcocks, allowing water to flow into the plumbing. It was far from perfect, and they’d probably have to start replacing pipes too, but it was better than nothing. The water would need to be boiled … the magicians could take care of that. Food was going to be a more serious problem. She had plenty of raw magic under her control, but conjuring enough food to feed an army was going to be a nightmare. They’d need to come up with another solution and quickly. Perhaps she could open portals to somewhere her counterpart had barely touched and take food from there.\n\n“It’s better than we had,” Alassa said. “What now?”\n\nEmily swept the school for traps, cursing under her breath as she realised just how many there were. The students had done what they could to slow the necromancer before they fled – she hoped they’d gotten out in time – and the necromancer himself had left other traps … there was no time to be delicate, so she erased them all and hoped she hadn’t missed any. Some traps were designed to be subtle, hidden from even the most determined searches … she swept the school a second time and found nothing, then stepped back from the nexus point. There were a number of other things she needed to do.\n\n“We go tell everyone the good news, then you start turning Heart’s Eye into a fortress,” she said. “The wards should buy you some time even if she has enough power to break them.”\n\nAlassa shot her a sharp look. “You’re not staying?”\n\n“I don’t know yet,” Emily said. The march had distracted her, but now … she couldn’t keep from worrying about Frieda. Where the hell was she? “I have other problems to tackle.”\n\nHer mind raced, as they started to walk back to the hall. The crystals embedded in the ceiling were glowing with light, the radiance slightly odd to her eyes. The mirrors were glowing faintly too, their surfaces seemingly unstable as she looked at them … she reminded herself, sharply, that the original founders had intended them to serve as makeshift portals. There was no way to know how much of the network reminded intact – her experience last time had not been reassuring – or what they could do with it. A handful of ideas ran through her mind … she promised herself that, when she had a moment, she’d inspect the network more thoroughly and figure out how it really worked. If the mirrors opened onto the threadlines …\n\nI might be able to sneak back into the interdimensional roads without being noticed, she thought, feeling a twinge of hope. The nexus point offered enough power to conjure the magitech she needed to challenge Master Wolfe, without being spotted before it was too late. If I can get into place, he might not see me until it is too late.\n\nHedrick greeted them as they reached the hall. “Everything is coming back to life,” he said, brightly. “Your work?”\n\n“Yeah, the wards are back up,” Emily said. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. “I’ve removed most of the traps” – she refused to make a definite statement – “so we can spread out a little. Warn everyone to be careful, there might be some nasty surprises waiting for us.”\n\n“Good work,” Hedrick said. He gave Alassa a forceful hug. “I knew you could do it.”\n\n“And get the magicians set up too,” Emily added. She saw a faint flicker of anger cross his face – she’d known too many men who hated taking orders, particularly from a woman – but found it hard to care. “We have a lot of work to do.”\n\n“Of course,” Hedrick said, with heavy sarcasm. “Is there anything else?”\n\nEmily shook her head, walking past him to the edge of the great hall. The sky was darkening rapidly, even though it was the middle of the afternoon … a sandstorm was coming. Emily shivered, despite the heat, as she saw the shifting cloud advancing towards them. It was an eerie reddish colour, the pulsing mass seeming to move with evil intent even though she knew it wasn’t alive. She could imagine hellish eyes, driven by hate, peering at her as it swept towards the wards. It was a force of nature, riddled with tainted magic, and yet …\n\nAlassa joined her, her face unreadable. “She won’t be far behind.”\n\n“No,” Emily agreed. Her counterpart had to know Jade had been defeated, even if she didn’t know precisely what had happened. She’d be on her way already … assuming she still existed in this timeline. There was just no way to know if this Necromancer Emily was the one she’d faced earlier, or if she was just another variant on a theme. “We don’t have much time.”\n\n“There’s enough food for three more days, if we ration carefully,” Alassa said. “Five, if we slaughter the horses too.”\n\n“We should be able to do something about that,” Emily said. “The nexus point will give us a fighting chance, if we have time to develop it.”\n\n“And then what?” Alassa glanced at her. Her voice was flat, but Emily knew her well enough to  hear a hint of desperation – so very unlike Alassa – hidden under the tone. She had good reason to despair, even if they now had a nexus point and hope for the future. “If you’re not staying …”\n\n“I’ll give you control before I go,” Emily promised. “You’ll be able to make use of it.”\n\nShe felt like a heel as she said the words, like she was running away and betraying her friends. But this Alassa wasn’t her Alassa and the entire universe was at stake … she had no choice and yet she still felt bad. How could she not? The sandstorm howled in the distance, growing closer with every passing second … she shuddered helplessly, all too aware of what could be lurking under the cloud. Her counterpart was already on her way …\n\nAnd they might not have time to prepare a fitting reception.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1046, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch18-P1", "chapter": "ch18", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCaleb — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nGorgon — capitalized when naming the alternate companion.\nnexus point — lowercase phrase.\n\n### STORY\nThe army reaches the desert castle; Emily maps aquifers and races incomplete defenses while famine and politics press hard on the halls.\nThree tense days follow of desperate magitech assembly, mundane cleaning, and aristocrats urging a return to free their lands too soon.\nCaleb, wearing her lover’s face without her lover’s decency, confesses mirror-visions of other selves — including one kissing her.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nControlling nexus access with Alassa, Caleb, and a few others; refusing wider lockout risk. Working with this Caleb is a nightmare because he lacks her Caleb’s decency; flushed by his report of a kiss-vision.\n\nCaleb\nAlive; this timeline’s Caleb; unsettled by mirror possibilities; saw himself with a Gorgon and kissing Emily; does not believe “just possibilities.”\n\nAlassa\nAlive; co-access to nexus; camp politics backdrop.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nMirrors at the site show alternate possibilities; Emily has warned they may be dangerous.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Good work,” Hedrick said. He gave Alassa a forceful hug. “I knew you could do it.”\n\n“And get the magicians set up too,” Emily added. She saw a faint flicker of anger cross his face – she’d known too many men who hated taking orders, particularly from a woman – but found it hard to care. “We have a lot of work to do.”\n\n“Of course,” Hedrick said, with heavy sarcasm. “Is there anything else?”\n\nEmily shook her head, walking past him to the edge of the great hall. The sky was darkening rapidly, even though it was the middle of the afternoon … a sandstorm was coming. Emily shivered, despite the heat, as she saw the shifting cloud advancing towards them. It was an eerie reddish colour, the pulsing mass seeming to move with evil intent even though she knew it wasn’t alive. She could imagine hellish eyes, driven by hate, peering at her as it swept towards the wards. It was a force of nature, riddled with tainted magic, and yet …\n\nAlassa joined her, her face unreadable. “She won’t be far behind.”\n\n“No,” Emily agreed. Her counterpart had to know Jade had been defeated, even if she didn’t know precisely what had happened. She’d be on her way already … assuming she still existed in this timeline. There was just no way to know if this Necromancer Emily was the one she’d faced earlier, or if she was just another variant on a theme. “We don’t have much time.”\n\n“There’s enough food for three more days, if we ration carefully,” Alassa said. “Five, if we slaughter the horses too.”\n\n“We should be able to do something about that,” Emily said. “The nexus point will give us a fighting chance, if we have time to develop it.”\n\n“And then what?” Alassa glanced at her. Her voice was flat, but Emily knew her well enough to  hear a hint of desperation – so very unlike Alassa – hidden under the tone. She had good reason to despair, even if they now had a nexus point and hope for the future. “If you’re not staying …”\n\n“I’ll give you control before I go,” Emily promised. “You’ll be able to make use of it.”\n\nShe felt like a heel as she said the words, like she was running away and betraying her friends. But this Alassa wasn’t her Alassa and the entire universe was at stake … she had no choice and yet she still felt bad. How could she not? The sandstorm howled in the distance, growing closer with every passing second … she shuddered helplessly, all too aware of what could be lurking under the cloud. Her counterpart was already on her way …\n\nAnd they might not have time to prepare a fitting reception.\n\n### NOTES\nThree days of prep: magitech assembly, cleaning, aristocrats urging return to free lands.\nNexus point access shared narrowly; Emily will not be locked out.\nMirrors still active.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nCaleb says the mirrors show him selves that aren’t him — including a Gorgon partner and a kiss with Emily. She flushes, calls them possibilities, and fails to convince him. A counterpart’s voice cuts caustic: you can’t turn me into a snail or crush me under your boot.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Uncanny intimacy and taunt; land on the snail/boot defiance.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I keep seeing myself in the mirrors,” Caleb said. His voice sounded odd, familiar and yet wrong at the same time. “But it isn’t me.”\n\nEmily’s heart twisted. The last three days had been tense, with the magicians desperately trying to put together as much magitech as possible and the mundane commoners cleaning the school while the aristos talked about returning to free their lands from the necromancer before it was too late. The latter seemed to think that having a nexus point made them gods, a conceit that would have been laughably wrong even if they were the ones who controlled it. Emily had shared some access rights with Alassa, Caleb, and a couple of other magicians, but they couldn’t share control any further. Emily had no intention of allowing herself to be locked out, at least until the time came to go. She needed the nexus point herself.\n\n“They’re possibilities,” she said, reluctantly. Working closely with this Caleb was a nightmare, all the more so because he had absolutely no idea what he was doing to her. He wore her lover’s face and yet he wasn’t the same person, without the combination of cleverness, experience and simple human decency her Caleb possessed in spades. “Things that could have happened to you, but didn’t.”\n\n“Yes.” Caleb’s eyes didn’t leave hers. He didn’t believe her. “I saw myself working with a Gorgon. And … I saw myself kissing you.”\n\nEmily flushed, helplessly. “They’re just possibilities.”\n\n“So you said,” Caleb agreed. His eyes never left her. “But why those possibilities?”\n\n“Good question,” Emily said, more to buy time than anything else. He was sharp … of course he was. He might not be her Caleb, but he had the same background and the same potential. Asking the right questions was just a matter of time. He had the same look too, when solving a problem … she felt a twinge of something she didn’t quite care to understand. “It could be random chance?”\n\n“But not everyone sees the same thing,” Caleb pressed. “Why do I …?”\n\n“I wish I knew,” Emily said. She wanted to tell him everything, she wanted to take him in her arms … and yet, she knew better. It would be cheating on her partner, her real partner, even if the two men were, in many ways, she same person. “What you see … it’s little more than a dream. A possibility, something that might never come to be. Not here. Don’t take it too seriously or you’ll go insane. Like Jessie.”\n\nShe winced, inwardly. Jessie had looked into a mirror, seen her dead children still alive, and tried to throw herself into the mirror. It hadn’t worked, thankfully, but … she’d insisted, even as she was dragged away and tied up for her own safety, that she’d been getting through the mirror before everyone else jumped her. Emily was the only one who believed her and she’d kept that to herself, for fear of encouraging others to try their luck. It was easy to believe they’d step through the mirror into a better world, but Emily doubted it. She certainly hadn’t seen a better world when she’d fallen through the first time.\n\n“Hah,” Caleb said. “Why …?”\n\nCasper arrived, looking disturbingly handsome for someone who hadn’t had a proper wash and shave for weeks. “My Lady,” he said, with a sweeping bow. “We have received a request for parley from the enemy camp. Prince Hedrick requests your immediate presence.”\n\n“Noted,” Emily said. She glanced at Caleb. “I’ll talk to you later.”\n\n“Of course.” Casper winked at Caleb. “Best of luck.”\n\nCaleb flushed. Emily flushed too, cursing under her breath as she followed Casper out the door and through a maze of corridors, the mirrors throwing up a dozen alternates as she passed. Casper had made a stunningly impolite pass at her, the first night in Heart’s Eye, as if he’d expected her to just lift her dress and bend over for him. And then, realising that she was spending a lot of time with his younger brother, he’d resorted to teasing him instead. Emily wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, but it was enough to leave her torn between relief her Casper was already dead and shame for thinking such unpleasant thoughts. Caleb hadn’t always liked his brother, he’d told her, yet he’d loved him.\n\nHedrick was waiting for her in the great hall, but … Emily stopped dead as she saw Frieda standing by the door. Her face was so different that she thought, for a second, it was another alternate, before she realised that someone was controlling Frieda’s body at a distance. Her counterpart … she felt her heart sink as she tasted the magics surrounding Frieda, dark compulsions that would leave a scar no matter how quickly the spells were removed. Frieda’s face was so unfamiliar because the controlling mind wasn’t used to wearing her face. Her eyes were desperately pleading for help.\n\n“Pretty,” Casper commented.\n\nEmily nearly killed him on the spot. “Get out,” she snarled. Frieda was clearly under someone’s control. Her counterpart wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Now!”\n\nCasper backed off. Emily stepped forward, her eyes meeting Frieda’s. She could see her counterpart’s mind within her eyes, her mind reaching out to brush against Emily’s. It was a chilling reminder that they were, on some level, the same person … she’d never done anything like it, not even for a moment, and yet it was proof she could. She shuddered, trying to tell herself she would never cross that line. And yet, her counterpart had taken a running jump over it.\n\n“What do you want?”\n\n“So friendly,” Frieda’s voice said. The words sounded mushy to Emily. Her counterpart wasn’t used to using Frieda's voice either. “Are you not glad I found your friend?”\n\n“Let her go,” Emily ordered.\n\n“I’m not some idiot swordsman who can be cowed by a sorceress,” her counterpart said, caustically. “You can’t turn me into a snail. You can’t crush me under your boot.”\n", "completion": "“I keep seeing myself in the mirrors,” Caleb said. His voice sounded odd, familiar and yet wrong at the same time. “But it isn’t me.”\n\nEmily’s heart twisted. The last three days had been tense, with the magicians desperately trying to put together as much magitech as possible and the mundane commoners cleaning the school while the aristos talked about returning to free their lands from the necromancer before it was too late. The latter seemed to think that having a nexus point made them gods, a conceit that would have been laughably wrong even if they were the ones who controlled it. Emily had shared some access rights with Alassa, Caleb, and a couple of other magicians, but they couldn’t share control any further. Emily had no intention of allowing herself to be locked out, at least until the time came to go. She needed the nexus point herself.\n\n“They’re possibilities,” she said, reluctantly. Working closely with this Caleb was a nightmare, all the more so because he had absolutely no idea what he was doing to her. He wore her lover’s face and yet he wasn’t the same person, without the combination of cleverness, experience and simple human decency her Caleb possessed in spades. “Things that could have happened to you, but didn’t.”\n\n“Yes.” Caleb’s eyes didn’t leave hers. He didn’t believe her. “I saw myself working with a Gorgon. And … I saw myself kissing you.”\n\nEmily flushed, helplessly. “They’re just possibilities.”\n\n“So you said,” Caleb agreed. His eyes never left her. “But why those possibilities?”\n\n“Good question,” Emily said, more to buy time than anything else. He was sharp … of course he was. He might not be her Caleb, but he had the same background and the same potential. Asking the right questions was just a matter of time. He had the same look too, when solving a problem … she felt a twinge of something she didn’t quite care to understand. “It could be random chance?”\n\n“But not everyone sees the same thing,” Caleb pressed. “Why do I …?”\n\n“I wish I knew,” Emily said. She wanted to tell him everything, she wanted to take him in her arms … and yet, she knew better. It would be cheating on her partner, her real partner, even if the two men were, in many ways, she same person. “What you see … it’s little more than a dream. A possibility, something that might never come to be. Not here. Don’t take it too seriously or you’ll go insane. Like Jessie.”\n\nShe winced, inwardly. Jessie had looked into a mirror, seen her dead children still alive, and tried to throw herself into the mirror. It hadn’t worked, thankfully, but … she’d insisted, even as she was dragged away and tied up for her own safety, that she’d been getting through the mirror before everyone else jumped her. Emily was the only one who believed her and she’d kept that to herself, for fear of encouraging others to try their luck. It was easy to believe they’d step through the mirror into a better world, but Emily doubted it. She certainly hadn’t seen a better world when she’d fallen through the first time.\n\n“Hah,” Caleb said. “Why …?”\n\nCasper arrived, looking disturbingly handsome for someone who hadn’t had a proper wash and shave for weeks. “My Lady,” he said, with a sweeping bow. “We have received a request for parley from the enemy camp. Prince Hedrick requests your immediate presence.”\n\n“Noted,” Emily said. She glanced at Caleb. “I’ll talk to you later.”\n\n“Of course.” Casper winked at Caleb. “Best of luck.”\n\nCaleb flushed. Emily flushed too, cursing under her breath as she followed Casper out the door and through a maze of corridors, the mirrors throwing up a dozen alternates as she passed. Casper had made a stunningly impolite pass at her, the first night in Heart’s Eye, as if he’d expected her to just lift her dress and bend over for him. And then, realising that she was spending a lot of time with his younger brother, he’d resorted to teasing him instead. Emily wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, but it was enough to leave her torn between relief her Casper was already dead and shame for thinking such unpleasant thoughts. Caleb hadn’t always liked his brother, he’d told her, yet he’d loved him.\n\nHedrick was waiting for her in the great hall, but … Emily stopped dead as she saw Frieda standing by the door. Her face was so different that she thought, for a second, it was another alternate, before she realised that someone was controlling Frieda’s body at a distance. Her counterpart … she felt her heart sink as she tasted the magics surrounding Frieda, dark compulsions that would leave a scar no matter how quickly the spells were removed. Frieda’s face was so unfamiliar because the controlling mind wasn’t used to wearing her face. Her eyes were desperately pleading for help.\n\n“Pretty,” Casper commented.\n\nEmily nearly killed him on the spot. “Get out,” she snarled. Frieda was clearly under someone’s control. Her counterpart wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Now!”\n\nCasper backed off. Emily stepped forward, her eyes meeting Frieda’s. She could see her counterpart’s mind within her eyes, her mind reaching out to brush against Emily’s. It was a chilling reminder that they were, on some level, the same person … she’d never done anything like it, not even for a moment, and yet it was proof she could. She shuddered, trying to tell herself she would never cross that line. And yet, her counterpart had taken a running jump over it.\n\n“What do you want?”\n\n“So friendly,” Frieda’s voice said. The words sounded mushy to Emily. Her counterpart wasn’t used to using Frieda's voice either. “Are you not glad I found your friend?”\n\n“Let her go,” Emily ordered.\n\n“I’m not some idiot swordsman who can be cowed by a sorceress,” her counterpart said, caustically. “You can’t turn me into a snail. You can’t crush me under your boot.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1046, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch18-P2", "chapter": "ch18", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCasper — capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized when needed.\nAlassa — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nCaleb’s mirror-visions include working with a Gorgon and kissing Emily; she flushes and insists they are only possibilities he should not chase.\nA caustic counterpart voice denies she can be cowed like a man crushed into a snail under a sorceress’s boot.\nEmily answers that she can force the invader out of a mind — and camp panic finds a face when Casper sparks with accusation.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nCommitted to forcing a possessing presence out; facing Casper’s shaking accusation that she is “her.”\n\nCasper\nAlive; finger shaking with sparking magic; accusing Emily of being the necromancer because she was let into camp.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; will need to steady the room.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Noted,” Emily said. She glanced at Caleb. “I’ll talk to you later.”\n\n“Of course.” Casper winked at Caleb. “Best of luck.”\n\nCaleb flushed. Emily flushed too, cursing under her breath as she followed Casper out the door and through a maze of corridors, the mirrors throwing up a dozen alternates as she passed. Casper had made a stunningly impolite pass at her, the first night in Heart’s Eye, as if he’d expected her to just lift her dress and bend over for him. And then, realising that she was spending a lot of time with his younger brother, he’d resorted to teasing him instead. Emily wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, but it was enough to leave her torn between relief her Casper was already dead and shame for thinking such unpleasant thoughts. Caleb hadn’t always liked his brother, he’d told her, yet he’d loved him.\n\nHedrick was waiting for her in the great hall, but … Emily stopped dead as she saw Frieda standing by the door. Her face was so different that she thought, for a second, it was another alternate, before she realised that someone was controlling Frieda’s body at a distance. Her counterpart … she felt her heart sink as she tasted the magics surrounding Frieda, dark compulsions that would leave a scar no matter how quickly the spells were removed. Frieda’s face was so unfamiliar because the controlling mind wasn’t used to wearing her face. Her eyes were desperately pleading for help.\n\n“Pretty,” Casper commented.\n\nEmily nearly killed him on the spot. “Get out,” she snarled. Frieda was clearly under someone’s control. Her counterpart wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Now!”\n\nCasper backed off. Emily stepped forward, her eyes meeting Frieda’s. She could see her counterpart’s mind within her eyes, her mind reaching out to brush against Emily’s. It was a chilling reminder that they were, on some level, the same person … she’d never done anything like it, not even for a moment, and yet it was proof she could. She shuddered, trying to tell herself she would never cross that line. And yet, her counterpart had taken a running jump over it.\n\n“What do you want?”\n\n“So friendly,” Frieda’s voice said. The words sounded mushy to Emily. Her counterpart wasn’t used to using Frieda's voice either. “Are you not glad I found your friend?”\n\n“Let her go,” Emily ordered.\n\n“I’m not some idiot swordsman who can be cowed by a sorceress,” her counterpart said, caustically. “You can’t turn me into a snail. You can’t crush me under your boot.”\n\n### NOTES\nCamp/interior confrontation after mirror talk.\nMagic sparks at Casper’s fingertips.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily answers the snail-boot taunt the only way that matters: she can force the enemy out of a mind. The room’s fear finds a simpler story when Casper snaps that they let her into camp — she’s her — sparks dancing on his shaking finger as accusation becomes almost a spell.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Accusation spike; land on Casper’s identification of Emily with the enemy.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“No,” Emily said. “But I can force you out of her mind.”\n\nFrieda’s body glanced at Hedrick. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?”\n\n“Talk to me,” Emily snapped, before Hedrick could come up with an answer. “Why are you …?”\n\n“You can’t fight me,” her counterpart said. “We are the same person. You force your way into this mind” – Frieda’s hand rose and poked her chest” – and you won’t be able to keep your thoughts away from me. You’ll blur into me and I’ll blur into you. You know it.”\n\nEmily shivered. She’d had the same thought earlier. They were the same person.\n\n“What do you want?” Her voice sounded harsh, even to her. If this wasn’t the counterpart Master Wolfe had put to work … logic suggested she wasn’t, but how could she be sure? “Why are you even here?”\n\n“To offer you a truce,” Frieda’s mouth said. She looked at Hedrick. “Hand her over to me and you can go free. I’ll leave you alone here, if you wish, or even let you return to your lands. I just want her.”\n\n“No,” Alassa said, sharply. Emily hadn’t even heard her arrive. “She won’t keep her word.”\n\n“I’m not you, Queenie,” Frieda’s mouth said. “If I give my word, I keep it.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. She already knew Hedrick didn’t like her. The council … would be tempted, she was sure, even if they suspected her counterpart wouldn’t keep her word. Alassa would be on her side, but everyone else … she wondered, suddenly, if Casper would try to hex her in the back. She’d already shot him down so brusquely it had to have hurt his pride deeply, no matter what sort of face he’d put on it. Would he consider betraying her for such a small reason? He might …\n\n“I cannot trust you,” Alassa said. She took a step forward. “You betrayed us once before. Never again.”\n\nFrieda’s body twitched. “And now you have come to the end of the line,” she said, coldly. “Yield my other self unto me” – Emily heard Casper suck in his breath – “or die.”\n\n“Die,” Alassa said.\n\nFrieda looked at Hedrick. “Are you going to let her make such choices for you?”\n\nHedrick hesitated, his expressions changing so rapidly it was hard to keep up. “The council will make the final decision,” he said, “but …”\n\n“But nothing.” Frieda’s body turned to look Emily in the eye. “Your friend is mine now and I will eat her all up, before I come for the rest of you. And then it will be the end.”\n\nEmily braced herself, then lunged forward and slammed right into Frieda. She tumbled over backwards, landing badly … Emily pressed her hands against her head, summoning every bit of willpower she could to reach Frieda’s soul. The poisonous spells brushed against her, an order of magnitude more powerful than any other compulsion spells she’d seen, but she kept pushing forward even as they threatened to invade her mind. Frieda was barricaded away in a jail cell at the back of her own mind, something shaped by her counterpart’s memories … she reminded herself, sharply, that the jail cell wasn’t real. It was only as solid as she believed it to be.\n\n“Here,” she said. She made the cell vanish, freeing Frieda and empowering her. “You need to clear your own mind.”\n\nShe shot a mental bolt at her counterpart, not strong but close enough to her own mentality to be difficult to block, then broke the connection before her counterpart could strike back. Frieda screamed as Emily fell back into her own body, her hands clawing at her face as she sought to remove the last of the contamination. Emily recalled one counterpart of herself torturing Caleb, nearly breaking him … he hadn’t been able to look her in the eye for weeks afterwards, even though he knew the two Emilys were two separate people. Frieda might be the same …\n\nHedrick cleared his throat. “Is it wise to keep her in the fortress?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, shortly. She had no intention of tossing Frieda out, no matter the risk. “The connection between them is broken.”\n\nShe pressed on before he could answer. “Prepare the defences,” she added. Her counterpart would give them as little time as possible before going on the offensive. “We won’t be left alone much longer.”\n\nAlassa nodded. “What did she do to her?”\n\nEmily stumbled to her feet, then helped Frieda to stand up. “She was controlling Frieda from a distance,” Emily said. “And using her body to pass on a message.”\n\nShe scowled. Long-range control wasn’t uncommon, but the sheer versatility of the compulsion was disturbing. The implications were worse. Her counterpart could have ransacked Frieda’s mind, learning everything she knew … that boded ill. She knew about magitech now. She knew what Technomage Emily had created. And she knew what had happened in Frieda’s version of Heart’s Eye.\n\n“So … what now?” Casper sounded tired. “What do we do?”\n\n“We get ready to fight,” Hedrick said. “We have a chance …”\n\n“And you,” Casper said, addressing Emily. “Who are you? Really? And how are you related to her?”\n\nEmily briefly considered lying, perhaps claiming that she and her counterpart were sisters, but Casper knew too much already. “She’s my counterpart,” she said, slowly. There was no time to give a more detailed explanation. “An alternate version of myself.”\n\nCasper stared at Hedrick. “And you let her stay with us? How can she be trusted?”\n\nHedrick glared. “Are you doubting my judgment? The judgement of the council?”\n\n“You let her into our camp,” Casper snapped. His finger shook, sparks of magic darting around his fingertips. “She’s … she’s her!”\n", "completion": "“No,” Emily said. “But I can force you out of her mind.”\n\nFrieda’s body glanced at Hedrick. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?”\n\n“Talk to me,” Emily snapped, before Hedrick could come up with an answer. “Why are you …?”\n\n“You can’t fight me,” her counterpart said. “We are the same person. You force your way into this mind” – Frieda’s hand rose and poked her chest” – and you won’t be able to keep your thoughts away from me. You’ll blur into me and I’ll blur into you. You know it.”\n\nEmily shivered. She’d had the same thought earlier. They were the same person.\n\n“What do you want?” Her voice sounded harsh, even to her. If this wasn’t the counterpart Master Wolfe had put to work … logic suggested she wasn’t, but how could she be sure? “Why are you even here?”\n\n“To offer you a truce,” Frieda’s mouth said. She looked at Hedrick. “Hand her over to me and you can go free. I’ll leave you alone here, if you wish, or even let you return to your lands. I just want her.”\n\n“No,” Alassa said, sharply. Emily hadn’t even heard her arrive. “She won’t keep her word.”\n\n“I’m not you, Queenie,” Frieda’s mouth said. “If I give my word, I keep it.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. She already knew Hedrick didn’t like her. The council … would be tempted, she was sure, even if they suspected her counterpart wouldn’t keep her word. Alassa would be on her side, but everyone else … she wondered, suddenly, if Casper would try to hex her in the back. She’d already shot him down so brusquely it had to have hurt his pride deeply, no matter what sort of face he’d put on it. Would he consider betraying her for such a small reason? He might …\n\n“I cannot trust you,” Alassa said. She took a step forward. “You betrayed us once before. Never again.”\n\nFrieda’s body twitched. “And now you have come to the end of the line,” she said, coldly. “Yield my other self unto me” – Emily heard Casper suck in his breath – “or die.”\n\n“Die,” Alassa said.\n\nFrieda looked at Hedrick. “Are you going to let her make such choices for you?”\n\nHedrick hesitated, his expressions changing so rapidly it was hard to keep up. “The council will make the final decision,” he said, “but …”\n\n“But nothing.” Frieda’s body turned to look Emily in the eye. “Your friend is mine now and I will eat her all up, before I come for the rest of you. And then it will be the end.”\n\nEmily braced herself, then lunged forward and slammed right into Frieda. She tumbled over backwards, landing badly … Emily pressed her hands against her head, summoning every bit of willpower she could to reach Frieda’s soul. The poisonous spells brushed against her, an order of magnitude more powerful than any other compulsion spells she’d seen, but she kept pushing forward even as they threatened to invade her mind. Frieda was barricaded away in a jail cell at the back of her own mind, something shaped by her counterpart’s memories … she reminded herself, sharply, that the jail cell wasn’t real. It was only as solid as she believed it to be.\n\n“Here,” she said. She made the cell vanish, freeing Frieda and empowering her. “You need to clear your own mind.”\n\nShe shot a mental bolt at her counterpart, not strong but close enough to her own mentality to be difficult to block, then broke the connection before her counterpart could strike back. Frieda screamed as Emily fell back into her own body, her hands clawing at her face as she sought to remove the last of the contamination. Emily recalled one counterpart of herself torturing Caleb, nearly breaking him … he hadn’t been able to look her in the eye for weeks afterwards, even though he knew the two Emilys were two separate people. Frieda might be the same …\n\nHedrick cleared his throat. “Is it wise to keep her in the fortress?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, shortly. She had no intention of tossing Frieda out, no matter the risk. “The connection between them is broken.”\n\nShe pressed on before he could answer. “Prepare the defences,” she added. Her counterpart would give them as little time as possible before going on the offensive. “We won’t be left alone much longer.”\n\nAlassa nodded. “What did she do to her?”\n\nEmily stumbled to her feet, then helped Frieda to stand up. “She was controlling Frieda from a distance,” Emily said. “And using her body to pass on a message.”\n\nShe scowled. Long-range control wasn’t uncommon, but the sheer versatility of the compulsion was disturbing. The implications were worse. Her counterpart could have ransacked Frieda’s mind, learning everything she knew … that boded ill. She knew about magitech now. She knew what Technomage Emily had created. And she knew what had happened in Frieda’s version of Heart’s Eye.\n\n“So … what now?” Casper sounded tired. “What do we do?”\n\n“We get ready to fight,” Hedrick said. “We have a chance …”\n\n“And you,” Casper said, addressing Emily. “Who are you? Really? And how are you related to her?”\n\nEmily briefly considered lying, perhaps claiming that she and her counterpart were sisters, but Casper knew too much already. “She’s my counterpart,” she said, slowly. There was no time to give a more detailed explanation. “An alternate version of myself.”\n\nCasper stared at Hedrick. “And you let her stay with us? How can she be trusted?”\n\nHedrick glared. “Are you doubting my judgment? The judgement of the council?”\n\n“You let her into our camp,” Casper snapped. His finger shook, sparks of magic darting around his fingertips. “She’s … she’s her!”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 985, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch18-P3", "chapter": "ch18", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nCasper — capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nMirror-haunted Caleb unsettles Emily while a counterpart taunts that no snail-spell or boot will cow her into obedience.\nCasper accuses Emily of being Necromancer Emily simply because she was admitted into camp, magic sparking at his shaking finger.\nAlassa’s cooler head must keep them from tearing Emily apart long enough to bait a trap and wait for the real enemy to show.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nReady to bait a trap and wait; sure Necromancer Emily will show herself soon.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; pointing out Emily could have killed them already if she wished — tone implying “you fools.”\n\nCasper\nAlive; still hostile; contained for now.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Here,” she said. She made the cell vanish, freeing Frieda and empowering her. “You need to clear your own mind.”\n\nShe shot a mental bolt at her counterpart, not strong but close enough to her own mentality to be difficult to block, then broke the connection before her counterpart could strike back. Frieda screamed as Emily fell back into her own body, her hands clawing at her face as she sought to remove the last of the contamination. Emily recalled one counterpart of herself torturing Caleb, nearly breaking him … he hadn’t been able to look her in the eye for weeks afterwards, even though he knew the two Emilys were two separate people. Frieda might be the same …\n\nHedrick cleared his throat. “Is it wise to keep her in the fortress?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, shortly. She had no intention of tossing Frieda out, no matter the risk. “The connection between them is broken.”\n\nShe pressed on before he could answer. “Prepare the defences,” she added. Her counterpart would give them as little time as possible before going on the offensive. “We won’t be left alone much longer.”\n\nAlassa nodded. “What did she do to her?”\n\nEmily stumbled to her feet, then helped Frieda to stand up. “She was controlling Frieda from a distance,” Emily said. “And using her body to pass on a message.”\n\nShe scowled. Long-range control wasn’t uncommon, but the sheer versatility of the compulsion was disturbing. The implications were worse. Her counterpart could have ransacked Frieda’s mind, learning everything she knew … that boded ill. She knew about magitech now. She knew what Technomage Emily had created. And she knew what had happened in Frieda’s version of Heart’s Eye.\n\n“So … what now?” Casper sounded tired. “What do we do?”\n\n“We get ready to fight,” Hedrick said. “We have a chance …”\n\n“And you,” Casper said, addressing Emily. “Who are you? Really? And how are you related to her?”\n\nEmily briefly considered lying, perhaps claiming that she and her counterpart were sisters, but Casper knew too much already. “She’s my counterpart,” she said, slowly. There was no time to give a more detailed explanation. “An alternate version of myself.”\n\nCasper stared at Hedrick. “And you let her stay with us? How can she be trusted?”\n\nHedrick glared. “Are you doubting my judgment? The judgement of the council?”\n\n“You let her into our camp,” Casper snapped. His finger shook, sparks of magic darting around his fingertips. “She’s … she’s her!”\n\n### NOTES\nTrap plan replaces mob panic.\nNecromancer Emily’s appearance is expected soon.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlassa points out, in a tone that calls them fools, that Emily could have killed them all already if she wished. The mob heat eases just enough for strategy. Emily sets the line: now they bait a trap and wait — it won’t be long before Necromancer Emily shows herself.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Steady the mob into strategy; land on bait-and-wait.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“She could have killed us all if she wished,” Alassa pointed out, in a tone that added the words you idiot. Hedrick shot her a look that would have silenced a lesser woman. Emily was disturbed to note it was still a little effective. “I think we can trust her.”\n\n“And I think you’re a poor judge of character,” Casper snapped. “She could be plotting our defeat …”\n\n“Why would she need to bother?” Alassa sounded irked. “She led us here!”\n\nEmily sighed, inwardly. “I’m taking Frieda back to my room,” she said, keeping her voice under tight control. “You can sort out the argument later.”\n\nShe muttered a levitation spell to float Frieda into the air, then steer her through a maze of corridors. Her bedroom was a joke compared to her first dorm at Whitehall, the one she’d shared with Alassa and Imaiqah, but it was better than nothing. Blankets on the hard stone floor, a shower that worked after some tinkering … they’d made everything last in the old days. It was astonishing what that had done for morale. Her lips quirked as she lowered Frieda to the blankets and stepped back, watching Frieda’s war with herself. Emily didn’t dare try to help her. Her magic was identical to her counterpart’s. She might easily do more harm than good.\n\nA nasty thought crossed her mind. Her counterpart knew Emily loved Frieda. She knew Emily would take the risk of freeing her. And that meant …\n\nShe might not be that empathic, she reminded herself. Necromancers rarely were. They were so consumed with lust for power that they had no time for any other emotion. But if she sent Frieda here expecting to lose control of her, she might have taken a few precautions first.\n\nFrieda started, then sat up. “Emily?”\n\nHer eyes were wide with fear. “Emily? It is you?”\n\n“It’s me,” Emily said. Frieda had seen alternate versions of Emily. She understood the concept in a way few could match. “Are you …?”\n\nFrieda sagged. “I … she said she’d killed me.”\n\n“Your counterpart?” Emily shuddered. It wasn’t impossible and yet … she recalled the first time she’d met Frieda, when she’d been little more than a servant, a slave. The idea of torturing and killing that helpless child was … sickening. And yet, there was something disturbingly plausible about it. The young Frieda would have made an excellent victim for a predatory necromancer. No one in Mountaintop would have given much of a damn if she’d vanished one day … never to be seen again. It was astonishing what people could be convinced to overlook if they had good reason not to want to find out the truth and everyone at Mountaintop had wanted her on their side. “I … she might have been lying.”\n\nFrieda shook her head. “She wasn’t,” she said. “I could feel it.”\n\n“Crap,” Emily said. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for a girl she’d never met. It was hard not to feel guilty, even though it hadn’t been her crime. “I … what did she do to you?”\n\n“She went through my head,” Frieda said. She ran through a brief explanation, admitting that Emily’s counterpart had read everything in her mind, and then carried on. “Put me in a cell and then … the next thing I remember clearly is waking up here.”\n\nEmily nodded, slowly. “She locked you up inside your own mind,” she said. As long as Frieda believed she was in a real cell, with no access to her magic, she’d be trapped. Clever … and disturbing. “And I don’t dare check your mind for further tampering.”\n\n“You can,” Frieda said. Her voice shook. She was lying. “I don’t mind.”\n\nEmily’s heart went out to her. “It’ll be pointless,” she said. “She’s my counterpart. I won’t be able to see any of her work, not unless it’s obvious …”\n\n“Like not being able to smell yourself,” Frieda said. She smiled, but there was little real humour in it. “How do we check …?”\n\n“Get undressed,” Emily ordered. If Frieda had been completely locked away in her own mind, Emily’s counterpart could have hidden a piece of chat parchment on her body or in her boots or … anywhere. Frieda could have been given a post-hypnotic command to keep it with her without being consciously aware of it. “We need to be sure you’re not carrying anything dangerous.”\n\nFrieda staggered to her feet. “And what if I am?”\n\n“We might be able to use it against her,” Emily said. “We’ll see …”\n\nShe watched, feeling vaguely guilty, as Frieda undressed, passing each piece of clothing to her one by one. Emily shook it out, watching Frieda for signs her body was trying to hide something without her mind knowing it. There was no reason her counterpart couldn’t invent chat parchment on her own or, if she hadn’t, steal the idea from Frieda. The thought was deeply worrying. Frieda knew many of Emily’s tricks and her counterpart could make use of them too.\n\n“Anything?”\n\n“Not yet,” Emily said. She sucked in her breath as she saw the spot of blood on Frieda’s knickers. It might have gone unnoticed, but … she started to reach out with her mind and stopped herself before she accidentally gave her counterpart a jolt. Instead, she cast a paternity spell. She’d never envisaged using it in such a way, but … her lips twisted in dark amusement. There was no link between the blood and Frieda herself. The blood was someone else’s. “Clever.”\n\nFrieda looked disgusted. “And she claims to be you,” she said. “What was she thinking?”\n\n“That she could get some blood inside the wards,” Emily said. She’d done it herself, when she’d stormed the Tower of Alexis. Get blood inside the wards, dismantle all the protections from within … and just walk in and take over. A simple trick, perhaps slightly riskier than most. “And it came very close to working.”\n\n“Clever,” Frieda echoed, sardonically. “What now?”\n\n“Now, we bait a trap and wait,” Emily said. “It won’t be long before she shows herself.”\n", "completion": "“She could have killed us all if she wished,” Alassa pointed out, in a tone that added the words you idiot. Hedrick shot her a look that would have silenced a lesser woman. Emily was disturbed to note it was still a little effective. “I think we can trust her.”\n\n“And I think you’re a poor judge of character,” Casper snapped. “She could be plotting our defeat …”\n\n“Why would she need to bother?” Alassa sounded irked. “She led us here!”\n\nEmily sighed, inwardly. “I’m taking Frieda back to my room,” she said, keeping her voice under tight control. “You can sort out the argument later.”\n\nShe muttered a levitation spell to float Frieda into the air, then steer her through a maze of corridors. Her bedroom was a joke compared to her first dorm at Whitehall, the one she’d shared with Alassa and Imaiqah, but it was better than nothing. Blankets on the hard stone floor, a shower that worked after some tinkering … they’d made everything last in the old days. It was astonishing what that had done for morale. Her lips quirked as she lowered Frieda to the blankets and stepped back, watching Frieda’s war with herself. Emily didn’t dare try to help her. Her magic was identical to her counterpart’s. She might easily do more harm than good.\n\nA nasty thought crossed her mind. Her counterpart knew Emily loved Frieda. She knew Emily would take the risk of freeing her. And that meant …\n\nShe might not be that empathic, she reminded herself. Necromancers rarely were. They were so consumed with lust for power that they had no time for any other emotion. But if she sent Frieda here expecting to lose control of her, she might have taken a few precautions first.\n\nFrieda started, then sat up. “Emily?”\n\nHer eyes were wide with fear. “Emily? It is you?”\n\n“It’s me,” Emily said. Frieda had seen alternate versions of Emily. She understood the concept in a way few could match. “Are you …?”\n\nFrieda sagged. “I … she said she’d killed me.”\n\n“Your counterpart?” Emily shuddered. It wasn’t impossible and yet … she recalled the first time she’d met Frieda, when she’d been little more than a servant, a slave. The idea of torturing and killing that helpless child was … sickening. And yet, there was something disturbingly plausible about it. The young Frieda would have made an excellent victim for a predatory necromancer. No one in Mountaintop would have given much of a damn if she’d vanished one day … never to be seen again. It was astonishing what people could be convinced to overlook if they had good reason not to want to find out the truth and everyone at Mountaintop had wanted her on their side. “I … she might have been lying.”\n\nFrieda shook her head. “She wasn’t,” she said. “I could feel it.”\n\n“Crap,” Emily said. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for a girl she’d never met. It was hard not to feel guilty, even though it hadn’t been her crime. “I … what did she do to you?”\n\n“She went through my head,” Frieda said. She ran through a brief explanation, admitting that Emily’s counterpart had read everything in her mind, and then carried on. “Put me in a cell and then … the next thing I remember clearly is waking up here.”\n\nEmily nodded, slowly. “She locked you up inside your own mind,” she said. As long as Frieda believed she was in a real cell, with no access to her magic, she’d be trapped. Clever … and disturbing. “And I don’t dare check your mind for further tampering.”\n\n“You can,” Frieda said. Her voice shook. She was lying. “I don’t mind.”\n\nEmily’s heart went out to her. “It’ll be pointless,” she said. “She’s my counterpart. I won’t be able to see any of her work, not unless it’s obvious …”\n\n“Like not being able to smell yourself,” Frieda said. She smiled, but there was little real humour in it. “How do we check …?”\n\n“Get undressed,” Emily ordered. If Frieda had been completely locked away in her own mind, Emily’s counterpart could have hidden a piece of chat parchment on her body or in her boots or … anywhere. Frieda could have been given a post-hypnotic command to keep it with her without being consciously aware of it. “We need to be sure you’re not carrying anything dangerous.”\n\nFrieda staggered to her feet. “And what if I am?”\n\n“We might be able to use it against her,” Emily said. “We’ll see …”\n\nShe watched, feeling vaguely guilty, as Frieda undressed, passing each piece of clothing to her one by one. Emily shook it out, watching Frieda for signs her body was trying to hide something without her mind knowing it. There was no reason her counterpart couldn’t invent chat parchment on her own or, if she hadn’t, steal the idea from Frieda. The thought was deeply worrying. Frieda knew many of Emily’s tricks and her counterpart could make use of them too.\n\n“Anything?”\n\n“Not yet,” Emily said. She sucked in her breath as she saw the spot of blood on Frieda’s knickers. It might have gone unnoticed, but … she started to reach out with her mind and stopped herself before she accidentally gave her counterpart a jolt. Instead, she cast a paternity spell. She’d never envisaged using it in such a way, but … her lips twisted in dark amusement. There was no link between the blood and Frieda herself. The blood was someone else’s. “Clever.”\n\nFrieda looked disgusted. “And she claims to be you,” she said. “What was she thinking?”\n\n“That she could get some blood inside the wards,” Emily said. She’d done it herself, when she’d stormed the Tower of Alexis. Get blood inside the wards, dismantle all the protections from within … and just walk in and take over. A simple trick, perhaps slightly riskier than most. “And it came very close to working.”\n\n“Clever,” Frieda echoed, sardonically. “What now?”\n\n“Now, we bait a trap and wait,” Emily said. “It won’t be long before she shows herself.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1043, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch19-P1", "chapter": "ch19", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCasper — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nCamp nearly turns on Emily until Alassa notes she could have killed them already if she wished; Emily orders them to bait a trap and wait.\nCasper has ratted identity rumors through the ranks, and Alassa warns that frightened people will not stay logical about any link to their tormentor.\nFrom the watchtower they see the enemy army marching into view, pressure already chewing at free will even at this distance.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nOn the watchtower with Alassa; tired; shrugging Casper’s rumor; more worried about the host and about free will dying at range.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; warning that people won’t be logical; they’ll attack on impression.\n\nCasper\nAlive; has spread that Emily is linked to the tormentor; not necessarily present on the tower.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nRefugee hopelessness already broke some marchers into catatonia, desert runs, or violence before Heart’s Eye.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily nodded, slowly. “She locked you up inside your own mind,” she said. As long as Frieda believed she was in a real cell, with no access to her magic, she’d be trapped. Clever … and disturbing. “And I don’t dare check your mind for further tampering.”\n\n“You can,” Frieda said. Her voice shook. She was lying. “I don’t mind.”\n\nEmily’s heart went out to her. “It’ll be pointless,” she said. “She’s my counterpart. I won’t be able to see any of her work, not unless it’s obvious …”\n\n“Like not being able to smell yourself,” Frieda said. She smiled, but there was little real humour in it. “How do we check …?”\n\n“Get undressed,” Emily ordered. If Frieda had been completely locked away in her own mind, Emily’s counterpart could have hidden a piece of chat parchment on her body or in her boots or … anywhere. Frieda could have been given a post-hypnotic command to keep it with her without being consciously aware of it. “We need to be sure you’re not carrying anything dangerous.”\n\nFrieda staggered to her feet. “And what if I am?”\n\n“We might be able to use it against her,” Emily said. “We’ll see …”\n\nShe watched, feeling vaguely guilty, as Frieda undressed, passing each piece of clothing to her one by one. Emily shook it out, watching Frieda for signs her body was trying to hide something without her mind knowing it. There was no reason her counterpart couldn’t invent chat parchment on her own or, if she hadn’t, steal the idea from Frieda. The thought was deeply worrying. Frieda knew many of Emily’s tricks and her counterpart could make use of them too.\n\n“Anything?”\n\n“Not yet,” Emily said. She sucked in her breath as she saw the spot of blood on Frieda’s knickers. It might have gone unnoticed, but … she started to reach out with her mind and stopped herself before she accidentally gave her counterpart a jolt. Instead, she cast a paternity spell. She’d never envisaged using it in such a way, but … her lips twisted in dark amusement. There was no link between the blood and Frieda herself. The blood was someone else’s. “Clever.”\n\nFrieda looked disgusted. “And she claims to be you,” she said. “What was she thinking?”\n\n“That she could get some blood inside the wards,” Emily said. She’d done it herself, when she’d stormed the Tower of Alexis. Get blood inside the wards, dismantle all the protections from within … and just walk in and take over. A simple trick, perhaps slightly riskier than most. “And it came very close to working.”\n\n“Clever,” Frieda echoed, sardonically. “What now?”\n\n“Now, we bait a trap and wait,” Emily said. “It won’t be long before she shows herself.”\n\n### NOTES\nWatchtower view of approaching army.\nMirrors still misunderstood by most as illusions.\nDistance already presses on free will.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlassa reports Casper ratted her out; Emily shrugs and watches the enemy fill the approach, remembering how hopelessness already broke the march. Even at distance the pressure on minds is dreadful — closer, free will may already be gone.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Watchtower dread; land on free-will erosion at range.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Casper went and ratted you out,” Alassa said, as they stood together in the watchtower. “I don’t know how many people believe him.”\n\nEmily considered it for a long moment, then shrugged. Most people had no idea alternate timelines even existed, no matter what they saw in the mirrors. They were more likely to believe the images were illusions, part of the castle’s defences, rather than glimpses into alternate timelines. As long as no one else touched the mirrors – and she had no idea what would happen if they did – there shouldn’t be any problem. Besides, she didn’t look much like her counterpart. She certainly didn’t look like a necromancer.\n\n“I’ll cope,” she said, tiredly. They had bigger problems. The enemy army was marching into view. “Tell anyone who asks I don’t look like a necromancer.”\n\n“Most people don’t know what a necromancer looks like, beyond the red eyes,” Alassa pointed out, sardonically. “There aren’t many first-hand accounts of meeting a necromancer face to face. Few survived long enough to write one.”\n\nShe glanced at Emily, her eyes sharp. “You’re assuming everyone is going to be logical about this,” she added. “People aren’t logical. They’re bundles of fears and contradictions, driven by self-interest and other motivations, motivations they’re rarely willing to acknowledge even if they’re aware of them. They get the impression you’re linked to our tormentor, in some way … they’ll attack you. You should know that by now.”\n\nEmily nodded, conceding the point. She’d had some hard times over the years, everything from facing stronger magicians to being a powerless magician, but she’d never felt the sheer hopelessness pervading the refugee army. They’d known they were on the brink of utter destruction, their lives prolonged more by their opponent’s sadism than their resistance; they’d known they’d had little hope of surviving more than a few short days, if they were lucky. Some had just sat down on the ground and waited for death to claim them, rather than continue the march to Heart’s Eye; some had just gone crazy, lashing out at their peers or running into the desert in hopes of finding somewhere, anywhere, better than the nightmare surrounding them. If she’d been in such a mess, what would she have done to preserve herself even if she’d known the promise of protection and safety was as flimsy as her counterpart’s sense of human decency? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.\n\n“I’ll watch my back,” Emily promised.\n\n“Watch Frieda’s too,” Alassa warned. “Your friend was under her control. You don’t know what she might have left behind, buried in Frieda’s mind.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. She’d checked as best she could, with Frieda’s consent, but it had been a maddeningly difficult task. Her magical signature was identical to her opponent’s and she had no way to be sure she’d scanned every last corner of Frieda’s mind. It was like looking for something green in a sea of green, a difficult task even with Frieda’s full cooperation. The spot of blood she’d found in Frieda’s knickers bothered her, for reasons she couldn’t quite put into words. Was it a cunning ploy to sneak through the defences from within, the sort of trick she’d used herself in the past, or was it a distraction from something else? She didn’t know and that bothered her. Surely, her counterpart would have expected her to check for nasty little surprises.\n\nAnd the blood was separate from Frieda, Emily reminded herself. There was nothing keeping me from finding it, beyond reluctance to examine her and her clothes too closely.\n\nAlassa turned away, her eyes peering towards the enemy army. It was massive, thousands upon thousands of orcs, backed up by knights in armour and sorcerers glowing brightly with the power of their magic. Emily had read reports of past battles that were clearly exaggerated beyond all reason, both sides credited with impossible numbers of men, but here … she lost count very quickly, even of the sorcerers. The knights were advancing forward, as if they intended to recreate the Charge of the Light Brigade … surely, her counterpart understood the dangers. The defenders might not have guns, but they did have arrows and some magitech … ice ran through her as she realised her counterpart wanted the knights dead. They were jerk jocks to her, pathetic wannabe alpha males who got their kicks beating up male peasants and raping their wives and daughters …\n\nShe shuddered. The myth of the chivalrous knight had always been a myth – she’d seen too many knights pushing commoners around to believe it – but there were good and decent men out there. Sergeant Harkin, Sergeant Miles, Jade, Cat … Caleb. Her counterpart had never learnt that lesson or didn’t care. She was going to send a lot of men to their deaths because she could, because she thought they deserved it, because she was working out her issues with her stepfather through them, because … did it matter? The men might not be innocent, and they might not have been innocent even before her counterpart got her hooks into them, but they were about to die for nothing.\n\nI hate the way I understand how she thinks, Emily thought, numbly. She’s me, even if I don’t want to believe it.\n\nAlassa sucked in her breath. “Look!”\n\nEmily followed her gaze. Her counterpart was standing in the midst of the army – no, floating above the army. She had a sudden mental impression of the White Witch waiting for Aslan, surrounded by her army of monsters, and shuddered again, wondering if her counterpart was deliberately leaning into the same aesthetic. Emily had never been one to dominate the room, something her Alassa had found frustrating at times, but her counterpart didn’t have that problem. Even without the magic surrounding her, a haze that made it difficult to get a clear look at her, there was no mistaking her for anything other than the army’s mistress. Emily could feel the pull, even at such a distance. She dreaded to think what it must be like for anyone closer. They might no longer have any free will of their own.\n", "completion": "“Casper went and ratted you out,” Alassa said, as they stood together in the watchtower. “I don’t know how many people believe him.”\n\nEmily considered it for a long moment, then shrugged. Most people had no idea alternate timelines even existed, no matter what they saw in the mirrors. They were more likely to believe the images were illusions, part of the castle’s defences, rather than glimpses into alternate timelines. As long as no one else touched the mirrors – and she had no idea what would happen if they did – there shouldn’t be any problem. Besides, she didn’t look much like her counterpart. She certainly didn’t look like a necromancer.\n\n“I’ll cope,” she said, tiredly. They had bigger problems. The enemy army was marching into view. “Tell anyone who asks I don’t look like a necromancer.”\n\n“Most people don’t know what a necromancer looks like, beyond the red eyes,” Alassa pointed out, sardonically. “There aren’t many first-hand accounts of meeting a necromancer face to face. Few survived long enough to write one.”\n\nShe glanced at Emily, her eyes sharp. “You’re assuming everyone is going to be logical about this,” she added. “People aren’t logical. They’re bundles of fears and contradictions, driven by self-interest and other motivations, motivations they’re rarely willing to acknowledge even if they’re aware of them. They get the impression you’re linked to our tormentor, in some way … they’ll attack you. You should know that by now.”\n\nEmily nodded, conceding the point. She’d had some hard times over the years, everything from facing stronger magicians to being a powerless magician, but she’d never felt the sheer hopelessness pervading the refugee army. They’d known they were on the brink of utter destruction, their lives prolonged more by their opponent’s sadism than their resistance; they’d known they’d had little hope of surviving more than a few short days, if they were lucky. Some had just sat down on the ground and waited for death to claim them, rather than continue the march to Heart’s Eye; some had just gone crazy, lashing out at their peers or running into the desert in hopes of finding somewhere, anywhere, better than the nightmare surrounding them. If she’d been in such a mess, what would she have done to preserve herself even if she’d known the promise of protection and safety was as flimsy as her counterpart’s sense of human decency? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.\n\n“I’ll watch my back,” Emily promised.\n\n“Watch Frieda’s too,” Alassa warned. “Your friend was under her control. You don’t know what she might have left behind, buried in Frieda’s mind.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. She’d checked as best she could, with Frieda’s consent, but it had been a maddeningly difficult task. Her magical signature was identical to her opponent’s and she had no way to be sure she’d scanned every last corner of Frieda’s mind. It was like looking for something green in a sea of green, a difficult task even with Frieda’s full cooperation. The spot of blood she’d found in Frieda’s knickers bothered her, for reasons she couldn’t quite put into words. Was it a cunning ploy to sneak through the defences from within, the sort of trick she’d used herself in the past, or was it a distraction from something else? She didn’t know and that bothered her. Surely, her counterpart would have expected her to check for nasty little surprises.\n\nAnd the blood was separate from Frieda, Emily reminded herself. There was nothing keeping me from finding it, beyond reluctance to examine her and her clothes too closely.\n\nAlassa turned away, her eyes peering towards the enemy army. It was massive, thousands upon thousands of orcs, backed up by knights in armour and sorcerers glowing brightly with the power of their magic. Emily had read reports of past battles that were clearly exaggerated beyond all reason, both sides credited with impossible numbers of men, but here … she lost count very quickly, even of the sorcerers. The knights were advancing forward, as if they intended to recreate the Charge of the Light Brigade … surely, her counterpart understood the dangers. The defenders might not have guns, but they did have arrows and some magitech … ice ran through her as she realised her counterpart wanted the knights dead. They were jerk jocks to her, pathetic wannabe alpha males who got their kicks beating up male peasants and raping their wives and daughters …\n\nShe shuddered. The myth of the chivalrous knight had always been a myth – she’d seen too many knights pushing commoners around to believe it – but there were good and decent men out there. Sergeant Harkin, Sergeant Miles, Jade, Cat … Caleb. Her counterpart had never learnt that lesson or didn’t care. She was going to send a lot of men to their deaths because she could, because she thought they deserved it, because she was working out her issues with her stepfather through them, because … did it matter? The men might not be innocent, and they might not have been innocent even before her counterpart got her hooks into them, but they were about to die for nothing.\n\nI hate the way I understand how she thinks, Emily thought, numbly. She’s me, even if I don’t want to believe it.\n\nAlassa sucked in her breath. “Look!”\n\nEmily followed her gaze. Her counterpart was standing in the midst of the army – no, floating above the army. She had a sudden mental impression of the White Witch waiting for Aslan, surrounded by her army of monsters, and shuddered again, wondering if her counterpart was deliberately leaning into the same aesthetic. Emily had never been one to dominate the room, something her Alassa had found frustrating at times, but her counterpart didn’t have that problem. Even without the magic surrounding her, a haze that made it difficult to get a clear look at her, there was no mistaking her for anything other than the army’s mistress. Emily could feel the pull, even at such a distance. She dreaded to think what it must be like for anyone closer. They might no longer have any free will of their own.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1072, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch19-P2", "chapter": "ch19", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nFrom the watchtower Emily and Alassa watch Necromancer Emily’s host arrive while Casper’s rumors simmer among people who barely understand mirrors.\nFree will seems to erode even at distance, and closer minds may already be gone under the weight of the advance.\nThe advance is strangely direct and frontal — too stupid for the woman Emily knows, which means the real trick is elsewhere.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nConfused by an apparently stupid frontal approach from a counterpart who isn’t stupid; scanning for a trick.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; voicing the obvious: she’s just coming at us — what is she thinking?\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAlassa turned away, her eyes peering towards the enemy army. It was massive, thousands upon thousands of orcs, backed up by knights in armour and sorcerers glowing brightly with the power of their magic. Emily had read reports of past battles that were clearly exaggerated beyond all reason, both sides credited with impossible numbers of men, but here … she lost count very quickly, even of the sorcerers. The knights were advancing forward, as if they intended to recreate the Charge of the Light Brigade … surely, her counterpart understood the dangers. The defenders might not have guns, but they did have arrows and some magitech … ice ran through her as she realised her counterpart wanted the knights dead. They were jerk jocks to her, pathetic wannabe alpha males who got their kicks beating up male peasants and raping their wives and daughters …\n\nShe shuddered. The myth of the chivalrous knight had always been a myth – she’d seen too many knights pushing commoners around to believe it – but there were good and decent men out there. Sergeant Harkin, Sergeant Miles, Jade, Cat … Caleb. Her counterpart had never learnt that lesson or didn’t care. She was going to send a lot of men to their deaths because she could, because she thought they deserved it, because she was working out her issues with her stepfather through them, because … did it matter? The men might not be innocent, and they might not have been innocent even before her counterpart got her hooks into them, but they were about to die for nothing.\n\nI hate the way I understand how she thinks, Emily thought, numbly. She’s me, even if I don’t want to believe it.\n\nAlassa sucked in her breath. “Look!”\n\nEmily followed her gaze. Her counterpart was standing in the midst of the army – no, floating above the army. She had a sudden mental impression of the White Witch waiting for Aslan, surrounded by her army of monsters, and shuddered again, wondering if her counterpart was deliberately leaning into the same aesthetic. Emily had never been one to dominate the room, something her Alassa had found frustrating at times, but her counterpart didn’t have that problem. Even without the magic surrounding her, a haze that made it difficult to get a clear look at her, there was no mistaking her for anything other than the army’s mistress. Emily could feel the pull, even at such a distance. She dreaded to think what it must be like for anyone closer. They might no longer have any free will of their own.\n\n### NOTES\nFrontal advance visible from the tower.\nNo sneak flank detected — yet.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlassa can’t parse the straight attack. Emily finds no sneak behind them and no wound she can see in the plan — her counterpart isn’t stupid, so why act stupid? It makes no sense.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Tactical unease; land on the senselessness.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“She’s just coming at us,” Alassa said. “What is she thinking?”\n\n“She thinks she has to hurry,” Emily said. She was right too. Emily had brought the castle’s wards back online and started taming the nexus point. Given time, she could make the castle invulnerable to pretty much anything. Her counterpart knew it too. “And she doesn’t give a damn about innocent lives.”\n\nShe sucked in her breath. How could her counterpart have conquered the Allied Lands so completely? Napoleon hadn’t managed to take complete control of Europe and he’d had a far better army, with better technology and a cause. There had to be other pockets of resistance out there … right? Perhaps the army she’d saved and led to Heart’s Eye wasn’t the last … she shook her head, sourly. She’d probably never know. Her counterpart was too ruthless to leave any possible threats at her back, as she took her army to Heart’s Eye. One way or the other, this would be the final battle for her.\n\nThe magic shifted. The knights galloped forward, hundreds upon hundreds of men charging the castle as if it were an exposed infantry force. Emily swore under her breath. They might as well have run their horses into a brick wall. The defenders had nowhere to run, even if they hadn’t been sheltering behind the wards. She was surprised the horses weren’t balking. No matter how well-trained, there were limits to how far they could be pushed. They tended to be smarter than their riders, smart enough to realise when something was suicide … she’d never been a horse girl, and she’d always disliked the beasts, but even she knew that. It struck her a moment later that that was the answer. Her counterpart had enslaved the horses as well as their riders. She didn’t care if they rode to their deaths.\n\n“Madness,” Alassa breathed.\n\nEmily nodded, forcing herself to watch as the archers loosed their arrows. Dozens of horsemen tumbled to the ground, only to be trampled to death as their comrades galloped onwards. She wished, suddenly, for a machine gun and unlimited ammunition – or a sniper rifle to shoot her counterpart – as the mad rush continued. It looked as if her counterpart was sending thousands to their deaths … the line never broke, not once, as it slammed into the wards. Emily shuddered, again, as men were ground to paste, their blood splattering on the ground and pooling around the base of the wards. Her counterpart’s revenge was terrifying to behold, all the more because it was aimed at innocents …\n\n“We need to get down there,” Alassa said. The madcap charge was still going on, as if there was an unlimited supply of cavalry to throw into the wards. “If they try to launch a counterattack … it’ll end badly.”\n\n“Coming,” Emily said. She didn’t think Hedrick or Casper were fool enough to try, knowing what would happen the moment they stepped outside the wards, but who knew? “I don’t think they’re that crazy.”\n\n“I hope not,” Alassa agreed, as she headed for the door. “But I’m not so sure.”\n\nHeart’s Eye felt different now the enemy was at the door, the women and children hiding in the former dorms while their menfolk stood their ground. Here and there, Emily saw a woman holding a knife, ready to kill her children and then herself before the enemy army could capture them; she shuddered at the thought, even though she understood the reasoning behind it. Her counterpart would think nothing of allowing her troops to rape the captured prisoners before they were sacrificed for power. The hypocrisy disgusted her, but humans had always been capable of rationalising almost any atrocity and necromancers rarely needed to justify their behaviour to themselves, let alone anyone else. The hunger was too powerful to be ignored. And yet her counterpart was a little different … she indulged herself in more ways than just draining innocent victims for fuel. Emily didn’t pretend to understand it.\n\nThe Great Hall was open, the doors open wide to reveal the shimmering wards and, beyond them, the ever-growing puddle of blood. The archers were no longer firing, either because they’d run out of arrows or because they could no longer pick out targets if their enemy was so determined to commit suicide. Long rows of infantrymen waited in makeshift trenches, backed up by sorcerers wielding makeshift magitech; Emily could taste the fear in the air as the wards vibrated, each shift raising the spectre of a sudden collapse. She knew better. The wards were linked directly to a nexus point. An atomic bomb wouldn’t be enough to break them.\n\nHedrick was standing by the door, one hand on his sword. Emily tried not to roll her eyes at his appearance, wondering just why he’d donned a suit of golden armour that would make him a target … not, she supposed, that this timeline had realised the dangers. God knew it had taken years for her timeline to grasp the dangers of having their officers be easily recognised, even though they could be shot by a sharpshooter or have their position raked with musket fire until someone scored a lucky hit. Perhaps Sir James had sent him out to be killed. Hedrick was a brave man, she conceded darkly, but he wasn’t the brightest person in the world.\n\n“They’re just lambs to the slaughter,” Hedrick exulted. “We don’t even have to kill them ourselves!”\n\nEmily scowled, wondering just what her counterpart was doing. The battle was eerily quiet – the wards muffling the screams of the dying, men and horses alike – and it felt wrong, as if the whole battle was little more than a costly diversion. She reached out mentally to touch the wards, checking to see if anyone was sneaking up behind them, but there was nothing. Her counterpart wasn’t stupid, so why was she acting stupid? It just made no sense.\n", "completion": "“She’s just coming at us,” Alassa said. “What is she thinking?”\n\n“She thinks she has to hurry,” Emily said. She was right too. Emily had brought the castle’s wards back online and started taming the nexus point. Given time, she could make the castle invulnerable to pretty much anything. Her counterpart knew it too. “And she doesn’t give a damn about innocent lives.”\n\nShe sucked in her breath. How could her counterpart have conquered the Allied Lands so completely? Napoleon hadn’t managed to take complete control of Europe and he’d had a far better army, with better technology and a cause. There had to be other pockets of resistance out there … right? Perhaps the army she’d saved and led to Heart’s Eye wasn’t the last … she shook her head, sourly. She’d probably never know. Her counterpart was too ruthless to leave any possible threats at her back, as she took her army to Heart’s Eye. One way or the other, this would be the final battle for her.\n\nThe magic shifted. The knights galloped forward, hundreds upon hundreds of men charging the castle as if it were an exposed infantry force. Emily swore under her breath. They might as well have run their horses into a brick wall. The defenders had nowhere to run, even if they hadn’t been sheltering behind the wards. She was surprised the horses weren’t balking. No matter how well-trained, there were limits to how far they could be pushed. They tended to be smarter than their riders, smart enough to realise when something was suicide … she’d never been a horse girl, and she’d always disliked the beasts, but even she knew that. It struck her a moment later that that was the answer. Her counterpart had enslaved the horses as well as their riders. She didn’t care if they rode to their deaths.\n\n“Madness,” Alassa breathed.\n\nEmily nodded, forcing herself to watch as the archers loosed their arrows. Dozens of horsemen tumbled to the ground, only to be trampled to death as their comrades galloped onwards. She wished, suddenly, for a machine gun and unlimited ammunition – or a sniper rifle to shoot her counterpart – as the mad rush continued. It looked as if her counterpart was sending thousands to their deaths … the line never broke, not once, as it slammed into the wards. Emily shuddered, again, as men were ground to paste, their blood splattering on the ground and pooling around the base of the wards. Her counterpart’s revenge was terrifying to behold, all the more because it was aimed at innocents …\n\n“We need to get down there,” Alassa said. The madcap charge was still going on, as if there was an unlimited supply of cavalry to throw into the wards. “If they try to launch a counterattack … it’ll end badly.”\n\n“Coming,” Emily said. She didn’t think Hedrick or Casper were fool enough to try, knowing what would happen the moment they stepped outside the wards, but who knew? “I don’t think they’re that crazy.”\n\n“I hope not,” Alassa agreed, as she headed for the door. “But I’m not so sure.”\n\nHeart’s Eye felt different now the enemy was at the door, the women and children hiding in the former dorms while their menfolk stood their ground. Here and there, Emily saw a woman holding a knife, ready to kill her children and then herself before the enemy army could capture them; she shuddered at the thought, even though she understood the reasoning behind it. Her counterpart would think nothing of allowing her troops to rape the captured prisoners before they were sacrificed for power. The hypocrisy disgusted her, but humans had always been capable of rationalising almost any atrocity and necromancers rarely needed to justify their behaviour to themselves, let alone anyone else. The hunger was too powerful to be ignored. And yet her counterpart was a little different … she indulged herself in more ways than just draining innocent victims for fuel. Emily didn’t pretend to understand it.\n\nThe Great Hall was open, the doors open wide to reveal the shimmering wards and, beyond them, the ever-growing puddle of blood. The archers were no longer firing, either because they’d run out of arrows or because they could no longer pick out targets if their enemy was so determined to commit suicide. Long rows of infantrymen waited in makeshift trenches, backed up by sorcerers wielding makeshift magitech; Emily could taste the fear in the air as the wards vibrated, each shift raising the spectre of a sudden collapse. She knew better. The wards were linked directly to a nexus point. An atomic bomb wouldn’t be enough to break them.\n\nHedrick was standing by the door, one hand on his sword. Emily tried not to roll her eyes at his appearance, wondering just why he’d donned a suit of golden armour that would make him a target … not, she supposed, that this timeline had realised the dangers. God knew it had taken years for her timeline to grasp the dangers of having their officers be easily recognised, even though they could be shot by a sharpshooter or have their position raked with musket fire until someone scored a lucky hit. Perhaps Sir James had sent him out to be killed. Hedrick was a brave man, she conceded darkly, but he wasn’t the brightest person in the world.\n\n“They’re just lambs to the slaughter,” Hedrick exulted. “We don’t even have to kill them ourselves!”\n\nEmily scowled, wondering just what her counterpart was doing. The battle was eerily quiet – the wards muffling the screams of the dying, men and horses alike – and it felt wrong, as if the whole battle was little more than a costly diversion. She reached out mentally to touch the wards, checking to see if anyone was sneaking up behind them, but there was nothing. Her counterpart wasn’t stupid, so why was she acting stupid? It just made no sense.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1018, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch19-P3", "chapter": "ch19", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nThe host advances too directly; Emily and Alassa find no obvious flanking sneak and cannot parse why a clever enemy is acting simple.\nAlassa names the enemy’s endless resources — dozens of kingdoms at her beck and call — with defeat already thinning her voice.\nEmily is a breath from understanding the real plan her counterpart set from the start, and she realizes she is already too late.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nRealizing too late what Necromancer Emily planned from the start.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; defeat-tinged; naming kingdom-scale resources at the enemy’s call.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHeart’s Eye felt different now the enemy was at the door, the women and children hiding in the former dorms while their menfolk stood their ground. Here and there, Emily saw a woman holding a knife, ready to kill her children and then herself before the enemy army could capture them; she shuddered at the thought, even though she understood the reasoning behind it. Her counterpart would think nothing of allowing her troops to rape the captured prisoners before they were sacrificed for power. The hypocrisy disgusted her, but humans had always been capable of rationalising almost any atrocity and necromancers rarely needed to justify their behaviour to themselves, let alone anyone else. The hunger was too powerful to be ignored. And yet her counterpart was a little different … she indulged herself in more ways than just draining innocent victims for fuel. Emily didn’t pretend to understand it.\n\nThe Great Hall was open, the doors open wide to reveal the shimmering wards and, beyond them, the ever-growing puddle of blood. The archers were no longer firing, either because they’d run out of arrows or because they could no longer pick out targets if their enemy was so determined to commit suicide. Long rows of infantrymen waited in makeshift trenches, backed up by sorcerers wielding makeshift magitech; Emily could taste the fear in the air as the wards vibrated, each shift raising the spectre of a sudden collapse. She knew better. The wards were linked directly to a nexus point. An atomic bomb wouldn’t be enough to break them.\n\nHedrick was standing by the door, one hand on his sword. Emily tried not to roll her eyes at his appearance, wondering just why he’d donned a suit of golden armour that would make him a target … not, she supposed, that this timeline had realised the dangers. God knew it had taken years for her timeline to grasp the dangers of having their officers be easily recognised, even though they could be shot by a sharpshooter or have their position raked with musket fire until someone scored a lucky hit. Perhaps Sir James had sent him out to be killed. Hedrick was a brave man, she conceded darkly, but he wasn’t the brightest person in the world.\n\n“They’re just lambs to the slaughter,” Hedrick exulted. “We don’t even have to kill them ourselves!”\n\nEmily scowled, wondering just what her counterpart was doing. The battle was eerily quiet – the wards muffling the screams of the dying, men and horses alike – and it felt wrong, as if the whole battle was little more than a costly diversion. She reached out mentally to touch the wards, checking to see if anyone was sneaking up behind them, but there was nothing. Her counterpart wasn’t stupid, so why was she acting stupid? It just made no sense.\n\n### NOTES\nStrategic trap not yet specified in NOTES — revelation is experiential in SCENE.\nTower/camp still the vantage.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlassa’s voice carries defeat as she names the truth: the enemy has the resources of dozens of kingdoms at her beck and call. Emily stares at the senseless frontal advance until the shape of the real plan snaps into place — and she realizes, all too late, what her counterpart planned from the start.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Defeat-tinged reveal; land on the too-late realization. Do not explain the plan in DIRECTIVE.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“She has the resources of dozens of kingdoms at her beck and call,” Alassa said. The hint of defeat was back in her voice, a grim sense she’d already given up. “She’s not going to run out in a hurry.”\n\nHedrick shot her a look that said, very clearly, don’t contradict me in public. Emily shuddered inwardly. Their relationship was just … wrong. It was lucky they’d never gotten close in her timeline, where her Alassa would have turned him into a slug and stepped on him the moment he thought that being her husband meant she was his slave. Here ... it was just another reminder that this Alassa was a very different person. It was something Emily had to bear in mind at all costs.\n\nThe wards shifted, again, as orcs started to take their place amidst the attacking horde. They didn’t seem inclined to charge mindlessly into the wards, instead … they were battering on the wards with sticks and stones. The wards barely noticed. One might as well attack a tank with bare fists. Emily heard the soldiers laughing as the orcs pranced outside, wasting their time … what the hell was her counterpart thinking? The whole affair was taking on the air of a comic-opera farce, something so utterly bizarre …\n\nHedrick nudged her, not gently. “Is your friend in shackles?”\n\n“She’s being watched,” Emily said, curtly. She’d left Frieda in a private and heavily warded room, after making sure she washed and changed into something a little more comfortable. Her original clothes had been checked one final time, then thrown into the fire. It was wasteful, but better safe than sorry. “She’ll be fine.”\n\nHedrick looked unconvinced. Emily didn’t really blame him, as much as she wanted to. The man had a point. Her counterpart was fond of spell-controlled traitors, traitors who had no idea they were traitors, and she could easily have left a few nasty surprises in Frieda’s mind, time bombs waiting to detonate at the worst possible moment. It was difficult to catch someone who’d been reprogrammed because they didn’t know it, allowing them to fool truth spells because they had no idea they were lying. As far as they knew, they weren’t.\n\n“I hope you’re right,” he said, in a tone that suggested the exact opposite. “And now …”\n\nEmily’s eyes narrowed as the orcs swept up great handfuls of blood and threw them against the wards. Blood tricked down the invisible wall, pooling again in the sand … she had a sudden thought about watching paint dry, but … something was nagging at her mind, something bad. If her counterpart had no sense of human decency … were there any limits to how far she would go for victory?\n\n“Tell the archers to shoot those orcs,” Emily said. She had no idea what they were doing and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. The urgency in her voice surprised even herself. “Now.”\n\nHedrick gave her a sharp look. “I don’t take orders from you.”\n\nEmily bit back a sharp response. There was no time for an argument. “Then take it as a suggestion,” she snapped. The thought she’d had was refusing to come into the light. “Shoot those orcs!”\n\n“As you wish,” Hedrick said, starting to turn away. “But it’s a waste of arrows …”\n\nEmily felt ice prickle down her spine as she realised what she’d missed, too late. The blood was infused … maybe not as much as the infused men she’d seen in Celeste, but certainly not lacking in raw power. The orcs were drawing out runes on the wards, each one suddenly glowing with magic … she staggered, helplessly, as the wards shuddered under the new assault. They were weakening rapidly, the brute force attack giving way to a more subtle thrust … she cursed as she sensed the enemy sorcerers, bound together by control spells and forced to work in unison, slowly inserting their magic into the wards. It was like trying to repair a car while the engine was still running … no, trying to take it apart. She could see them poking ghostly fingers into the maelstrom, trying to pull the wards apart and widen the gap …\n\nShit, she thought. Why didn’t I even consider the possibility?\n\nBecause you’re a decent person, her thoughts answered. What her counterpart had done – was still doing – was so heinous, so appalling, that it had been literally unthinkable until she’d actually done it. And there are some lines that cannot be crossed, cannot even be considered.\n\nHedrick barked orders, too late. Emily could feel the gap growing wider … she could see the gash in the wards, sense the orcs starting to step into the castle. The archers opened fire, shooting down the first few orcs, but there were always more. Emily threw caution to the winds and reached out herself, drawing on the nexus point and channelling the power through her mind. It was a risk, and madness was the least of it, but she couldn’t think of anything better. She shared the same magical signature as her counterpart, which might mean she could cancel the compulsion spells without a fight. If she was lucky, the freed sorcerers would turn on her counterpart, perhaps even kill her. If …\n\nShe drove her magic forward and … stumbled. The world changed, shifting around her … she felt as if someone had yanked her under the water, leaving her kicking and struggling as water forced its way into her lungs. The world turned black, then red … a sense of raw fire burned through her blood, her eyes suddenly bursting with pure rage hatred … Alassa cried out. Emily barely heard her. She was losing herself.\n\nAnd she realised, all too late, just what her counterpart had been planning from the start.\n", "completion": "“She has the resources of dozens of kingdoms at her beck and call,” Alassa said. The hint of defeat was back in her voice, a grim sense she’d already given up. “She’s not going to run out in a hurry.”\n\nHedrick shot her a look that said, very clearly, don’t contradict me in public. Emily shuddered inwardly. Their relationship was just … wrong. It was lucky they’d never gotten close in her timeline, where her Alassa would have turned him into a slug and stepped on him the moment he thought that being her husband meant she was his slave. Here ... it was just another reminder that this Alassa was a very different person. It was something Emily had to bear in mind at all costs.\n\nThe wards shifted, again, as orcs started to take their place amidst the attacking horde. They didn’t seem inclined to charge mindlessly into the wards, instead … they were battering on the wards with sticks and stones. The wards barely noticed. One might as well attack a tank with bare fists. Emily heard the soldiers laughing as the orcs pranced outside, wasting their time … what the hell was her counterpart thinking? The whole affair was taking on the air of a comic-opera farce, something so utterly bizarre …\n\nHedrick nudged her, not gently. “Is your friend in shackles?”\n\n“She’s being watched,” Emily said, curtly. She’d left Frieda in a private and heavily warded room, after making sure she washed and changed into something a little more comfortable. Her original clothes had been checked one final time, then thrown into the fire. It was wasteful, but better safe than sorry. “She’ll be fine.”\n\nHedrick looked unconvinced. Emily didn’t really blame him, as much as she wanted to. The man had a point. Her counterpart was fond of spell-controlled traitors, traitors who had no idea they were traitors, and she could easily have left a few nasty surprises in Frieda’s mind, time bombs waiting to detonate at the worst possible moment. It was difficult to catch someone who’d been reprogrammed because they didn’t know it, allowing them to fool truth spells because they had no idea they were lying. As far as they knew, they weren’t.\n\n“I hope you’re right,” he said, in a tone that suggested the exact opposite. “And now …”\n\nEmily’s eyes narrowed as the orcs swept up great handfuls of blood and threw them against the wards. Blood tricked down the invisible wall, pooling again in the sand … she had a sudden thought about watching paint dry, but … something was nagging at her mind, something bad. If her counterpart had no sense of human decency … were there any limits to how far she would go for victory?\n\n“Tell the archers to shoot those orcs,” Emily said. She had no idea what they were doing and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. The urgency in her voice surprised even herself. “Now.”\n\nHedrick gave her a sharp look. “I don’t take orders from you.”\n\nEmily bit back a sharp response. There was no time for an argument. “Then take it as a suggestion,” she snapped. The thought she’d had was refusing to come into the light. “Shoot those orcs!”\n\n“As you wish,” Hedrick said, starting to turn away. “But it’s a waste of arrows …”\n\nEmily felt ice prickle down her spine as she realised what she’d missed, too late. The blood was infused … maybe not as much as the infused men she’d seen in Celeste, but certainly not lacking in raw power. The orcs were drawing out runes on the wards, each one suddenly glowing with magic … she staggered, helplessly, as the wards shuddered under the new assault. They were weakening rapidly, the brute force attack giving way to a more subtle thrust … she cursed as she sensed the enemy sorcerers, bound together by control spells and forced to work in unison, slowly inserting their magic into the wards. It was like trying to repair a car while the engine was still running … no, trying to take it apart. She could see them poking ghostly fingers into the maelstrom, trying to pull the wards apart and widen the gap …\n\nShit, she thought. Why didn’t I even consider the possibility?\n\nBecause you’re a decent person, her thoughts answered. What her counterpart had done – was still doing – was so heinous, so appalling, that it had been literally unthinkable until she’d actually done it. And there are some lines that cannot be crossed, cannot even be considered.\n\nHedrick barked orders, too late. Emily could feel the gap growing wider … she could see the gash in the wards, sense the orcs starting to step into the castle. The archers opened fire, shooting down the first few orcs, but there were always more. Emily threw caution to the winds and reached out herself, drawing on the nexus point and channelling the power through her mind. It was a risk, and madness was the least of it, but she couldn’t think of anything better. She shared the same magical signature as her counterpart, which might mean she could cancel the compulsion spells without a fight. If she was lucky, the freed sorcerers would turn on her counterpart, perhaps even kill her. If …\n\nShe drove her magic forward and … stumbled. The world changed, shifting around her … she felt as if someone had yanked her under the water, leaving her kicking and struggling as water forced its way into her lungs. The world turned black, then red … a sense of raw fire burned through her blood, her eyes suddenly bursting with pure rage hatred … Alassa cried out. Emily barely heard her. She was losing herself.\n\nAnd she realised, all too late, just what her counterpart had been planning from the start.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 985, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch20-P1", "chapter": "ch20", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nVoid — capitalized when naming the person.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nincel — lowercase as in narration.\n\n### STORY\nNecromancer Emily’s frontal pressure was a feint; Emily realizes the true plan too late as the trap closes hard on her mind.\nBlood left on Frieda was only diversion while the necromancer seized Emily’s thoughts — and through her the nexus point itself.\nEmily falls into a suffocating mind-duel against someone who is also herself, memories and self-betrayal rising together like drowning.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSuffocating inside a mind-invasion by Necromancer Emily; fighting memories and self-betrayal; disgusted by her counterpart’s petty uses of infinite power; summoning cleansing fire aimed only at enemy thoughts.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nAlive inside the link; manifesting as a glowing naked giant; raging at being called pathetic; inferiority under perfection-façade.\n\nFrieda\nReferenced; blood left on her was bait; not necessarily conscious in the duel space.\n\nVoid\nReferenced in contrast; planner of brilliant scope versus the counterpart’s incel revenge.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nEmily has had her mind invaded before, but never this completely by someone who is also her.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily bit back a sharp response. There was no time for an argument. “Then take it as a suggestion,” she snapped. The thought she’d had was refusing to come into the light. “Shoot those orcs!”\n\n“As you wish,” Hedrick said, starting to turn away. “But it’s a waste of arrows …”\n\nEmily felt ice prickle down her spine as she realised what she’d missed, too late. The blood was infused … maybe not as much as the infused men she’d seen in Celeste, but certainly not lacking in raw power. The orcs were drawing out runes on the wards, each one suddenly glowing with magic … she staggered, helplessly, as the wards shuddered under the new assault. They were weakening rapidly, the brute force attack giving way to a more subtle thrust … she cursed as she sensed the enemy sorcerers, bound together by control spells and forced to work in unison, slowly inserting their magic into the wards. It was like trying to repair a car while the engine was still running … no, trying to take it apart. She could see them poking ghostly fingers into the maelstrom, trying to pull the wards apart and widen the gap …\n\nShit, she thought. Why didn’t I even consider the possibility?\n\nBecause you’re a decent person, her thoughts answered. What her counterpart had done – was still doing – was so heinous, so appalling, that it had been literally unthinkable until she’d actually done it. And there are some lines that cannot be crossed, cannot even be considered.\n\nHedrick barked orders, too late. Emily could feel the gap growing wider … she could see the gash in the wards, sense the orcs starting to step into the castle. The archers opened fire, shooting down the first few orcs, but there were always more. Emily threw caution to the winds and reached out herself, drawing on the nexus point and channelling the power through her mind. It was a risk, and madness was the least of it, but she couldn’t think of anything better. She shared the same magical signature as her counterpart, which might mean she could cancel the compulsion spells without a fight. If she was lucky, the freed sorcerers would turn on her counterpart, perhaps even kill her. If …\n\nShe drove her magic forward and … stumbled. The world changed, shifting around her … she felt as if someone had yanked her under the water, leaving her kicking and struggling as water forced its way into her lungs. The world turned black, then red … a sense of raw fire burned through her blood, her eyes suddenly bursting with pure rage hatred … Alassa cried out. Emily barely heard her. She was losing herself.\n\nAnd she realised, all too late, just what her counterpart had been planning from the start.\n\n### NOTES\nMindscape duel; nexus access at stake.\nCleansing fire intended to burn enemy thoughts only.\nPhysical camp/tower may be distant from Emily’s awareness.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily falls as Necromancer Emily’s madness pulls her under — diversionary blood on Frieda, claws in every thought, nexus through her. She pushes back through alien-and-own memories, judges her counterpart’s power-wasted revenge, and faces a glowing naked giant screaming YOU DARE. She summons cleansing fire and tells herself firmly it will burn only the enemy’s thoughts; her mind is safe.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Suffocating mind-duel; land on the cleansing-fire vow.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily fell.\n\nHer counterpart’s madness was enveloping her, pulling her deeper and deeper into the recesses of her own mind. She felt as if she were suffocating, and drowning, and at the same time dying of thirst … her head was on fire, her blood burning in her veins. She cursed her mistake even as she struggled to hold her thoughts together, to fight back against an enemy who had literally dug her claws into every aspect of her being … who was literally her. She’d told herself that her counterpart couldn’t grasp they were truly the same person … she’d been wrong. The blood she’d left on Frieda had been nothing more than a diversion, something intended to keep her busy while her counterpart reached out and seized control of her mind. And through her the nexus point …\n\nMove, she thought. It wasn’t the first time her mind had been invaded, but it was easily the worst. Her counterpart was her and she was her counterpart … it was like fighting herself, punching herself in the face, tying herself up and raping herself … her mind was the enemy, threatening to betray her. She couldn’t see what was happening, she couldn’t focus her mind … she was trapped and drowning and … don’t think about it.\n\nShe gritted her teeth, mentally, and pushed back as hard as she could. They were the same person and yet … they weren’t. Not in person, not now. A torrent of memories battered her mind and she almost pushed them aside before realising they were hers, truly hers. Others followed as she traced the link back to its caster, more alien to her than something from a real alien. Her counterpart had had many men in her time, men and women too … some willing, some afraid of the consequences of saying no, some enslaved to the point there was no way they could give informed consent. Emily was disgusted at the images battering her mind, disgusted and disappointed. Her counterpart had all the power in the world at her fingertips and this was what she did with it? Void’s plan had been brilliant, Master Wolfe’s had been grandiose … her counterpart was acting like … like a pathetic little incel who had stumbled into ultimate power and was using it to enact revenge on all the girls who’d rejected him.\n\nYOU THINK I’M PATHETIC? Emily’s counterpart manifested in front of her, a glowing naked giant with nary a hint of vulnerability nor mercy. YOU DARE?\n\nEmily tried not to shudder, although it was pointless. Their minds were pressed together so completely she couldn’t hide anything from her counterpart. If that naked form was how she saw herself … Emily’s lips twisted in disgust, noting the perfect breasts and shapely buttocks and legs that went all the way to heaven … it was just too perfect to be real. Alassa hadn’t been that perfect and she’d been shaped in the womb, her body enhanced to meet an ideal that was practically perfect in every way. Her counterpart had one hell of an inferiority complex, if she was hiding behind such a façade. She was all-powerful, in so many ways, and yet she was a tortured soul.\n\n“You could do anything with your power,” she said. Her mind reached out, taking advantage of her counterpart’s rage to note the parts of the conjoined mind that weren’t hers. “And yet, all you do is break men and send them to their deaths. Pathetic.”\n\n“And you’re scared of your own power,” her counterpart hissed. “Why don’t you use it?”\n\n“Might doesn’t make right,” Emily pointed out. She braced herself, preparing to push back hard now she’d steadied herself. “You know that.”\n\nHer counterpart snorted. “You know, might doesn’t make right, but it does tend to determine what happens. The wife who gets beaten into submission by her husband. The serving boy whipped until he cannot even think about disobeying. The weaker country getting invaded by its stronger neighbour – the strong do as they please, the weak suffer what they must. Do you really think it helps a woman who’s been raped to know that might doesn’t make right? What does it matter that her rape wasn’t right? It’s what happened!”\n\n“You got hurt,” Emily said. “And now you’re hurting everyone else. Pathetic.”\n\nHer counterpart burned with anger. “And now I’m inside you,” she said. “Your body is mine. Your link to the nexus point is mine. Your hands are casting the spells, but the will behind them is mine. You lose.”\n\n“I’m sorry for you.” Emily gathered herself and reached out. She let her sincerity taint her words, in hopes her counterpart would realise they were sincere and be distracted for a second or two. She had so many sycophants around her that she was quite aware there was no truth to their flattery, that their words were intended to butter her up or turn away her wrath. The truth would be strange to her, yet if she could see it … “But I have to stop you.”\n\nShe pushed as hard as she could, shoving her counterpart back. The counterpart swung a fist at her nose … it hurt, badly … no, it didn’t. This was her mind. The pain was imaginary and … she told herself she felt nothing, even as she hit her counterpart and sent her reeling backwards. The threads of power woven through her mind, the traces of madness infused through their shared blood, were suddenly exposed. She summoned a cleansing fire, telling herself – very firmly – that the fire would only burn her enemy’s thoughts. Her mind was safe.\n", "completion": "Emily fell.\n\nHer counterpart’s madness was enveloping her, pulling her deeper and deeper into the recesses of her own mind. She felt as if she were suffocating, and drowning, and at the same time dying of thirst … her head was on fire, her blood burning in her veins. She cursed her mistake even as she struggled to hold her thoughts together, to fight back against an enemy who had literally dug her claws into every aspect of her being … who was literally her. She’d told herself that her counterpart couldn’t grasp they were truly the same person … she’d been wrong. The blood she’d left on Frieda had been nothing more than a diversion, something intended to keep her busy while her counterpart reached out and seized control of her mind. And through her the nexus point …\n\nMove, she thought. It wasn’t the first time her mind had been invaded, but it was easily the worst. Her counterpart was her and she was her counterpart … it was like fighting herself, punching herself in the face, tying herself up and raping herself … her mind was the enemy, threatening to betray her. She couldn’t see what was happening, she couldn’t focus her mind … she was trapped and drowning and … don’t think about it.\n\nShe gritted her teeth, mentally, and pushed back as hard as she could. They were the same person and yet … they weren’t. Not in person, not now. A torrent of memories battered her mind and she almost pushed them aside before realising they were hers, truly hers. Others followed as she traced the link back to its caster, more alien to her than something from a real alien. Her counterpart had had many men in her time, men and women too … some willing, some afraid of the consequences of saying no, some enslaved to the point there was no way they could give informed consent. Emily was disgusted at the images battering her mind, disgusted and disappointed. Her counterpart had all the power in the world at her fingertips and this was what she did with it? Void’s plan had been brilliant, Master Wolfe’s had been grandiose … her counterpart was acting like … like a pathetic little incel who had stumbled into ultimate power and was using it to enact revenge on all the girls who’d rejected him.\n\nYOU THINK I’M PATHETIC? Emily’s counterpart manifested in front of her, a glowing naked giant with nary a hint of vulnerability nor mercy. YOU DARE?\n\nEmily tried not to shudder, although it was pointless. Their minds were pressed together so completely she couldn’t hide anything from her counterpart. If that naked form was how she saw herself … Emily’s lips twisted in disgust, noting the perfect breasts and shapely buttocks and legs that went all the way to heaven … it was just too perfect to be real. Alassa hadn’t been that perfect and she’d been shaped in the womb, her body enhanced to meet an ideal that was practically perfect in every way. Her counterpart had one hell of an inferiority complex, if she was hiding behind such a façade. She was all-powerful, in so many ways, and yet she was a tortured soul.\n\n“You could do anything with your power,” she said. Her mind reached out, taking advantage of her counterpart’s rage to note the parts of the conjoined mind that weren’t hers. “And yet, all you do is break men and send them to their deaths. Pathetic.”\n\n“And you’re scared of your own power,” her counterpart hissed. “Why don’t you use it?”\n\n“Might doesn’t make right,” Emily pointed out. She braced herself, preparing to push back hard now she’d steadied herself. “You know that.”\n\nHer counterpart snorted. “You know, might doesn’t make right, but it does tend to determine what happens. The wife who gets beaten into submission by her husband. The serving boy whipped until he cannot even think about disobeying. The weaker country getting invaded by its stronger neighbour – the strong do as they please, the weak suffer what they must. Do you really think it helps a woman who’s been raped to know that might doesn’t make right? What does it matter that her rape wasn’t right? It’s what happened!”\n\n“You got hurt,” Emily said. “And now you’re hurting everyone else. Pathetic.”\n\nHer counterpart burned with anger. “And now I’m inside you,” she said. “Your body is mine. Your link to the nexus point is mine. Your hands are casting the spells, but the will behind them is mine. You lose.”\n\n“I’m sorry for you.” Emily gathered herself and reached out. She let her sincerity taint her words, in hopes her counterpart would realise they were sincere and be distracted for a second or two. She had so many sycophants around her that she was quite aware there was no truth to their flattery, that their words were intended to butter her up or turn away her wrath. The truth would be strange to her, yet if she could see it … “But I have to stop you.”\n\nShe pushed as hard as she could, shoving her counterpart back. The counterpart swung a fist at her nose … it hurt, badly … no, it didn’t. This was her mind. The pain was imaginary and … she told herself she felt nothing, even as she hit her counterpart and sent her reeling backwards. The threads of power woven through her mind, the traces of madness infused through their shared blood, were suddenly exposed. She summoned a cleansing fire, telling herself – very firmly – that the fire would only burn her enemy’s thoughts. Her mind was safe.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 967, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch20-P2", "chapter": "ch20", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily fights Necromancer Emily inside a shared mind after a diversionary seize of the nexus link through her open thoughts.\nShe vows a cleansing fire meant to burn only enemy thoughts and keep her own mind intact against the invasion.\nHer counterpart answers with blood-red fire while colder questions open about whether Master Wolfe would treat such a necromancer as challenge, snack, or servant.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nEnduring blood-red answering fire; measuring whether Master Wolfe would treat a Necromancer Emily as challenge, snack, or servant.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nAlive in the link; screaming rage; scorched assault on Emily’s mind.\n\nAlassa\nAbout to appear after the duel’s turn; not yet kissing farewell in this packet’s end.\n\nFrieda\nWill be needed for support after.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“You could do anything with your power,” she said. Her mind reached out, taking advantage of her counterpart’s rage to note the parts of the conjoined mind that weren’t hers. “And yet, all you do is break men and send them to their deaths. Pathetic.”\n\n“And you’re scared of your own power,” her counterpart hissed. “Why don’t you use it?”\n\n“Might doesn’t make right,” Emily pointed out. She braced herself, preparing to push back hard now she’d steadied herself. “You know that.”\n\nHer counterpart snorted. “You know, might doesn’t make right, but it does tend to determine what happens. The wife who gets beaten into submission by her husband. The serving boy whipped until he cannot even think about disobeying. The weaker country getting invaded by its stronger neighbour – the strong do as they please, the weak suffer what they must. Do you really think it helps a woman who’s been raped to know that might doesn’t make right? What does it matter that her rape wasn’t right? It’s what happened!”\n\n“You got hurt,” Emily said. “And now you’re hurting everyone else. Pathetic.”\n\nHer counterpart burned with anger. “And now I’m inside you,” she said. “Your body is mine. Your link to the nexus point is mine. Your hands are casting the spells, but the will behind them is mine. You lose.”\n\n“I’m sorry for you.” Emily gathered herself and reached out. She let her sincerity taint her words, in hopes her counterpart would realise they were sincere and be distracted for a second or two. She had so many sycophants around her that she was quite aware there was no truth to their flattery, that their words were intended to butter her up or turn away her wrath. The truth would be strange to her, yet if she could see it … “But I have to stop you.”\n\nShe pushed as hard as she could, shoving her counterpart back. The counterpart swung a fist at her nose … it hurt, badly … no, it didn’t. This was her mind. The pain was imaginary and … she told herself she felt nothing, even as she hit her counterpart and sent her reeling backwards. The threads of power woven through her mind, the traces of madness infused through their shared blood, were suddenly exposed. She summoned a cleansing fire, telling herself – very firmly – that the fire would only burn her enemy’s thoughts. Her mind was safe.\n\n### NOTES\nMindscape still primary stage.\nQuestion of how many Necromancer Emilys exist hangs open.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHer counterpart screams and scorches with blood-red fire; Emily tells herself the damage can be borne if she keeps moving inside the link. Cold wonder opens under the pain — would Master Wolfe find such a necromancer a challenge, a snack, or a servant — and how many Necromancer Emilys there are across the dying multiverse.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Rage-fire and cold speculation; land on the multiplicity question.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Her counterpart screamed in rage, blood-red fire scorching Emily’s mind. She told herself the damage wasn’t real, even as she fought to impose her own order on the rest of her mind. It became a cave, a control centre, a … place with a door. Her counterpart fought back, undermining every one of Emily's defences as they took shape and form; Emily split her mind in two, visualising her counterpart as a tiny bug and herself as a giantess, allowing herself to pin her counterpart down long enough to complete the work. Her counterpart couldn’t bilocate. She had much less experience in being in two places at once. Emily gathered her up, shoved her out the door, and locked it behind her. The world seemed to spin …\n\nShe screamed. Her body hurt. Her eyes snapped open, the world wavering in front of her … she felt as if she were surfacing, right into a fire. She staggered and fell, strong arms catching her … she took a breath, tasting Caleb on the air. He’d come for her … her heart swelled with love, even as the more rational part of her mind reminded her he wasn’t her Caleb. Someone slapped her, hard. Emily tasted blood in her mouth. Her eyes opened again … when had she closed them? She wasn’t sure.\n\nAlassa was bending over her. “What happened?”\n\n“She tried to grab me,” Emily said. The walls were scorched, blackened with fire … how long had she been out? She’d been in the Great Hall … she wasn’t now. “What … how long was I under?”\n\n“Around twenty minutes,” Frieda said. Emily glanced to the side. She hadn’t known Frieda had been released. “They wanted me to help them.”\n\n“Good,” Emily said. She forced herself to sit up. The link to the nexus point was weak, but intact. She risked a glimpse through the wards and cursed under her breath. The gash wasn't growing any bigger, thankfully, but she couldn’t close it either. Her counterpart had done something clever, clever and ghastly. Where was she? “Where’s everyone else?”\n\n“Pulling back into the depths of the castle,” Alassa said. “Damia is trying to use the wards to turn the castle against them.”\n\n“It won’t work, not for long,” Emily said. She started to stagger to her feet. Frieda put out a hand to help her steady herself. Emily leaned against her gratefully, unwilling to risk letting go of the wards. “Hedrick? Sir James?”\n\n“There’s no sign of Sir James,” Alassa told her. “Hedrick … you nearly killed him.”\n\n“It wasn’t me,” Emily said. Another problem … she closed her eyes for a long moment, reaching out through the wards. Her counterpart was nowhere to be seen … she parsed the results carefully, noting where her counterpart wasn’t. “I have an idea …”\n\nShe forced herself to think. The original idea was dead in the water. Her counterpart had cracked the wards well ahead of time, then ravaged her mind. Everything Emily knew was almost certainly known to her enemy, if she’d bothered to read Emily’s thoughts, and Emily was starting to understand how her counterpart thought. If she saw Emily as a real threat, she’d be sure to check for any plans by scanning Emily’s mind.\n\n“I think she’s in the Great Hall,” Emily said. “And all her other sorcerers are around her.”\n\nShe reached out with her mind, casting the strongest cancellation charm she could through the wards. Compulsion spells snapped: sorcerers falling to the ground as their minds snapped; others, more determined to avenge themselves, turning on the girl who’d enslaved them. Emily felt her counterpart’s magic surge as she fought back with terrifying force, her spells a strange combination of naked force and precision that chilled Emily to the bone. No necromancer could cast such advanced spells, not when their madness burned behind their eyes; her counterpart was doing something that should have been impossible. Perhaps she’d managed to drain so little power, at first, that she’d grown accustomed to it …\n\nOr something else is at play, she thought, numbly. I need to move.\n\nShe split her attention once again, channelling more power from the nexus point and using the mirrors to store it. The pocket dimensions vibrated oddly – she wondered, too late, if it would draw Master Wolfe’s attention – but held in place, the power flowing from mirror portal to mirror portal. It wasn’t as neat and tidy as the dimensional twist around the nexus point, yet it should suffice long enough to keep her counterpart from tracking down the nexus chamber. If she thought Emily had been trying to mislead her …\n\nThe castle shuddered. Alassa looked startled. “What was that?”\n\n“I think she’s just won,” Emily said. A weak but skilled sorcerer could best a magician who was far stronger in magic yet far less skilled, but she’d never heard of a weak sorcerer – no matter how skilled – beating an enemy who was not only far stronger but also knew what the hell he was doing. The closest thing she could recall was her defeat of Void and she’d cheated. “And we don’t have much time left.”\n\nHer mind raced. “Alassa, go back to Damia and tell her to keep everyone out of her way,” she added. “I’ll deal with her.”\n\nOr die trying, her thoughts pointed out. Her counterpart couldn’t have read the plan from her mind when she hadn’t come up with the plan, not when she’d been at her counterpart’s mercy, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t work out what Emily had in mind. She was as smart as Emily and now she knew everything Emily knew. This could still go badly wrong.\n\n“Are you sure?” Alassa shook her head. “I can help.”\n\n“Go,” Emily said. Alassa would just be a target. Even keeping Frieda with her was a risk. “And if this doesn’t work …”\n\nShe shuddered. Shadye had tried to use the Whitehall nexus point to turn himself into an eldritch horror … not unlike Master Wolfe. Her counterpart might have the same idea … it hadn’t happened in her world, but she knew what had happened in Emily’s world. Hopefully, the prize was so tempting it would keep her eyes off the real danger. If not … Emily would be dead and the world would be at the mercy of a mad god. Again. It would be interesting to see if Master Wolfe considered her a challenge or a snack … or even a servant. How many Necromancer Emilys were there?\n", "completion": "Her counterpart screamed in rage, blood-red fire scorching Emily’s mind. She told herself the damage wasn’t real, even as she fought to impose her own order on the rest of her mind. It became a cave, a control centre, a … place with a door. Her counterpart fought back, undermining every one of Emily's defences as they took shape and form; Emily split her mind in two, visualising her counterpart as a tiny bug and herself as a giantess, allowing herself to pin her counterpart down long enough to complete the work. Her counterpart couldn’t bilocate. She had much less experience in being in two places at once. Emily gathered her up, shoved her out the door, and locked it behind her. The world seemed to spin …\n\nShe screamed. Her body hurt. Her eyes snapped open, the world wavering in front of her … she felt as if she were surfacing, right into a fire. She staggered and fell, strong arms catching her … she took a breath, tasting Caleb on the air. He’d come for her … her heart swelled with love, even as the more rational part of her mind reminded her he wasn’t her Caleb. Someone slapped her, hard. Emily tasted blood in her mouth. Her eyes opened again … when had she closed them? She wasn’t sure.\n\nAlassa was bending over her. “What happened?”\n\n“She tried to grab me,” Emily said. The walls were scorched, blackened with fire … how long had she been out? She’d been in the Great Hall … she wasn’t now. “What … how long was I under?”\n\n“Around twenty minutes,” Frieda said. Emily glanced to the side. She hadn’t known Frieda had been released. “They wanted me to help them.”\n\n“Good,” Emily said. She forced herself to sit up. The link to the nexus point was weak, but intact. She risked a glimpse through the wards and cursed under her breath. The gash wasn't growing any bigger, thankfully, but she couldn’t close it either. Her counterpart had done something clever, clever and ghastly. Where was she? “Where’s everyone else?”\n\n“Pulling back into the depths of the castle,” Alassa said. “Damia is trying to use the wards to turn the castle against them.”\n\n“It won’t work, not for long,” Emily said. She started to stagger to her feet. Frieda put out a hand to help her steady herself. Emily leaned against her gratefully, unwilling to risk letting go of the wards. “Hedrick? Sir James?”\n\n“There’s no sign of Sir James,” Alassa told her. “Hedrick … you nearly killed him.”\n\n“It wasn’t me,” Emily said. Another problem … she closed her eyes for a long moment, reaching out through the wards. Her counterpart was nowhere to be seen … she parsed the results carefully, noting where her counterpart wasn’t. “I have an idea …”\n\nShe forced herself to think. The original idea was dead in the water. Her counterpart had cracked the wards well ahead of time, then ravaged her mind. Everything Emily knew was almost certainly known to her enemy, if she’d bothered to read Emily’s thoughts, and Emily was starting to understand how her counterpart thought. If she saw Emily as a real threat, she’d be sure to check for any plans by scanning Emily’s mind.\n\n“I think she’s in the Great Hall,” Emily said. “And all her other sorcerers are around her.”\n\nShe reached out with her mind, casting the strongest cancellation charm she could through the wards. Compulsion spells snapped: sorcerers falling to the ground as their minds snapped; others, more determined to avenge themselves, turning on the girl who’d enslaved them. Emily felt her counterpart’s magic surge as she fought back with terrifying force, her spells a strange combination of naked force and precision that chilled Emily to the bone. No necromancer could cast such advanced spells, not when their madness burned behind their eyes; her counterpart was doing something that should have been impossible. Perhaps she’d managed to drain so little power, at first, that she’d grown accustomed to it …\n\nOr something else is at play, she thought, numbly. I need to move.\n\nShe split her attention once again, channelling more power from the nexus point and using the mirrors to store it. The pocket dimensions vibrated oddly – she wondered, too late, if it would draw Master Wolfe’s attention – but held in place, the power flowing from mirror portal to mirror portal. It wasn’t as neat and tidy as the dimensional twist around the nexus point, yet it should suffice long enough to keep her counterpart from tracking down the nexus chamber. If she thought Emily had been trying to mislead her …\n\nThe castle shuddered. Alassa looked startled. “What was that?”\n\n“I think she’s just won,” Emily said. A weak but skilled sorcerer could best a magician who was far stronger in magic yet far less skilled, but she’d never heard of a weak sorcerer – no matter how skilled – beating an enemy who was not only far stronger but also knew what the hell he was doing. The closest thing she could recall was her defeat of Void and she’d cheated. “And we don’t have much time left.”\n\nHer mind raced. “Alassa, go back to Damia and tell her to keep everyone out of her way,” she added. “I’ll deal with her.”\n\nOr die trying, her thoughts pointed out. Her counterpart couldn’t have read the plan from her mind when she hadn’t come up with the plan, not when she’d been at her counterpart’s mercy, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t work out what Emily had in mind. She was as smart as Emily and now she knew everything Emily knew. This could still go badly wrong.\n\n“Are you sure?” Alassa shook her head. “I can help.”\n\n“Go,” Emily said. Alassa would just be a target. Even keeping Frieda with her was a risk. “And if this doesn’t work …”\n\nShe shuddered. Shadye had tried to use the Whitehall nexus point to turn himself into an eldritch horror … not unlike Master Wolfe. Her counterpart might have the same idea … it hadn’t happened in her world, but she knew what had happened in Emily’s world. Hopefully, the prize was so tempting it would keep her eyes off the real danger. If not … Emily would be dead and the world would be at the mercy of a mad god. Again. It would be interesting to see if Master Wolfe considered her a challenge or a snack … or even a servant. How many Necromancer Emilys were there?\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1117, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch20-P3", "chapter": "ch20", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAlassa — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily endures Necromancer Emily’s mind-scorch and wonders how many such necromancers exist for Master Wolfe to rank as challenge or snack.\nThe immediate duel breaks enough for human contact to reach her again through the haze of shared pain and residual rage.\nAlassa offers a quick kiss and hurries off; Frieda holds Emily up; the wider war against gods and necromancers is far from over.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSagging against Frieda after Alassa’s quick kiss; spent; clear that the real war continues.\n\nAlassa\nAlive; quick kiss on the cheek; hurries off.\n\nFrieda\nAlive; holding Emily up.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nOr something else is at play, she thought, numbly. I need to move.\n\nShe split her attention once again, channelling more power from the nexus point and using the mirrors to store it. The pocket dimensions vibrated oddly – she wondered, too late, if it would draw Master Wolfe’s attention – but held in place, the power flowing from mirror portal to mirror portal. It wasn’t as neat and tidy as the dimensional twist around the nexus point, yet it should suffice long enough to keep her counterpart from tracking down the nexus chamber. If she thought Emily had been trying to mislead her …\n\nThe castle shuddered. Alassa looked startled. “What was that?”\n\n“I think she’s just won,” Emily said. A weak but skilled sorcerer could best a magician who was far stronger in magic yet far less skilled, but she’d never heard of a weak sorcerer – no matter how skilled – beating an enemy who was not only far stronger but also knew what the hell he was doing. The closest thing she could recall was her defeat of Void and she’d cheated. “And we don’t have much time left.”\n\nHer mind raced. “Alassa, go back to Damia and tell her to keep everyone out of her way,” she added. “I’ll deal with her.”\n\nOr die trying, her thoughts pointed out. Her counterpart couldn’t have read the plan from her mind when she hadn’t come up with the plan, not when she’d been at her counterpart’s mercy, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t work out what Emily had in mind. She was as smart as Emily and now she knew everything Emily knew. This could still go badly wrong.\n\n“Are you sure?” Alassa shook her head. “I can help.”\n\n“Go,” Emily said. Alassa would just be a target. Even keeping Frieda with her was a risk. “And if this doesn’t work …”\n\nShe shuddered. Shadye had tried to use the Whitehall nexus point to turn himself into an eldritch horror … not unlike Master Wolfe. Her counterpart might have the same idea … it hadn’t happened in her world, but she knew what had happened in Emily’s world. Hopefully, the prize was so tempting it would keep her eyes off the real danger. If not … Emily would be dead and the world would be at the mercy of a mad god. Again. It would be interesting to see if Master Wolfe considered her a challenge or a snack … or even a servant. How many Necromancer Emilys were there?\n\n### NOTES\nPhysical presence restored enough for kiss and support.\nStrategic war against Master Wolfe/necromantic threat continues beyond this beat.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlassa gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and hurries off to whatever the next emergency demands. Emily sags against Frieda for a long breath, spent in body and mind, clear-eyed enough to know the truth: the real war is far from over.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Brief human aftercare; land on the unfinished war.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Alassa gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then hurried off. Emily sagged against Frieda for a long moment, gathering herself, then started to walk further into the castle. Her counterpart was still trying to hide her presence, but her passing left an imprint on the wards Emily could use the track her. The army was lurking outside, surrounding the castle instead of storming it; Emily couldn’t tell if her counterpart feared betrayal, if Emily managed to snap more compulsion spells, or if she simply didn’t feel she needed them. It didn’t matter. Emily could feel the gash healing itself, now that the sorcerers were gone. The wards were stronger now …\n\nHer lips quirked. The enemy was already inside the gates.\n\n“This way,” she said to Frieda. “If this goes south …”\n\n“I won’t leave you,” Frieda said. “Emily …”\n\n“Master Wolfe is still out there,” Emily said. “Use the mirrors. Get back into the threadlines. Get in touch with my other self and … think of something else …”\n\nThe air burnt as her counterpart neared. Emily stepped up to the mirror, muttering a spell … small and harmless, practically unnoticeable against the growing hum of the wards. Frieda gave her one last look, then stepped back into the shadows. Emily hoped she’d listen. Frieda wasn’t the kind of person who’d run, even if defeat was certain, but this time she needed to flee. Everything was at stake.\n\nAnd you’re staying to fight, her thoughts pointed out. You berate Frieda for not running when you know you should be running yourself.\n\nShe pushed the thought aside as her counterpart stepped into view. She looked nothing like her self-image, for better or worse, but she was still formidable. She wore a dress that left little to the imagination, the kind of outfit Emily would have been too self-conscious to ever wear. Her breasts looked bigger than they should have been, suggesting she’d used charms to improve on what nature had given her. Emily hoped her counterpart had been careful. Too much improvement too quickly could lead to a form of magical cancer, or worse.\n\nEmily met her eyes and shuddered. They were bright red, as always, but there was reason there.\n\n“You look like shit,” her counterpart said. She was brimming with power … Emily guessed she’d sacrificed the sorcerers instead of just killing them. She thought she could hear ghostly screams echoing around her counterpart. “While I … am newly born.”\n\n“So it seems,” Emily managed. It was hard to remain upright. Her legs were tired and it was taking all her concentration to keep the link to the nexus point under control. “Is that how you reward loyalty?”\n\n“Come now,” her counterpart said. She took a step forward, savouring the moment. “You know as well as I do that that bunch of backstabbers would backstab me first, the second they thought they could get away with it. You do, don’t you?”\n\n“The person they were planning to backstab backstabbed them first,” Emily said. Her counterpart's mere presence was poisoning the air. “I guess there’s no honour amongst thieves.”\n\nHer counterpart giggled, stepping forward again. “I guess so.”\n\nEmily tried to rally. “Did you even leave them with enough free will to backstab you?”\n\nHer counterpart shrugged. “You know the risks of long-term compulsion spells,” she said, sardonically. “Amiable morons can be fun, but they’re not always very useful if they have to cope with anything that requires actual thinking. Half the defeats your princess friend inflicted on me, in the early days, came from my agents not being intelligent enough to deal with surprises. I had to give them some freedom, so they could handle such things, and that meant embracing the risk …”\n\nShe stepped forward, again. “Stand down, my dear. You’ve done enough.”\n\nHer voice dripped honey and acid, the tone hiding the magic hammering Emily’s mind. Her thoughts wavered … she had to fight to remain standing, to hold the line a moment or two longer. Her counterpart was pressing closer, her breasts standing out … Emily almost giggled at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Someone had teased Aloha about her breasts and she’d hit him … she understood now, all too well. Her counterpart was right in front of her … Emily sagged, falling gratefully to the side. A strange smile flitted across her counterpart’s face, something so alien that Emily wondered – too late – just who was fooling who. Was the trick about to explode in her face …?\n\nShe channelled one final spell, dropping the illusion. The mirror appeared in front of her counterpart, glowing with eerie white light that was a little too bright. Her counterpart stopped … Frieda darted out of cover and shoved her hard, throwing her right into the mirror. The light wobbled and twisted, bending in directions Emily couldn’t comprehend, and then faded as the mirror returned to normal. Her counterpart was trapped in a pocket dimension, trapped between two mirrors … a tiny space that, to her, would be infinite. There was no way out.\n\n“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams,” she quoted. “Got you.”\n\nFrieda reached for her. “What …?”\n\n“Never mind,” Emily said. Her legs felt unsteady and she wanted to sleep, but she didn’t dare. The orcs were still outside, she wasn’t sure if there were any enemies left in the castle … how many of her supposed allies were plotting her death, out of fear of what she might become? She needed to find a warded chamber to sleep or risk having her throat cut while she was helpless. “It’s over. We won.”\n\nBut she knew, as she spoke, she’d only won a limited victory.\n\nThe real war was far from over.\n", "completion": "Alassa gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then hurried off. Emily sagged against Frieda for a long moment, gathering herself, then started to walk further into the castle. Her counterpart was still trying to hide her presence, but her passing left an imprint on the wards Emily could use the track her. The army was lurking outside, surrounding the castle instead of storming it; Emily couldn’t tell if her counterpart feared betrayal, if Emily managed to snap more compulsion spells, or if she simply didn’t feel she needed them. It didn’t matter. Emily could feel the gash healing itself, now that the sorcerers were gone. The wards were stronger now …\n\nHer lips quirked. The enemy was already inside the gates.\n\n“This way,” she said to Frieda. “If this goes south …”\n\n“I won’t leave you,” Frieda said. “Emily …”\n\n“Master Wolfe is still out there,” Emily said. “Use the mirrors. Get back into the threadlines. Get in touch with my other self and … think of something else …”\n\nThe air burnt as her counterpart neared. Emily stepped up to the mirror, muttering a spell … small and harmless, practically unnoticeable against the growing hum of the wards. Frieda gave her one last look, then stepped back into the shadows. Emily hoped she’d listen. Frieda wasn’t the kind of person who’d run, even if defeat was certain, but this time she needed to flee. Everything was at stake.\n\nAnd you’re staying to fight, her thoughts pointed out. You berate Frieda for not running when you know you should be running yourself.\n\nShe pushed the thought aside as her counterpart stepped into view. She looked nothing like her self-image, for better or worse, but she was still formidable. She wore a dress that left little to the imagination, the kind of outfit Emily would have been too self-conscious to ever wear. Her breasts looked bigger than they should have been, suggesting she’d used charms to improve on what nature had given her. Emily hoped her counterpart had been careful. Too much improvement too quickly could lead to a form of magical cancer, or worse.\n\nEmily met her eyes and shuddered. They were bright red, as always, but there was reason there.\n\n“You look like shit,” her counterpart said. She was brimming with power … Emily guessed she’d sacrificed the sorcerers instead of just killing them. She thought she could hear ghostly screams echoing around her counterpart. “While I … am newly born.”\n\n“So it seems,” Emily managed. It was hard to remain upright. Her legs were tired and it was taking all her concentration to keep the link to the nexus point under control. “Is that how you reward loyalty?”\n\n“Come now,” her counterpart said. She took a step forward, savouring the moment. “You know as well as I do that that bunch of backstabbers would backstab me first, the second they thought they could get away with it. You do, don’t you?”\n\n“The person they were planning to backstab backstabbed them first,” Emily said. Her counterpart's mere presence was poisoning the air. “I guess there’s no honour amongst thieves.”\n\nHer counterpart giggled, stepping forward again. “I guess so.”\n\nEmily tried to rally. “Did you even leave them with enough free will to backstab you?”\n\nHer counterpart shrugged. “You know the risks of long-term compulsion spells,” she said, sardonically. “Amiable morons can be fun, but they’re not always very useful if they have to cope with anything that requires actual thinking. Half the defeats your princess friend inflicted on me, in the early days, came from my agents not being intelligent enough to deal with surprises. I had to give them some freedom, so they could handle such things, and that meant embracing the risk …”\n\nShe stepped forward, again. “Stand down, my dear. You’ve done enough.”\n\nHer voice dripped honey and acid, the tone hiding the magic hammering Emily’s mind. Her thoughts wavered … she had to fight to remain standing, to hold the line a moment or two longer. Her counterpart was pressing closer, her breasts standing out … Emily almost giggled at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Someone had teased Aloha about her breasts and she’d hit him … she understood now, all too well. Her counterpart was right in front of her … Emily sagged, falling gratefully to the side. A strange smile flitted across her counterpart’s face, something so alien that Emily wondered – too late – just who was fooling who. Was the trick about to explode in her face …?\n\nShe channelled one final spell, dropping the illusion. The mirror appeared in front of her counterpart, glowing with eerie white light that was a little too bright. Her counterpart stopped … Frieda darted out of cover and shoved her hard, throwing her right into the mirror. The light wobbled and twisted, bending in directions Emily couldn’t comprehend, and then faded as the mirror returned to normal. Her counterpart was trapped in a pocket dimension, trapped between two mirrors … a tiny space that, to her, would be infinite. There was no way out.\n\n“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams,” she quoted. “Got you.”\n\nFrieda reached for her. “What …?”\n\n“Never mind,” Emily said. Her legs felt unsteady and she wanted to sleep, but she didn’t dare. The orcs were still outside, she wasn’t sure if there were any enemies left in the castle … how many of her supposed allies were plotting her death, out of fear of what she might become? She needed to find a warded chamber to sleep or risk having her throat cut while she was helpless. “It’s over. We won.”\n\nBut she knew, as she spoke, she’d only won a limited victory.\n\nThe real war was far from over.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 987, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch21-P1", "chapter": "ch21", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nnexus point — two words; keep the spacing.\nthreadlines — one word; keep the compound spelling.\nmagitech — one word; keep the compound spelling.\nWhitehall — capitalized; school name.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive apostrophe as written; former school/castle.\nVoid — capitalized; keep the single-name form.\n\n### STORY\nEmily and Frieda spring the mirror trap on the counterpart during the castle fight; the pocket dimension seals her between mirrors; Emily quotes the nutshell line and calls a limited victory while knowing the wider war is unfinished.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSorceress from another world, still recovering two days after trapping her conquering counterpart in a mirror pocket. Numb and sluggish after long work at the nexus point; hungry like everyone else in the castle. Keeps Frieda near the chamber out of instinct. Has sent Caleb away twice when he asked for magitech help. Knows Alassa is not her Alassa and that many in the castle see her face as the enemy’s.\n\nAlassa\nQueen of Zangaria in this ruined world; blonde, in a simple grey dress that looks almost like a prisoner’s. Present in the nexus chamber. Wants confirmation the counterpart cannot escape and what comes next for her lands. Friendly enough for now, but scarred by what Emily’s face did to her kingdom.\n\nFrieda\nEmily’s young ally. Asleep on a blanket just outside the nexus chamber; has been bringing food and news. Present but not speaking.\n\nCaleb\nLocal craftsman-mage counterpart of Emily’s friend. Referenced; has visited twice seeking magitech help; not yet in the chamber this scene.\n\nCounterpart / Necromancer Emily\nAlternate Emily who conquered this world. Trapped in the mirror pocket; referenced only.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer counterpart shrugged. “You know the risks of long-term compulsion spells,” she said, sardonically. “Amiable morons can be fun, but they’re not always very useful if they have to cope with anything that requires actual thinking. Half the defeats your princess friend inflicted on me, in the early days, came from my agents not being intelligent enough to deal with surprises. I had to give them some freedom, so they could handle such things, and that meant embracing the risk …”\n\nShe stepped forward, again. “Stand down, my dear. You’ve done enough.”\n\nHer voice dripped honey and acid, the tone hiding the magic hammering Emily’s mind. Her thoughts wavered … she had to fight to remain standing, to hold the line a moment or two longer. Her counterpart was pressing closer, her breasts standing out … Emily almost giggled at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Someone had teased Aloha about her breasts and she’d hit him … she understood now, all too well. Her counterpart was right in front of her … Emily sagged, falling gratefully to the side. A strange smile flitted across her counterpart’s face, something so alien that Emily wondered – too late – just who was fooling who. Was the trick about to explode in her face …?\n\nShe channelled one final spell, dropping the illusion. The mirror appeared in front of her counterpart, glowing with eerie white light that was a little too bright. Her counterpart stopped … Frieda darted out of cover and shoved her hard, throwing her right into the mirror. The light wobbled and twisted, bending in directions Emily couldn’t comprehend, and then faded as the mirror returned to normal. Her counterpart was trapped in a pocket dimension, trapped between two mirrors … a tiny space that, to her, would be infinite. There was no way out.\n\n“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams,” she quoted. “Got you.”\n\nFrieda reached for her. “What …?”\n\n“Never mind,” Emily said. Her legs felt unsteady and she wanted to sleep, but she didn’t dare. The orcs were still outside, she wasn’t sure if there were any enemies left in the castle … how many of her supposed allies were plotting her death, out of fear of what she might become? She needed to find a warded chamber to sleep or risk having her throat cut while she was helpless. “It’s over. We won.”\n\nBut she knew, as she spoke, she’d only won a limited victory.\n\nThe real war was far from over.\n\n### NOTES\nNexus chamber in the castle, two days after the battle.\nFrieda sleeps on a blanket just outside the chamber.\nCastle food is scarce; horse carcasses from the defeated army have been roasted.\nOrcs and possible remaining enemies are still a threat outside Emily’s immediate work.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nTwo days later Alassa finds Emily half-lost in the nexus point and forces her attention. They confirm a scattered enemy army and a hard-won win, then Alassa presses whether the counterpart can escape the mirrors. Emily explains the trap as endless fall between mirrors in a shifting pocket dimension, privately unsure of the temporal gradient, and warns that free-willed sorcerer-generals may become warlords like Alexander’s successors. Alassa curses; Emily will not claim to know what her counterpart would have prepared. The scene lands on Emily’s admission that she would never have built the empire and cannot say what the other would do.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Close-third fatigue and political dread; keep the mirror-trap explanation concrete. Land on the refusal to claim the counterpart’s choices.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Their army scattered,” Alassa said, two days later. “Did we win?”\n\nEmily barely heard her. She’d moved down to the nexus chamber after a long rest, leaving the aftermath of the battle to Alassa and her council. Frieda had brought her food and drink – and kept her informed of the outside world – and otherwise rested herself, gathering her strength for the coming ordeal. Caleb had visited twice, asking for help improving the magitech she’d given them, but Emily had sent him away. There was no time to worry about it now when the fate of the entire multiverse hung in the balance.\n\n“Emily,” Alassa said, sternly. “Can you hear me?”\n\nEmily forced herself to disengage from the nexus point and look at her. Alassa was wearing a simple grey dress, contrasting oddly with her long blonde hair. Emily couldn’t help thinking she looked like a convicted prisoner, although she still managed to look more regal than Emily would ever be. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, making her look severe and unfriendly despite the faint smile on her lips. It was oddly disconcerting, even after seeing alternate versions of herself. She almost wished she were dealing with a complete stranger. It would be easier to handle than a stranger wearing a friend’s face.\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said. Her mind was numb, her thoughts slow and sluggish. “I can hear you.”\n\nAlassa nodded. “Did we win?”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said, again. It was hard to think clearly. She was eating as well as anyone else in the castle, but that wasn’t very well at all. They’d collected horse carcasses from the defeated army and raided their saddlebags, roasting the meat to ensure it didn’t go bad before it could be eaten, yet … she shook her head. The aristos hadn’t been too pleased about eating horsemeat. They’d made such a fuss you’d think they’d been asked to eat human flesh. “I think so.”\n\n“Really.” Alassa shifted slightly. “And there’s no way she can get out of the mirror?”\n\n“I don’t believe so,” Emily said.\n\n“Are you sure?” Alassa sounded unconvinced. “What if you’re wrong?”\n\nEmily glanced over at Frieda, who was sleeping on a blanket just outside the nexus point chamber. She’d read a book, long ago, in which a man who controlled a supercomputer had to keep his girlfriend in the room, just to keep her from being taken hostage by men who wanted to use the computer to rule the world. She knew how he’d felt now, even though there was no overt threat. Her instincts were warning her time was short. There were too many people in the castle who looked at her and saw her counterpart.\n\n“Imagine a portal,” Emily said. “The entrance is on the ground. The exit is positioned above the entrance. Anyone who falls into the entrance comes out of the exit, falls right into the entrance, and falls out of the exit again, a picking up speed with every transit until they’re brushing against the speed of light itself. The dimensional twist overhead is the same concept on a much larger scale, keeping power surges from the nexus point under control because the energy has literally nowhere to go. For my counterpart …”\n\nShe paused. “She’s basically falling between two mirrors, trapped forever in a knot in space-time. There’s no way out.”\n\nBut there was also no way to meddle with the internal temporal gradient, her thoughts added, grimly. I couldn’t ensure an hour outside equals a second inside … I certainly couldn’t throw her into stasis. She may not be aware of it, which means she’ll certainly try to find a way out …\n\nHer mind raced. There should be no way out. She’d sealed everything within an ever-shifting pocket dimension. No access to the portals, no way to jump to the threadlines … the shifting nature of the trap should be enough to keep her from getting out, even without part of Emily’s mind keeping an eye on her. And yet, she was Emily’s counterpart. Who knew what she could do, given time?\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Alassa said. She relaxed, slightly. “What now?”\n\n“Now you recover your lost lands,” Emily said. “And …”\n\nShe scowled. “You may have a warlord problem.”\n\nAlassa raised her eyebrows. “In what way?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “Did she ever tell you where she came from?”\n\n“She said she was Void’s daughter,” Alassa said. “Was that true?”\n\n“No.” Emily wasn’t sure why she wanted to be so honest, but Alassa was smart and perceptive enough to spot a lie. “She came from another world.”\n\n“Like you,” Alassa said.\n\n“In a manner of speaking,” Emily agreed. “Point is …”\n\nShe hesitated, again. “In our world … my world … there was a king called Alexander the Great. He conquered much of the known world of his time, then died when he was very young. Another famous conqueror later wept because he was as old as Alexander and hadn’t done anywhere near as much …”\n\nAlassa’s eyes narrowed. “And your point is?”\n\n“Alexander had generals,” Emily said. “His sworn companions. Loyal unto death, but after he died they tried to carve up his empire amongst themselves. A few established dynasties that lasted quite some time, others died. Your Emily left some of her sorcerers with a certain degree of free will, which means they might take control of their forces, declare themselves kings, and rule in her place.”\n\nAlassa muttered a word in a language Emily didn’t recognise. It didn’t sound pleasant. “And now we have to deal with them.”\n\n“Perhaps,” Emily said. The alternative was that her counterpart had left orders and compulsions to burn the empire to the ground, if she died without issue. It was unthinkable to her and yet … her counterpart had done a lot of things Emily had considered unthinkable. “I could be wrong.”\n\n“She’s you,” Alassa said. “An alternate version of you, but you nonetheless. What would you do?”\n\n“I wouldn’t build the empire in the first place,” Emily said. “It’s hard to say what she would do.”\n", "completion": "“Their army scattered,” Alassa said, two days later. “Did we win?”\n\nEmily barely heard her. She’d moved down to the nexus chamber after a long rest, leaving the aftermath of the battle to Alassa and her council. Frieda had brought her food and drink – and kept her informed of the outside world – and otherwise rested herself, gathering her strength for the coming ordeal. Caleb had visited twice, asking for help improving the magitech she’d given them, but Emily had sent him away. There was no time to worry about it now when the fate of the entire multiverse hung in the balance.\n\n“Emily,” Alassa said, sternly. “Can you hear me?”\n\nEmily forced herself to disengage from the nexus point and look at her. Alassa was wearing a simple grey dress, contrasting oddly with her long blonde hair. Emily couldn’t help thinking she looked like a convicted prisoner, although she still managed to look more regal than Emily would ever be. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, making her look severe and unfriendly despite the faint smile on her lips. It was oddly disconcerting, even after seeing alternate versions of herself. She almost wished she were dealing with a complete stranger. It would be easier to handle than a stranger wearing a friend’s face.\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said. Her mind was numb, her thoughts slow and sluggish. “I can hear you.”\n\nAlassa nodded. “Did we win?”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said, again. It was hard to think clearly. She was eating as well as anyone else in the castle, but that wasn’t very well at all. They’d collected horse carcasses from the defeated army and raided their saddlebags, roasting the meat to ensure it didn’t go bad before it could be eaten, yet … she shook her head. The aristos hadn’t been too pleased about eating horsemeat. They’d made such a fuss you’d think they’d been asked to eat human flesh. “I think so.”\n\n“Really.” Alassa shifted slightly. “And there’s no way she can get out of the mirror?”\n\n“I don’t believe so,” Emily said.\n\n“Are you sure?” Alassa sounded unconvinced. “What if you’re wrong?”\n\nEmily glanced over at Frieda, who was sleeping on a blanket just outside the nexus point chamber. She’d read a book, long ago, in which a man who controlled a supercomputer had to keep his girlfriend in the room, just to keep her from being taken hostage by men who wanted to use the computer to rule the world. She knew how he’d felt now, even though there was no overt threat. Her instincts were warning her time was short. There were too many people in the castle who looked at her and saw her counterpart.\n\n“Imagine a portal,” Emily said. “The entrance is on the ground. The exit is positioned above the entrance. Anyone who falls into the entrance comes out of the exit, falls right into the entrance, and falls out of the exit again, a picking up speed with every transit until they’re brushing against the speed of light itself. The dimensional twist overhead is the same concept on a much larger scale, keeping power surges from the nexus point under control because the energy has literally nowhere to go. For my counterpart …”\n\nShe paused. “She’s basically falling between two mirrors, trapped forever in a knot in space-time. There’s no way out.”\n\nBut there was also no way to meddle with the internal temporal gradient, her thoughts added, grimly. I couldn’t ensure an hour outside equals a second inside … I certainly couldn’t throw her into stasis. She may not be aware of it, which means she’ll certainly try to find a way out …\n\nHer mind raced. There should be no way out. She’d sealed everything within an ever-shifting pocket dimension. No access to the portals, no way to jump to the threadlines … the shifting nature of the trap should be enough to keep her from getting out, even without part of Emily’s mind keeping an eye on her. And yet, she was Emily’s counterpart. Who knew what she could do, given time?\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Alassa said. She relaxed, slightly. “What now?”\n\n“Now you recover your lost lands,” Emily said. “And …”\n\nShe scowled. “You may have a warlord problem.”\n\nAlassa raised her eyebrows. “In what way?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “Did she ever tell you where she came from?”\n\n“She said she was Void’s daughter,” Alassa said. “Was that true?”\n\n“No.” Emily wasn’t sure why she wanted to be so honest, but Alassa was smart and perceptive enough to spot a lie. “She came from another world.”\n\n“Like you,” Alassa said.\n\n“In a manner of speaking,” Emily agreed. “Point is …”\n\nShe hesitated, again. “In our world … my world … there was a king called Alexander the Great. He conquered much of the known world of his time, then died when he was very young. Another famous conqueror later wept because he was as old as Alexander and hadn’t done anywhere near as much …”\n\nAlassa’s eyes narrowed. “And your point is?”\n\n“Alexander had generals,” Emily said. “His sworn companions. Loyal unto death, but after he died they tried to carve up his empire amongst themselves. A few established dynasties that lasted quite some time, others died. Your Emily left some of her sorcerers with a certain degree of free will, which means they might take control of their forces, declare themselves kings, and rule in her place.”\n\nAlassa muttered a word in a language Emily didn’t recognise. It didn’t sound pleasant. “And now we have to deal with them.”\n\n“Perhaps,” Emily said. The alternative was that her counterpart had left orders and compulsions to burn the empire to the ground, if she died without issue. It was unthinkable to her and yet … her counterpart had done a lot of things Emily had considered unthinkable. “I could be wrong.”\n\n“She’s you,” Alassa said. “An alternate version of you, but you nonetheless. What would you do?”\n\n“I wouldn’t build the empire in the first place,” Emily said. “It’s hard to say what she would do.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1041, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch21-P2", "chapter": "ch21", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nnexus point — two words.\nspellware — one word; controlling magic structures.\nthreadlines — one word.\nmagitech — one word.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nZangaria — capitalized; Alassa’s kingdom.\nHedrick — capitalized; Alassa’s abusive partner, referenced.\n\n### STORY\nTwo days after the mirror trap, Alassa interrupts Emily at the nexus; they confirm the army is scattered and the counterpart should stay sealed; Emily warns of warlord-sorcerers left with free will and will not pretend to know the counterpart’s contingencies.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill at the nexus after the warlord talk. Tired, flushed when explaining timeless spellware to an Alassa who never attended Whitehall. Planning to leave via nexus and mirrors; hurt when this Alassa sounds relieved she will go. Knows Hedrick is abusing Alassa; offers escape anyway.\n\nAlassa\nPresent. Shifts from nexus questions to relief that Emily will leave, then refuses the offer to flee with her; insists duty to Zangaria and a transactional need for Hedrick. Apologizes after snapping that Emily is not “her.” Withdraws by the end.\n\nFrieda\nStill nearby outside; not the focus.\n\nCaleb\nReferenced; Emily asks Alassa to send him in for what little help she can give.\n\nHedrick\nAlassa’s partner. Referenced only; Emily names his abuse; not present.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer mind raced. There should be no way out. She’d sealed everything within an ever-shifting pocket dimension. No access to the portals, no way to jump to the threadlines … the shifting nature of the trap should be enough to keep her from getting out, even without part of Emily’s mind keeping an eye on her. And yet, she was Emily’s counterpart. Who knew what she could do, given time?\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Alassa said. She relaxed, slightly. “What now?”\n\n“Now you recover your lost lands,” Emily said. “And …”\n\nShe scowled. “You may have a warlord problem.”\n\nAlassa raised her eyebrows. “In what way?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “Did she ever tell you where she came from?”\n\n“She said she was Void’s daughter,” Alassa said. “Was that true?”\n\n“No.” Emily wasn’t sure why she wanted to be so honest, but Alassa was smart and perceptive enough to spot a lie. “She came from another world.”\n\n“Like you,” Alassa said.\n\n“In a manner of speaking,” Emily agreed. “Point is …”\n\nShe hesitated, again. “In our world … my world … there was a king called Alexander the Great. He conquered much of the known world of his time, then died when he was very young. Another famous conqueror later wept because he was as old as Alexander and hadn’t done anywhere near as much …”\n\nAlassa’s eyes narrowed. “And your point is?”\n\n“Alexander had generals,” Emily said. “His sworn companions. Loyal unto death, but after he died they tried to carve up his empire amongst themselves. A few established dynasties that lasted quite some time, others died. Your Emily left some of her sorcerers with a certain degree of free will, which means they might take control of their forces, declare themselves kings, and rule in her place.”\n\nAlassa muttered a word in a language Emily didn’t recognise. It didn’t sound pleasant. “And now we have to deal with them.”\n\n“Perhaps,” Emily said. The alternative was that her counterpart had left orders and compulsions to burn the empire to the ground, if she died without issue. It was unthinkable to her and yet … her counterpart had done a lot of things Emily had considered unthinkable. “I could be wrong.”\n\n“She’s you,” Alassa said. “An alternate version of you, but you nonetheless. What would you do?”\n\n“I wouldn’t build the empire in the first place,” Emily said. “It’s hard to say what she would do.”\n\n### NOTES\nNexus chamber; flickering light of the nexus point.\nEmily has reignited the nexus and is shaping accelerated pocket-dimension spellware.\nAlassa is Queen of Zangaria here with a dead father and contested recognition.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmily’s thoughts skim Cortes and conquerors before she admits she cannot guess the counterpart’s death-preparations. Alassa asks what she is doing; Emily tries to explain timeless nexus spellware and a plan to ride mirrors back onto the threadlines with conjured magitech. Alassa hears only that Emily will leave and is oddly relieved; Emily offers what help she can and asks if Alassa will come. Alassa refuses for duty and for Hedrick; Emily names the abuse; Alassa snaps, apologizes, insists she needs him for now, and withdraws. Emily turns back to the accelerating pocket spellware as the scene lands.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Tense dialogue; hurt under politeness. Land on Emily alone again with the spellware.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She scowled, recalling Cortes. He’d been a middling general by the standards of his time, but he’d been playing from a far more advanced political and military playbook than his Aztec opponents and they’d been utterly unprepared for him. He’d understood logistics, he’d understood the value of diplomacy; he’d taken ruthless advantage of the opportunities placed in front of him, wearing down an empire and breaking it through daring, cunning, and a healthy dollop of luck. Her counterpart … she wondered, suddenly, what would have happened if a William Walker or a Napoleon had been yanked into the Nameless World instead? Someone so adaptable he could use the resources around him to protect himself, then set out to conquer the world …? Her counterpart didn’t have the skills of either, or the training that might give her an edge, but she still knew enough to be dangerous and had the power to survive her early mistakes …\n\n“I don’t know,” she admitted, finally. “She might have prepared for her death, or she might not.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “What are you doing here?”\n\nEmily was almost relieved by the sudden shift. “Learning how to control the nexus point. And how to use it.”\n\n“Aren’t they the same thing?” Alassa studied the flickering light, both tiny flame and blazing fire, for a long moment. “I thought you’d already gotten it under control.”\n\n“Sort of.” Emily silently blessed the nexus point’s timelessness. It was sheer dumb luck the interdimensional creature hadn’t pulled free, when the nexus point was snuffed out. “I took advantage of the potential set up, the … ah …”\n\nAlassa gave her a blank look. “And that means?”\n\nEmily flushed. This Alassa hadn’t had four years at Whitehall, nor private tuition with Jade and a handful of others. “The nexus point is timeless, which means that controlling spellware will always exist, is in existence, and will always be in existence. It always exists even before it existed, if you see what I mean.”\n\n“I don’t,” Alassa said, coolly. “Do you? Or are you just making it up as you go along?”\n\n“The original spellware was trapped in a moment of time when the nexus point was snuffed out,” Emily said. “It had no time to decay before I reignited the nexus point, so when the power came back on it … had no trouble coming back to life. It works.”\n\n“I’ll take your word for it,” Alassa said. “What does this mean for you?”\n\n“The nexus point exists in all moments of time,” Emily explained. “It allows time travel, although without the right spellware you can’t actually pick a destination and even if you do have the right spellware you’re restricted to a tiny part of space-time. I think I can use it, combined with the mirrors, to step back onto the threadlines between universes, drawing on its vast power to conjure the magitech I need to proceed.”\n\nShe smiled, rather tiredly. “Does that make sense?”\n\n“And you’ll be leaving,” Alassa said. She sounded oddly relieved. “Right?”\n\nEmily felt as if she’d been slapped. Again. She knew she had no reason to feel that way and yet … she bit her lip, telling herself not to be silly. This wasn’t her Alassa. This was a young woman who had seen her friend fall to madness, who had watched helplessly as her kingdom and her neighbours were destroyed by a monster wearing Emily’s face … she might be friendly now, perhaps, but she’d never forget what Emily’s counterpart had done to her. How could she? She’d lost her entire world.\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. “I’ll give you everything I can, but … I can’t stay.”\n\nAlassa let out a long breath. “I understand,” she said. “Not that I want to be unwelcoming …”\n\nEmily’s heart broke. “I understand,” she echoed. “If you tell Caleb to come in, I’ll give him what little I can.”\n\n“Thanks,” Alassa said. “And maybe you could give him a proper explanation too.”\n\n“I can try,” Emily said. She met Alassa’s eyes. “Do you want to come with us?”\n\nAlassa stopped dead. “Are you mad?”\n\n“No.” Emily held her eyes. “You don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to stay with him. You can come with me and …”\n\n“I can’t,” Alassa said. “My father is dead. I am the Queen of Zangaria even if there is no one else alive who’ll recognise my claim. I have a duty to the kingdom that I can’t put aside because it I no longer convenient and …”\n\n“Hedrick is abusing you,” Emily said, flatly. She found it hard to believe that Alassa, any Alassa, could be that submissive. “Your relationship is not healthy.”\n\n“And you know what a healthy relationship looks like?” Alassa’s tone was so sharp it cut Emily’s soul. “Do you …?”\n\nShe caught herself. “I’m sorry,” she added. “You’re not her.”\n\nEmily told herself not to take offense. “You don’t have to stay with him,” she said, quietly. “You can leave at any moment, if need be.”\n\n“I need him, as much as he needs me,” Alassa said. Emily’s Alassa would have said it with confidence. This Alassa sounded as though she were trying to convince herself. “And once he serves his purpose, I will let him go.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. Some royal marriages were love matches. Some were purely transactional. Some were abusive, with the queen no freer from her husband’s fists than the lowliest serf-wife. Sometimes, it was the Prince-Consort who was abused. It wasn’t an improvement. “I think …”\n\nShe paused. “If you change your mind before we leave, you’ll be welcome to come with us.”\n\n“You can’t offer such an escape for everyone,” Alassa said. She drew herself up, her voice suddenly prim and proper. “And while I thank you for the offer my duty remains here.”\n\nShe nodded, then withdrew. Emily turned her attention back to the nexus point, studying the spellware as it took shape and form. She’d managed to speed up time in a localised pocket dimension, ensuring that what took years in the normal world should only take a few hours … the real trick would be making sure it blended neatly into the nexus point, without any problems that might force her to start again. It was a complex piece of work and yet …\n", "completion": "She scowled, recalling Cortes. He’d been a middling general by the standards of his time, but he’d been playing from a far more advanced political and military playbook than his Aztec opponents and they’d been utterly unprepared for him. He’d understood logistics, he’d understood the value of diplomacy; he’d taken ruthless advantage of the opportunities placed in front of him, wearing down an empire and breaking it through daring, cunning, and a healthy dollop of luck. Her counterpart … she wondered, suddenly, what would have happened if a William Walker or a Napoleon had been yanked into the Nameless World instead? Someone so adaptable he could use the resources around him to protect himself, then set out to conquer the world …? Her counterpart didn’t have the skills of either, or the training that might give her an edge, but she still knew enough to be dangerous and had the power to survive her early mistakes …\n\n“I don’t know,” she admitted, finally. “She might have prepared for her death, or she might not.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “What are you doing here?”\n\nEmily was almost relieved by the sudden shift. “Learning how to control the nexus point. And how to use it.”\n\n“Aren’t they the same thing?” Alassa studied the flickering light, both tiny flame and blazing fire, for a long moment. “I thought you’d already gotten it under control.”\n\n“Sort of.” Emily silently blessed the nexus point’s timelessness. It was sheer dumb luck the interdimensional creature hadn’t pulled free, when the nexus point was snuffed out. “I took advantage of the potential set up, the … ah …”\n\nAlassa gave her a blank look. “And that means?”\n\nEmily flushed. This Alassa hadn’t had four years at Whitehall, nor private tuition with Jade and a handful of others. “The nexus point is timeless, which means that controlling spellware will always exist, is in existence, and will always be in existence. It always exists even before it existed, if you see what I mean.”\n\n“I don’t,” Alassa said, coolly. “Do you? Or are you just making it up as you go along?”\n\n“The original spellware was trapped in a moment of time when the nexus point was snuffed out,” Emily said. “It had no time to decay before I reignited the nexus point, so when the power came back on it … had no trouble coming back to life. It works.”\n\n“I’ll take your word for it,” Alassa said. “What does this mean for you?”\n\n“The nexus point exists in all moments of time,” Emily explained. “It allows time travel, although without the right spellware you can’t actually pick a destination and even if you do have the right spellware you’re restricted to a tiny part of space-time. I think I can use it, combined with the mirrors, to step back onto the threadlines between universes, drawing on its vast power to conjure the magitech I need to proceed.”\n\nShe smiled, rather tiredly. “Does that make sense?”\n\n“And you’ll be leaving,” Alassa said. She sounded oddly relieved. “Right?”\n\nEmily felt as if she’d been slapped. Again. She knew she had no reason to feel that way and yet … she bit her lip, telling herself not to be silly. This wasn’t her Alassa. This was a young woman who had seen her friend fall to madness, who had watched helplessly as her kingdom and her neighbours were destroyed by a monster wearing Emily’s face … she might be friendly now, perhaps, but she’d never forget what Emily’s counterpart had done to her. How could she? She’d lost her entire world.\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. “I’ll give you everything I can, but … I can’t stay.”\n\nAlassa let out a long breath. “I understand,” she said. “Not that I want to be unwelcoming …”\n\nEmily’s heart broke. “I understand,” she echoed. “If you tell Caleb to come in, I’ll give him what little I can.”\n\n“Thanks,” Alassa said. “And maybe you could give him a proper explanation too.”\n\n“I can try,” Emily said. She met Alassa’s eyes. “Do you want to come with us?”\n\nAlassa stopped dead. “Are you mad?”\n\n“No.” Emily held her eyes. “You don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to stay with him. You can come with me and …”\n\n“I can’t,” Alassa said. “My father is dead. I am the Queen of Zangaria even if there is no one else alive who’ll recognise my claim. I have a duty to the kingdom that I can’t put aside because it I no longer convenient and …”\n\n“Hedrick is abusing you,” Emily said, flatly. She found it hard to believe that Alassa, any Alassa, could be that submissive. “Your relationship is not healthy.”\n\n“And you know what a healthy relationship looks like?” Alassa’s tone was so sharp it cut Emily’s soul. “Do you …?”\n\nShe caught herself. “I’m sorry,” she added. “You’re not her.”\n\nEmily told herself not to take offense. “You don’t have to stay with him,” she said, quietly. “You can leave at any moment, if need be.”\n\n“I need him, as much as he needs me,” Alassa said. Emily’s Alassa would have said it with confidence. This Alassa sounded as though she were trying to convince herself. “And once he serves his purpose, I will let him go.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. Some royal marriages were love matches. Some were purely transactional. Some were abusive, with the queen no freer from her husband’s fists than the lowliest serf-wife. Sometimes, it was the Prince-Consort who was abused. It wasn’t an improvement. “I think …”\n\nShe paused. “If you change your mind before we leave, you’ll be welcome to come with us.”\n\n“You can’t offer such an escape for everyone,” Alassa said. She drew herself up, her voice suddenly prim and proper. “And while I thank you for the offer my duty remains here.”\n\nShe nodded, then withdrew. Emily turned her attention back to the nexus point, studying the spellware as it took shape and form. She’d managed to speed up time in a localised pocket dimension, ensuring that what took years in the normal world should only take a few hours … the real trick would be making sure it blended neatly into the nexus point, without any problems that might force her to start again. It was a complex piece of work and yet …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1093, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch21-P3", "chapter": "ch21", "packet": "P3", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nnexus point — two words.\nmagitech — one word.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written; former school now castle/university base.\nNew Learning — both words capitalized.\nmagiwriter — one word; too dangerous to offer yet.\nCasper — capitalized; Caleb’s uncouth brother.\n\n### STORY\nAlassa confirms the counterpart should stay sealed and hears Emily’s warlord warning; Emily explains nexus-time and her plan to leave on the threadlines; Alassa is relieved Emily will go, refuses to flee Hedrick, and withdraws while Emily returns to accelerated pocket spellware.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust left alone with nexus spellwork when Caleb enters. Dry about Casper’s flirting; determined to give tools without offering the magiwriter yet. Feels wrong desire toward this Caleb and fights it. Guilt over the counterpart’s millions dead. Does not expect the hug-trigger spell.\n\nCaleb\nLocal brother of Casper; looks too much like Emily’s Caleb with unsettling differences. Apologetic for Casper; probing whether she is “her”; takes notes as she sketches New Learning. Hugs her near the end in a pattern that triggers a spell.\n\nFrieda\nPassed as they go to the dusty abandoned classroom; not central.\n\nCasper\nCaleb’s brother. Referenced; uncouth flirt; Emily threatens lily-pad transformation if he mistreats someone less tolerant.\n\nCounterpart\nReferenced as alternate who made different choices; not present.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Thanks,” Alassa said. “And maybe you could give him a proper explanation too.”\n\n“I can try,” Emily said. She met Alassa’s eyes. “Do you want to come with us?”\n\nAlassa stopped dead. “Are you mad?”\n\n“No.” Emily held her eyes. “You don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to stay with him. You can come with me and …”\n\n“I can’t,” Alassa said. “My father is dead. I am the Queen of Zangaria even if there is no one else alive who’ll recognise my claim. I have a duty to the kingdom that I can’t put aside because it I no longer convenient and …”\n\n“Hedrick is abusing you,” Emily said, flatly. She found it hard to believe that Alassa, any Alassa, could be that submissive. “Your relationship is not healthy.”\n\n“And you know what a healthy relationship looks like?” Alassa’s tone was so sharp it cut Emily’s soul. “Do you …?”\n\nShe caught herself. “I’m sorry,” she added. “You’re not her.”\n\nEmily told herself not to take offense. “You don’t have to stay with him,” she said, quietly. “You can leave at any moment, if need be.”\n\n“I need him, as much as he needs me,” Alassa said. Emily’s Alassa would have said it with confidence. This Alassa sounded as though she were trying to convince herself. “And once he serves his purpose, I will let him go.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. Some royal marriages were love matches. Some were purely transactional. Some were abusive, with the queen no freer from her husband’s fists than the lowliest serf-wife. Sometimes, it was the Prince-Consort who was abused. It wasn’t an improvement. “I think …”\n\nShe paused. “If you change your mind before we leave, you’ll be welcome to come with us.”\n\n“You can’t offer such an escape for everyone,” Alassa said. She drew herself up, her voice suddenly prim and proper. “And while I thank you for the offer my duty remains here.”\n\nShe nodded, then withdrew. Emily turned her attention back to the nexus point, studying the spellware as it took shape and form. She’d managed to speed up time in a localised pocket dimension, ensuring that what took years in the normal world should only take a few hours … the real trick would be making sure it blended neatly into the nexus point, without any problems that might force her to start again. It was a complex piece of work and yet …\n\n### NOTES\nAbandoned classroom above the nexus area; deep dust until Emily clears it.\nCaleb brings a notebook.\nHeart’s Eye / the former school is the intended innovation base.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nCaleb enters asking if she is really who they fear; she dismisses Casper’s manners and takes Caleb to a dusty classroom to dump what magitech she can—tiles, engines, fields, guns, printing press—while explaining she is an alternate, not the conqueror, and that in another world they were more than friends. She urges him to hold Heart’s Eye as a base and not let aristos rewind the world. Guilt hollows the gift; he hugs her; the familiar touch pattern flares a spell and the world goes black.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Intimate unease and abrupt cut. Break off on the spell flare; do not explain the blackness.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Someone entered, behind her. “Lady Emily,” Caleb’s voice said. “Are you really …?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, flatly. Caleb looked far too much like her Caleb, although there were still too many differences for her to be entirely set at ease. “Did you hear it from Casper?”\n\nCaleb reddened. “I apologise for my boor of a brother, Lady Emily,” he said. “He is … somewhat uncouth.”\n\n“That’s an understatement,” Emily said, dryly. “Casper’s idea of flirting leaves something to be desired.”\n\n“He’s had a rough time,” Caleb said. “As far as we know, we’re the only ones left.”\n\n“He’s not the only one,” Emily said, waspishly. “And if he does that to someone with less … tolerance … than me, he’ll be spending the rest of his life croaking on a lily pad. If he’s lucky.”\n\nCaleb looked down. “If he wasn’t my brother …”\n\nEmily shook her head. “Never mind him,” she said, leading him past Frieda and up a set of stairs to an abandoned classroom. The room looked oddly frozen in time, the desks and chairs waiting for students to return … the only sign they’d been waiting for decades was the deep layer of dust coating everything. Emily muttered a quick spell, blowing the dust into the far corner. “Did you bring a notebook?”\n\n“Yes.” Caleb held it out. “How much are you going to give us?”\n\n“As much as I can.” Emily took a seat, motioning for him to sit facing her. “There’s a lot I can give you that you won’t be able to use at once, but … given time, you can put it together. It’s a case of making the tools to make the tools …”\n\n“So I gather,” Caleb said. “And finding the resources too.”\n\nHe met her eyes, his gaze probing rather than intimate. Emily shivered, despite herself. It felt … wrong, as if he were a stranger … he was a stranger. She felt a sudden urge to kiss him and fought it down savagely, reminding herself that he wasn’t hers in any sense of the word. She’d once scolded a boy for openly admitting he wanted to make love to a girl in a classroom … she knew, now, how he’d felt. She told herself not to be silly, that it wasn’t the same thing … except in a sense it was.\n\nCaleb leaned forward. “Are you really her?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “She’s an alternate version of me.”\n\nShe explained the concept quickly, convinced he’d understand. “She’s someone who made very different choices than me, or had them made for her, and became someone else. She isn’t me. She could have been, but she isn’t.”\n\n“That must be unpleasant,” Caleb said. “Is there a world out there where I became something different?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. “Hundreds of them. Worlds where you became great, worlds where you became a monster … worlds where you lived and died and nobody noticed or cared, worlds where you never existed at all. And in one of those worlds we were very good friends.”\n\n“Just friends,” Caleb repeated. “Just friends.”\n\n“More than friends,” Emily admitted. The conversation was harder than she’d feared and she doubted it was any easier for him. “Let me show you this …”\n\nShe felt a flicker of annoyance as she opened the notebook and started to draw out the concepts, one by one. The magiwriter was too dangerous to offer, at least at first, but everything else … she sketched out everything she could, from basic tiles to airship engines and protective fields, steam engines and guns and all the other wonders of the New Learning. Caleb watched, offering a comment or question from time to time, his eyes never leaving her pencil as she sketched the ideas. She wondered what he was thinking, as the printing press took shape on the page. It wouldn’t take a skilled craftsman long to put it together, nor produce the first sheets of paper …\n\nThat’ll change more than most of the other ideas, at least at first, she told herself. And once craftsmen start exchanging ideas and concepts, technological development will take off like a rocket.\n\n“You should be able to take control of the university … ah, the castle. This former school.” Emily waved a hand at the stone walls. “Heart’s Eye can serve as a base for innovations as the armies retake the stolen land. Don’t let the aristos put everything back the way it was – make sure the changes get solidly established before it’s too late.”\n\nCaleb gave her an odd look. “You want to change the world?”\n\n“I’m giving you the tools to do it,” Emily said. “It might make up for what my counterpart did.”\n\nShe knew, even as she spoke, that it wasn’t true. Her counterpart had killed millions and displaced millions more. She couldn’t do anything like a Marshal Plan and anything less would not suffice. Guilt gnawed at her, all the worse because she knew it hadn’t been her fault. It hadn’t been her. She stood, brushing her anger aside. There was nothing she could do but plug on and hope for the best.\n\nCaleb stood too, reaching out to hug her. For a moment, she melted into his arms … she caught herself a second later, too late. His hand was sprayed out against her back, his touch wrong and yet so right and … she was cheating. She wasn’t. She was … his hand moved in a pattern she knew and …\n\nThe spell flared. Emily barely had a second to scream before the world went black.\n", "completion": "Someone entered, behind her. “Lady Emily,” Caleb’s voice said. “Are you really …?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, flatly. Caleb looked far too much like her Caleb, although there were still too many differences for her to be entirely set at ease. “Did you hear it from Casper?”\n\nCaleb reddened. “I apologise for my boor of a brother, Lady Emily,” he said. “He is … somewhat uncouth.”\n\n“That’s an understatement,” Emily said, dryly. “Casper’s idea of flirting leaves something to be desired.”\n\n“He’s had a rough time,” Caleb said. “As far as we know, we’re the only ones left.”\n\n“He’s not the only one,” Emily said, waspishly. “And if he does that to someone with less … tolerance … than me, he’ll be spending the rest of his life croaking on a lily pad. If he’s lucky.”\n\nCaleb looked down. “If he wasn’t my brother …”\n\nEmily shook her head. “Never mind him,” she said, leading him past Frieda and up a set of stairs to an abandoned classroom. The room looked oddly frozen in time, the desks and chairs waiting for students to return … the only sign they’d been waiting for decades was the deep layer of dust coating everything. Emily muttered a quick spell, blowing the dust into the far corner. “Did you bring a notebook?”\n\n“Yes.” Caleb held it out. “How much are you going to give us?”\n\n“As much as I can.” Emily took a seat, motioning for him to sit facing her. “There’s a lot I can give you that you won’t be able to use at once, but … given time, you can put it together. It’s a case of making the tools to make the tools …”\n\n“So I gather,” Caleb said. “And finding the resources too.”\n\nHe met her eyes, his gaze probing rather than intimate. Emily shivered, despite herself. It felt … wrong, as if he were a stranger … he was a stranger. She felt a sudden urge to kiss him and fought it down savagely, reminding herself that he wasn’t hers in any sense of the word. She’d once scolded a boy for openly admitting he wanted to make love to a girl in a classroom … she knew, now, how he’d felt. She told herself not to be silly, that it wasn’t the same thing … except in a sense it was.\n\nCaleb leaned forward. “Are you really her?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “She’s an alternate version of me.”\n\nShe explained the concept quickly, convinced he’d understand. “She’s someone who made very different choices than me, or had them made for her, and became someone else. She isn’t me. She could have been, but she isn’t.”\n\n“That must be unpleasant,” Caleb said. “Is there a world out there where I became something different?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. “Hundreds of them. Worlds where you became great, worlds where you became a monster … worlds where you lived and died and nobody noticed or cared, worlds where you never existed at all. And in one of those worlds we were very good friends.”\n\n“Just friends,” Caleb repeated. “Just friends.”\n\n“More than friends,” Emily admitted. The conversation was harder than she’d feared and she doubted it was any easier for him. “Let me show you this …”\n\nShe felt a flicker of annoyance as she opened the notebook and started to draw out the concepts, one by one. The magiwriter was too dangerous to offer, at least at first, but everything else … she sketched out everything she could, from basic tiles to airship engines and protective fields, steam engines and guns and all the other wonders of the New Learning. Caleb watched, offering a comment or question from time to time, his eyes never leaving her pencil as she sketched the ideas. She wondered what he was thinking, as the printing press took shape on the page. It wouldn’t take a skilled craftsman long to put it together, nor produce the first sheets of paper …\n\nThat’ll change more than most of the other ideas, at least at first, she told herself. And once craftsmen start exchanging ideas and concepts, technological development will take off like a rocket.\n\n“You should be able to take control of the university … ah, the castle. This former school.” Emily waved a hand at the stone walls. “Heart’s Eye can serve as a base for innovations as the armies retake the stolen land. Don’t let the aristos put everything back the way it was – make sure the changes get solidly established before it’s too late.”\n\nCaleb gave her an odd look. “You want to change the world?”\n\n“I’m giving you the tools to do it,” Emily said. “It might make up for what my counterpart did.”\n\nShe knew, even as she spoke, that it wasn’t true. Her counterpart had killed millions and displaced millions more. She couldn’t do anything like a Marshal Plan and anything less would not suffice. Guilt gnawed at her, all the worse because she knew it hadn’t been her fault. It hadn’t been her. She stood, brushing her anger aside. There was nothing she could do but plug on and hope for the best.\n\nCaleb stood too, reaching out to hug her. For a moment, she melted into his arms … she caught herself a second later, too late. His hand was sprayed out against her back, his touch wrong and yet so right and … she was cheating. She wasn’t. She was … his hand moved in a pattern she knew and …\n\nThe spell flared. Emily barely had a second to scream before the world went black.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 949, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch22-P1", "chapter": "ch22", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nnexus point — two words.\nDamia — capitalized; keep the spelling.\nHedrick — capitalized; Alassa’s abusive partner leading the grab.\nCasper — capitalized; Caleb’s brother; threatens rape.\nCaleb — capitalized; present among the captors, conflicted.\n\n### STORY\nEmily finishes briefing this world’s Caleb on New Learning in a dusty classroom; he hugs her; a patterned touch flares a spell and the world goes black.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust knocked out by a spell in Caleb’s hug. Wakes sick and bound outside the nexus chamber, magic slipping around her. Still the outsider who trapped the counterpart; now a prize for locals who want the nexus.\n\nHedrick\nAlassa’s partner. Present, stomping, demanding the nexus on pain of death; frames control as retaking the world.\n\nCasper\nCaleb’s uncouth brother. Present; presses her forehead; threatens to make it quick—or worse.\n\nCaleb\nPresent among them; conflicted; half-apologetic; still wants the nexus.\n\nDamia\nSorceress present; magic sparkling as she probes Emily’s bindings; unconcerned by the threats.\n\nAlassa\nNot yet intervening; referenced as Hedrick’s queen/partner.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“More than friends,” Emily admitted. The conversation was harder than she’d feared and she doubted it was any easier for him. “Let me show you this …”\n\nShe felt a flicker of annoyance as she opened the notebook and started to draw out the concepts, one by one. The magiwriter was too dangerous to offer, at least at first, but everything else … she sketched out everything she could, from basic tiles to airship engines and protective fields, steam engines and guns and all the other wonders of the New Learning. Caleb watched, offering a comment or question from time to time, his eyes never leaving her pencil as she sketched the ideas. She wondered what he was thinking, as the printing press took shape on the page. It wouldn’t take a skilled craftsman long to put it together, nor produce the first sheets of paper …\n\nThat’ll change more than most of the other ideas, at least at first, she told herself. And once craftsmen start exchanging ideas and concepts, technological development will take off like a rocket.\n\n“You should be able to take control of the university … ah, the castle. This former school.” Emily waved a hand at the stone walls. “Heart’s Eye can serve as a base for innovations as the armies retake the stolen land. Don’t let the aristos put everything back the way it was – make sure the changes get solidly established before it’s too late.”\n\nCaleb gave her an odd look. “You want to change the world?”\n\n“I’m giving you the tools to do it,” Emily said. “It might make up for what my counterpart did.”\n\nShe knew, even as she spoke, that it wasn’t true. Her counterpart had killed millions and displaced millions more. She couldn’t do anything like a Marshal Plan and anything less would not suffice. Guilt gnawed at her, all the worse because she knew it hadn’t been her fault. It hadn’t been her. She stood, brushing her anger aside. There was nothing she could do but plug on and hope for the best.\n\nCaleb stood too, reaching out to hug her. For a moment, she melted into his arms … she caught herself a second later, too late. His hand was sprayed out against her back, his touch wrong and yet so right and … she was cheating. She wasn’t. She was … his hand moved in a pattern she knew and …\n\nThe spell flared. Emily barely had a second to scream before the world went black.\n\n### NOTES\nJust outside the nexus chamber; Emily’s hands bound behind her back.\nBinding/probe magic actively working on her.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe comes to sick and bound outside the nexus chamber while Hedrick, Casper, Caleb, and Damia argue over seizing the nexus for themselves. Hedrick demands she hand it over or die; Casper calls her too dangerous and threatens a quick end or worse; Caleb hesitates between apology and complicity; Damia works the probe unconcerned. Emily glares that rape threats do not make anyone a big man as Casper’s fists clench and Caleb looks to the others for cue. The scene lands on that stalled permission.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Captivity dread and ugly dialogue; keep the probe magic tactile. Land on the stalled glance among the captors.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily felt … sick.\n\nHer head spun, as she fought her way back to wakefulness. Someone had cursed her … Caleb had cursed her. No, not her Caleb, his counterpart. Her body hurt badly, aches and pains threatening to overwhelm her … there was some kind of spell pressing against her, dampening her magic and making it harder to think clearly. What had he done to her? And why?\n\nI suppose we’re even now, she thought, as another wave of nausea shot through her. Her counterpart had tortured Caleb, when he’d fallen into her hands, and he hadn’t been able to look her in the face for weeks afterwards. It hadn’t been her, and he knew it, but it hadn’t made it any easier. We both got hurt by the other’s counterpart.\n\nShe forced her eyes open, despite the light stabbing deep into her brain. She was just outside the nexus chamber, her hands bound tightly behind her back … the spell surrounding her seemed to slip in and out of existence, something that nagged at her even as she couldn’t quite recall why it should bother her. There were several other people in the chamber, but the light was so bright she couldn’t pick out any faces. Caleb? Casper? Who knew? Her head was so sore it was hard to think.\n\n“Focus,” Hedrick said. His voice was instantly recognisable, the snooty tone harsh enough to make Emily grind her teeth even if it hadn’t been aimed at her. “Link into the nexus point.”\n\n“I’m trying,” Casper snapped back. He sounded annoyed. “The spellware is very complex.”\n\n“We need to take full control for ourselves,” Hedrick said. “And then we retake the world.”\n\nEmily felt a flicker of dark amusement. Hedrick had no magic … not as far as she knew. He was asking for trouble, irritating Casper in a manner that would likely blow up in his face and see him turned into a toad. Or worse. Casper didn’t need Hedrick, certainly not in any way that would justify putting up with him for more than a few moments. The aristo was too foolish to realise it, even after nearly losing a war to Emily’s counterpart. He was easily the weakest and most vulnerable person in the chamber and yet he was acting as if he held the whip hand.\n\n“It isn’t easy to break her link to the nexus point while keeping the spellware in being,” Damia said. She sounded more practical than any of the younger magicians, more skilful too. “Give us time …”\n\nHedrick stomped over to Emily. “Give us the nexus point or we’ll kill you.”\n\nEmily couldn’t help herself. She laughed. The nexus point was linked to her, first and foremost; there’d been no time to transfer control to Alassa, let alone anyone else, before Caleb had cursed her in the back. The links she’d given the others were decidedly secondary … somehow, she doubted Damia or Casper would let Hedrick give her access to the nexus point once again, knowing it would leave them at her mercy. Hedrick gaped at her, then drew back his foot to kick her in the chest. Emily braced herself. She saw no mercy in his eyes.\n\n“Don’t,” Caleb said. He was kneeling beside her, his face strained with guilt and something Emily couldn’t quite recognise. “She doesn’t deserve it.”\n\nHedrick snorted. “You curse her, then you condemn me for hurting her?”\n\nCaleb flushed and looked away. Emily felt her heart twist painfully, even though it wasn’t her Caleb. He had never hit her, never set out to hurt her … this Caleb had. She met his eyes and saw remorse, bitterness and resentment hidden there … a resentment, she suspected, that had much to do with the alternate version of himself he’d seen in the mirrors. And … Emily’s eyes looked past him, to the mirrors hanging on the stone walls. There were no visible reflections, not of anything. She couldn’t help finding it ominous.\n\nShe forced herself to speak. “Why …?”\n\n“We need the nexus point,” Caleb said. “And …”\n\n“And you’re you,” Casper said. He gave Emily a too-bright smile, the sort of smile she’d seen on bravos who’d spotted something young, female and apparently defenceless. He looked like Gaston, she reflected suddenly, right up to the macho attitude and his jaw being a little too wide when he smiled. She couldn’t help wondering if his gold tooth sparkled when he spoke. “You’re too dangerous to keep alive, once we secure the nexus point.”\n\nEmily glowered. “I was going to leave anyway,” she said, crossly. “You knew it.”\n\n“You’re too dangerous,” Casper repeated. He reached out and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Give us the nexus point and we’ll make it quick.”\n\n“No.” Emily forced herself to meet his eyes. “What happened to Alassa?”\n\nHedrick shrugged. “Does it matter?”\n\n“Emily,” Caleb said. “I …”\n\n“Don’t you dare talk to me.” Emily’s temper flared. She’d let him get too close because he wore her lover’s face and now … she was a prisoner, Frieda was missing, and her new enemies were trying to unravel the spell linking her to the nexus point. She hadn’t thought to secure it against such treachery. In hindsight, that had been a serious mistake. “You’re not him!”\n\nCaleb flinched. Casper leaned forward. “Hurt my brother again and I’ll beat you to death with my cock.”\n\nEmily glared back at him. “And you think threatening a helpless woman with rape makes you a big man?”\n\nCasper clenched his fists. Caleb looked from him to Hedrick and then to Damia, searching for … Emily wasn’t sure. Permission? Or condemnation? Damia seemed unconcerned, her magic sparkling as she probed the spells linking Emily to the nexus point. Her tampering was slightly slapdash … Emily felt a sudden flicker of panic as she realised the danger. Damia had no idea what was hidden within the nexus point, no idea what forces she was playing with. If she touched the wrong piece of spellware …\n", "completion": "Emily felt … sick.\n\nHer head spun, as she fought her way back to wakefulness. Someone had cursed her … Caleb had cursed her. No, not her Caleb, his counterpart. Her body hurt badly, aches and pains threatening to overwhelm her … there was some kind of spell pressing against her, dampening her magic and making it harder to think clearly. What had he done to her? And why?\n\nI suppose we’re even now, she thought, as another wave of nausea shot through her. Her counterpart had tortured Caleb, when he’d fallen into her hands, and he hadn’t been able to look her in the face for weeks afterwards. It hadn’t been her, and he knew it, but it hadn’t made it any easier. We both got hurt by the other’s counterpart.\n\nShe forced her eyes open, despite the light stabbing deep into her brain. She was just outside the nexus chamber, her hands bound tightly behind her back … the spell surrounding her seemed to slip in and out of existence, something that nagged at her even as she couldn’t quite recall why it should bother her. There were several other people in the chamber, but the light was so bright she couldn’t pick out any faces. Caleb? Casper? Who knew? Her head was so sore it was hard to think.\n\n“Focus,” Hedrick said. His voice was instantly recognisable, the snooty tone harsh enough to make Emily grind her teeth even if it hadn’t been aimed at her. “Link into the nexus point.”\n\n“I’m trying,” Casper snapped back. He sounded annoyed. “The spellware is very complex.”\n\n“We need to take full control for ourselves,” Hedrick said. “And then we retake the world.”\n\nEmily felt a flicker of dark amusement. Hedrick had no magic … not as far as she knew. He was asking for trouble, irritating Casper in a manner that would likely blow up in his face and see him turned into a toad. Or worse. Casper didn’t need Hedrick, certainly not in any way that would justify putting up with him for more than a few moments. The aristo was too foolish to realise it, even after nearly losing a war to Emily’s counterpart. He was easily the weakest and most vulnerable person in the chamber and yet he was acting as if he held the whip hand.\n\n“It isn’t easy to break her link to the nexus point while keeping the spellware in being,” Damia said. She sounded more practical than any of the younger magicians, more skilful too. “Give us time …”\n\nHedrick stomped over to Emily. “Give us the nexus point or we’ll kill you.”\n\nEmily couldn’t help herself. She laughed. The nexus point was linked to her, first and foremost; there’d been no time to transfer control to Alassa, let alone anyone else, before Caleb had cursed her in the back. The links she’d given the others were decidedly secondary … somehow, she doubted Damia or Casper would let Hedrick give her access to the nexus point once again, knowing it would leave them at her mercy. Hedrick gaped at her, then drew back his foot to kick her in the chest. Emily braced herself. She saw no mercy in his eyes.\n\n“Don’t,” Caleb said. He was kneeling beside her, his face strained with guilt and something Emily couldn’t quite recognise. “She doesn’t deserve it.”\n\nHedrick snorted. “You curse her, then you condemn me for hurting her?”\n\nCaleb flushed and looked away. Emily felt her heart twist painfully, even though it wasn’t her Caleb. He had never hit her, never set out to hurt her … this Caleb had. She met his eyes and saw remorse, bitterness and resentment hidden there … a resentment, she suspected, that had much to do with the alternate version of himself he’d seen in the mirrors. And … Emily’s eyes looked past him, to the mirrors hanging on the stone walls. There were no visible reflections, not of anything. She couldn’t help finding it ominous.\n\nShe forced herself to speak. “Why …?”\n\n“We need the nexus point,” Caleb said. “And …”\n\n“And you’re you,” Casper said. He gave Emily a too-bright smile, the sort of smile she’d seen on bravos who’d spotted something young, female and apparently defenceless. He looked like Gaston, she reflected suddenly, right up to the macho attitude and his jaw being a little too wide when he smiled. She couldn’t help wondering if his gold tooth sparkled when he spoke. “You’re too dangerous to keep alive, once we secure the nexus point.”\n\nEmily glowered. “I was going to leave anyway,” she said, crossly. “You knew it.”\n\n“You’re too dangerous,” Casper repeated. He reached out and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Give us the nexus point and we’ll make it quick.”\n\n“No.” Emily forced herself to meet his eyes. “What happened to Alassa?”\n\nHedrick shrugged. “Does it matter?”\n\n“Emily,” Caleb said. “I …”\n\n“Don’t you dare talk to me.” Emily’s temper flared. She’d let him get too close because he wore her lover’s face and now … she was a prisoner, Frieda was missing, and her new enemies were trying to unravel the spell linking her to the nexus point. She hadn’t thought to secure it against such treachery. In hindsight, that had been a serious mistake. “You’re not him!”\n\nCaleb flinched. Casper leaned forward. “Hurt my brother again and I’ll beat you to death with my cock.”\n\nEmily glared back at him. “And you think threatening a helpless woman with rape makes you a big man?”\n\nCasper clenched his fists. Caleb looked from him to Hedrick and then to Damia, searching for … Emily wasn’t sure. Permission? Or condemnation? Damia seemed unconcerned, her magic sparkling as she probed the spells linking Emily to the nexus point. Her tampering was slightly slapdash … Emily felt a sudden flicker of panic as she realised the danger. Damia had no idea what was hidden within the nexus point, no idea what forces she was playing with. If she touched the wrong piece of spellware …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1033, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch22-P2", "chapter": "ch22", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nnexus point — two words.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nManavores — capitalized; plural -s.\nDamia — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily wakes bound outside the nexus while Hedrick, Casper, Caleb, and Damia demand control; threats escalate to rape and death as Damia’s probe works and Caleb looks for permission.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill bound; spells on her strengthening; alien eyes scratch at her mind. Tries to warn them not to free Necromancer Emily or meddle while Master Wolfe remains. Frieda will free her hands mid-scene.\n\nCasper\nHauls her upright; leads the sexual threat; refuses to trust her word.\n\nHedrick\nWhispers he will break her; tries dominance and mercy toward Alassa at once when she appears.\n\nDamia\nKeeps hacking the spellware; later screams as cancers and unnatural bending take her.\n\nAlassa\nArrives panicked; intervenes enough to shift Hedrick’s tone.\n\nFrieda\nKneels and undoes Emily’s knots.\n\nCaleb\nWatches the freed counterpart with horror; guilt that he helped doom the world.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nFreed from the mirror trap by their meddling; present as the catastrophe unfolds.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nCaleb flushed and looked away. Emily felt her heart twist painfully, even though it wasn’t her Caleb. He had never hit her, never set out to hurt her … this Caleb had. She met his eyes and saw remorse, bitterness and resentment hidden there … a resentment, she suspected, that had much to do with the alternate version of himself he’d seen in the mirrors. And … Emily’s eyes looked past him, to the mirrors hanging on the stone walls. There were no visible reflections, not of anything. She couldn’t help finding it ominous.\n\nShe forced herself to speak. “Why …?”\n\n“We need the nexus point,” Caleb said. “And …”\n\n“And you’re you,” Casper said. He gave Emily a too-bright smile, the sort of smile she’d seen on bravos who’d spotted something young, female and apparently defenceless. He looked like Gaston, she reflected suddenly, right up to the macho attitude and his jaw being a little too wide when he smiled. She couldn’t help wondering if his gold tooth sparkled when he spoke. “You’re too dangerous to keep alive, once we secure the nexus point.”\n\nEmily glowered. “I was going to leave anyway,” she said, crossly. “You knew it.”\n\n“You’re too dangerous,” Casper repeated. He reached out and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Give us the nexus point and we’ll make it quick.”\n\n“No.” Emily forced herself to meet his eyes. “What happened to Alassa?”\n\nHedrick shrugged. “Does it matter?”\n\n“Emily,” Caleb said. “I …”\n\n“Don’t you dare talk to me.” Emily’s temper flared. She’d let him get too close because he wore her lover’s face and now … she was a prisoner, Frieda was missing, and her new enemies were trying to unravel the spell linking her to the nexus point. She hadn’t thought to secure it against such treachery. In hindsight, that had been a serious mistake. “You’re not him!”\n\nCaleb flinched. Casper leaned forward. “Hurt my brother again and I’ll beat you to death with my cock.”\n\nEmily glared back at him. “And you think threatening a helpless woman with rape makes you a big man?”\n\nCasper clenched his fists. Caleb looked from him to Hedrick and then to Damia, searching for … Emily wasn’t sure. Permission? Or condemnation? Damia seemed unconcerned, her magic sparkling as she probed the spells linking Emily to the nexus point. Her tampering was slightly slapdash … Emily felt a sudden flicker of panic as she realised the danger. Damia had no idea what was hidden within the nexus point, no idea what forces she was playing with. If she touched the wrong piece of spellware …\n\n### NOTES\nNexus chamber and its immediate approaches.\nMirror pocket that held Necromancer Emily is being compromised.\nMaster Wolfe still exists as an off-stage multiversal threat.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nCasper hauls her up with a gang-rape threat while the probe deepens and alien attention presses in. Emily warns them not to free her counterpart and that Master Wolfe is still out there; they will not trust her, so Damia keeps hacking. Hedrick leans in to break her until Alassa’s presence fractures his tone; Frieda cuts the bonds. Panic rises as Damia screams, bleeding and warping under backlash, and Caleb stares in horror at the freed Necromancer Emily—saved world now doomed by his complicity. Land on that guilt-struck stare.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Escalating captivity into horror; do not soften the threats. Land on Caleb’s doomed recognition.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She grunted as Casper caught her by the collar and hauled her upright. “Give us the nexus point or we’ll all take turns with you.”\n\nYou’re not my Casper either, Emily thought. Her Casper had never threatened to rape her … although, the nasty part of her mind pointed out, they’d never figured out who’d tried to spike her drink. Had it been Casper all along? Or … she shook her head, mentally. They weren’t the same person. You’re a monster wearing his face.\n\n“Listen to me,” she said. The spells were growing stronger. Something was scratching at the back of her mind. She could feel alien eyes watching them, waiting for their chance. “You have to be careful. You could let her out of the mirrors.”\n\n“You said she was trapped forever,” Hedrick said, accusingly. “You said …”\n\n“I didn’t think anyone would try to free her,” Emily said. Necromancer Emily wasn’t the greatest threat facing them, not now. Master Wolfe was still out there. “You have to be careful!”\n\nShe took a breath. She hated to beg, but she was starting to think she had no choice. “Give me back my magic. I’ll open the portal so we can go, then give you the nexus point. You can …”\n\nCasper shook his head. Emily groaned, inwardly. They wouldn’t trust her to keep her word, which meant … the magic crackling around her was the only way they had to hack the spellware and take control. She couldn’t stop it … disaster was looming, becoming realer and realer by the second, and she couldn’t stop it. Panic flickered at the back of her mind, threatening to break into the light. She couldn’t stop it!\n\nHedrick grasped her breast, hard. Emily yelped in pain, his touch deliberately calculated to make her hurt … very deliberately, she realised a moment later. Damia started to slip her spells into Emily’s at the exact moment Hedrick pinched her nipple, using the pain to get past Emily’s defences. Emily had no idea how Damia, a woman with a dim view of men and male violence, could allow it … she wasn’t her Damia. And she was desperate.\n\n“I will break you,” Hedrick whispered. His face was very close to hers, making it impossible to stop Damia. She recoiled as he breathed on her, the stench making her stomach churn. He was going to kiss her, to force his tongue into her mouth … she braced herself to bite him, to make him pay for touching her. “I will …”\n\nThe chamber seemed to explode. Emily fell backwards, landing badly, as magic flared through the air. Frieda was standing there, spells spinning around her fingertips … Casper wheeled around to face her and she smashed him in the face with a force punch, the impact staggering him long enough for her to launch a stone at him. His head snapped backwards, his face curving inwards … Emily winced as blood splashed everywhere, showing the spellware in raw magic. It shifted and changed …\n\n“Alassa,” Hedrick said. His tone was shifting, as if he were trying to assert dominance and beg for mercy at the same time. “I …”\n\nAlassa stepped forward, magic spiralling around her. Her blonde hair seemed to be caught in an invisible wind, her eyes glowing with inner light. Hedrick broke off and started to run, too late. Far too late. Alassa’s first spell exploded his crotch, his scream as he was unmanned ringing in Emily’s ears; her second shattered his spine. Hedrick dropped to the ground, banging his head against the stone and knocking himself out. It was almost a mercy. The curses Alassa had used were designed to be impossible to repair, even with the most advanced healing spells in the world. Leaving him alive was a very cruel mercy indeed.\n\n“Emily,” Frieda said. She knelt and fiddled with Emily’s bonds, undoing the knots and freeing her hands. “Are you …”\n\nEmily barely heard her. Her eyes were fixed on Damia. The sorceress was strong and capable, but she couldn’t handle the sudden surge in magic or the disruption caused by Casper’s blood. Her body was wrapped in power, her hands moving in frantic gestures as she tried to keep the spellware from coming apart … too late. The mirrors were shifting now, all displaying the same twisted reflection of Emily herself. And beyond … there was something there, a glint at the corner of the mirror, growing stronger all the time. It felt like the end of the world.\n\n“What’s happening?” Alassa sounded panicked. “Stop it!”\n\n“I don’t know if I can,” Emily said. She reached out with her mind. Damia had unravelled most of her connection to the nexus point, damn it. The power would be difficult to handle even if she was starting from scratch and right now she couldn’t see how the different pieces of spellware were interacting, let alone how to take control of them. There was no time to do anything but hope for the best. She feared they would be disappointed. “I think …”\n\nDamia threw back her head and screamed. Blood ran down her face, her eyes were bleeding … Emily saw her body bend in unnatural directions, cancers appearing on her skin and growing rapidly into nightmarish pieces of flesh, before reality itself seemed to blink. Time stopped and started again, a jarring sensation that hammered her mind. Damia was gone. Necromancer Emily was standing in her place, smiling coldly. There was nothing sane in her eyes now, no hint of anything but madness.\n\n“No,” Caleb said.\n\nEmily glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on her counterpart, wide with horror and fear. She’d been trapped and he'd let her go … the world had been saved and now it was doomed and it was all his fault. She wondered, numbly, just what he’d been told to make him turn on her like that. Had he been guilted into it? Or had he been promised her? Or had he been convinced she might turn into her counterpart …?\n", "completion": "She grunted as Casper caught her by the collar and hauled her upright. “Give us the nexus point or we’ll all take turns with you.”\n\nYou’re not my Casper either, Emily thought. Her Casper had never threatened to rape her … although, the nasty part of her mind pointed out, they’d never figured out who’d tried to spike her drink. Had it been Casper all along? Or … she shook her head, mentally. They weren’t the same person. You’re a monster wearing his face.\n\n“Listen to me,” she said. The spells were growing stronger. Something was scratching at the back of her mind. She could feel alien eyes watching them, waiting for their chance. “You have to be careful. You could let her out of the mirrors.”\n\n“You said she was trapped forever,” Hedrick said, accusingly. “You said …”\n\n“I didn’t think anyone would try to free her,” Emily said. Necromancer Emily wasn’t the greatest threat facing them, not now. Master Wolfe was still out there. “You have to be careful!”\n\nShe took a breath. She hated to beg, but she was starting to think she had no choice. “Give me back my magic. I’ll open the portal so we can go, then give you the nexus point. You can …”\n\nCasper shook his head. Emily groaned, inwardly. They wouldn’t trust her to keep her word, which meant … the magic crackling around her was the only way they had to hack the spellware and take control. She couldn’t stop it … disaster was looming, becoming realer and realer by the second, and she couldn’t stop it. Panic flickered at the back of her mind, threatening to break into the light. She couldn’t stop it!\n\nHedrick grasped her breast, hard. Emily yelped in pain, his touch deliberately calculated to make her hurt … very deliberately, she realised a moment later. Damia started to slip her spells into Emily’s at the exact moment Hedrick pinched her nipple, using the pain to get past Emily’s defences. Emily had no idea how Damia, a woman with a dim view of men and male violence, could allow it … she wasn’t her Damia. And she was desperate.\n\n“I will break you,” Hedrick whispered. His face was very close to hers, making it impossible to stop Damia. She recoiled as he breathed on her, the stench making her stomach churn. He was going to kiss her, to force his tongue into her mouth … she braced herself to bite him, to make him pay for touching her. “I will …”\n\nThe chamber seemed to explode. Emily fell backwards, landing badly, as magic flared through the air. Frieda was standing there, spells spinning around her fingertips … Casper wheeled around to face her and she smashed him in the face with a force punch, the impact staggering him long enough for her to launch a stone at him. His head snapped backwards, his face curving inwards … Emily winced as blood splashed everywhere, showing the spellware in raw magic. It shifted and changed …\n\n“Alassa,” Hedrick said. His tone was shifting, as if he were trying to assert dominance and beg for mercy at the same time. “I …”\n\nAlassa stepped forward, magic spiralling around her. Her blonde hair seemed to be caught in an invisible wind, her eyes glowing with inner light. Hedrick broke off and started to run, too late. Far too late. Alassa’s first spell exploded his crotch, his scream as he was unmanned ringing in Emily’s ears; her second shattered his spine. Hedrick dropped to the ground, banging his head against the stone and knocking himself out. It was almost a mercy. The curses Alassa had used were designed to be impossible to repair, even with the most advanced healing spells in the world. Leaving him alive was a very cruel mercy indeed.\n\n“Emily,” Frieda said. She knelt and fiddled with Emily’s bonds, undoing the knots and freeing her hands. “Are you …”\n\nEmily barely heard her. Her eyes were fixed on Damia. The sorceress was strong and capable, but she couldn’t handle the sudden surge in magic or the disruption caused by Casper’s blood. Her body was wrapped in power, her hands moving in frantic gestures as she tried to keep the spellware from coming apart … too late. The mirrors were shifting now, all displaying the same twisted reflection of Emily herself. And beyond … there was something there, a glint at the corner of the mirror, growing stronger all the time. It felt like the end of the world.\n\n“What’s happening?” Alassa sounded panicked. “Stop it!”\n\n“I don’t know if I can,” Emily said. She reached out with her mind. Damia had unravelled most of her connection to the nexus point, damn it. The power would be difficult to handle even if she was starting from scratch and right now she couldn’t see how the different pieces of spellware were interacting, let alone how to take control of them. There was no time to do anything but hope for the best. She feared they would be disappointed. “I think …”\n\nDamia threw back her head and screamed. Blood ran down her face, her eyes were bleeding … Emily saw her body bend in unnatural directions, cancers appearing on her skin and growing rapidly into nightmarish pieces of flesh, before reality itself seemed to blink. Time stopped and started again, a jarring sensation that hammered her mind. Damia was gone. Necromancer Emily was standing in her place, smiling coldly. There was nothing sane in her eyes now, no hint of anything but madness.\n\n“No,” Caleb said.\n\nEmily glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on her counterpart, wide with horror and fear. She’d been trapped and he'd let her go … the world had been saved and now it was doomed and it was all his fault. She wondered, numbly, just what he’d been told to make him turn on her like that. Had he been guilted into it? Or had he been promised her? Or had he been convinced she might turn into her counterpart …?\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1023, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch22-P3", "chapter": "ch22", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nManavores — capitalized; magic-consuming entities diving into the nexus.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nthreadlines — one word.\nnexus point — two words.\nthe wolf — lowercase w in narrative reference to the transdimensional predator unless styled otherwise in gold; keep gold’s form.\n\n### STORY\nLocal conspirators bind Emily for the nexus and free Necromancer Emily while Damia’s probe backlashes; Frieda frees Emily’s hands as Caleb realizes their “save” doomed the world.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFree of bonds but fraying from the nexus link; magic draining as reality rewrites. Chooses to drag Alassa and Frieda onto a threadline rather than leave Alassa to die.\n\nAlassa\nPanicked, tear-streaked; tells Emily to run, then to leave her; abused by Hedrick and undeserving of this end in Emily’s eyes.\n\nFrieda\nWith Emily in the flight to the threadline.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nAlive in the chaos; casts; Manavores surround her; the wolf’s translucent jaws finally snap her up.\n\nthe wolf / transdimensional creature\nPressing into reality; red eyes; jaws that take Necromancer Emily.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAlassa stepped forward, magic spiralling around her. Her blonde hair seemed to be caught in an invisible wind, her eyes glowing with inner light. Hedrick broke off and started to run, too late. Far too late. Alassa’s first spell exploded his crotch, his scream as he was unmanned ringing in Emily’s ears; her second shattered his spine. Hedrick dropped to the ground, banging his head against the stone and knocking himself out. It was almost a mercy. The curses Alassa had used were designed to be impossible to repair, even with the most advanced healing spells in the world. Leaving him alive was a very cruel mercy indeed.\n\n“Emily,” Frieda said. She knelt and fiddled with Emily’s bonds, undoing the knots and freeing her hands. “Are you …”\n\nEmily barely heard her. Her eyes were fixed on Damia. The sorceress was strong and capable, but she couldn’t handle the sudden surge in magic or the disruption caused by Casper’s blood. Her body was wrapped in power, her hands moving in frantic gestures as she tried to keep the spellware from coming apart … too late. The mirrors were shifting now, all displaying the same twisted reflection of Emily herself. And beyond … there was something there, a glint at the corner of the mirror, growing stronger all the time. It felt like the end of the world.\n\n“What’s happening?” Alassa sounded panicked. “Stop it!”\n\n“I don’t know if I can,” Emily said. She reached out with her mind. Damia had unravelled most of her connection to the nexus point, damn it. The power would be difficult to handle even if she was starting from scratch and right now she couldn’t see how the different pieces of spellware were interacting, let alone how to take control of them. There was no time to do anything but hope for the best. She feared they would be disappointed. “I think …”\n\nDamia threw back her head and screamed. Blood ran down her face, her eyes were bleeding … Emily saw her body bend in unnatural directions, cancers appearing on her skin and growing rapidly into nightmarish pieces of flesh, before reality itself seemed to blink. Time stopped and started again, a jarring sensation that hammered her mind. Damia was gone. Necromancer Emily was standing in her place, smiling coldly. There was nothing sane in her eyes now, no hint of anything but madness.\n\n“No,” Caleb said.\n\nEmily glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on her counterpart, wide with horror and fear. She’d been trapped and he'd let her go … the world had been saved and now it was doomed and it was all his fault. She wondered, numbly, just what he’d been told to make him turn on her like that. Had he been guilted into it? Or had he been promised her? Or had he been convinced she might turn into her counterpart …?\n\n### NOTES\nChamber shattering; bridge over/near the nexus; stone twitching inhumanly.\nManavores diving into the nexus like lemmings.\nThreadlines available but snapping as worlds die.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThe chamber shatters under primal fury as monsters push in and Alassa yells to run. Emily knows the world is doomed—link fraying, magic draining—yet pulls them toward the nexus bridge while Necromancer Emily fights Manavores and the wolf overhead. Manavores suicide into the nexus; Emily ducks a curse and disintegrates bridge stone under her counterpart; the wolf’s translucent teeth swallow Necromancer Emily. Alassa apologizes and tells them to leave her; Emily refuses pity’s paralysis, catches Alassa and Frieda, reaches a spinning threadline, and jumps—then they are somewhere else.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Apocalyptic pace; clear action. Land on the jump and the elsewhere.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The chamber shattered, a primal fury spinning through the world and all the worlds beyond. Emily saw monsters pressing their way into reality as the transdimensional creature fought for freedom, trying to break free of shackles binding it into the human realm. Caleb cried out, just once, as he caught a glimpse of something no mind could comprehend, something so far above humanity that it could never be wholly understood … the mirrors warped and twisted, giving birth to Manavores in an endless stream of death and destruction.\n\nAlassa caught her arm. “Run!”\n\nEmily shook her head. It was pointless. The entire world was doomed. Her link to the nexus point was fraying, her magic was being drained … the rules of reality itself were being rewritten, threats coming at her from the past or the future or places beyond her imagination. Hundreds of thousands of millions of people were about to die, billions upon billions of worlds were about to be wiped out, if indeed they would ever have existed at all. All the tools she’d used last time were gone … a Manavore reared up in front of her, things reaching for her. Caleb screamed something incoherent and threw himself at the monster. They both vanished into nothingness.\n\nReality screamed, again. Emily looked up … the stone overhead was twitching in inhuman directions, an instant before it shattered. The wolf was there, gazing down at her … bright red eyes burning into her very soul. A giant paw came down hard … and crashed into the transdimensional creature. The world seemed to stutter as two very different sets of rules, both irredeemably hostile to the other and utterly incompatible, struggled for supremacy. Emily couldn’t tell who was winning and she found it hard to care. Whoever won, the universe she knew would be destroyed.\n\nNecromancer Emily raised her hand and cast a spell. The Manavores consumed the magic and then surrounded her, their reality trying to crush hers. Emily was glad of the distraction as she led the way into the nexus point chamber, cursing under her breath as she saw the flames burning brightly as the nexus point flickered. The entity was trying to snuff it out, to gain freedom even as it struggled with Master Wolfe … Emily took a moment to scatter the spellware she’d placed within the nexus point, hoping to keep Master Wolfe from noticing it. If he didn’t know what she’d had in mind …\n\nA stream of Manavores burst into the chamber, throwing themselves off the bridge and diving into the nexus point like suicidal lemmings. Emily shuddered, helplessly, as she realised they were draining the nexus point … reality shuddered again, a thousand alternates flickering around her before vanishing again, as the nexus point started to die. A hundred thousand million monsters died, consuming the raw power, but there were always more. Their master could produce an infinity of them. There wasn’t much time left …\n\n“Die,” Necromancer Emily screamed. She was alive? Emily barely managed to duck the curse aimed at her – she was in no state to deflect it – before hurling a disintegration spell at the bridge under Necromancer Emily’s feet. It should have sent her plummeting into the nexus point, perhaps starting a whole new chain reaction to keep the nexus point alive, but the spell came apart before it reached its target. “Just die …”\n\nThe world hiccupped, again. Emily looked up and saw the wolf, great jaws snapping down … Necromancer Emily had no time to react, let alone escape, as the translucent teeth snapped down and swallowed her. Emily felt sick as the wolf reared up in triumph … she had the impression of a giant inhuman monster, withering away under its paws, before realising the wolf had mistaken the necromancer for her. The world was collapsing now, all of reality falling into nothingness … it had to be messing with the wolf’s sight. If she was right …\n\n“I’m sorry,” Alassa said. Her face was streaked with tears. “I didn’t think they’d go that far.”\n\nEmily felt pity gnawing at her. Alassa’s entire world had been saved … and then thrown into the fire again. She could feel the walls of reality closing in, the universe collapsing down into a singularity … time itself was collapsing, giving her glimpses of an alien past and a future that would never be; she absorbed, in the blink of an eye, the life of someone she’d never known and now never would. The wolf howled, a sound that echoed across realities, as it reached for the nexus point. Emily reached out too. There was nowhere else to go.\n\n“Leave me,” Alassa said. “Go!”\n\n“No.” Emily had no time for self-pity. Alassa didn’t deserve to die. She’d been abused by her partner, manipulated and treated as a servant rather than a princess … she deserved so much better. A thought ran through her head, a desire to bring this Alassa to meet her Alassa and her husband, if indeed they were still alive somewhere. If … “Hold on!”\n\nEmily caught her and Frieda, then reached for the nexus point. Reality blinked as the threadlines spun around them, a multitude snapping before she could touch them … were they being destroyed, entire universes wiped out just to kill her, or were they being isolated from the dying world? She didn’t know. She had the odd impression she was on the verge of a breakthrough, an insight she could use to save the world, but it was gone almost as soon as she saw the outlines. A threadline appeared in front of her, the only one left. There was nowhere else to go.\n\nShe jumped. The threadline opened in front of her …\n\nAnd then they were somewhere else.\n", "completion": "The chamber shattered, a primal fury spinning through the world and all the worlds beyond. Emily saw monsters pressing their way into reality as the transdimensional creature fought for freedom, trying to break free of shackles binding it into the human realm. Caleb cried out, just once, as he caught a glimpse of something no mind could comprehend, something so far above humanity that it could never be wholly understood … the mirrors warped and twisted, giving birth to Manavores in an endless stream of death and destruction.\n\nAlassa caught her arm. “Run!”\n\nEmily shook her head. It was pointless. The entire world was doomed. Her link to the nexus point was fraying, her magic was being drained … the rules of reality itself were being rewritten, threats coming at her from the past or the future or places beyond her imagination. Hundreds of thousands of millions of people were about to die, billions upon billions of worlds were about to be wiped out, if indeed they would ever have existed at all. All the tools she’d used last time were gone … a Manavore reared up in front of her, things reaching for her. Caleb screamed something incoherent and threw himself at the monster. They both vanished into nothingness.\n\nReality screamed, again. Emily looked up … the stone overhead was twitching in inhuman directions, an instant before it shattered. The wolf was there, gazing down at her … bright red eyes burning into her very soul. A giant paw came down hard … and crashed into the transdimensional creature. The world seemed to stutter as two very different sets of rules, both irredeemably hostile to the other and utterly incompatible, struggled for supremacy. Emily couldn’t tell who was winning and she found it hard to care. Whoever won, the universe she knew would be destroyed.\n\nNecromancer Emily raised her hand and cast a spell. The Manavores consumed the magic and then surrounded her, their reality trying to crush hers. Emily was glad of the distraction as she led the way into the nexus point chamber, cursing under her breath as she saw the flames burning brightly as the nexus point flickered. The entity was trying to snuff it out, to gain freedom even as it struggled with Master Wolfe … Emily took a moment to scatter the spellware she’d placed within the nexus point, hoping to keep Master Wolfe from noticing it. If he didn’t know what she’d had in mind …\n\nA stream of Manavores burst into the chamber, throwing themselves off the bridge and diving into the nexus point like suicidal lemmings. Emily shuddered, helplessly, as she realised they were draining the nexus point … reality shuddered again, a thousand alternates flickering around her before vanishing again, as the nexus point started to die. A hundred thousand million monsters died, consuming the raw power, but there were always more. Their master could produce an infinity of them. There wasn’t much time left …\n\n“Die,” Necromancer Emily screamed. She was alive? Emily barely managed to duck the curse aimed at her – she was in no state to deflect it – before hurling a disintegration spell at the bridge under Necromancer Emily’s feet. It should have sent her plummeting into the nexus point, perhaps starting a whole new chain reaction to keep the nexus point alive, but the spell came apart before it reached its target. “Just die …”\n\nThe world hiccupped, again. Emily looked up and saw the wolf, great jaws snapping down … Necromancer Emily had no time to react, let alone escape, as the translucent teeth snapped down and swallowed her. Emily felt sick as the wolf reared up in triumph … she had the impression of a giant inhuman monster, withering away under its paws, before realising the wolf had mistaken the necromancer for her. The world was collapsing now, all of reality falling into nothingness … it had to be messing with the wolf’s sight. If she was right …\n\n“I’m sorry,” Alassa said. Her face was streaked with tears. “I didn’t think they’d go that far.”\n\nEmily felt pity gnawing at her. Alassa’s entire world had been saved … and then thrown into the fire again. She could feel the walls of reality closing in, the universe collapsing down into a singularity … time itself was collapsing, giving her glimpses of an alien past and a future that would never be; she absorbed, in the blink of an eye, the life of someone she’d never known and now never would. The wolf howled, a sound that echoed across realities, as it reached for the nexus point. Emily reached out too. There was nowhere else to go.\n\n“Leave me,” Alassa said. “Go!”\n\n“No.” Emily had no time for self-pity. Alassa didn’t deserve to die. She’d been abused by her partner, manipulated and treated as a servant rather than a princess … she deserved so much better. A thought ran through her head, a desire to bring this Alassa to meet her Alassa and her husband, if indeed they were still alive somewhere. If … “Hold on!”\n\nEmily caught her and Frieda, then reached for the nexus point. Reality blinked as the threadlines spun around them, a multitude snapping before she could touch them … were they being destroyed, entire universes wiped out just to kill her, or were they being isolated from the dying world? She didn’t know. She had the odd impression she was on the verge of a breakthrough, an insight she could use to save the world, but it was gone almost as soon as she saw the outlines. A threadline appeared in front of her, the only one left. There was nowhere else to go.\n\nShe jumped. The threadline opened in front of her …\n\nAnd then they were somewhere else.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 966, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch23-P1", "chapter": "ch23", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nShadye — capitalized; necromancer whose power surge approaches.\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily jumps a dying threadline with Alassa and Frieda as the wolf takes Necromancer Emily and the ruined castle-world collapses behind them.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust slammed into a grey blight-chamber after the jump; breath knocked out; smelling wet ashes and tainted magic. Finds a blanket nest and a small, broken counterpart under spells and a collar.\n\nSlave Emily\nCollar-bound variant; cracked unused voice; resigned that “he” is coming. Alive under Shadye’s slavery; stares at Emily like a ghost.\n\nAlassa\nPresent after the jump.\n\nFrieda\nPresent after the jump.\n\nShadye\nApproaching through parting haze as a familiar nexus of raw power; Slave Emily can feel him.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe world hiccupped, again. Emily looked up and saw the wolf, great jaws snapping down … Necromancer Emily had no time to react, let alone escape, as the translucent teeth snapped down and swallowed her. Emily felt sick as the wolf reared up in triumph … she had the impression of a giant inhuman monster, withering away under its paws, before realising the wolf had mistaken the necromancer for her. The world was collapsing now, all of reality falling into nothingness … it had to be messing with the wolf’s sight. If she was right …\n\n“I’m sorry,” Alassa said. Her face was streaked with tears. “I didn’t think they’d go that far.”\n\nEmily felt pity gnawing at her. Alassa’s entire world had been saved … and then thrown into the fire again. She could feel the walls of reality closing in, the universe collapsing down into a singularity … time itself was collapsing, giving her glimpses of an alien past and a future that would never be; she absorbed, in the blink of an eye, the life of someone she’d never known and now never would. The wolf howled, a sound that echoed across realities, as it reached for the nexus point. Emily reached out too. There was nowhere else to go.\n\n“Leave me,” Alassa said. “Go!”\n\n“No.” Emily had no time for self-pity. Alassa didn’t deserve to die. She’d been abused by her partner, manipulated and treated as a servant rather than a princess … she deserved so much better. A thought ran through her head, a desire to bring this Alassa to meet her Alassa and her husband, if indeed they were still alive somewhere. If … “Hold on!”\n\nEmily caught her and Frieda, then reached for the nexus point. Reality blinked as the threadlines spun around them, a multitude snapping before she could touch them … were they being destroyed, entire universes wiped out just to kill her, or were they being isolated from the dying world? She didn’t know. She had the odd impression she was on the verge of a breakthrough, an insight she could use to save the world, but it was gone almost as soon as she saw the outlines. A threadline appeared in front of her, the only one left. There was nowhere else to go.\n\nShe jumped. The threadline opened in front of her …\n\nAnd then they were somewhere else.\n\n### NOTES\nBare grey chamber; eerie sourceless glow; blanket nest against one wall.\nCollar on Slave Emily loaded with painful binding spells.\nHaze parting on inbound dark power.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe hits hard, orients in a stripped grey chamber that reeks of tainted magic, and finds Slave Emily under blankets—small, collar-bound, voice rusty from disuse. Emily’s heart breaks as she plunges into the collar’s snarl of spells; Slave Emily says he is coming, resigned. Emily stands and feels the haze part on a familiar surge of raw power. Land on recognizing Shadye’s approach.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Arrival shock and collar horror. Land on Shadye’s familiar power closing in.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily hit the ground, hard.\n\nThe impact knocked the breath from her, leaving her stunned and disoriented. The world spun around her as she fought to breathe, an oddly familiar scent of wet ashes and tainted magic slipping into her mouth and making her gag. It was a thousand times worse than the Desert of Death and … horror washed through her, driving her to her feet, as she realised why the scent was so familiar. She was in the Blighted Lands … the magic spun around her as she looked around, cursing under her breath. Alassa and Frieda lay on the ashy ground, knocked cold; she checked them both quickly, hoping they hadn’t hit their heads. It was difficult to repair brain damage and most sorcerers refused to even try.\n\nShe gritted her teeth. The chamber was grey, all grey. There was a faint light coming from somewhere, an eerie glow that was everywhere and nowhere … the walls were bare, stripped of each and every hint of personality. It felt more like a nightmare than anything else, a endless maze … she stepped up to the door and peered outside, spotting a corridor leading into the darkness. The magical haze was growing stronger, making it harder for her to sense anything beyond a few metres … perhaps less. She heard a sound, a faint sob, and hesitated. The sound was so pitiful it tore at her heart, despite the dangers. She couldn’t leave it alone. She cast a tracking spell and walked into the next chamber.\n\nIt reeked, the scent of tainted magic contrasting oddly with smells she didn’t want to think about too much. A handful of blankets lay against one wall, a nest … Emily had met a merchant woman who had set up a nest for her maid, right next to the dogs, and then had the nerve to complain when the maid had moved on as soon as possible. Her entitlement had been staggering and here … there was nowhere for the servant to go. Emily stepped forward, ice prickling down her spine despite the stuffy air. Someone was under the blanket, a child trying to hide from an unforgiving master … no. Something worse. She had the sudden horrified sense she knew exactly who was lying in front of her.\n\nThe blanket shifted. A small girl stared up at her … Emily’s mind skipped a beat. Technomage Emily had been recognisably her, Necromancer Emily had had much the same looks even as she’d delved into madness, but this alternate was so thin, all skin and bones, that it was hard to believe she was the same person. Her hair was already fading, her cheekbones were clearly visible against her taut skin, her eyes were bleak and hopeless. She wore rags … Emily swallowed, hard, as she realised they were the clothes she’d worn when she’d first arrived in the Nameless World. They were so ragged she could practically see her counterpart’s chest. Her breasts were so flat they were barely anything more than a pair of nipples … Emily had never been that well-endowed, particularly before she’d eaten properly for the first time in her life, but …\n\nAnd this Emily was wearing a slave collar.\n\n“Shit,” Emily muttered. Her counterpart was staring at her as if she’d seen a ghost. It was a marvel she was still alive. It crossed Emily’s mind to wonder if she’d fallen back in time when she’d crossed the threadline, because her counterpart looked like a deprived child permanently trapped in her teens. Did people shrink if they didn’t get enough to eat? “Emily …”\n\nHer counterpart, Slave Emily, blinked. “Who are you?”\n\nEmily shuddered. Her counterpart’s voice was cracked and broken, rusty from disuse. Emily felt her heart break as she reached out to touch the spells bound to the collar, feeling sick as she tasted the magic surrounding them. They were far more than just compulsion spells, she realised numbly. They played with her mind, giving her brief hints of independence and freedom before cracking down on her once again … a sadistic set of spells, devised by a very sadistic mind. It made a normal slave collar seem harmless by comparison. And Emily loathed them.\n\n“I …” Emily had no answer. What had happened to this Emily? An awful answer shot through her mind, one she didn’t want to face. “I’m … I’m you.”\n\nShe reached out, magic crackling around her, and plunged her mind into the morass of spells burned into the collar. They snapped and snarled at her, an endless sea of burning pain designed to keep the wearer under control … and kill them, instantly, if someone tried to free them. Emily was too angry to care, her power surging through the poisonous spell components and undermining the collar itself. It started to collapse into dust, just as it tried to tighten … Emily tasted the final set of spells and ripped them free, tossing the fragments back into the ether. It was absurdly overdone, for a spell designed to keep her counterpart under control. She hadn’t been handcuffed so much as she’d been laden down with heavy chains, to the point she could barely move …\n\nSlave Emily started to fall backwards. Emily caught her and lowered her down to the blankets as gently as she could. Her counterpart was shaking … if she’d been a slave for even a single year, let alone more, it was unlikely she’d recover in a hurry. The spells would have blurred into her mind, leaving her weak and vulnerable even without the collar keeping her under control. Emily didn’t dare try to probe her mind, let alone see if she could repair the damage. There was too great a chance of damaging her own mind.\n\n“He’s coming,” Slave Emily said. She sounded resigned, as if she’d given up on life a long time ago. “I can feel him …”\n\nEmily stood, reaching out with her mind. The haze was parting, revealing a nexus of raw power heading right towards her. It was very familiar … she clenched her fists as she felt Shadye’s madness beating on the air, weaker than many of the necromancers she’d met and yet a terror because he’d been her first. She took a moment to cast the first set of spells that formed the necromancer-killer, wrapping the shadowed form in an illusion as Shadye came into view, then stepped back into the shadows. His presence was growing stronger, a knot of poisoned magic and bad intentions … no wonder her counterpart was so scared. She’d been sharing his space for years.\n", "completion": "Emily hit the ground, hard.\n\nThe impact knocked the breath from her, leaving her stunned and disoriented. The world spun around her as she fought to breathe, an oddly familiar scent of wet ashes and tainted magic slipping into her mouth and making her gag. It was a thousand times worse than the Desert of Death and … horror washed through her, driving her to her feet, as she realised why the scent was so familiar. She was in the Blighted Lands … the magic spun around her as she looked around, cursing under her breath. Alassa and Frieda lay on the ashy ground, knocked cold; she checked them both quickly, hoping they hadn’t hit their heads. It was difficult to repair brain damage and most sorcerers refused to even try.\n\nShe gritted her teeth. The chamber was grey, all grey. There was a faint light coming from somewhere, an eerie glow that was everywhere and nowhere … the walls were bare, stripped of each and every hint of personality. It felt more like a nightmare than anything else, a endless maze … she stepped up to the door and peered outside, spotting a corridor leading into the darkness. The magical haze was growing stronger, making it harder for her to sense anything beyond a few metres … perhaps less. She heard a sound, a faint sob, and hesitated. The sound was so pitiful it tore at her heart, despite the dangers. She couldn’t leave it alone. She cast a tracking spell and walked into the next chamber.\n\nIt reeked, the scent of tainted magic contrasting oddly with smells she didn’t want to think about too much. A handful of blankets lay against one wall, a nest … Emily had met a merchant woman who had set up a nest for her maid, right next to the dogs, and then had the nerve to complain when the maid had moved on as soon as possible. Her entitlement had been staggering and here … there was nowhere for the servant to go. Emily stepped forward, ice prickling down her spine despite the stuffy air. Someone was under the blanket, a child trying to hide from an unforgiving master … no. Something worse. She had the sudden horrified sense she knew exactly who was lying in front of her.\n\nThe blanket shifted. A small girl stared up at her … Emily’s mind skipped a beat. Technomage Emily had been recognisably her, Necromancer Emily had had much the same looks even as she’d delved into madness, but this alternate was so thin, all skin and bones, that it was hard to believe she was the same person. Her hair was already fading, her cheekbones were clearly visible against her taut skin, her eyes were bleak and hopeless. She wore rags … Emily swallowed, hard, as she realised they were the clothes she’d worn when she’d first arrived in the Nameless World. They were so ragged she could practically see her counterpart’s chest. Her breasts were so flat they were barely anything more than a pair of nipples … Emily had never been that well-endowed, particularly before she’d eaten properly for the first time in her life, but …\n\nAnd this Emily was wearing a slave collar.\n\n“Shit,” Emily muttered. Her counterpart was staring at her as if she’d seen a ghost. It was a marvel she was still alive. It crossed Emily’s mind to wonder if she’d fallen back in time when she’d crossed the threadline, because her counterpart looked like a deprived child permanently trapped in her teens. Did people shrink if they didn’t get enough to eat? “Emily …”\n\nHer counterpart, Slave Emily, blinked. “Who are you?”\n\nEmily shuddered. Her counterpart’s voice was cracked and broken, rusty from disuse. Emily felt her heart break as she reached out to touch the spells bound to the collar, feeling sick as she tasted the magic surrounding them. They were far more than just compulsion spells, she realised numbly. They played with her mind, giving her brief hints of independence and freedom before cracking down on her once again … a sadistic set of spells, devised by a very sadistic mind. It made a normal slave collar seem harmless by comparison. And Emily loathed them.\n\n“I …” Emily had no answer. What had happened to this Emily? An awful answer shot through her mind, one she didn’t want to face. “I’m … I’m you.”\n\nShe reached out, magic crackling around her, and plunged her mind into the morass of spells burned into the collar. They snapped and snarled at her, an endless sea of burning pain designed to keep the wearer under control … and kill them, instantly, if someone tried to free them. Emily was too angry to care, her power surging through the poisonous spell components and undermining the collar itself. It started to collapse into dust, just as it tried to tighten … Emily tasted the final set of spells and ripped them free, tossing the fragments back into the ether. It was absurdly overdone, for a spell designed to keep her counterpart under control. She hadn’t been handcuffed so much as she’d been laden down with heavy chains, to the point she could barely move …\n\nSlave Emily started to fall backwards. Emily caught her and lowered her down to the blankets as gently as she could. Her counterpart was shaking … if she’d been a slave for even a single year, let alone more, it was unlikely she’d recover in a hurry. The spells would have blurred into her mind, leaving her weak and vulnerable even without the collar keeping her under control. Emily didn’t dare try to probe her mind, let alone see if she could repair the damage. There was too great a chance of damaging her own mind.\n\n“He’s coming,” Slave Emily said. She sounded resigned, as if she’d given up on life a long time ago. “I can feel him …”\n\nEmily stood, reaching out with her mind. The haze was parting, revealing a nexus of raw power heading right towards her. It was very familiar … she clenched her fists as she felt Shadye’s madness beating on the air, weaker than many of the necromancers she’d met and yet a terror because he’d been her first. She took a moment to cast the first set of spells that formed the necromancer-killer, wrapping the shadowed form in an illusion as Shadye came into view, then stepped back into the shadows. His presence was growing stronger, a knot of poisoned magic and bad intentions … no wonder her counterpart was so scared. She’d been sharing his space for years.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1121, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch23-P2", "chapter": "ch23", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nShadye — capitalized.\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily finds collar-bound Slave Emily in a grey blight-chamber and begins tearing at the binding spells just as Slave Emily feels Shadye coming through the haze.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFacing skeletal, red-eyed Shadye; kills or drops him in the opening exchange (Slave Emily cries that she killed him). Tries to apologize and help a counterpart who never developed magic and hears every careless sentence as an order.\n\nShadye\nEnters ragged and skeleton-ravaged; dull red eyes; Slave Emily’s master until Emily stops him.\n\nSlave Emily\nAsks if Emily is her new master; explains she was brought and enslaved; stands when told “come with me,” body betraying her into obedience.\n\nAlassa\nPresent.\n\nFrieda\nPresent.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I …” Emily had no answer. What had happened to this Emily? An awful answer shot through her mind, one she didn’t want to face. “I’m … I’m you.”\n\nShe reached out, magic crackling around her, and plunged her mind into the morass of spells burned into the collar. They snapped and snarled at her, an endless sea of burning pain designed to keep the wearer under control … and kill them, instantly, if someone tried to free them. Emily was too angry to care, her power surging through the poisonous spell components and undermining the collar itself. It started to collapse into dust, just as it tried to tighten … Emily tasted the final set of spells and ripped them free, tossing the fragments back into the ether. It was absurdly overdone, for a spell designed to keep her counterpart under control. She hadn’t been handcuffed so much as she’d been laden down with heavy chains, to the point she could barely move …\n\nSlave Emily started to fall backwards. Emily caught her and lowered her down to the blankets as gently as she could. Her counterpart was shaking … if she’d been a slave for even a single year, let alone more, it was unlikely she’d recover in a hurry. The spells would have blurred into her mind, leaving her weak and vulnerable even without the collar keeping her under control. Emily didn’t dare try to probe her mind, let alone see if she could repair the damage. There was too great a chance of damaging her own mind.\n\n“He’s coming,” Slave Emily said. She sounded resigned, as if she’d given up on life a long time ago. “I can feel him …”\n\nEmily stood, reaching out with her mind. The haze was parting, revealing a nexus of raw power heading right towards her. It was very familiar … she clenched her fists as she felt Shadye’s madness beating on the air, weaker than many of the necromancers she’d met and yet a terror because he’d been her first. She took a moment to cast the first set of spells that formed the necromancer-killer, wrapping the shadowed form in an illusion as Shadye came into view, then stepped back into the shadows. His presence was growing stronger, a knot of poisoned magic and bad intentions … no wonder her counterpart was so scared. She’d been sharing his space for years.\n\n### NOTES\nSame grey chamber; Shadye physically present then down.\nSlave Emily’s compulsion-to-obey still active.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShadye steps in looking like a walking skeleton; the clash ends with Slave Emily choking that Emily killed him. Slave Emily asks if Emily is her new master, recounts being brought and enslaved, and meets Emily’s inadequate sorry with sob-laughter that Emily can do what she likes. Emily promises help and says come with me—Slave Emily stands as her body obeys. Land on Emily’s shudder that any poorly worded sentence is a command until the mind heals.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Brutal aftermath tenderness; compulsion on the nose. Land on the command dread.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Shadye stepped into the chamber. He looked more ragged than Emily recalled, his body so ravaged by dark magic that he looked like a walking skeleton. His eyes blazed a dull red that sparkled with malice and a kind of chilling intelligence, the kind of person who would happily pluck the wings from a butterfly or slice open a pregnant woman to see the unborn baby inside; she felt a frisson of fear at being so close to her nightmare, even though she wasn’t the helpless girl who’d been kidnapped so long ago. He looked at her illusion and stopped, puzzled. It shouldn’t have been there and he knew it.\n\nShe didn’t give him time to think. She shaped the spell and thrust it at him, a mimic in all but name. Shadye lashed out, too late. The mimic absorbed the power and multiplied, the spellware expanding and expanding until it swept over Shadye’s spellform and swallowed him whole. The magic glowed, rising and falling, as the mimic ripped the necromancer apart, draining the last of his power into a pocket dimension. Emily let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. The concept had been solid, but there’d been no way to test it until now.\n\nLast time, I was new to magic, she thought, staring at where he’d stood. This time, I knew what to do.\n\nSlave Emily choked. “You killed him!”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. She checked, just to be sure. There was nothing left of Shadye, save for the power stored within the dimensional fold. “I killed him.”\n\nShe turned. Her counterpart was staring at her. “He was my master, he was my master, he was …”\n\nHer eyes shifted. “Are you my new master?”\n\nEmily’s heart twisted. Her counterpart was practically cowering, bracing herself for a blow that would never come … and then re-enslavement, likewise. She hadn’t recognised Emily … how could she? Emily was a mature young woman, while her counterpart was so starved she looked like a child. Emily would have thought her twelve, if she’d laid eyes on her elsewhere. It was hard to believe she was in her twenties. Even seventeen was pushing it.\n\n“No,” Emily said. She found herself unsure how to proceed. She’d been hurt before, physically and mentally, but her counterpart had been broken. Emily had never found it easy to deal with compulsion spells, even when none had lasted more than a few hours at most, yet her counterpart had been affected for years. “I … how did you get here?”\n\nSlave Emily sat upright, bringing up her legs and wrapping her arms around them. “I was brought here, I don’t know how,” she said. “He brought me … somehow. I was enslaved … he wanted me for something, but … I don’t know. He used me and …”\n\nEmily shuddered. “What for? What did he make you do?”\n\n“He liked to make me do things,” Slave Emily said. Her voice shook. “Silly things. Nothing … just silly things. Sometimes he’d make me cook for him, sometimes he’d forget to eat … forget to feed me too. I was a pet as well as a slave. I was … I was his.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily managed. It sounded so inadequate against her counterpart’s helpless state. Her Shadye had tried to sacrifice her. This Shadye had kept her counterpart as a slave … more as a trophy. Perhaps that had been the point all along. Have the supposed Child of Destiny in his fortress instead of risking her turning into a threat … it was hard to be sure. Shadye had been as mad as a hatter, prone to telling himself that everything that went wrong was actually part of his true plan. “I …”\n\nSlave Emily looked at her, really looked. “Who are you?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “I’m you, from a different world,” she said. “Things went a bit differently for me and …”\n\nHer counterpart laughed. It sounded more like a sob. “You don’t have to lie to me,” she said, sounding more like a petulant teenager than anything else. “You can do what you like with me.”\n\n“I’m you,” Emily repeated. “And I don’t want to hurt you.”\n\nShe reached out and gently touched her counterpart’s forehead. Slave Emily flinched. “Why …?”\n\n“I’ll do what I can to help you,” Emily promised. This Emily had never developed magic … was she too weak to cast spells or did she lack the talent? Was that the point of divergence? “And we can make things better.”\n\nShe paused. “And what’s happening on the other side of the Craggy Mountains?”\n\nHer counterpart had no answer. Of course not. She’d been a prisoner. She’d never seen the world outside. Alassa and Imaiqah and everyone else would have gone their merry way, without her, and … she swallowed suddenly as she realised just how much else had never changed. No New Learning. No university. Adam would still be a shopboy, if he were still alive, and Lilith a brat who never learned better. And Void …?\n\nShe forced herself to her feet. “Come with me.”\n\nHer counterpart stood, her eyes going wide as her body betrayed her. Emily shuddered. She would take any poorly worded sentence as a command, at least until her mind started to heal … Emily made a mental note to tell both Alassa and Frieda to be very careful what they said to Slave Emily. If they said the wrong thing, she could be hurt or worse.\n", "completion": "Shadye stepped into the chamber. He looked more ragged than Emily recalled, his body so ravaged by dark magic that he looked like a walking skeleton. His eyes blazed a dull red that sparkled with malice and a kind of chilling intelligence, the kind of person who would happily pluck the wings from a butterfly or slice open a pregnant woman to see the unborn baby inside; she felt a frisson of fear at being so close to her nightmare, even though she wasn’t the helpless girl who’d been kidnapped so long ago. He looked at her illusion and stopped, puzzled. It shouldn’t have been there and he knew it.\n\nShe didn’t give him time to think. She shaped the spell and thrust it at him, a mimic in all but name. Shadye lashed out, too late. The mimic absorbed the power and multiplied, the spellware expanding and expanding until it swept over Shadye’s spellform and swallowed him whole. The magic glowed, rising and falling, as the mimic ripped the necromancer apart, draining the last of his power into a pocket dimension. Emily let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. The concept had been solid, but there’d been no way to test it until now.\n\nLast time, I was new to magic, she thought, staring at where he’d stood. This time, I knew what to do.\n\nSlave Emily choked. “You killed him!”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. She checked, just to be sure. There was nothing left of Shadye, save for the power stored within the dimensional fold. “I killed him.”\n\nShe turned. Her counterpart was staring at her. “He was my master, he was my master, he was …”\n\nHer eyes shifted. “Are you my new master?”\n\nEmily’s heart twisted. Her counterpart was practically cowering, bracing herself for a blow that would never come … and then re-enslavement, likewise. She hadn’t recognised Emily … how could she? Emily was a mature young woman, while her counterpart was so starved she looked like a child. Emily would have thought her twelve, if she’d laid eyes on her elsewhere. It was hard to believe she was in her twenties. Even seventeen was pushing it.\n\n“No,” Emily said. She found herself unsure how to proceed. She’d been hurt before, physically and mentally, but her counterpart had been broken. Emily had never found it easy to deal with compulsion spells, even when none had lasted more than a few hours at most, yet her counterpart had been affected for years. “I … how did you get here?”\n\nSlave Emily sat upright, bringing up her legs and wrapping her arms around them. “I was brought here, I don’t know how,” she said. “He brought me … somehow. I was enslaved … he wanted me for something, but … I don’t know. He used me and …”\n\nEmily shuddered. “What for? What did he make you do?”\n\n“He liked to make me do things,” Slave Emily said. Her voice shook. “Silly things. Nothing … just silly things. Sometimes he’d make me cook for him, sometimes he’d forget to eat … forget to feed me too. I was a pet as well as a slave. I was … I was his.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily managed. It sounded so inadequate against her counterpart’s helpless state. Her Shadye had tried to sacrifice her. This Shadye had kept her counterpart as a slave … more as a trophy. Perhaps that had been the point all along. Have the supposed Child of Destiny in his fortress instead of risking her turning into a threat … it was hard to be sure. Shadye had been as mad as a hatter, prone to telling himself that everything that went wrong was actually part of his true plan. “I …”\n\nSlave Emily looked at her, really looked. “Who are you?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “I’m you, from a different world,” she said. “Things went a bit differently for me and …”\n\nHer counterpart laughed. It sounded more like a sob. “You don’t have to lie to me,” she said, sounding more like a petulant teenager than anything else. “You can do what you like with me.”\n\n“I’m you,” Emily repeated. “And I don’t want to hurt you.”\n\nShe reached out and gently touched her counterpart’s forehead. Slave Emily flinched. “Why …?”\n\n“I’ll do what I can to help you,” Emily promised. This Emily had never developed magic … was she too weak to cast spells or did she lack the talent? Was that the point of divergence? “And we can make things better.”\n\nShe paused. “And what’s happening on the other side of the Craggy Mountains?”\n\nHer counterpart had no answer. Of course not. She’d been a prisoner. She’d never seen the world outside. Alassa and Imaiqah and everyone else would have gone their merry way, without her, and … she swallowed suddenly as she realised just how much else had never changed. No New Learning. No university. Adam would still be a shopboy, if he were still alive, and Lilith a brat who never learned better. And Void …?\n\nShe forced herself to her feet. “Come with me.”\n\nHer counterpart stood, her eyes going wide as her body betrayed her. Emily shuddered. She would take any poorly worded sentence as a command, at least until her mind started to heal … Emily made a mental note to tell both Alassa and Frieda to be very careful what they said to Slave Emily. If they said the wrong thing, she could be hurt or worse.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 930, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch23-P3", "chapter": "ch23", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nShadye — capitalized; dead/defeated, referenced for food/territory.\nZangaria — capitalized.\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized when naming the region.\n\n### STORY\nEmily drops Shadye in the grey chamber; Slave Emily treats her as possible new master and obeys “come with me” as compulsion; Emily vows help while knowing careless words are orders.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nPast the kill; planning with Alassa and Frieda amid discomfort that this Alassa is and isn’t hers. Needs food, orientation, and a next move; rejects easy side quests.\n\nSlave Emily\nPresent; still damaged; may know what Shadye ate or kept nearby.\n\nAlassa\nSuggests going to Zangaria to ask her father for help; rolling over from the ordeal.\n\nFrieda\nPresent; practical support.\n\nShadye\nDefeated; referenced for what he consumed and what humans he kept for sacrifice nearby.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“He liked to make me do things,” Slave Emily said. Her voice shook. “Silly things. Nothing … just silly things. Sometimes he’d make me cook for him, sometimes he’d forget to eat … forget to feed me too. I was a pet as well as a slave. I was … I was his.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily managed. It sounded so inadequate against her counterpart’s helpless state. Her Shadye had tried to sacrifice her. This Shadye had kept her counterpart as a slave … more as a trophy. Perhaps that had been the point all along. Have the supposed Child of Destiny in his fortress instead of risking her turning into a threat … it was hard to be sure. Shadye had been as mad as a hatter, prone to telling himself that everything that went wrong was actually part of his true plan. “I …”\n\nSlave Emily looked at her, really looked. “Who are you?”\n\nEmily hesitated. “I’m you, from a different world,” she said. “Things went a bit differently for me and …”\n\nHer counterpart laughed. It sounded more like a sob. “You don’t have to lie to me,” she said, sounding more like a petulant teenager than anything else. “You can do what you like with me.”\n\n“I’m you,” Emily repeated. “And I don’t want to hurt you.”\n\nShe reached out and gently touched her counterpart’s forehead. Slave Emily flinched. “Why …?”\n\n“I’ll do what I can to help you,” Emily promised. This Emily had never developed magic … was she too weak to cast spells or did she lack the talent? Was that the point of divergence? “And we can make things better.”\n\nShe paused. “And what’s happening on the other side of the Craggy Mountains?”\n\nHer counterpart had no answer. Of course not. She’d been a prisoner. She’d never seen the world outside. Alassa and Imaiqah and everyone else would have gone their merry way, without her, and … she swallowed suddenly as she realised just how much else had never changed. No New Learning. No university. Adam would still be a shopboy, if he were still alive, and Lilith a brat who never learned better. And Void …?\n\nShe forced herself to her feet. “Come with me.”\n\nHer counterpart stood, her eyes going wide as her body betrayed her. Emily shuddered. She would take any poorly worded sentence as a command, at least until her mind started to heal … Emily made a mental note to tell both Alassa and Frieda to be very careful what they said to Slave Emily. If they said the wrong thing, she could be hurt or worse.\n\n### NOTES\nGrey chamber aftermath in the Blighted Lands.\nHumans nearby kept as slaves/servants for sacrifice.\nDamage to reality from the prior jump still uncertain.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nApology trails off into planning: Alassa is and isn’t hers, they need food and a path, and nearby humans may have been forced to feed Shadye’s household. Alassa floats Zangaria and her father; Emily shuts the distraction down. Land on forgetting it because far worse problems remain.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Practical aftermath; cut sentiment short. Land on the worse-problems line.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I …”\n\nSlave Emily gave her an unreadable look, then fell in behind her as she walked out the room and back into the first chamber. Frieda was struggling to her feet, her eyes going wide as she spotted Slave Emily; Alassa was lying on the ground, looking oddly peaceful in her repose. Emily wondered if she wanted to wake up at all, now that she was the last survivor of her entire universe. It was something she’d never be able to forget.\n\nAnd there’s presumably an Alassa in this universe too, Emily thought. What would she have become, without Emily? Would she have grown up or would she have stayed a spoilt brat? Would she have become a monarch in her own right or a puppet, her strings pulled by her husband or her council? There’s no way she can step into her counterpart’s life.\n\nFrieda looked at her. “What happened?”\n\n“I killed Shadye,” Emily said. A ripple of satisfaction ran through her. The battle had been too effortless to be called a battle, not in any real sense, but … she felt as if she’d confronted a very personal demon and won. “Again.”\n\nAlassa shifted, rolling over. Emily felt a stab of discomfort. She was Alassa and yet she wasn’t … Emily shook her head. There was no time to worry about it. They needed a plan.\n\nHer stomach growled. “We need something to eat,” she said. “And then we can work out what to do next.”\n\n“We can get food at Heart’s Eye,” Frieda said. “Or Cockatrice …”\n\nEmily shook her head. Cockatrice was presumably still Golden Barony in this world, Heart’s Eye still a necromantic domain. They didn’t have any money either … she shuddered as she recalled where Shadye had hidden some treasures, a handful cursed to punish thieves and the remainder linked to far nastier surprises. She’d have to decontaminate the former before using them to trade …\n\n“There’s some food in the kitchen,” Slave Emily said. She sounded eager to please. Emily couldn’t tell if she was trying to suck up to them or if it was the remnants of the spell talking. “I could cook you something.”\n\n“If you could, yes please.” Emily hesitated. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Shadye had eaten … she’d never thought he’d eaten at all. Necromancers needed nothing but power. “Let me check the food first.”\n\nHer counterpart bowed, unsteadily. “As you command.”\n\nAlassa sat upright. “What happened …?”\n\nEmily ran through a brief explanation. “This is another world,” she finished. “We need to find our bearings here, then move on before the rest of the necromancers arrive.”\n\n“Oh.” Alassa looked down, her eyes grim. “And everyone else?”\n\n“Unknown,” Emily said. Last time, the damage to reality had healed. The whole affair had taken on the feel of a very bad dream, no more real than any other nightmare. There hadn’t been many reports and most hadn’t been believed. Now … she didn’t know. “The world may still be there, inaccessible …”\n\n“Or it may be gone,” Alassa finished.\n\n“Don’t give up yet,” Emily advised. “We don’t know for sure.”\n\nAlassa said nothing. Emily swallowed hard. The sheer scale of the disaster was beyond comprehension. The fact it was only a tiny part of an even worse disaster was … she shook her head. Billions upon billions of lives and worlds and everything, snuffed out as if they’d never existed at all. She didn’t want to believe it and yet … the wolf haunted her mind, her eyes snapping upwards as if she expected to see its ghostly form towering over her. Master Wolfe was still looking for them … he had to be. He must know he’d killed the wrong one.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she followed Slave Emily to the kitchen, a chamber that reminded her of the kitchens under Cockatrice. There should have been a small army of cooks, everything from scullery maids to the master chefs, but instead there was just Slave Emily. Emily felt sick as she surveyed the seemingly random selection of food, wondering just how Shadye had managed to obtain it. He’d had spies on the northern side of the mountains … perhaps one had served as a purchasing agent too. Or perhaps … her lips twitched. The idea of Shadye visiting a marketplace was funny, in a sad way.\n\nThere were humans living nearby, slaves and servants who were intended for sacrifice, she reminded herself. He might have forced one of them to produce food.\n\n“The meat is lamb, I think,” Slave Emily said. “He took it from the farms …”\n\nShe shuddered. Emily hoped to hell it was lamb … she could think of several other possibilities, from orcish meat to human flesh, each worse than the last. She watched numbly as her counterpart prepared a meal with practiced ease, frying lamb and bread together … bland, boring, and desperately welcome after so long. Emily tried not to notice how Slave Emily had to convince herself to sit beside them. She’d been a slave too long.\n\n“What now?” Frieda spoke for them all. “This isn’t our world.”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “But we do need to move fast.”\n\n“We could go to Zangaria,” Alassa said. “And ask my father for help.”\n\n“He’s not your father,” Emily pointed out. She had no idea what King Randor was like in this timeline, if he was even alive, and she didn’t want to know. “He’s got a daughter. She looks like you, true, but she isn’t you. You can’t take her place.”\n\nAlassa stared back at her. “He could have both of us.”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. Would there be any ill-effects if both Alassa and her counterpart remained in the same universe? She didn’t know. “He might, or he might think you were a fake trying to take his daughter’s place.”\n\n“He could check,” Alassa said, stubbornly.\n\n“Forget it,” Emily advised. “Right now, we have far worse problems.”\n", "completion": "“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I …”\n\nSlave Emily gave her an unreadable look, then fell in behind her as she walked out the room and back into the first chamber. Frieda was struggling to her feet, her eyes going wide as she spotted Slave Emily; Alassa was lying on the ground, looking oddly peaceful in her repose. Emily wondered if she wanted to wake up at all, now that she was the last survivor of her entire universe. It was something she’d never be able to forget.\n\nAnd there’s presumably an Alassa in this universe too, Emily thought. What would she have become, without Emily? Would she have grown up or would she have stayed a spoilt brat? Would she have become a monarch in her own right or a puppet, her strings pulled by her husband or her council? There’s no way she can step into her counterpart’s life.\n\nFrieda looked at her. “What happened?”\n\n“I killed Shadye,” Emily said. A ripple of satisfaction ran through her. The battle had been too effortless to be called a battle, not in any real sense, but … she felt as if she’d confronted a very personal demon and won. “Again.”\n\nAlassa shifted, rolling over. Emily felt a stab of discomfort. She was Alassa and yet she wasn’t … Emily shook her head. There was no time to worry about it. They needed a plan.\n\nHer stomach growled. “We need something to eat,” she said. “And then we can work out what to do next.”\n\n“We can get food at Heart’s Eye,” Frieda said. “Or Cockatrice …”\n\nEmily shook her head. Cockatrice was presumably still Golden Barony in this world, Heart’s Eye still a necromantic domain. They didn’t have any money either … she shuddered as she recalled where Shadye had hidden some treasures, a handful cursed to punish thieves and the remainder linked to far nastier surprises. She’d have to decontaminate the former before using them to trade …\n\n“There’s some food in the kitchen,” Slave Emily said. She sounded eager to please. Emily couldn’t tell if she was trying to suck up to them or if it was the remnants of the spell talking. “I could cook you something.”\n\n“If you could, yes please.” Emily hesitated. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Shadye had eaten … she’d never thought he’d eaten at all. Necromancers needed nothing but power. “Let me check the food first.”\n\nHer counterpart bowed, unsteadily. “As you command.”\n\nAlassa sat upright. “What happened …?”\n\nEmily ran through a brief explanation. “This is another world,” she finished. “We need to find our bearings here, then move on before the rest of the necromancers arrive.”\n\n“Oh.” Alassa looked down, her eyes grim. “And everyone else?”\n\n“Unknown,” Emily said. Last time, the damage to reality had healed. The whole affair had taken on the feel of a very bad dream, no more real than any other nightmare. There hadn’t been many reports and most hadn’t been believed. Now … she didn’t know. “The world may still be there, inaccessible …”\n\n“Or it may be gone,” Alassa finished.\n\n“Don’t give up yet,” Emily advised. “We don’t know for sure.”\n\nAlassa said nothing. Emily swallowed hard. The sheer scale of the disaster was beyond comprehension. The fact it was only a tiny part of an even worse disaster was … she shook her head. Billions upon billions of lives and worlds and everything, snuffed out as if they’d never existed at all. She didn’t want to believe it and yet … the wolf haunted her mind, her eyes snapping upwards as if she expected to see its ghostly form towering over her. Master Wolfe was still looking for them … he had to be. He must know he’d killed the wrong one.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she followed Slave Emily to the kitchen, a chamber that reminded her of the kitchens under Cockatrice. There should have been a small army of cooks, everything from scullery maids to the master chefs, but instead there was just Slave Emily. Emily felt sick as she surveyed the seemingly random selection of food, wondering just how Shadye had managed to obtain it. He’d had spies on the northern side of the mountains … perhaps one had served as a purchasing agent too. Or perhaps … her lips twitched. The idea of Shadye visiting a marketplace was funny, in a sad way.\n\nThere were humans living nearby, slaves and servants who were intended for sacrifice, she reminded herself. He might have forced one of them to produce food.\n\n“The meat is lamb, I think,” Slave Emily said. “He took it from the farms …”\n\nShe shuddered. Emily hoped to hell it was lamb … she could think of several other possibilities, from orcish meat to human flesh, each worse than the last. She watched numbly as her counterpart prepared a meal with practiced ease, frying lamb and bread together … bland, boring, and desperately welcome after so long. Emily tried not to notice how Slave Emily had to convince herself to sit beside them. She’d been a slave too long.\n\n“What now?” Frieda spoke for them all. “This isn’t our world.”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “But we do need to move fast.”\n\n“We could go to Zangaria,” Alassa said. “And ask my father for help.”\n\n“He’s not your father,” Emily pointed out. She had no idea what King Randor was like in this timeline, if he was even alive, and she didn’t want to know. “He’s got a daughter. She looks like you, true, but she isn’t you. You can’t take her place.”\n\nAlassa stared back at her. “He could have both of us.”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. Would there be any ill-effects if both Alassa and her counterpart remained in the same universe? She didn’t know. “He might, or he might think you were a fake trying to take his daughter’s place.”\n\n“He could check,” Alassa said, stubbornly.\n\n“Forget it,” Emily advised. “Right now, we have far worse problems.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1024, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch24-P1", "chapter": "ch24", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized.\nDragon’s Den — possessive as written.\nAllied Lands — both words capitalized.\nInverse Shadow — both words capitalized; alien structure ahead.\nCraggy Mountains — both words capitalized when naming the range.\nNew Learning — both words capitalized.\nnuke-spell — hyphenated as written.\n\n### STORY\nAfter killing Shadye, Emily shuts down Alassa’s Zangaria idea and reminds the group that worse multiversal problems still loom in the Blighted Lands.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nIn the Blighted Lands fortress after Shadye’s death; knows another necromancer or the Allied Lands will notice. Sent Frieda and Alassa to Dragon’s Den for supplies; Slave Emily with her. No New Learning, batteries, or nuke-spell here—Allied Lands one bad day from defeat.\n\nFrieda\nReturns with Alassa from Dragon’s Den with food and gear; notes Alassa is eyeing ways to Zangaria.\n\nAlassa\nBack from the town run; thinking about staying / reaching Zangaria; has seen the wolf and still wants her father’s world.\n\nSlave Emily\nWith Emily at the fortress.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAlassa said nothing. Emily swallowed hard. The sheer scale of the disaster was beyond comprehension. The fact it was only a tiny part of an even worse disaster was … she shook her head. Billions upon billions of lives and worlds and everything, snuffed out as if they’d never existed at all. She didn’t want to believe it and yet … the wolf haunted her mind, her eyes snapping upwards as if she expected to see its ghostly form towering over her. Master Wolfe was still looking for them … he had to be. He must know he’d killed the wrong one.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she followed Slave Emily to the kitchen, a chamber that reminded her of the kitchens under Cockatrice. There should have been a small army of cooks, everything from scullery maids to the master chefs, but instead there was just Slave Emily. Emily felt sick as she surveyed the seemingly random selection of food, wondering just how Shadye had managed to obtain it. He’d had spies on the northern side of the mountains … perhaps one had served as a purchasing agent too. Or perhaps … her lips twitched. The idea of Shadye visiting a marketplace was funny, in a sad way.\n\nThere were humans living nearby, slaves and servants who were intended for sacrifice, she reminded herself. He might have forced one of them to produce food.\n\n“The meat is lamb, I think,” Slave Emily said. “He took it from the farms …”\n\nShe shuddered. Emily hoped to hell it was lamb … she could think of several other possibilities, from orcish meat to human flesh, each worse than the last. She watched numbly as her counterpart prepared a meal with practiced ease, frying lamb and bread together … bland, boring, and desperately welcome after so long. Emily tried not to notice how Slave Emily had to convince herself to sit beside them. She’d been a slave too long.\n\n“What now?” Frieda spoke for them all. “This isn’t our world.”\n\n“No,” Emily said. “But we do need to move fast.”\n\n“We could go to Zangaria,” Alassa said. “And ask my father for help.”\n\n“He’s not your father,” Emily pointed out. She had no idea what King Randor was like in this timeline, if he was even alive, and she didn’t want to know. “He’s got a daughter. She looks like you, true, but she isn’t you. You can’t take her place.”\n\nAlassa stared back at her. “He could have both of us.”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. Would there be any ill-effects if both Alassa and her counterpart remained in the same universe? She didn’t know. “He might, or he might think you were a fake trying to take his daughter’s place.”\n\n“He could check,” Alassa said, stubbornly.\n\n“Forget it,” Emily advised. “Right now, we have far worse problems.”\n\n### NOTES\nBlighted Lands fortress kitchen/stores about to receive Dragon’s Den supplies.\nShadye’s territory will draw other necromancers or Allied attention.\nNo batteries or New Learning infrastructure in this continuum.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThe Blighted Lands feel unchanged as she watches the horizon and knows Shadye’s death will draw rivals or Allied probes. Frieda and Alassa rematerialize from Dragon’s Den with food and gear; talk runs to how fragile the Allied Lands are without New Learning or batteries. Frieda quietly says Alassa is thinking of staying and looking for a path to Zangaria; Emily winces that Alassa has seen the wolf and still might choose this doomed local fight. Land on that inward wince.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Horizon dread and supply-run practicality. Land on Alassa’s stay temptation.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The Blighted Lands felt … unchanged.\n\nEmily shivered, despite the warm air, as she stood outside the fortress and waited. The air felt heavy, as if she were surrounded by an invisible fog; her skin prickled, unpleasantly, as the miasma pressed against her. The sensation was almost painfully disconcerting because she couldn’t focus on it, because it slipped away every time she tried. The air was clear, revealing grey ashes as far as the eye could see, yet she had the sense her vision was blurred and nothing beyond a few metres could be wholly taken for granted. Anything could be out there, anything at all. There could be an entire army marching towards her and she wouldn’t have a clue until it was right on top of her.\n\nHer eyes narrowed as she stared into the distance. Shadye’s death would not go unnoticed. Another necromancer would come for his territory, sooner or later, or the Allied Lands would try to take advantage of the sudden shift in the balance of power. She doubted they’d be able to do much – lacking firearms and fortifications, any northern army would be chopped to ribbons by the orcs and the remains fed into the cauldron for soup – but it was a risk. She had no idea what she’d say to them, if they arrived. This world didn’t know her. Her counterpart’s arrival had gone completely unnoticed.\n\nSlave Emily stood behind her, hands clasped behind her back and her eyes downcast. Emily shivered as she glanced at her counterpart, shuddering helplessly at the dead expression on her face. Slave Emily had been traumatised and broken, left unable to cope with more than a handful of people; Emily had offered to take her north, to use the stolen treasures from Shadye’s fortress to set her counterpart up with a proper magic tutor, but her counterpart had been terrified of the mere thought. Emily didn’t blame her. A person so affected by magic and trauma that they obeyed orders without thinking was someone who’d be taken advantage of, given time, and she couldn’t stay to supervise. And besides, after the fortress, Dragon’s Den would be a discordant nightmare. The rest of the northern lands would be even worse.\n\nThe air rippled, nearby. Emily tensed, then let out a sigh of relief as Frieda and Alassa materialised beside them. She’d sent the duo to Dragon’s Den, reluctant to risk leaving her counterpart alone or show her face too openly. If this world thought she was a necromancer’s servant … she didn’t look much like her counterpart, and it was hard to believe they were even sisters let alone the same person, but there was no point in taking chances. They’d escaped by the skin of their teeth, last time, and they might not be so lucky the second time around.\n\n“It’s weird,” Frieda said. She hadn’t seen Dragon’s Den before the New Learning, but the town had only just started to change when she’d arrived at Whitehall. “The town looks smaller, somehow.”\n\n“I’m not surprised,” Emily said, as Frieda unslung her bags. They’d purchased fresh food, meat and survival gear. The fortress would be a little more comfortable for the next few weeks. She had no intention of staying any longer. “Politics?”\n\n“My counterpart is apparently unmarried,” Alassa said. There was a sudden note of pure anger in her tone. “Hedrick is still the second prince of Alluvia, and …the Allied Lands are still intact.”\n\nEmily winced in sympathy. No New Learning. No batteries. No nuke-spell … the Allied Lands were one bad day from total defeat, when the necromancers finally broke through the Craggy Mountains and marched north. She wondered, numbly, if there was anything they could do before discarding the thought. They didn’t have time to get involved in local politics. Not this time. They had to stop Master Wolfe before it was too late. The world around her felt solid, reassuringly so, but it was just an illusion. If the godform tracked them down, the universe would melt away like a snowflake in hell.\n\n“She’s not married,” Alassa said, again. The bitterness was striking. “Why not?”\n\n“Unknown,” Emily said. “There’s no way to know.”\n\nShe frowned. Her Alassa had been meant to get married, or at least engaged, at the end of first year. She’d been seventeen and … Emily felt sick. She understood the importance of stability, she understood how an arranged marriage could define the balance of power between kingdoms in a world too immature to have proper institutions, but it was still sickening. She wondered, idly, what had gone wrong in this world. She doubted Alassa’s brattiness had convinced the princes not to marry her. They could’ve knocked some sense into her if they wished, perfectly legally.\n\n“Take the stuff back to the kitchen,” she ordered, instead. “We need to get started.”\n\nAlassa looked irked, then shrugged and headed into the fortress. Emily turned away, her eyes seeking out their destination. Only a few metres away, really, and yet … it looked as if it was hundreds of miles away. The Inverse Shadow felt fundamentally wrong, a splinter of another reality driven into the flesh of hers. Just looking at it made Emily’s skin crawl. Her instincts were warning her to run, to run far and never look back. But she had no choice.\n\n“She’s thinking about staying,” Frieda said, quietly. “I saw her looking for ways to get to Zangaria.”\n\nEmily winced, inwardly. Alassa had seen the wolf … didn’t she know the entire multiverse was under threat? But Alassa had spent the last five years running from an overwhelming enemy, threatened by friends and foes alike … she wondered, idly, what King Randor would think if another version of his daughter turned up on his doorstep. Alassa would pass a paternity test, of course … her lips twisted in dark amusement as she recalled the man who’d demanded a maternity test. It wouldn’t be so foolish here, although somewhat pointless. Queen Marlena was her biological mother.\n", "completion": "The Blighted Lands felt … unchanged.\n\nEmily shivered, despite the warm air, as she stood outside the fortress and waited. The air felt heavy, as if she were surrounded by an invisible fog; her skin prickled, unpleasantly, as the miasma pressed against her. The sensation was almost painfully disconcerting because she couldn’t focus on it, because it slipped away every time she tried. The air was clear, revealing grey ashes as far as the eye could see, yet she had the sense her vision was blurred and nothing beyond a few metres could be wholly taken for granted. Anything could be out there, anything at all. There could be an entire army marching towards her and she wouldn’t have a clue until it was right on top of her.\n\nHer eyes narrowed as she stared into the distance. Shadye’s death would not go unnoticed. Another necromancer would come for his territory, sooner or later, or the Allied Lands would try to take advantage of the sudden shift in the balance of power. She doubted they’d be able to do much – lacking firearms and fortifications, any northern army would be chopped to ribbons by the orcs and the remains fed into the cauldron for soup – but it was a risk. She had no idea what she’d say to them, if they arrived. This world didn’t know her. Her counterpart’s arrival had gone completely unnoticed.\n\nSlave Emily stood behind her, hands clasped behind her back and her eyes downcast. Emily shivered as she glanced at her counterpart, shuddering helplessly at the dead expression on her face. Slave Emily had been traumatised and broken, left unable to cope with more than a handful of people; Emily had offered to take her north, to use the stolen treasures from Shadye’s fortress to set her counterpart up with a proper magic tutor, but her counterpart had been terrified of the mere thought. Emily didn’t blame her. A person so affected by magic and trauma that they obeyed orders without thinking was someone who’d be taken advantage of, given time, and she couldn’t stay to supervise. And besides, after the fortress, Dragon’s Den would be a discordant nightmare. The rest of the northern lands would be even worse.\n\nThe air rippled, nearby. Emily tensed, then let out a sigh of relief as Frieda and Alassa materialised beside them. She’d sent the duo to Dragon’s Den, reluctant to risk leaving her counterpart alone or show her face too openly. If this world thought she was a necromancer’s servant … she didn’t look much like her counterpart, and it was hard to believe they were even sisters let alone the same person, but there was no point in taking chances. They’d escaped by the skin of their teeth, last time, and they might not be so lucky the second time around.\n\n“It’s weird,” Frieda said. She hadn’t seen Dragon’s Den before the New Learning, but the town had only just started to change when she’d arrived at Whitehall. “The town looks smaller, somehow.”\n\n“I’m not surprised,” Emily said, as Frieda unslung her bags. They’d purchased fresh food, meat and survival gear. The fortress would be a little more comfortable for the next few weeks. She had no intention of staying any longer. “Politics?”\n\n“My counterpart is apparently unmarried,” Alassa said. There was a sudden note of pure anger in her tone. “Hedrick is still the second prince of Alluvia, and …the Allied Lands are still intact.”\n\nEmily winced in sympathy. No New Learning. No batteries. No nuke-spell … the Allied Lands were one bad day from total defeat, when the necromancers finally broke through the Craggy Mountains and marched north. She wondered, numbly, if there was anything they could do before discarding the thought. They didn’t have time to get involved in local politics. Not this time. They had to stop Master Wolfe before it was too late. The world around her felt solid, reassuringly so, but it was just an illusion. If the godform tracked them down, the universe would melt away like a snowflake in hell.\n\n“She’s not married,” Alassa said, again. The bitterness was striking. “Why not?”\n\n“Unknown,” Emily said. “There’s no way to know.”\n\nShe frowned. Her Alassa had been meant to get married, or at least engaged, at the end of first year. She’d been seventeen and … Emily felt sick. She understood the importance of stability, she understood how an arranged marriage could define the balance of power between kingdoms in a world too immature to have proper institutions, but it was still sickening. She wondered, idly, what had gone wrong in this world. She doubted Alassa’s brattiness had convinced the princes not to marry her. They could’ve knocked some sense into her if they wished, perfectly legally.\n\n“Take the stuff back to the kitchen,” she ordered, instead. “We need to get started.”\n\nAlassa looked irked, then shrugged and headed into the fortress. Emily turned away, her eyes seeking out their destination. Only a few metres away, really, and yet … it looked as if it was hundreds of miles away. The Inverse Shadow felt fundamentally wrong, a splinter of another reality driven into the flesh of hers. Just looking at it made Emily’s skin crawl. Her instincts were warning her to run, to run far and never look back. But she had no choice.\n\n“She’s thinking about staying,” Frieda said, quietly. “I saw her looking for ways to get to Zangaria.”\n\nEmily winced, inwardly. Alassa had seen the wolf … didn’t she know the entire multiverse was under threat? But Alassa had spent the last five years running from an overwhelming enemy, threatened by friends and foes alike … she wondered, idly, what King Randor would think if another version of his daughter turned up on his doorstep. Alassa would pass a paternity test, of course … her lips twisted in dark amusement as she recalled the man who’d demanded a maternity test. It wouldn’t be so foolish here, although somewhat pointless. Queen Marlena was her biological mother.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1034, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch24-P2", "chapter": "ch24", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nInverse Shadow — both words capitalized.\nGrandmaster Hasdrubal — title and name as written.\nthreadlines — one word.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written.\n\n### STORY\nFrieda and Alassa return from Dragon’s Den; Frieda warns Alassa may stay and seek Zangaria despite having seen the wolf.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nDecides if Alassa goes she goes; feels pang that Grandmaster Hasdrubal is miles away and would see her as a threat. Leads them into the Inverse Shadow toward a usable mirror/path to threadlines; steadies Slave Emily.\n\nAlassa\nMay leave; not forced.\n\nFrieda\nWith them into the Inverse Shadow; emotional under the flickering potentials.\n\nSlave Emily\nClutches Emily’s hand as the eerie mirror appears; potentials of other Emilys flicker.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily winced in sympathy. No New Learning. No batteries. No nuke-spell … the Allied Lands were one bad day from total defeat, when the necromancers finally broke through the Craggy Mountains and marched north. She wondered, numbly, if there was anything they could do before discarding the thought. They didn’t have time to get involved in local politics. Not this time. They had to stop Master Wolfe before it was too late. The world around her felt solid, reassuringly so, but it was just an illusion. If the godform tracked them down, the universe would melt away like a snowflake in hell.\n\n“She’s not married,” Alassa said, again. The bitterness was striking. “Why not?”\n\n“Unknown,” Emily said. “There’s no way to know.”\n\nShe frowned. Her Alassa had been meant to get married, or at least engaged, at the end of first year. She’d been seventeen and … Emily felt sick. She understood the importance of stability, she understood how an arranged marriage could define the balance of power between kingdoms in a world too immature to have proper institutions, but it was still sickening. She wondered, idly, what had gone wrong in this world. She doubted Alassa’s brattiness had convinced the princes not to marry her. They could’ve knocked some sense into her if they wished, perfectly legally.\n\n“Take the stuff back to the kitchen,” she ordered, instead. “We need to get started.”\n\nAlassa looked irked, then shrugged and headed into the fortress. Emily turned away, her eyes seeking out their destination. Only a few metres away, really, and yet … it looked as if it was hundreds of miles away. The Inverse Shadow felt fundamentally wrong, a splinter of another reality driven into the flesh of hers. Just looking at it made Emily’s skin crawl. Her instincts were warning her to run, to run far and never look back. But she had no choice.\n\n“She’s thinking about staying,” Frieda said, quietly. “I saw her looking for ways to get to Zangaria.”\n\nEmily winced, inwardly. Alassa had seen the wolf … didn’t she know the entire multiverse was under threat? But Alassa had spent the last five years running from an overwhelming enemy, threatened by friends and foes alike … she wondered, idly, what King Randor would think if another version of his daughter turned up on his doorstep. Alassa would pass a paternity test, of course … her lips twisted in dark amusement as she recalled the man who’d demanded a maternity test. It wouldn’t be so foolish here, although somewhat pointless. Queen Marlena was her biological mother.\n\n### NOTES\nInverse Shadow: towering/twisting alien structure Shadye always avoided.\nMirror pathway inside, stranger than Heart’s Eye mirrors.\nThreadline access possible but wanting a controlling mind they do not have.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe lets Alassa’s choice stand and leads into the Inverse Shadow—infinity one moment, sandcastle the next—holding Slave Emily’s hand as an eerie mirror blooms and alternate Emilys flicker at the edge of becoming. She keeps them focused, reads a barely open pathway toward the threadlines without a controlling mind to stabilize it, and judges they can still use it. Land on that thin way back.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Alien architecture unease; keep potentials brief. Land on the usable pathway.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“If she goes, she goes,” Emily said. She had no idea if they’d need Alassa later and … she had no idea what would happen if Alassa stayed in the alternate world. “If not … we’ll see.”\n\n“And if she brings Whitehall down on us?”\n\nEmily felt a sudden pang. Grandmaster Hasdrubal was only a few dozen miles away … a Grandmaster who didn’t know her, who’d never met her, who would regard her as a potential threat rather than an ally. She wanted to go see him, to ask for help, even though she knew it would be dangerous. And Void and the others were still out there … she could go seek out Lady Barb or Sergeant Miles or … she shook her head. They didn’t know her. It was better for them they never met her.\n\n“We’ll deal with it when it comes,” she said. “If it ever does.”\n\nThe Inverse Shadow shifted as they walked closer, a towering building that seemed to reach all the way to infinity one moment, a twisting structure that seemed as solid as a sandcastle the next. It was impossible to get any idea of its real shape, nor could she track the flickers of magic and something else, something far more dangerous, spinning in and out of reality around her. The structure existed in multiple dimensions at once, corridors leading in directions she couldn’t comprehend … she had the sudden uneasy sense she was being watched as the doorway opened in front of her, beckoning her into the shadows. Flickering things shifted in the gloom, dancing at the corner of her eye. They were gone the moment she looked at them.\n\nSlave Emily whimpered. “This place is wrong.”\n\nEmily took her hand. “It’s alright,” she said, although she knew it wasn’t true. “We’ll be out of here soon enough.”\n\nThe air felt still, as if time itself had stopped, as she walked further into the structure. She could see multiple different versions of the chamber surrounding her, ghostly visions of what was and what could be; she saw tall elegant humanoids making their way through the shadows, their features too perfect to be real, coming and going and coming and going … she flinched, despite herself, as an army of orcs ran at her and right through her. They weren’t real and yet … in a sense, they were more real than she was.\n\nShe gritted her teeth. Shadye had always kept his distance from the alien structure, which spoke volumes about just how dangerous it was. No one really knew where it came from: some argued it had been created by the Faerie, as a base of operations for their invasion of the human realm, while others insisted it had been summoned into existence by dark gods or that it had always been there, something so old it predated the world itself. Emily could practically feel the sense of timelessness and age surrounding the structure, something that wasn’t so much aging as a fixed point in time and space … the tip of an iceberg, poking up from another reality … small and yet a tiny fragment of a far greater whole. She wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else, but … the Inverse Shadow might be the only backdoor into the interdimensional threadlines. If she couldn’t find a nexus point …\n\nNo, she corrected herself. You don’t want to risk exposing the locals to the wolf.\n\nSlave Emily clutched her hand, tighter, as the mirror suddenly appeared in front of them. It was … eerie, stranger by far than the mirrors at Heart’s Eye. Emily wondered, as she stopped to study the interdimensional nightmare, if the original founders had visited the alien structure at some point, to learn how it worked and try to duplicate it. It wasn’t impossible. There was nothing in magic that couldn’t be understood, given time. And … her skin crawled. Master Wolfe had said the same thing, before he’d revealed the truth. The quest for knowledge was never-ending.\n\nFrieda cleared her throat. “This place …”\n\nEmily nodded. “Keep focused,” she said. She could feel alternate versions of herself and Frieda flickering around them, potential Emilys that could become realities without a second’s warning. The entire universe appeared to be shifting around her … if the world changed, she asked herself, and all the tools she used to measure it were changing too, would she know the world was changing? She could close her eyes, and open them as a very different Emily, and she might never know it. “This isn’t a human place.”\n\nShe reached out gingerly, probing the links to the threadlines. She’d known there were things in the gaps between universes, creatures and cancers that followed rules she couldn’t comprehend, but she hadn’t grasped the sheer immensity of the threat. The Inverse Shadow seemed to carve paths through dangerous realms, opening ways she could walk … fragile pathways that came and went at the drop of a hat, only held in place by a living mind. She had the sudden eerie sense of an ant, crawling across a human machine, utterly unable to comprehend the device let alone make use of it. She was the ant, and …\n\n… She misses her appointment with destiny and walks back home. Her mother is drunk. Her stepfather is absent. She graduates with few qualifications and gets a job as a shop assistant. She is paid minimum wage. It isn’t enough. She cannot afford to rent let alone get a place of her own. No boyfriend, no husband, no life. She exists in limbo, in living death, until her store is robbed and she is gunned down. Her life is over …\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. It wasn’t real. She knew it wasn’t. But it sure as hell felt real.\n\n“We can use it,” she said. The pathway lay open, barely. It really needed a controlling mind … she scowled. There was no way to get one. “I think we can get back into the threadlines.”\n", "completion": "“If she goes, she goes,” Emily said. She had no idea if they’d need Alassa later and … she had no idea what would happen if Alassa stayed in the alternate world. “If not … we’ll see.”\n\n“And if she brings Whitehall down on us?”\n\nEmily felt a sudden pang. Grandmaster Hasdrubal was only a few dozen miles away … a Grandmaster who didn’t know her, who’d never met her, who would regard her as a potential threat rather than an ally. She wanted to go see him, to ask for help, even though she knew it would be dangerous. And Void and the others were still out there … she could go seek out Lady Barb or Sergeant Miles or … she shook her head. They didn’t know her. It was better for them they never met her.\n\n“We’ll deal with it when it comes,” she said. “If it ever does.”\n\nThe Inverse Shadow shifted as they walked closer, a towering building that seemed to reach all the way to infinity one moment, a twisting structure that seemed as solid as a sandcastle the next. It was impossible to get any idea of its real shape, nor could she track the flickers of magic and something else, something far more dangerous, spinning in and out of reality around her. The structure existed in multiple dimensions at once, corridors leading in directions she couldn’t comprehend … she had the sudden uneasy sense she was being watched as the doorway opened in front of her, beckoning her into the shadows. Flickering things shifted in the gloom, dancing at the corner of her eye. They were gone the moment she looked at them.\n\nSlave Emily whimpered. “This place is wrong.”\n\nEmily took her hand. “It’s alright,” she said, although she knew it wasn’t true. “We’ll be out of here soon enough.”\n\nThe air felt still, as if time itself had stopped, as she walked further into the structure. She could see multiple different versions of the chamber surrounding her, ghostly visions of what was and what could be; she saw tall elegant humanoids making their way through the shadows, their features too perfect to be real, coming and going and coming and going … she flinched, despite herself, as an army of orcs ran at her and right through her. They weren’t real and yet … in a sense, they were more real than she was.\n\nShe gritted her teeth. Shadye had always kept his distance from the alien structure, which spoke volumes about just how dangerous it was. No one really knew where it came from: some argued it had been created by the Faerie, as a base of operations for their invasion of the human realm, while others insisted it had been summoned into existence by dark gods or that it had always been there, something so old it predated the world itself. Emily could practically feel the sense of timelessness and age surrounding the structure, something that wasn’t so much aging as a fixed point in time and space … the tip of an iceberg, poking up from another reality … small and yet a tiny fragment of a far greater whole. She wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else, but … the Inverse Shadow might be the only backdoor into the interdimensional threadlines. If she couldn’t find a nexus point …\n\nNo, she corrected herself. You don’t want to risk exposing the locals to the wolf.\n\nSlave Emily clutched her hand, tighter, as the mirror suddenly appeared in front of them. It was … eerie, stranger by far than the mirrors at Heart’s Eye. Emily wondered, as she stopped to study the interdimensional nightmare, if the original founders had visited the alien structure at some point, to learn how it worked and try to duplicate it. It wasn’t impossible. There was nothing in magic that couldn’t be understood, given time. And … her skin crawled. Master Wolfe had said the same thing, before he’d revealed the truth. The quest for knowledge was never-ending.\n\nFrieda cleared her throat. “This place …”\n\nEmily nodded. “Keep focused,” she said. She could feel alternate versions of herself and Frieda flickering around them, potential Emilys that could become realities without a second’s warning. The entire universe appeared to be shifting around her … if the world changed, she asked herself, and all the tools she used to measure it were changing too, would she know the world was changing? She could close her eyes, and open them as a very different Emily, and she might never know it. “This isn’t a human place.”\n\nShe reached out gingerly, probing the links to the threadlines. She’d known there were things in the gaps between universes, creatures and cancers that followed rules she couldn’t comprehend, but she hadn’t grasped the sheer immensity of the threat. The Inverse Shadow seemed to carve paths through dangerous realms, opening ways she could walk … fragile pathways that came and went at the drop of a hat, only held in place by a living mind. She had the sudden eerie sense of an ant, crawling across a human machine, utterly unable to comprehend the device let alone make use of it. She was the ant, and …\n\n… She misses her appointment with destiny and walks back home. Her mother is drunk. Her stepfather is absent. She graduates with few qualifications and gets a job as a shop assistant. She is paid minimum wage. It isn’t enough. She cannot afford to rent let alone get a place of her own. No boyfriend, no husband, no life. She exists in limbo, in living death, until her store is robbed and she is gunned down. Her life is over …\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. It wasn’t real. She knew it wasn’t. But it sure as hell felt real.\n\n“We can use it,” she said. The pathway lay open, barely. It really needed a controlling mind … she scowled. There was no way to get one. “I think we can get back into the threadlines.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1017, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch24-P3", "chapter": "ch24", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nInverse Shadow — both words capitalized.\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized; the god-scale pursuer.\nZangaria — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily forces a path through the Inverse Shadow’s mirror toward the threadlines while Slave Emily clings and Frieda fights tears among flickering alternate selves.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nOutside/after the pathway work; must explain the chase and hear Alassa’s decision to stay and take Slave Emily into local anonymity.\n\nFrieda\nAsks how they stop him; names they are being chased by a god.\n\nAlassa\nColdly determined to stay; bitter hope that this world’s father is still hers; offers to take Slave Emily where no one knows her.\n\nSlave Emily\nSmiling in a way that chills; lips shaking with forced determination.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nSlave Emily clutched her hand, tighter, as the mirror suddenly appeared in front of them. It was … eerie, stranger by far than the mirrors at Heart’s Eye. Emily wondered, as she stopped to study the interdimensional nightmare, if the original founders had visited the alien structure at some point, to learn how it worked and try to duplicate it. It wasn’t impossible. There was nothing in magic that couldn’t be understood, given time. And … her skin crawled. Master Wolfe had said the same thing, before he’d revealed the truth. The quest for knowledge was never-ending.\n\nFrieda cleared her throat. “This place …”\n\nEmily nodded. “Keep focused,” she said. She could feel alternate versions of herself and Frieda flickering around them, potential Emilys that could become realities without a second’s warning. The entire universe appeared to be shifting around her … if the world changed, she asked herself, and all the tools she used to measure it were changing too, would she know the world was changing? She could close her eyes, and open them as a very different Emily, and she might never know it. “This isn’t a human place.”\n\nShe reached out gingerly, probing the links to the threadlines. She’d known there were things in the gaps between universes, creatures and cancers that followed rules she couldn’t comprehend, but she hadn’t grasped the sheer immensity of the threat. The Inverse Shadow seemed to carve paths through dangerous realms, opening ways she could walk … fragile pathways that came and went at the drop of a hat, only held in place by a living mind. She had the sudden eerie sense of an ant, crawling across a human machine, utterly unable to comprehend the device let alone make use of it. She was the ant, and …\n\n… She misses her appointment with destiny and walks back home. Her mother is drunk. Her stepfather is absent. She graduates with few qualifications and gets a job as a shop assistant. She is paid minimum wage. It isn’t enough. She cannot afford to rent let alone get a place of her own. No boyfriend, no husband, no life. She exists in limbo, in living death, until her store is robbed and she is gunned down. Her life is over …\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. It wasn’t real. She knew it wasn’t. But it sure as hell felt real.\n\n“We can use it,” she said. The pathway lay open, barely. It really needed a controlling mind … she scowled. There was no way to get one. “I think we can get back into the threadlines.”\n\n### NOTES\nPost-pathway moment near/inside Inverse Shadow approaches; supplies/bread in hand for a mundane beat.\nMaster Wolfe as god-scale pursuer established in talk.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe looks back to Frieda’s tears and Slave Emily’s chilling smile, then through bread-slicing practicality into the truth: they are chased by a god. Alassa declares she will stay, earn keep, seek her father, and take Slave Emily into anonymity. Emily asks why—and smiles and tells her. Land on that answer beginning.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Quiet resolve after alien dread. Land on Emily smiling and telling her.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She looked back. Frieda was blinking away tears. Slave Emily was smiling in a manner that chilled Emily to the bone, her lips shaking in the manner of someone who was determined to keep up appearances even though she knew her world was crumbling around her. They’d seen something else … Emily guessed it hadn’t been pleasant. And they’d felt real …\n\n“We need to get out of here,” she said. “Hurry.”\n\nIt felt as if it had taken hours to get into the structure. Walking out took a few seconds, as if the Inverse Shadow was glad to be rid of them. Great powers hummed around her as she stepped through the doorway and back into the Blighted Lands, darkness falling over the ashy landscape like a shroud. Emily shivered – it had been early afternoon only a few minutes ago – and led the way back into the fortress, where Alassa was waiting for them, reading a book. Her face was grim, unreadable.\n\nShe looked up as they entered. “Did you find anything?”\n\n“More or less,” Emily said. An odd feeling of disconnection ran through her as Alassa put the book on the table. It was old, practically handmade … it wasn’t from a printing press. There would only be a relative handful of copies, each one worth a king’s ransom. Another reminder they were in a very different world. “We can use it to get back onto the threadlines.”\n\n“And then?” Frieda took a loaf of bread and started to slice it up. “How do we stop him?”\n\n“We sneak back into the nexus points and use them,” Emily said. Their timeless nature would help, she thought. In one sense, it would take hours to conjure everything she needed; in another, the process would be practically instantaneous. It would be like playing a computer strategy game where she pressed pause, issued orders to her units while the game was frozen, then started the clock running again and watched her units carry the orders out without hesitation. “And then we try to take him apart from the inside.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “That sounds like a very well-developed plan.”\n\nFrieda glowered. “Do you have a better idea?”\n\n“Do you?”\n\n“No.” Frieda scowled at her hands. “We’re being chased by a god.”\n\n“He’s not all-powerful,” Emily said, quietly. “If we start thinking he is, we’re beaten.”\n\n“He tore my world apart,” Alassa said. “No necromancer could do that, Emily. Nothing less than a god could.”\n\n“He’s powerful,” Emily conceded. “But he isn’t invincible.”\n\nShe met Slave Emily’s eyes, just for a second, and tried not to flinch as her counterpart dropped her eyes to the table. There was no agency there, no powers or knowledge … her counterpart couldn’t help them, she couldn’t even help herself. She was a slave, so completely broken that … she shuddered, helplessly, as she realised just how badly Shadye had traumatised his unwilling guest. He’d never been a person to Slave Emily, but a force of nature. A master so far beyond her comprehension that she’d come to believe he was invincible. And the slave collar he’d put on her …\n\nAlassa spoke with cold determination. “I’m going to stay.”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Frieda. “This isn’t your world,” she said, not for the first time. “I know …”\n\n“My world is gone,” Alassa said. “My duty to my kingdom and my people died with them.”\n\nEmily blinked. Alassa had been self-centred and selfish as a teenager, but she’d grown out of it … mostly. This Alassa had had a very different life. She could see, all too well, how Alassa had finally given up, finally asked herself why she should continue to sacrifice for a world that was now nothing more than a memory. She’d fought the good fight at immense personal cost and now … she just wanted it all to be over. Emily’s heart broke for her.\n\n“You can’t just slip into your counterpart’s life,” she said, not for the first time. “There’s already a you here.”\n\n“I know enough to earn my keep,” Alassa said. Her voice shook with bitter hopelessness … made worse by the single desperate flicker of genuine hope. “My father … he is my father, in every way that matters … will take me in. I am his daughter, and … he’ll take me. He will.”\n\nEmily hesitated. “If that is what you want to do …”\n\nShe stopped herself. She didn’t think it would work out well at all, but … could she keep Alassa from trying? Probably not, at least without using force. Alassa was too damaged to care and … she wasn’t close friends with this Alassa. Her friend would listen to her. This Alassa looked at her and saw the necromancer who’d destroyed her world. They could never be close friends.\n\n“Help us one final time, then you can stay here,” she said, finally. It would solve one problem if Alassa did stay behind, although there was a whole host of other problems waiting in the wings. “Whatever happens … you won’t see us again.”\n\nAnd how can you be sure, her thoughts mocked, that she’ll never see you again?\n\n“I can take her too,” Alassa said, indicating Slave Emily. “No one knows her here …”\n\n“No,” Emily said. She couldn’t leave her counterpart, not here. She was too weak and vulnerable and … she didn’t wholly trust this Alassa. “She comes with us.”\n\nSlave Emily said nothing. No happy acceptance. No protest. It broke Emily’s heart.\n\n“As you wish,” Alassa said. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“We’ll get one more night of sleep,” Emily said. It was funny. They’d lost a few hours and yet she still felt tired. But then, the Inverse Shadow had been a very alien environment. “And then we’re going into the Inverse Shadow once again.”\n\n“Why?”\n\nEmily smiled, then told her.\n", "completion": "She looked back. Frieda was blinking away tears. Slave Emily was smiling in a manner that chilled Emily to the bone, her lips shaking in the manner of someone who was determined to keep up appearances even though she knew her world was crumbling around her. They’d seen something else … Emily guessed it hadn’t been pleasant. And they’d felt real …\n\n“We need to get out of here,” she said. “Hurry.”\n\nIt felt as if it had taken hours to get into the structure. Walking out took a few seconds, as if the Inverse Shadow was glad to be rid of them. Great powers hummed around her as she stepped through the doorway and back into the Blighted Lands, darkness falling over the ashy landscape like a shroud. Emily shivered – it had been early afternoon only a few minutes ago – and led the way back into the fortress, where Alassa was waiting for them, reading a book. Her face was grim, unreadable.\n\nShe looked up as they entered. “Did you find anything?”\n\n“More or less,” Emily said. An odd feeling of disconnection ran through her as Alassa put the book on the table. It was old, practically handmade … it wasn’t from a printing press. There would only be a relative handful of copies, each one worth a king’s ransom. Another reminder they were in a very different world. “We can use it to get back onto the threadlines.”\n\n“And then?” Frieda took a loaf of bread and started to slice it up. “How do we stop him?”\n\n“We sneak back into the nexus points and use them,” Emily said. Their timeless nature would help, she thought. In one sense, it would take hours to conjure everything she needed; in another, the process would be practically instantaneous. It would be like playing a computer strategy game where she pressed pause, issued orders to her units while the game was frozen, then started the clock running again and watched her units carry the orders out without hesitation. “And then we try to take him apart from the inside.”\n\nAlassa snorted. “That sounds like a very well-developed plan.”\n\nFrieda glowered. “Do you have a better idea?”\n\n“Do you?”\n\n“No.” Frieda scowled at her hands. “We’re being chased by a god.”\n\n“He’s not all-powerful,” Emily said, quietly. “If we start thinking he is, we’re beaten.”\n\n“He tore my world apart,” Alassa said. “No necromancer could do that, Emily. Nothing less than a god could.”\n\n“He’s powerful,” Emily conceded. “But he isn’t invincible.”\n\nShe met Slave Emily’s eyes, just for a second, and tried not to flinch as her counterpart dropped her eyes to the table. There was no agency there, no powers or knowledge … her counterpart couldn’t help them, she couldn’t even help herself. She was a slave, so completely broken that … she shuddered, helplessly, as she realised just how badly Shadye had traumatised his unwilling guest. He’d never been a person to Slave Emily, but a force of nature. A master so far beyond her comprehension that she’d come to believe he was invincible. And the slave collar he’d put on her …\n\nAlassa spoke with cold determination. “I’m going to stay.”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Frieda. “This isn’t your world,” she said, not for the first time. “I know …”\n\n“My world is gone,” Alassa said. “My duty to my kingdom and my people died with them.”\n\nEmily blinked. Alassa had been self-centred and selfish as a teenager, but she’d grown out of it … mostly. This Alassa had had a very different life. She could see, all too well, how Alassa had finally given up, finally asked herself why she should continue to sacrifice for a world that was now nothing more than a memory. She’d fought the good fight at immense personal cost and now … she just wanted it all to be over. Emily’s heart broke for her.\n\n“You can’t just slip into your counterpart’s life,” she said, not for the first time. “There’s already a you here.”\n\n“I know enough to earn my keep,” Alassa said. Her voice shook with bitter hopelessness … made worse by the single desperate flicker of genuine hope. “My father … he is my father, in every way that matters … will take me in. I am his daughter, and … he’ll take me. He will.”\n\nEmily hesitated. “If that is what you want to do …”\n\nShe stopped herself. She didn’t think it would work out well at all, but … could she keep Alassa from trying? Probably not, at least without using force. Alassa was too damaged to care and … she wasn’t close friends with this Alassa. Her friend would listen to her. This Alassa looked at her and saw the necromancer who’d destroyed her world. They could never be close friends.\n\n“Help us one final time, then you can stay here,” she said, finally. It would solve one problem if Alassa did stay behind, although there was a whole host of other problems waiting in the wings. “Whatever happens … you won’t see us again.”\n\nAnd how can you be sure, her thoughts mocked, that she’ll never see you again?\n\n“I can take her too,” Alassa said, indicating Slave Emily. “No one knows her here …”\n\n“No,” Emily said. She couldn’t leave her counterpart, not here. She was too weak and vulnerable and … she didn’t wholly trust this Alassa. “She comes with us.”\n\nSlave Emily said nothing. No happy acceptance. No protest. It broke Emily’s heart.\n\n“As you wish,” Alassa said. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“We’ll get one more night of sleep,” Emily said. It was funny. They’d lost a few hours and yet she still felt tired. But then, the Inverse Shadow had been a very alien environment. “And then we’re going into the Inverse Shadow once again.”\n\n“Why?”\n\nEmily smiled, then told her.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1004, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch25-P1", "chapter": "ch25", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nInverse Shadow — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nthe wolf — keep gold’s capitalization for the pacing predator above the timelines.\naleph — lowercase as in gold unless capitalized there.\n\n### STORY\nAlassa chooses to stay in the blighted alternate and take Slave Emily; Emily tells her why that choice lands as it does, then the remaining party must move on.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nWalking Alassa back into the Inverse Shadow for goodbye; warns her to keep eyes on them. Sees the wolf pacing above timelines as they commit; darkness and eerie light take her toward Master Wolfe.\n\nAlassa\nMutters it isn’t real; thanks Emily; mutinous then shrugging about staying.\n\nFrieda\nRechecking her bag.\n\nSlave Emily\nWaiting for orders; Emily hides a shudder.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nAppears as Emily turns in the haze—form shifting, eyes dark.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily blinked. Alassa had been self-centred and selfish as a teenager, but she’d grown out of it … mostly. This Alassa had had a very different life. She could see, all too well, how Alassa had finally given up, finally asked herself why she should continue to sacrifice for a world that was now nothing more than a memory. She’d fought the good fight at immense personal cost and now … she just wanted it all to be over. Emily’s heart broke for her.\n\n“You can’t just slip into your counterpart’s life,” she said, not for the first time. “There’s already a you here.”\n\n“I know enough to earn my keep,” Alassa said. Her voice shook with bitter hopelessness … made worse by the single desperate flicker of genuine hope. “My father … he is my father, in every way that matters … will take me in. I am his daughter, and … he’ll take me. He will.”\n\nEmily hesitated. “If that is what you want to do …”\n\nShe stopped herself. She didn’t think it would work out well at all, but … could she keep Alassa from trying? Probably not, at least without using force. Alassa was too damaged to care and … she wasn’t close friends with this Alassa. Her friend would listen to her. This Alassa looked at her and saw the necromancer who’d destroyed her world. They could never be close friends.\n\n“Help us one final time, then you can stay here,” she said, finally. It would solve one problem if Alassa did stay behind, although there was a whole host of other problems waiting in the wings. “Whatever happens … you won’t see us again.”\n\nAnd how can you be sure, her thoughts mocked, that she’ll never see you again?\n\n“I can take her too,” Alassa said, indicating Slave Emily. “No one knows her here …”\n\n“No,” Emily said. She couldn’t leave her counterpart, not here. She was too weak and vulnerable and … she didn’t wholly trust this Alassa. “She comes with us.”\n\nSlave Emily said nothing. No happy acceptance. No protest. It broke Emily’s heart.\n\n“As you wish,” Alassa said. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“We’ll get one more night of sleep,” Emily said. It was funny. They’d lost a few hours and yet she still felt tired. But then, the Inverse Shadow had been a very alien environment. “And then we’re going into the Inverse Shadow once again.”\n\n“Why?”\n\nEmily smiled, then told her.\n\n### NOTES\nHeart of the Inverse Shadow; mirror wrapped in darkness.\nWolf visible above timelines searching for prey.\nTransition into Master Wolfe’s dark survey-space.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThey walk Alassa back into the Inverse Shadow while she insists it isn’t real; goodbyes land awkward and unfinished. Emily glances at Frieda and order-waiting Slave Emily, sees the wolf pacing overhead, and the darkness takes her into an eerie haze. She turns and Master Wolfe is there, always on the edge of perception. Land on that confrontation’s start.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Farewell unease into cosmic dread. Land on Master Wolfe’s appearance.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“It isn’t real,” Alassa muttered, as they walked back into the Inverse Shadow. “It isn’t real.”\n\nEmily nodded in sympathy. Their night had been restless, none sleeping well despite knowing they were going to return to the Inverse Shadow and hopefully step back into the multiverse. The morning had been no better, shadows seeming to cling around their minds as they ate breakfast, gathered the remainder of the loot from the fortress and buried a handful of trinkets too dangerous to sell or destroy. The images surrounding them from the moment they stepped into the alien structure were the worst of all, alternates flickering in and out of existence … each worse than the last. She had the nasty feeling the structure was watching them, assessing them and judging them. It didn’t seem to think they were worthy.\n\n“Keep your eyes on us as long as possible,” she reminded Alassa, as they reached the heart of the alien building. The mirror hovered in front of them, wrapped in darkness and the shadow of billions upon billions of alternate worlds. “Once you lose sight of us …”\n\nShe shook her head. “Good luck.”\n\n“And to you,” Alassa said. “Thanks for everything.”\n\nEmily winced, inwardly. “Just remember your counterpart belongs here,” she said. “Whatever agreement you make with King Randor needs to take that into account.”\n\nAlassa looked mutinous, then shrugged. Emily scowled. She didn’t see it working out in any real sense of the word. This wasn’t her world and never would be. But there was no way to keep her from leaving, save taking her by force, and that would mean they’d have an enemy at their back as well as their front. She couldn’t bring herself to consider hurting or killing Alassa. It wasn’t her Alassa but still …\n\n“I know.” Alassa sagged. “I won’t hurt her for my sake.”\n\nEmily glanced at Frieda and Slave Emily. Frieda was checking and rechecking her bag, Slave Emily looked as though she was waiting for orders. Emily shuddered and tried to hide it. Her counterpart had almost no agency of her own, to a terrifying degree. Give her an order, or something that could be construed as an order, and she’d follow it to the best of her ability. She didn’t seem capable of creatively interpreting the instructions, searching for loopholes or even maliciously complying with the letter of the order while undermining the spirit. Her mere presence was deeply disconcerting and …\n\nShe thrust that line of thought aside and stepped up to the mirror. The world wavered in front of her, the threadline manifesting in a manner that suggested it had always been there. She had a sense of something intruding from outside her conceptual framework, whatever that meant, as she touched the surface lightly. It rippled under her hand, inviting her to step out of the universe and into the multiverse. A frisson of fear shot through her – she was about to step into the cracks between realms, forgotten corners of the universe that had given birth to creatures so alien their mere presence was destructive beyond words – and she almost stopped, before taking Frieda’s hand and forcing herself on.\n\n“Goodbye …”\n\nThe mirror opened onto a pathway, leading into the gloom. Eerie brownish light surrounded them, the pathway unsteady under their feet. Emily knew it was an illusion, that her mind was trying to comprehend what she saw in a manner she could understand, and yet she had the feeling they were walking on very thin ice indeed as they pressed on. The corridor walls closed in around them, shifting every time she looked away; she heard voices whispering, promising everything she’d ever wanted, if she only bowed the knee and let the speakers into the human realm. The sound grew louder, digging into her mind, as they spoke secrets and dragged up old shames and bitter memories. She clenched her teeth and forced herself onwards, trying to tell herself the voices weren’t real. But they felt real.\n\nShe looked up and saw the wolf, pacing above them. It was huge and yet tiny at the same time, bright red eyes blazing down at the timelines as it searched for its lawful prey. Emily heard Slave Emily whimper behind her, the sheer terror in her voice chilling Emily to the bone. The wolf didn’t seem to know where they were, but she still felt naked and exposed as it prowled the multiverse. Master Wolfe was a shadow hanging over everything. How could she even hope to fight something so powerful? She felt foolish for even thinking she could.\n\nThe path shifted. Light flared in front of them. Frieda screamed, yanking her hand out of Emily’s … the world went white, then black, then white again … Emily felt something grab her by the collar, yanking her up and into a whole new world …\n\nShe staggered. The darkness was all around her … no, it wasn’t complete darkness. She could see a faint light below her, an eerie haze that chilled her and yet called to her at the same time … the  scale was so vast it took her long moments to realise she was seeing entire galaxies, immense clusters of stars too big to be comprehended, laid out before her as if she were a god herself. It brought back memories of old fantasies, about starships so fast they could hop from galaxy to galaxy in the blink of an eye, ideas she’d had before growing old enough to realise the space shuttle couldn’t go faster than light and humanity had given up on space before fairly starting the next age of exploration. Tears prickled in her eyes as she saw great empires, immense in size yet tiny compared to the universe. It was a destiny that should have been humanity’s.\n\nAnd someone was behind her. Something.\n\nShe turned, slowly. Master Wolfe was standing there, his eyes dark and shadowed. His form shifted constantly, always on the edge of her perception without ever quite coming into the light. She thought she saw things under his humanoid form, faint shadowy tentacles that came and went … her eyes hurt when she tried to look at them a little closer, to try to determine what they were. He was more than human now – she’d known that – but he was changing in ways even he hadn’t expected. And she was at his mercy.\n", "completion": "“It isn’t real,” Alassa muttered, as they walked back into the Inverse Shadow. “It isn’t real.”\n\nEmily nodded in sympathy. Their night had been restless, none sleeping well despite knowing they were going to return to the Inverse Shadow and hopefully step back into the multiverse. The morning had been no better, shadows seeming to cling around their minds as they ate breakfast, gathered the remainder of the loot from the fortress and buried a handful of trinkets too dangerous to sell or destroy. The images surrounding them from the moment they stepped into the alien structure were the worst of all, alternates flickering in and out of existence … each worse than the last. She had the nasty feeling the structure was watching them, assessing them and judging them. It didn’t seem to think they were worthy.\n\n“Keep your eyes on us as long as possible,” she reminded Alassa, as they reached the heart of the alien building. The mirror hovered in front of them, wrapped in darkness and the shadow of billions upon billions of alternate worlds. “Once you lose sight of us …”\n\nShe shook her head. “Good luck.”\n\n“And to you,” Alassa said. “Thanks for everything.”\n\nEmily winced, inwardly. “Just remember your counterpart belongs here,” she said. “Whatever agreement you make with King Randor needs to take that into account.”\n\nAlassa looked mutinous, then shrugged. Emily scowled. She didn’t see it working out in any real sense of the word. This wasn’t her world and never would be. But there was no way to keep her from leaving, save taking her by force, and that would mean they’d have an enemy at their back as well as their front. She couldn’t bring herself to consider hurting or killing Alassa. It wasn’t her Alassa but still …\n\n“I know.” Alassa sagged. “I won’t hurt her for my sake.”\n\nEmily glanced at Frieda and Slave Emily. Frieda was checking and rechecking her bag, Slave Emily looked as though she was waiting for orders. Emily shuddered and tried to hide it. Her counterpart had almost no agency of her own, to a terrifying degree. Give her an order, or something that could be construed as an order, and she’d follow it to the best of her ability. She didn’t seem capable of creatively interpreting the instructions, searching for loopholes or even maliciously complying with the letter of the order while undermining the spirit. Her mere presence was deeply disconcerting and …\n\nShe thrust that line of thought aside and stepped up to the mirror. The world wavered in front of her, the threadline manifesting in a manner that suggested it had always been there. She had a sense of something intruding from outside her conceptual framework, whatever that meant, as she touched the surface lightly. It rippled under her hand, inviting her to step out of the universe and into the multiverse. A frisson of fear shot through her – she was about to step into the cracks between realms, forgotten corners of the universe that had given birth to creatures so alien their mere presence was destructive beyond words – and she almost stopped, before taking Frieda’s hand and forcing herself on.\n\n“Goodbye …”\n\nThe mirror opened onto a pathway, leading into the gloom. Eerie brownish light surrounded them, the pathway unsteady under their feet. Emily knew it was an illusion, that her mind was trying to comprehend what she saw in a manner she could understand, and yet she had the feeling they were walking on very thin ice indeed as they pressed on. The corridor walls closed in around them, shifting every time she looked away; she heard voices whispering, promising everything she’d ever wanted, if she only bowed the knee and let the speakers into the human realm. The sound grew louder, digging into her mind, as they spoke secrets and dragged up old shames and bitter memories. She clenched her teeth and forced herself onwards, trying to tell herself the voices weren’t real. But they felt real.\n\nShe looked up and saw the wolf, pacing above them. It was huge and yet tiny at the same time, bright red eyes blazing down at the timelines as it searched for its lawful prey. Emily heard Slave Emily whimper behind her, the sheer terror in her voice chilling Emily to the bone. The wolf didn’t seem to know where they were, but she still felt naked and exposed as it prowled the multiverse. Master Wolfe was a shadow hanging over everything. How could she even hope to fight something so powerful? She felt foolish for even thinking she could.\n\nThe path shifted. Light flared in front of them. Frieda screamed, yanking her hand out of Emily’s … the world went white, then black, then white again … Emily felt something grab her by the collar, yanking her up and into a whole new world …\n\nShe staggered. The darkness was all around her … no, it wasn’t complete darkness. She could see a faint light below her, an eerie haze that chilled her and yet called to her at the same time … the  scale was so vast it took her long moments to realise she was seeing entire galaxies, immense clusters of stars too big to be comprehended, laid out before her as if she were a god herself. It brought back memories of old fantasies, about starships so fast they could hop from galaxy to galaxy in the blink of an eye, ideas she’d had before growing old enough to realise the space shuttle couldn’t go faster than light and humanity had given up on space before fairly starting the next age of exploration. Tears prickled in her eyes as she saw great empires, immense in size yet tiny compared to the universe. It was a destiny that should have been humanity’s.\n\nAnd someone was behind her. Something.\n\nShe turned, slowly. Master Wolfe was standing there, his eyes dark and shadowed. His form shifted constantly, always on the edge of her perception without ever quite coming into the light. She thought she saw things under his humanoid form, faint shadowy tentacles that came and went … her eyes hurt when she tried to look at them a little closer, to try to determine what they were. He was more than human now – she’d known that – but he was changing in ways even he hadn’t expected. And she was at his mercy.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1086, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch25-P2", "chapter": "ch25", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\naleph — as Master Wolfe names it; keep gold’s casing.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nthreadlines — one word.\nbilocation — one word; keep the compound spelling.\n\n### STORY\nEmily parts from stay-behind Alassa in the Inverse Shadow, sees the wolf above the timelines, and is pulled into Master Wolfe’s presence.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nHelpless before Master Wolfe’s aleph survey of the multiverse; refuses to beg; angered that he spies on her bilocated self and failed to erase her with a thought.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nHundred-thousand-voiced harmony; claims the aleph and will over the multiverse; invites her to join and become God.\n\nFrieda\nThought of her can pull Emily’s attention along threadlines; not physically centered here.\n\nSlave Emily\nSame—reachable by thought-link from the aleph.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe looked up and saw the wolf, pacing above them. It was huge and yet tiny at the same time, bright red eyes blazing down at the timelines as it searched for its lawful prey. Emily heard Slave Emily whimper behind her, the sheer terror in her voice chilling Emily to the bone. The wolf didn’t seem to know where they were, but she still felt naked and exposed as it prowled the multiverse. Master Wolfe was a shadow hanging over everything. How could she even hope to fight something so powerful? She felt foolish for even thinking she could.\n\nThe path shifted. Light flared in front of them. Frieda screamed, yanking her hand out of Emily’s … the world went white, then black, then white again … Emily felt something grab her by the collar, yanking her up and into a whole new world …\n\nShe staggered. The darkness was all around her … no, it wasn’t complete darkness. She could see a faint light below her, an eerie haze that chilled her and yet called to her at the same time … the  scale was so vast it took her long moments to realise she was seeing entire galaxies, immense clusters of stars too big to be comprehended, laid out before her as if she were a god herself. It brought back memories of old fantasies, about starships so fast they could hop from galaxy to galaxy in the blink of an eye, ideas she’d had before growing old enough to realise the space shuttle couldn’t go faster than light and humanity had given up on space before fairly starting the next age of exploration. Tears prickled in her eyes as she saw great empires, immense in size yet tiny compared to the universe. It was a destiny that should have been humanity’s.\n\nAnd someone was behind her. Something.\n\nShe turned, slowly. Master Wolfe was standing there, his eyes dark and shadowed. His form shifted constantly, always on the edge of her perception without ever quite coming into the light. She thought she saw things under his humanoid form, faint shadowy tentacles that came and went … her eyes hurt when she tried to look at them a little closer, to try to determine what they were. He was more than human now – she’d known that – but he was changing in ways even he hadn’t expected. And she was at his mercy.\n\n### NOTES\nThe aleph: Master Wolfe’s survey-point over universes, threadlines, and cracks.\nEmily’s bilocation already detected.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nMaster Wolfe names the aleph and opens the multiverse network; Emily asks what he wants without begging. He has already found her bilocated self and failed to erase her; she feels violated by a god’s eyes. He leans in and offers paradise—join him, become God, end struggle. Land on that offer.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Cosmic temptation; keep Emily’s pride sharp. Land on Join me / Become God.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“This is the aleph,” Master Wolfe said. His voice was a harmony that grated against her ears, a hundred thousand voices blurred into one. “From this point, we can survey the entire multiverse.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. “Where are my friends?”\n\n“Down there. Somewhere.” Master Wolfe gave her a too-bright smile, his mouth widening in a manner that wasn't physically possible. She caught a glimpse of too many white teeth before the smile vanished, another reminder he was no longer human. “Look for them. If you wish.”\n\n“What do you want?” Emily knew she was helpless. She had too much pride to beg. “Why … why call me here?”\n\n“Look for your friends,” Master Wolfe said. His form shifted to that of an older man. “See if you can find them.”\n\nEmily looked down. The galaxies swept up at her, a dizzying series of impressions that came and went too quickly for her to see more than a handful of glimpses before they were gone again. A dull roaring sound echoed through her ears, the thoughts of unimaginable numbers of people battering her mind; she tried to focus, only to discover it was impossible. It felt like she was looking at someone right next to her through a telescope, her perceptions too wide and yet too limited to make much sense of what she was seeing. A dozen secrets battered her mind, secrets that belonged to others and yet called to her … she felt obscenely guilty as she tried to pull her mind back from the brink. She’d become a voyeur in the truest possible sense.\n\nThe multiverse opened up in front of her, an endless network of universes, threadlines, and cracks between worlds. Frieda and Slave Emily … the mere thought of them was enough to bring them into her sight, their bodies solid and yet translucent at the same time. She could count every atom, read every thought … they were trapped in a single moment of not-time, imprisoned between dimensions … something was crawling towards them, inching out of a rift in space-time, moving with a slowness that mocked her and yet a speed that terrified her. The corruption of the multiverse was growing stronger, more and more realms falling into madness as they fell under the shadow …\n\nShe pulled back, hard. “Why are you doing this?”\n\n“I know everything,” Master Wolfe said. “I know about you.”\n\n“Big deal.” Emily refused to show how much that bothered her, even though she knew it was futile. “You’re not the only one.”\n\nMaster Wolfe’s form shifted, again. Emily caught a glimpse of a young woman, no older than herself, before she was gone. “I have become the determinant of all,” Master Wolfe told her. His voice had changed too. She had the sudden impression of thousands of faces staring at her from behind his eyes. “The universe will be recreated in my image.”\n\n“And you think that’s a good idea?” Emily didn’t try to hide her sarcasm. He could see into her very thoughts. “You’re too limited to let the universe evolve properly. You’re not God.”\n\n“Are you sure?” Master Wolfe cocked his head. “It is my will that determines the course of the multiverse.”\n\n“I think that’s the problem,” Emily said. “What do you want with me?”\n\n“Your other self is quite clever,” Master Wolfe told her. “She’s locked you into existence … as long as she keeps her eyes on you … so she’s found a way to do it without taking her eyes off you. You’re locked into existence, an itch I can’t scratch. The last remnants of the old universe overshadowing me.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. She’d hoped her bilocated self would remain undetected. No such luck. Master Wolfe had failed to erase her from existence with a thought, a task he should have been able to accomplish easily. Naturally, he’d want to know why. She hoped he couldn’t find a way to get into the nexus point, to crush her other self from existence before turning his attention to her. If he could …\n\nI have to hurry, she told herself. He’s bound to find a way in sooner or later.\n\n“I have seen every moment of every one of your lives,” Master Wolfe continued. “Emilys so good they’re practically saints, Emilys so evil they make genocidal dictators look saintly by comparison. You have lived good lives and bad ones, you have had happy endings and tragic deaths and everything in between. I know your lives better than yourself.”\n\n“And?” Emily felt violated, in a manner she couldn’t quite explain. “You have the eyes of a god and you’re using them to spy on me?”\n\nMaster Wolfe’s face shifted again. She saw threadlines of power reaching out in directions she couldn’t understand, linking him to the nexus points … ice prickled down her spine as she realised he was securely lodged, held in place by reality itself. He would exist, he did exist, he would always exist. Perhaps it was already too late.\n\n“You’ve lived a hard life,” Master Wolfe said. “But it doesn’t have to be like that. You could spend your entire life in heaven.”\n\nEmily narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”\n\n“Join me.” Master Wolfe leaned forward. “Become God. You can shape your own life, create a paradise for each and every one of you … create a paradise for everyone. No struggles. No brutal confrontations with the unfairness of the universe. Everyone gets their heaven, everyone gets a world where everything is perfect, nothing ever goes wrong. We can rewrite the rules of the universe, of the multiverse, to turn everything into paradise. You can help me.”\n", "completion": "“This is the aleph,” Master Wolfe said. His voice was a harmony that grated against her ears, a hundred thousand voices blurred into one. “From this point, we can survey the entire multiverse.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. “Where are my friends?”\n\n“Down there. Somewhere.” Master Wolfe gave her a too-bright smile, his mouth widening in a manner that wasn't physically possible. She caught a glimpse of too many white teeth before the smile vanished, another reminder he was no longer human. “Look for them. If you wish.”\n\n“What do you want?” Emily knew she was helpless. She had too much pride to beg. “Why … why call me here?”\n\n“Look for your friends,” Master Wolfe said. His form shifted to that of an older man. “See if you can find them.”\n\nEmily looked down. The galaxies swept up at her, a dizzying series of impressions that came and went too quickly for her to see more than a handful of glimpses before they were gone again. A dull roaring sound echoed through her ears, the thoughts of unimaginable numbers of people battering her mind; she tried to focus, only to discover it was impossible. It felt like she was looking at someone right next to her through a telescope, her perceptions too wide and yet too limited to make much sense of what she was seeing. A dozen secrets battered her mind, secrets that belonged to others and yet called to her … she felt obscenely guilty as she tried to pull her mind back from the brink. She’d become a voyeur in the truest possible sense.\n\nThe multiverse opened up in front of her, an endless network of universes, threadlines, and cracks between worlds. Frieda and Slave Emily … the mere thought of them was enough to bring them into her sight, their bodies solid and yet translucent at the same time. She could count every atom, read every thought … they were trapped in a single moment of not-time, imprisoned between dimensions … something was crawling towards them, inching out of a rift in space-time, moving with a slowness that mocked her and yet a speed that terrified her. The corruption of the multiverse was growing stronger, more and more realms falling into madness as they fell under the shadow …\n\nShe pulled back, hard. “Why are you doing this?”\n\n“I know everything,” Master Wolfe said. “I know about you.”\n\n“Big deal.” Emily refused to show how much that bothered her, even though she knew it was futile. “You’re not the only one.”\n\nMaster Wolfe’s form shifted, again. Emily caught a glimpse of a young woman, no older than herself, before she was gone. “I have become the determinant of all,” Master Wolfe told her. His voice had changed too. She had the sudden impression of thousands of faces staring at her from behind his eyes. “The universe will be recreated in my image.”\n\n“And you think that’s a good idea?” Emily didn’t try to hide her sarcasm. He could see into her very thoughts. “You’re too limited to let the universe evolve properly. You’re not God.”\n\n“Are you sure?” Master Wolfe cocked his head. “It is my will that determines the course of the multiverse.”\n\n“I think that’s the problem,” Emily said. “What do you want with me?”\n\n“Your other self is quite clever,” Master Wolfe told her. “She’s locked you into existence … as long as she keeps her eyes on you … so she’s found a way to do it without taking her eyes off you. You’re locked into existence, an itch I can’t scratch. The last remnants of the old universe overshadowing me.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. She’d hoped her bilocated self would remain undetected. No such luck. Master Wolfe had failed to erase her from existence with a thought, a task he should have been able to accomplish easily. Naturally, he’d want to know why. She hoped he couldn’t find a way to get into the nexus point, to crush her other self from existence before turning his attention to her. If he could …\n\nI have to hurry, she told herself. He’s bound to find a way in sooner or later.\n\n“I have seen every moment of every one of your lives,” Master Wolfe continued. “Emilys so good they’re practically saints, Emilys so evil they make genocidal dictators look saintly by comparison. You have lived good lives and bad ones, you have had happy endings and tragic deaths and everything in between. I know your lives better than yourself.”\n\n“And?” Emily felt violated, in a manner she couldn’t quite explain. “You have the eyes of a god and you’re using them to spy on me?”\n\nMaster Wolfe’s face shifted again. She saw threadlines of power reaching out in directions she couldn’t understand, linking him to the nexus points … ice prickled down her spine as she realised he was securely lodged, held in place by reality itself. He would exist, he did exist, he would always exist. Perhaps it was already too late.\n\n“You’ve lived a hard life,” Master Wolfe said. “But it doesn’t have to be like that. You could spend your entire life in heaven.”\n\nEmily narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”\n\n“Join me.” Master Wolfe leaned forward. “Become God. You can shape your own life, create a paradise for each and every one of you … create a paradise for everyone. No struggles. No brutal confrontations with the unfairness of the universe. Everyone gets their heaven, everyone gets a world where everything is perfect, nothing ever goes wrong. We can rewrite the rules of the universe, of the multiverse, to turn everything into paradise. You can help me.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 966, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch25-P3", "chapter": "ch25", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nImaiqah — capitalized; named in his temptation catalog.\nAlassa — capitalized; named in temptation.\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nMaster Wolfe shows Emily the aleph, admits he failed to erase her bilocation, and offers godhood and tailored paradises if she joins him.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nMid-refusal of the devil’s bargain; thinking of friends’ rewritten lives; must break from the aleph and run with those who can still move.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nPressing the temptation with Jesus-on-the-mountain echo and offers about Imaiqah, Alassa, and others.\n\nFrieda\nMust be grabbed for the run.\n\nSlave Emily\nMust be grabbed for the run.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I think that’s the problem,” Emily said. “What do you want with me?”\n\n“Your other self is quite clever,” Master Wolfe told her. “She’s locked you into existence … as long as she keeps her eyes on you … so she’s found a way to do it without taking her eyes off you. You’re locked into existence, an itch I can’t scratch. The last remnants of the old universe overshadowing me.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. She’d hoped her bilocated self would remain undetected. No such luck. Master Wolfe had failed to erase her from existence with a thought, a task he should have been able to accomplish easily. Naturally, he’d want to know why. She hoped he couldn’t find a way to get into the nexus point, to crush her other self from existence before turning his attention to her. If he could …\n\nI have to hurry, she told herself. He’s bound to find a way in sooner or later.\n\n“I have seen every moment of every one of your lives,” Master Wolfe continued. “Emilys so good they’re practically saints, Emilys so evil they make genocidal dictators look saintly by comparison. You have lived good lives and bad ones, you have had happy endings and tragic deaths and everything in between. I know your lives better than yourself.”\n\n“And?” Emily felt violated, in a manner she couldn’t quite explain. “You have the eyes of a god and you’re using them to spy on me?”\n\nMaster Wolfe’s face shifted again. She saw threadlines of power reaching out in directions she couldn’t understand, linking him to the nexus points … ice prickled down her spine as she realised he was securely lodged, held in place by reality itself. He would exist, he did exist, he would always exist. Perhaps it was already too late.\n\n“You’ve lived a hard life,” Master Wolfe said. “But it doesn’t have to be like that. You could spend your entire life in heaven.”\n\nEmily narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”\n\n“Join me.” Master Wolfe leaned forward. “Become God. You can shape your own life, create a paradise for each and every one of you … create a paradise for everyone. No struggles. No brutal confrontations with the unfairness of the universe. Everyone gets their heaven, everyone gets a world where everything is perfect, nothing ever goes wrong. We can rewrite the rules of the universe, of the multiverse, to turn everything into paradise. You can help me.”\n\n### NOTES\nStill in Master Wolfe’s aleph/dark survey space as refusal turns to flight.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe stammers under the offer as he catalogs better lives for Imaiqah, Alassa, and the rest, and she answers with the devil-and-Jesus mountain temptation. Refusal hardens into motion—there is no safe bargain. Land on the shouted run.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Temptation refused at speed. Land on Run!\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I …”\n\n“Wouldn’t you rather grow up with a mother who was there?” Master Wolfe leaned forward. “Or a father who didn’t abandon you? Or an education in magic right from the start, instead of only learning about magic when you were whisked into another world?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. She was honest enough to admit it. “But that doesn’t mean we should rewrite reality.”\n\n“You could be anything you want, have anything you want,” Master Wolfe said. “We all could have everything we want, all the time.”\n\nHe smiled, his face shifting again. “And what about your friends? Would Imaiqah’s life be better if she grew up in a world where she wasn’t limited by her social class? Would Alassa’s life be better if she had a father who didn’t resent her lack of a penis? Would Frieda have a better life if she’d been born to a better family? Would Caleb be a different person if he’d gone to Whitehall from the start? Would Adam have developed magitech earlier if he’d had magic of his own? You could give them everything they wanted …”\n\nEmily hesitated. The offer was tempting and yet … she had the awful feeling there was a sting in the tail. It might not be deliberate, but it was there. She just couldn’t see it.\n\n“We could be gods,” Master Wolfe said. “God. Join me.”\n\nEmily stared down at the multiverse. The galaxies below were shifting, her gaze binding them to a common reality … was she defining reality, she asked herself, or was she simply narrowing her sight until she was looking at one specific timeline in an immensity of others. Was she stealing free will from everyone below her or was she just seeing one set of possible choices play themselves out time and time again? She had the nasty feeling there was no difference, not on this level. Schrödinger's Cat wasn’t caught between two states when she looked into the box – and she was always looking into the box. If a tree fell in a forest and there was no one around, did it make a sound? It did, because she was there to hear.\n\n“And the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed Him the kingdoms of the world and promised Him them, if only he would worship the devil,” she muttered. It had been a long time since she’d read the Bible and she wasn’t sure it was biblically accurate, but it was close enough. “Get thee behind me, please.”\n\nMaster Wolfe seemed oddly amused. “And would you worship a God who allows so much injustice to exist?”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. He was expressing the doubts she’d had as a child, when religion had contrasted with reality. It was like believing in Santa Claus and then wondering why he seemed to think richer kids were better behaved than their poorer counterparts. Why did God allow such things to exist? Free will meant little when one’s options were foreclosed before one was even born. The hell of it was that she was tempted. The prospect of bringing paradise to everyone was …\n\n“No,” she said. “But I don’t believe we have the right to determine reality for everyone.”\n\n“If not us, then who?” Master Wolfe sounded curious. “Why not take the power and use it?”\n\n“Because we’d break reality just by existing,” Emily said. A hundred religious arguments, free will over predestination, ran through her mind. Was it free will if everything you did was known in advance? Or did the fact God knew what the answer would be change nothing, because you still made your choice? “We’re not gods. We’re just … limited. Imperfect humans. There’s no way we can determine the entire multiverse …”\n\nShe leaned forward as Master Wolfe shifted again, his faces changing so rapidly … she thought she saw, just for a second, a very familiar face looking back at her. She couldn’t place it and yet it was very familiar.\n\n“No,” she said. She could see the cancer spreading through the universe, the dimensional walls cracking and things boiling into human realms … she pulled back hastily, suddenly afraid she might have condemned unimaginable trillions to death. “I won’t. I can’t.”\n\nMaster Wolfe studied her for a long, cold moment. “Then I must remove you,” he said. There was no anger in his tone, just cold certainty he was doing the right thing. “One way or the other, we will not speak again.”\n\nEmily felt reality shudder around her. The ground beneath her feet shattered. She fell, the multiverse rising to surround her … she saw more secrets, saw the most private moments of her friends’ lives, a final mocking reminder of just how much she could see, how much she could know, if she’d accepted his offer. The mere fact he’d made it to her was oddly reassuring. If he had other ways to deal with her, why make the offer in the first place? She really was the stone in his shoe, a moment of reality even he couldn’t remove. Not directly.\n\nLight flared. She closed her eyes and found herself in the corridor. Again.\n\n“Emily?” Frieda sounded puzzled. “What happened?”\n\n“I …”\n\nEmily looked up. The wolf was staring down at them, its jaws opening wide. She saw teeth and claws and … something else, something dark. The corridor was breaking under the wolf’s assault on reality, things howling in the back of her mind as the rules of the multiverse were brutally rewritten to allow the wolf to exist. She had a sudden horrified impression of a lake being pumped dry, the fish left to die as the water was removed … monsters they might be, cancers beyond human understanding, but did the things deserve to be slaughtered mercilessly? She didn’t know.\n\nAnd then the teeth came down. Hard.\n\n“Run!”\n", "completion": "“I …”\n\n“Wouldn’t you rather grow up with a mother who was there?” Master Wolfe leaned forward. “Or a father who didn’t abandon you? Or an education in magic right from the start, instead of only learning about magic when you were whisked into another world?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. She was honest enough to admit it. “But that doesn’t mean we should rewrite reality.”\n\n“You could be anything you want, have anything you want,” Master Wolfe said. “We all could have everything we want, all the time.”\n\nHe smiled, his face shifting again. “And what about your friends? Would Imaiqah’s life be better if she grew up in a world where she wasn’t limited by her social class? Would Alassa’s life be better if she had a father who didn’t resent her lack of a penis? Would Frieda have a better life if she’d been born to a better family? Would Caleb be a different person if he’d gone to Whitehall from the start? Would Adam have developed magitech earlier if he’d had magic of his own? You could give them everything they wanted …”\n\nEmily hesitated. The offer was tempting and yet … she had the awful feeling there was a sting in the tail. It might not be deliberate, but it was there. She just couldn’t see it.\n\n“We could be gods,” Master Wolfe said. “God. Join me.”\n\nEmily stared down at the multiverse. The galaxies below were shifting, her gaze binding them to a common reality … was she defining reality, she asked herself, or was she simply narrowing her sight until she was looking at one specific timeline in an immensity of others. Was she stealing free will from everyone below her or was she just seeing one set of possible choices play themselves out time and time again? She had the nasty feeling there was no difference, not on this level. Schrödinger's Cat wasn’t caught between two states when she looked into the box – and she was always looking into the box. If a tree fell in a forest and there was no one around, did it make a sound? It did, because she was there to hear.\n\n“And the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed Him the kingdoms of the world and promised Him them, if only he would worship the devil,” she muttered. It had been a long time since she’d read the Bible and she wasn’t sure it was biblically accurate, but it was close enough. “Get thee behind me, please.”\n\nMaster Wolfe seemed oddly amused. “And would you worship a God who allows so much injustice to exist?”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. He was expressing the doubts she’d had as a child, when religion had contrasted with reality. It was like believing in Santa Claus and then wondering why he seemed to think richer kids were better behaved than their poorer counterparts. Why did God allow such things to exist? Free will meant little when one’s options were foreclosed before one was even born. The hell of it was that she was tempted. The prospect of bringing paradise to everyone was …\n\n“No,” she said. “But I don’t believe we have the right to determine reality for everyone.”\n\n“If not us, then who?” Master Wolfe sounded curious. “Why not take the power and use it?”\n\n“Because we’d break reality just by existing,” Emily said. A hundred religious arguments, free will over predestination, ran through her mind. Was it free will if everything you did was known in advance? Or did the fact God knew what the answer would be change nothing, because you still made your choice? “We’re not gods. We’re just … limited. Imperfect humans. There’s no way we can determine the entire multiverse …”\n\nShe leaned forward as Master Wolfe shifted again, his faces changing so rapidly … she thought she saw, just for a second, a very familiar face looking back at her. She couldn’t place it and yet it was very familiar.\n\n“No,” she said. She could see the cancer spreading through the universe, the dimensional walls cracking and things boiling into human realms … she pulled back hastily, suddenly afraid she might have condemned unimaginable trillions to death. “I won’t. I can’t.”\n\nMaster Wolfe studied her for a long, cold moment. “Then I must remove you,” he said. There was no anger in his tone, just cold certainty he was doing the right thing. “One way or the other, we will not speak again.”\n\nEmily felt reality shudder around her. The ground beneath her feet shattered. She fell, the multiverse rising to surround her … she saw more secrets, saw the most private moments of her friends’ lives, a final mocking reminder of just how much she could see, how much she could know, if she’d accepted his offer. The mere fact he’d made it to her was oddly reassuring. If he had other ways to deal with her, why make the offer in the first place? She really was the stone in his shoe, a moment of reality even he couldn’t remove. Not directly.\n\nLight flared. She closed her eyes and found herself in the corridor. Again.\n\n“Emily?” Frieda sounded puzzled. “What happened?”\n\n“I …”\n\nEmily looked up. The wolf was staring down at them, its jaws opening wide. She saw teeth and claws and … something else, something dark. The corridor was breaking under the wolf’s assault on reality, things howling in the back of her mind as the rules of the multiverse were brutally rewritten to allow the wolf to exist. She had a sudden horrified impression of a lake being pumped dry, the fish left to die as the water was removed … monsters they might be, cancers beyond human understanding, but did the things deserve to be slaughtered mercilessly? She didn’t know.\n\nAnd then the teeth came down. Hard.\n\n“Run!”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1000, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch26-P1", "chapter": "ch26", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nnecromancer-killer — hyphenated spell/tool name as written.\nthreadline — one word.\n\n### STORY\nEmily refuses Master Wolfe’s godhood offer in the aleph and breaks into a run with whoever she can still pull free.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nReality splintering around her after the aleph refusal; ducking blinding light and shadowy spear-forms; Slave Emily and Frieda in the chaos.\n\nSlave Emily\nWith Emily; screaming under pressure; must be shoved aside from blasts.\n\nFrieda\nFighting through splintered reality with them.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nHostile presence shaping into the fight as reality breaks.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Because we’d break reality just by existing,” Emily said. A hundred religious arguments, free will over predestination, ran through her mind. Was it free will if everything you did was known in advance? Or did the fact God knew what the answer would be change nothing, because you still made your choice? “We’re not gods. We’re just … limited. Imperfect humans. There’s no way we can determine the entire multiverse …”\n\nShe leaned forward as Master Wolfe shifted again, his faces changing so rapidly … she thought she saw, just for a second, a very familiar face looking back at her. She couldn’t place it and yet it was very familiar.\n\n“No,” she said. She could see the cancer spreading through the universe, the dimensional walls cracking and things boiling into human realms … she pulled back hastily, suddenly afraid she might have condemned unimaginable trillions to death. “I won’t. I can’t.”\n\nMaster Wolfe studied her for a long, cold moment. “Then I must remove you,” he said. There was no anger in his tone, just cold certainty he was doing the right thing. “One way or the other, we will not speak again.”\n\nEmily felt reality shudder around her. The ground beneath her feet shattered. She fell, the multiverse rising to surround her … she saw more secrets, saw the most private moments of her friends’ lives, a final mocking reminder of just how much she could see, how much she could know, if she’d accepted his offer. The mere fact he’d made it to her was oddly reassuring. If he had other ways to deal with her, why make the offer in the first place? She really was the stone in his shoe, a moment of reality even he couldn’t remove. Not directly.\n\nLight flared. She closed her eyes and found herself in the corridor. Again.\n\n“Emily?” Frieda sounded puzzled. “What happened?”\n\n“I …”\n\nEmily looked up. The wolf was staring down at them, its jaws opening wide. She saw teeth and claws and … something else, something dark. The corridor was breaking under the wolf’s assault on reality, things howling in the back of her mind as the rules of the multiverse were brutally rewritten to allow the wolf to exist. She had a sudden horrified impression of a lake being pumped dry, the fish left to die as the water was removed … monsters they might be, cancers beyond human understanding, but did the things deserve to be slaughtered mercilessly? She didn’t know.\n\nAnd then the teeth came down. Hard.\n\n“Run!”\n\n### NOTES\nSplintered reality battlefield; blinding white flashes; shadowy spear-forms.\nNo stable ground rules while Master Wolfe’s pressure ripples outward.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nReality splinters as she flees the aleph’s aftermath; she ducks a blinding spear of light as a shadowy form looms. Slave Emily and Frieda are in the mess with her as hostile shapes—including a Necromancer Emily pressure—force scramble and cast. Land on the next threat looming out of darkness.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Kinetic splinter-fight; keep sensory overload. Land mid-threat.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Reality splintered.\n\nEmily felt as if she were caught in a collapsing building, the threadlines under the threadlines shattering into splinters of wood and stone – pieces of potential realities that would now never exist – and exploding in all directions. Space and time and dimensions for which she had no time twisted around her, the wolf’s mere presence distorting them in ways she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Her body distorted too, bending and twisting as if she were walking through a funhouse mirror; she heard a scream behind her and looked back, just in time to see the wolf reaching for Slave Emily. Her counterpart was frozen, sheer terror keeping her in place as the slavering jaws rushed towards her. The wolf was there, had always been there, would always be there …\n\nShe cast a spell, yanking her counterpart to her. Slave Emily yelped as she flew through the air, the jaws missing her by bare inches … Emily could feel the wolf try to rewrite reality, with all the insistence of a man who knew he was wrong loudly trying to convince everything he was right, trying to impose a new outcome by sheer force of will. Reality teetered on the brink of utter collapse as Slave Emily landed next to her, her face pale and wan. It was just too much for her.\n\nThe ground beneath their feet, whatever it really was, started to crumble. Emily sensed waves of limitless energy underlying reality, a flowing current threatening to sweep them away. She closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to visualise the world around her as a series of icebergs, patches of ice they could use as stepping stones to escape the growing collapse. It wasn’t much, but … she kept the idea firmly in mind as she jumped to the next iceberg and the next, trying to keep ahead of the wolf. It had drawn back and was now readying itself for another sweep. She looked up and regretted it instantly as the jaws came down, forcing her to jump again dragging her counterpart with her. Reality flickered around them, twisting and bending. The icebergs were spinning, gravity itself shifting so rapidly she could barely keep up with it. one moment, she was painfully heavy; the next, she was as light as air. She wasn’t even sure why gravity existed any longer.\n\nFrieda landed beside them, throwing a fireball at the wolf. It didn’t seem to notice, the magic brushing against its translucent form and blinking out of existence as if someone had turned off a switch. Emily gritted her teeth, trying to think, trying to find another threadline before it was too late. The wolf had problems seeing them, thanks to her bilocated self, but it was far from blind and … she swore under her breath as she realised that they drew the wolf to them every time they looked at it. The observer affected the observed, if only in a small way, and it was more than enough to tell the wolf exactly where they were.\n\n“Keep your eyes down,” she snapped. The iceberg under her feet – no, it was a rock; Frieda’s perception of reality was messing with hers – was shifting, breaking. She jumped to the next one without hesitation, even as the current of power beneath her feet shifted once again. It felt like an absurd video game, where the character had to jump from place to place and the slightest mistake would be fatal. She had no idea what would happen if they fell into the current and she didn’t want to find out. “Don’t look up!”\n\nHer skin crawled as she forced herself to keep moving, feeling something breathing at the back of her neck. Sweat prickled down her spine, a grim reminder the wolf was still up there … she bit her lip hard, telling herself not to look time and time again. Her counterpart whimpered helplessly: Emily felt a surge of sudden anger, rage that someone who was her could be so useless even when everything was at stake. She bit down on it hard, trying not to let her sudden contempt show on her face. She’d had problems too, when she’d first encountered magic and sorcerers and necromancers who wanted to kill her simply for being her. It was hardly fair to her counterpart to expect her to be anything but a scared child who’d never had the chance to grow up.\n\nThe world isn’t fair, a voice whispered at the back of her mind. And mostly it isn’t unfair in your favour.\n\nShe gritted her teeth as the wolf prowled overhead, a shadow sweeping across the multiverse and casting darkness into every heart. Strong men and women shuddered without knowing why, children screamed and could not be consoled; she could feel its influence stretching in a thousand million different ways, each little eddy in the space-time continuum risking a collapse in the fabric of reality, a gap in the walls that would let horrors beyond imagination into the human realms. The whispers grew louder as reality twisted again, promising her everything she’d ever wanted in exchange for submission, for opening herself to things from outside the known multiverse. She tried to ignore them, only to discover it made the whispering worse. They had to get out before it was too late.\n\nThe world shifted again, a threadline brushing against the universe. Emily caught both Frieda and Slave Emily and launched herself forward, gambling everything on being able to fly one final time. She wasn’t even sure why they could use magic … she cut that thought off hard, before it could affect reality and steal her powers, and plunged into the threadline and …\n\n“DIE!”\n\nEmily ducked, just in time, as a flash of blinding white light nearly speared her. A shape loomed out of the darkness, a shadowy form with bright red eyes … horror washed through her as she saw Necromancer Emily, her hair glowing with eerie light as she cast spell after spell on a scale Emily had thought impossible. She had a sudden sense of her counterpart fighting hard to stem the madness, to learn how to control what she’d become … it only made her ultimate fate all the more tragic. If she’d killed herself, or gone to beg someone else to kill her, uncounted millions would still be alive. And yet …\n", "completion": "Reality splintered.\n\nEmily felt as if she were caught in a collapsing building, the threadlines under the threadlines shattering into splinters of wood and stone – pieces of potential realities that would now never exist – and exploding in all directions. Space and time and dimensions for which she had no time twisted around her, the wolf’s mere presence distorting them in ways she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Her body distorted too, bending and twisting as if she were walking through a funhouse mirror; she heard a scream behind her and looked back, just in time to see the wolf reaching for Slave Emily. Her counterpart was frozen, sheer terror keeping her in place as the slavering jaws rushed towards her. The wolf was there, had always been there, would always be there …\n\nShe cast a spell, yanking her counterpart to her. Slave Emily yelped as she flew through the air, the jaws missing her by bare inches … Emily could feel the wolf try to rewrite reality, with all the insistence of a man who knew he was wrong loudly trying to convince everything he was right, trying to impose a new outcome by sheer force of will. Reality teetered on the brink of utter collapse as Slave Emily landed next to her, her face pale and wan. It was just too much for her.\n\nThe ground beneath their feet, whatever it really was, started to crumble. Emily sensed waves of limitless energy underlying reality, a flowing current threatening to sweep them away. She closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to visualise the world around her as a series of icebergs, patches of ice they could use as stepping stones to escape the growing collapse. It wasn’t much, but … she kept the idea firmly in mind as she jumped to the next iceberg and the next, trying to keep ahead of the wolf. It had drawn back and was now readying itself for another sweep. She looked up and regretted it instantly as the jaws came down, forcing her to jump again dragging her counterpart with her. Reality flickered around them, twisting and bending. The icebergs were spinning, gravity itself shifting so rapidly she could barely keep up with it. one moment, she was painfully heavy; the next, she was as light as air. She wasn’t even sure why gravity existed any longer.\n\nFrieda landed beside them, throwing a fireball at the wolf. It didn’t seem to notice, the magic brushing against its translucent form and blinking out of existence as if someone had turned off a switch. Emily gritted her teeth, trying to think, trying to find another threadline before it was too late. The wolf had problems seeing them, thanks to her bilocated self, but it was far from blind and … she swore under her breath as she realised that they drew the wolf to them every time they looked at it. The observer affected the observed, if only in a small way, and it was more than enough to tell the wolf exactly where they were.\n\n“Keep your eyes down,” she snapped. The iceberg under her feet – no, it was a rock; Frieda’s perception of reality was messing with hers – was shifting, breaking. She jumped to the next one without hesitation, even as the current of power beneath her feet shifted once again. It felt like an absurd video game, where the character had to jump from place to place and the slightest mistake would be fatal. She had no idea what would happen if they fell into the current and she didn’t want to find out. “Don’t look up!”\n\nHer skin crawled as she forced herself to keep moving, feeling something breathing at the back of her neck. Sweat prickled down her spine, a grim reminder the wolf was still up there … she bit her lip hard, telling herself not to look time and time again. Her counterpart whimpered helplessly: Emily felt a surge of sudden anger, rage that someone who was her could be so useless even when everything was at stake. She bit down on it hard, trying not to let her sudden contempt show on her face. She’d had problems too, when she’d first encountered magic and sorcerers and necromancers who wanted to kill her simply for being her. It was hardly fair to her counterpart to expect her to be anything but a scared child who’d never had the chance to grow up.\n\nThe world isn’t fair, a voice whispered at the back of her mind. And mostly it isn’t unfair in your favour.\n\nShe gritted her teeth as the wolf prowled overhead, a shadow sweeping across the multiverse and casting darkness into every heart. Strong men and women shuddered without knowing why, children screamed and could not be consoled; she could feel its influence stretching in a thousand million different ways, each little eddy in the space-time continuum risking a collapse in the fabric of reality, a gap in the walls that would let horrors beyond imagination into the human realms. The whispers grew louder as reality twisted again, promising her everything she’d ever wanted in exchange for submission, for opening herself to things from outside the known multiverse. She tried to ignore them, only to discover it made the whispering worse. They had to get out before it was too late.\n\nThe world shifted again, a threadline brushing against the universe. Emily caught both Frieda and Slave Emily and launched herself forward, gambling everything on being able to fly one final time. She wasn’t even sure why they could use magic … she cut that thought off hard, before it could affect reality and steal her powers, and plunged into the threadline and …\n\n“DIE!”\n\nEmily ducked, just in time, as a flash of blinding white light nearly speared her. A shape loomed out of the darkness, a shadowy form with bright red eyes … horror washed through her as she saw Necromancer Emily, her hair glowing with eerie light as she cast spell after spell on a scale Emily had thought impossible. She had a sudden sense of her counterpart fighting hard to stem the madness, to learn how to control what she’d become … it only made her ultimate fate all the more tragic. If she’d killed herself, or gone to beg someone else to kill her, uncounted millions would still be alive. And yet …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1082, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch26-P2", "chapter": "ch26", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nnecromancer-killer — hyphenated as written.\nspellware — one word.\n\n### STORY\nReality splinters after the aleph refusal; Emily ducks white-light spears and keeps Slave Emily and Frieda moving through hostile shadows.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nShoving Slave Emily aside and throwing a necromancer-killer; counterpart here never needed such tools. Watching Frieda dive into Necromancer Emily’s spellware.\n\nSlave Emily\nScreaming; shoved clear.\n\nFrieda\nLeaps into Necromancer Emily’s spellware; ripping it as Emily watches.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nCasting; spellware under Frieda’s plunge.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer skin crawled as she forced herself to keep moving, feeling something breathing at the back of her neck. Sweat prickled down her spine, a grim reminder the wolf was still up there … she bit her lip hard, telling herself not to look time and time again. Her counterpart whimpered helplessly: Emily felt a surge of sudden anger, rage that someone who was her could be so useless even when everything was at stake. She bit down on it hard, trying not to let her sudden contempt show on her face. She’d had problems too, when she’d first encountered magic and sorcerers and necromancers who wanted to kill her simply for being her. It was hardly fair to her counterpart to expect her to be anything but a scared child who’d never had the chance to grow up.\n\nThe world isn’t fair, a voice whispered at the back of her mind. And mostly it isn’t unfair in your favour.\n\nShe gritted her teeth as the wolf prowled overhead, a shadow sweeping across the multiverse and casting darkness into every heart. Strong men and women shuddered without knowing why, children screamed and could not be consoled; she could feel its influence stretching in a thousand million different ways, each little eddy in the space-time continuum risking a collapse in the fabric of reality, a gap in the walls that would let horrors beyond imagination into the human realms. The whispers grew louder as reality twisted again, promising her everything she’d ever wanted in exchange for submission, for opening herself to things from outside the known multiverse. She tried to ignore them, only to discover it made the whispering worse. They had to get out before it was too late.\n\nThe world shifted again, a threadline brushing against the universe. Emily caught both Frieda and Slave Emily and launched herself forward, gambling everything on being able to fly one final time. She wasn’t even sure why they could use magic … she cut that thought off hard, before it could affect reality and steal her powers, and plunged into the threadline and …\n\n“DIE!”\n\nEmily ducked, just in time, as a flash of blinding white light nearly speared her. A shape loomed out of the darkness, a shadowy form with bright red eyes … horror washed through her as she saw Necromancer Emily, her hair glowing with eerie light as she cast spell after spell on a scale Emily had thought impossible. She had a sudden sense of her counterpart fighting hard to stem the madness, to learn how to control what she’d become … it only made her ultimate fate all the more tragic. If she’d killed herself, or gone to beg someone else to kill her, uncounted millions would still be alive. And yet …\n\n### NOTES\nClose combat in splintered space; necromancer-killer available to Emily.\nFrieda able to attack spellware directly.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nSlave Emily screams; Emily shoves her aside and hurls a necromancer-killer her conquering selves never bothered with. Frieda leaps into Necromancer Emily’s spellware and starts to rip it. Land on that tear beginning.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Tight duel beats. Land on Frieda ripping the spellware.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Slave Emily screamed. Emily shoved her aside and threw back a necromancer-killer. Her counterpart had never needed one, choosing to use brute force on an unimaginable scale to destroy her rivals for power. The spellware flickered around the target, sparkling in and out of existence before being dispelled by a blast of power even a mimic couldn’t absorb. Emily cursed under her breath as reality twisted around them. The universe was shifting once again … they were confined, trapped within a pocket dimension resting against a threadline. A hollow under a universe … she groaned, inwardly, as she realised they’d been tricked. She’d been so desperate to escape the wolf that she’d fallen right into a trap.\n\nFrieda darted forward, casting spell after spell. Necromancer Emily ducked and dodged, casually deflecting some spells and blocking others; oddly, Emily noted, she didn’t seem willing to take the blows like a normal necromancer. Perhaps her spellware wasn’t as brute force as Emily had thought. She reached out gingerly, trying to assess the charms surrounding her counterpart, only to draw her mind back sharply as the madness brushed against her. The red-hot light was madness and it could infect her, if she let it. Even looking at it was dangerous.\n\nShe shaped a force punch and threw it at her counterpart, hiding a second spell within the first. Necromancer Emily was blown backwards, falling into the darkness and appearing behind her … Emily barely had a second to duck before another spell nearly took her head off. The pocket dimension was more than just a hollowed-out piece of the universe, she realised numbly; they were trapped on the edge of a sphere, permanently running in circles around themselves.\n\nScots, tonight we march north to England, she recalled. She’d heard it once. She couldn’t recall where. We’re going to march all the way around the world and strike them from behind.\n\nHer lips twisted in dark amusement. The plan was absurd. But here it would work …\n\nShe reached out with her mind, assessing the universe around her. There was a threadline … she might be able to jump into it, to hide once again, but her counterpart was far too close to be evaded easily. And there was the wolf … was he still there? She needed a diversion, something that would keep her evil self busy long enough for her to open a portal and get everyone out, but there was nothing. The universe was shrinking, forcing them closer and closer together. There was no way out …\n\n“I’m sorry,” Slave Emily whispered. “I’m sorry.”\n\n“It wasn’t your fault,” Emily told her, as another curse splattered into her protections and tried to burn its way into her mind. It should have been deflected instantly, another reminder of her counterpart’s sheer power combined with her very own magical signature. “None of this was your fault.”\n\n“This is the end of the line,” Necromancer Emily said. She stepped closer, reality flattening out around her. “Your time is up.”\n\n“The entire universe is going to die,” Emily said. She wanted to scream, she wanted to shout, but she was too tired. How could the monster in front of her, the creature wearing a distorted version of her face, be her? What sort of madwoman, no matter how selfish or self-interested, could condone the destruction of everything? What did it profit someone if she lost the whole world as well as her soul? “There’s no way to save yourself, let alone anything else …”\n\n“He will join with me,” her counterpart said. “And then the universe will be ours.”\n\nShe stepped forward, power billowing around her. Emily braced herself.\n\n“You don’t have to do this,” she said, even though she knew her words were falling on deaf ears. “Think about everyone …”\n\n“What did they ever do for me?” Necromancer Emily’s red eyes bored into Emily’s. “A life growing up with a brute of a leering stepfather, a drunkard of a mother, peers who saw us as a piece of meat and teachers who cared nothing for their jobs. Where were those people when we needed them? Why were we condemned to grow up in a dump, denied everything we needed to make something of ourselves, when others were born with a silver spoon in their mouths? Why should I do anything for anyone who never did anything for me?”\n\nEmily tasted her counterpart’s feelings, her unspoken it’s not fair, and shuddered. She’d felt the same way more than once, at her lowest moments, wondering why others had so much – loving parents, decent teachers, safe spaces – and she had so little. Why did others have friends and lovers, people who would see them, when she found it hard to relate to people let alone make friends with them? It wasn’t fair. The world was never fair. It just was. And yet, she’d dropped the feeling when she’d fallen into another world and found herself nearer the top of the ladder than the bottom. There’d been no point in pretending she deserved it through an accident of birth. She knew better.\n\nBut her counterpart was clinging to her grudge against society, because it was the only thing keeping her together. She needed it. Emily had hoped her counterpart was different from other necromancers, but … in the end, she was very much like them. And that meant …\n\nNecromancer Emily raised her hand. Magic sparked around her fingertips. “Die.”\n\nFrieda leapt forward, her magic spinning around her as she plunged right into Necromancer Emily’s spellware. Emily saw it start to rip, her counterpart’s spells – and her control over the pocket dimension – starting to shatter as Frieda ripped them apart by sheer force of will. The blaze of magic surrounding them was too strong, Frieda’s mouth opening in a silent scream as the power burned brighter and brighter … Emily realised, too late, that Frieda was sacrificing her own life to stop the necromancer. Except it wasn’t enough …\n", "completion": "Slave Emily screamed. Emily shoved her aside and threw back a necromancer-killer. Her counterpart had never needed one, choosing to use brute force on an unimaginable scale to destroy her rivals for power. The spellware flickered around the target, sparkling in and out of existence before being dispelled by a blast of power even a mimic couldn’t absorb. Emily cursed under her breath as reality twisted around them. The universe was shifting once again … they were confined, trapped within a pocket dimension resting against a threadline. A hollow under a universe … she groaned, inwardly, as she realised they’d been tricked. She’d been so desperate to escape the wolf that she’d fallen right into a trap.\n\nFrieda darted forward, casting spell after spell. Necromancer Emily ducked and dodged, casually deflecting some spells and blocking others; oddly, Emily noted, she didn’t seem willing to take the blows like a normal necromancer. Perhaps her spellware wasn’t as brute force as Emily had thought. She reached out gingerly, trying to assess the charms surrounding her counterpart, only to draw her mind back sharply as the madness brushed against her. The red-hot light was madness and it could infect her, if she let it. Even looking at it was dangerous.\n\nShe shaped a force punch and threw it at her counterpart, hiding a second spell within the first. Necromancer Emily was blown backwards, falling into the darkness and appearing behind her … Emily barely had a second to duck before another spell nearly took her head off. The pocket dimension was more than just a hollowed-out piece of the universe, she realised numbly; they were trapped on the edge of a sphere, permanently running in circles around themselves.\n\nScots, tonight we march north to England, she recalled. She’d heard it once. She couldn’t recall where. We’re going to march all the way around the world and strike them from behind.\n\nHer lips twisted in dark amusement. The plan was absurd. But here it would work …\n\nShe reached out with her mind, assessing the universe around her. There was a threadline … she might be able to jump into it, to hide once again, but her counterpart was far too close to be evaded easily. And there was the wolf … was he still there? She needed a diversion, something that would keep her evil self busy long enough for her to open a portal and get everyone out, but there was nothing. The universe was shrinking, forcing them closer and closer together. There was no way out …\n\n“I’m sorry,” Slave Emily whispered. “I’m sorry.”\n\n“It wasn’t your fault,” Emily told her, as another curse splattered into her protections and tried to burn its way into her mind. It should have been deflected instantly, another reminder of her counterpart’s sheer power combined with her very own magical signature. “None of this was your fault.”\n\n“This is the end of the line,” Necromancer Emily said. She stepped closer, reality flattening out around her. “Your time is up.”\n\n“The entire universe is going to die,” Emily said. She wanted to scream, she wanted to shout, but she was too tired. How could the monster in front of her, the creature wearing a distorted version of her face, be her? What sort of madwoman, no matter how selfish or self-interested, could condone the destruction of everything? What did it profit someone if she lost the whole world as well as her soul? “There’s no way to save yourself, let alone anything else …”\n\n“He will join with me,” her counterpart said. “And then the universe will be ours.”\n\nShe stepped forward, power billowing around her. Emily braced herself.\n\n“You don’t have to do this,” she said, even though she knew her words were falling on deaf ears. “Think about everyone …”\n\n“What did they ever do for me?” Necromancer Emily’s red eyes bored into Emily’s. “A life growing up with a brute of a leering stepfather, a drunkard of a mother, peers who saw us as a piece of meat and teachers who cared nothing for their jobs. Where were those people when we needed them? Why were we condemned to grow up in a dump, denied everything we needed to make something of ourselves, when others were born with a silver spoon in their mouths? Why should I do anything for anyone who never did anything for me?”\n\nEmily tasted her counterpart’s feelings, her unspoken it’s not fair, and shuddered. She’d felt the same way more than once, at her lowest moments, wondering why others had so much – loving parents, decent teachers, safe spaces – and she had so little. Why did others have friends and lovers, people who would see them, when she found it hard to relate to people let alone make friends with them? It wasn’t fair. The world was never fair. It just was. And yet, she’d dropped the feeling when she’d fallen into another world and found herself nearer the top of the ladder than the bottom. There’d been no point in pretending she deserved it through an accident of birth. She knew better.\n\nBut her counterpart was clinging to her grudge against society, because it was the only thing keeping her together. She needed it. Emily had hoped her counterpart was different from other necromancers, but … in the end, she was very much like them. And that meant …\n\nNecromancer Emily raised her hand. Magic sparked around her fingertips. “Die.”\n\nFrieda leapt forward, her magic spinning around her as she plunged right into Necromancer Emily’s spellware. Emily saw it start to rip, her counterpart’s spells – and her control over the pocket dimension – starting to shatter as Frieda ripped them apart by sheer force of will. The blaze of magic surrounding them was too strong, Frieda’s mouth opening in a silent scream as the power burned brighter and brighter … Emily realised, too late, that Frieda was sacrificing her own life to stop the necromancer. Except it wasn’t enough …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1020, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch26-P3", "chapter": "ch26", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nthreadline — one word.\n\n### STORY\nEmily’s necromancer-killer and Frieda’s plunge tear into Necromancer Emily’s spellware in the splintered battlefield.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSpellware goes critical; Slave Emily catches her arm; she reaches desperately for a threadline rather than die in the blast—and looks up into an impossible next sight.\n\nSlave Emily\nCatches Emily’s arm; pulls her back as magic goes critical.\n\nFrieda\nIn the critical zone of the ripped spellware.\n\nAlassa\nReferenced in aftermath surprise if present in gold; keep to who appears—final line is Emily’s disbelief at who/what she sees.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe stepped forward, power billowing around her. Emily braced herself.\n\n“You don’t have to do this,” she said, even though she knew her words were falling on deaf ears. “Think about everyone …”\n\n“What did they ever do for me?” Necromancer Emily’s red eyes bored into Emily’s. “A life growing up with a brute of a leering stepfather, a drunkard of a mother, peers who saw us as a piece of meat and teachers who cared nothing for their jobs. Where were those people when we needed them? Why were we condemned to grow up in a dump, denied everything we needed to make something of ourselves, when others were born with a silver spoon in their mouths? Why should I do anything for anyone who never did anything for me?”\n\nEmily tasted her counterpart’s feelings, her unspoken it’s not fair, and shuddered. She’d felt the same way more than once, at her lowest moments, wondering why others had so much – loving parents, decent teachers, safe spaces – and she had so little. Why did others have friends and lovers, people who would see them, when she found it hard to relate to people let alone make friends with them? It wasn’t fair. The world was never fair. It just was. And yet, she’d dropped the feeling when she’d fallen into another world and found herself nearer the top of the ladder than the bottom. There’d been no point in pretending she deserved it through an accident of birth. She knew better.\n\nBut her counterpart was clinging to her grudge against society, because it was the only thing keeping her together. She needed it. Emily had hoped her counterpart was different from other necromancers, but … in the end, she was very much like them. And that meant …\n\nNecromancer Emily raised her hand. Magic sparked around her fingertips. “Die.”\n\nFrieda leapt forward, her magic spinning around her as she plunged right into Necromancer Emily’s spellware. Emily saw it start to rip, her counterpart’s spells – and her control over the pocket dimension – starting to shatter as Frieda ripped them apart by sheer force of will. The blaze of magic surrounding them was too strong, Frieda’s mouth opening in a silent scream as the power burned brighter and brighter … Emily realised, too late, that Frieda was sacrificing her own life to stop the necromancer. Except it wasn’t enough …\n\n### NOTES\nCritical magic about to detonate; threadline as escape vector.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nSlave Emily catches her arm as the ripped magic goes critical; Emily staggers back and lunges for a threadline rather than ride the blast. She looks up—and freezes in disbelief. Land on you have got to be kidding me.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Escape cut to punchline shock. Land on the kidding-me line.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Slave Emily caught her arm. Emily staggered backwards as the magic went critical and reached, desperately, for the threadline. She wanted to stay and fight, to put an end to her counterpart, but she didn’t dare. She had to stop Master Wolfe … the world twisted around her, one final time, as they fell into the threadline. She thought she saw Frieda, standing against the light, before the darkness swept down. Frieda was gone. Gone.\n\n“No,” Emily said. The darkness pulsed around them. The urge to let herself fall into the shadows was almost overwhelming. She felt as if she’d finally come to the end of the line. “No …”\n\nShe sagged to her knees, no longer caring if her counterpart was still alive or the wolf was about to sweep down on her. It wasn’t fair. Frieda had deserved so much better than to die. She hadn’t deserved to be murdered by an evil version of Emily herself … she hadn’t deserved to be forced to choose between her own life and the multiverse. The good of the majority equation was almost pathetically easy to solve and yet, Emily didn’t want to put the universe ahead of her friend. Frieda hadn’t deserved any of the horrors of her young life. She certainly hadn’t deserved to die.\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily muttered. The tears were coming freely now. Frieda was dead … Caleb, Alassa, Imaiqah, everyone she’d ever loved was dead, or trapped forever in a timeless moment that would never end. No matter what she did, she had no way to know if she could ever restore everything that had been lost, wiped away in the blink of an eye. “I’m so sorry.”\n\nShe gritted her teeth against the sense of loss and grief. Billions upon billions had died in the last few days, entire timelines wiped out so completely they’d never existed at all, but she couldn’t wrap her head around those numbers. No one could. They were just too high, so high they weren’t even statistics. But Frieda had been a person in every sense of the word. Emily had known her for years. They’d practically been sisters. And now she was gone. What was the point in even continuing?\n\nSlave Emily rested her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I …”\n\n“Shut up,” Emily snarled. Her counterpart’s mouth snapped shut. “I” – she caught herself – “I’m sorry.”\n\nHer counterpart looked back at her, her eyes … numb. No anger at being controlled, however accidentally; no rage or fire or anything, beyond numb hopelessness. Emily heart twisted, torn between rage at Shadye and anger at her counterpart for being so weak. But how could she be anything else? She’d fallen into a world of magic and wound up enslaved by a maddened necromancer, a creature that couldn’t be fought by anything less than a squad of combat sorcerers or a lone power. Emily herself was the only person to kill necromancers in single combat and she’d cheated. Slave Emily was as helpless as a kitten. Perhaps more so.\n\n“You can talk,” Emily said. “I’m sorry.”\n\n“So am I,” her counterpart said. “She tried to teach me magic.”\n\nEmily looked up, surprised. “Did you learn anything?”\n\n“A little, but …” Slave Emily’s fingers touched her neck. “The collar’s still there.”\n\n“I removed it,” Emily said. “But I know …”\n\n“She tried to help me,” Slave Emily said. “And …”\n\n“And what’s the point of going on?” Emily stared into the darkness. The threadline was reaching out for them, trying to pull them back into reality. Another reality. “Why even bother to fight when there’s nothing left to fight for?”\n\n“I kept telling myself that I couldn’t give in,” Slave Emily told her. “But the truth was that I couldn’t even commit suicide. He owned me, body and soul. Frieda … made a choice to give her life. You owe it to her to keep going.”\n\nEmily gave her a sidelong look. “And you really believe that?”\n\n“I never had a real friend in my life,” Slave Emily said. “You did.”\n\n“I know.” Emily knew she hadn’t been a perfect friend, not to anyone. She was lucky Alassa and the others had given her as much tolerance and understanding as they had. “I wish …”\n\nShe shook her head. “We have to keep going,” she said. She was incredibly tired, every atom of her body insisting she needed sleep. She would have closed her eyes and rested if some instinct hadn’t warned her that sleeping in the space between dimensions, where reality was dangerously flexible, could easily end very badly. Her dreams and nightmares would shape the world around her. “And … I’ll try to teach you magic too.”\n\nHer legs ached as she pulled herself upright, the threadline twisting around them. She took her counterpart’s hand and reached for the threadline, a blaze of white light surrounding them as they stepped into a new timeline. There was a hint of resistance, as if the timeline itself was rejecting them … no, as if they were stepping into a heavily warded fortress. Someone screamed … a sudden hubbub surrounded them as the light faded, her eyes stinging painfully. They were in the middle of a crowd. She could barely see, but she could hear footsteps running towards them … guards, she guessed. They had the right cadence.\n\n“Hold,” a firm voice said. Female, familiar and yet not. Strong and confident and imposing by dint of existing. Nothing like her and yet … “We shall handle this personally.”\n\nEmily looked up and froze. “You have got to be kidding me.”\n", "completion": "Slave Emily caught her arm. Emily staggered backwards as the magic went critical and reached, desperately, for the threadline. She wanted to stay and fight, to put an end to her counterpart, but she didn’t dare. She had to stop Master Wolfe … the world twisted around her, one final time, as they fell into the threadline. She thought she saw Frieda, standing against the light, before the darkness swept down. Frieda was gone. Gone.\n\n“No,” Emily said. The darkness pulsed around them. The urge to let herself fall into the shadows was almost overwhelming. She felt as if she’d finally come to the end of the line. “No …”\n\nShe sagged to her knees, no longer caring if her counterpart was still alive or the wolf was about to sweep down on her. It wasn’t fair. Frieda had deserved so much better than to die. She hadn’t deserved to be murdered by an evil version of Emily herself … she hadn’t deserved to be forced to choose between her own life and the multiverse. The good of the majority equation was almost pathetically easy to solve and yet, Emily didn’t want to put the universe ahead of her friend. Frieda hadn’t deserved any of the horrors of her young life. She certainly hadn’t deserved to die.\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily muttered. The tears were coming freely now. Frieda was dead … Caleb, Alassa, Imaiqah, everyone she’d ever loved was dead, or trapped forever in a timeless moment that would never end. No matter what she did, she had no way to know if she could ever restore everything that had been lost, wiped away in the blink of an eye. “I’m so sorry.”\n\nShe gritted her teeth against the sense of loss and grief. Billions upon billions had died in the last few days, entire timelines wiped out so completely they’d never existed at all, but she couldn’t wrap her head around those numbers. No one could. They were just too high, so high they weren’t even statistics. But Frieda had been a person in every sense of the word. Emily had known her for years. They’d practically been sisters. And now she was gone. What was the point in even continuing?\n\nSlave Emily rested her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I …”\n\n“Shut up,” Emily snarled. Her counterpart’s mouth snapped shut. “I” – she caught herself – “I’m sorry.”\n\nHer counterpart looked back at her, her eyes … numb. No anger at being controlled, however accidentally; no rage or fire or anything, beyond numb hopelessness. Emily heart twisted, torn between rage at Shadye and anger at her counterpart for being so weak. But how could she be anything else? She’d fallen into a world of magic and wound up enslaved by a maddened necromancer, a creature that couldn’t be fought by anything less than a squad of combat sorcerers or a lone power. Emily herself was the only person to kill necromancers in single combat and she’d cheated. Slave Emily was as helpless as a kitten. Perhaps more so.\n\n“You can talk,” Emily said. “I’m sorry.”\n\n“So am I,” her counterpart said. “She tried to teach me magic.”\n\nEmily looked up, surprised. “Did you learn anything?”\n\n“A little, but …” Slave Emily’s fingers touched her neck. “The collar’s still there.”\n\n“I removed it,” Emily said. “But I know …”\n\n“She tried to help me,” Slave Emily said. “And …”\n\n“And what’s the point of going on?” Emily stared into the darkness. The threadline was reaching out for them, trying to pull them back into reality. Another reality. “Why even bother to fight when there’s nothing left to fight for?”\n\n“I kept telling myself that I couldn’t give in,” Slave Emily told her. “But the truth was that I couldn’t even commit suicide. He owned me, body and soul. Frieda … made a choice to give her life. You owe it to her to keep going.”\n\nEmily gave her a sidelong look. “And you really believe that?”\n\n“I never had a real friend in my life,” Slave Emily said. “You did.”\n\n“I know.” Emily knew she hadn’t been a perfect friend, not to anyone. She was lucky Alassa and the others had given her as much tolerance and understanding as they had. “I wish …”\n\nShe shook her head. “We have to keep going,” she said. She was incredibly tired, every atom of her body insisting she needed sleep. She would have closed her eyes and rested if some instinct hadn’t warned her that sleeping in the space between dimensions, where reality was dangerously flexible, could easily end very badly. Her dreams and nightmares would shape the world around her. “And … I’ll try to teach you magic too.”\n\nHer legs ached as she pulled herself upright, the threadline twisting around them. She took her counterpart’s hand and reached for the threadline, a blaze of white light surrounding them as they stepped into a new timeline. There was a hint of resistance, as if the timeline itself was rejecting them … no, as if they were stepping into a heavily warded fortress. Someone screamed … a sudden hubbub surrounded them as the light faded, her eyes stinging painfully. They were in the middle of a crowd. She could barely see, but she could hear footsteps running towards them … guards, she guessed. They had the right cadence.\n\n“Hold,” a firm voice said. Female, familiar and yet not. Strong and confident and imposing by dint of existing. Nothing like her and yet … “We shall handle this personally.”\n\nEmily looked up and froze. “You have got to be kidding me.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 957, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch27-P1", "chapter": "ch27", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nAlexis — capitalized; her consort / Alassa-analogue.\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized.\nAllied Lands — both words capitalized.\nZangaria — capitalized.\ntruth spell — two words; lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily yanks free of a critical spellware blast onto a threadline and looks up into an impossible reception—an Empress Emily on a throne.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nCannot take her eyes off the woman on the throne; eating pizza; about to cast a truth spell and recount the mad-god war. Traveling with Frieda and Slave Emily into this imperial continuum.\n\nEmpress Emily\nOn the throne; listens with unreadable eyes while Emily talks under truth spell.\n\nAlexis\nPresent as consort/partner in this court; referenced in the meeting frame.\n\nFrieda\nPresent.\n\nSlave Emily\nPresent.\n\nAlassa\nReferenced in comparisons; not necessarily on-page.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“A little, but …” Slave Emily’s fingers touched her neck. “The collar’s still there.”\n\n“I removed it,” Emily said. “But I know …”\n\n“She tried to help me,” Slave Emily said. “And …”\n\n“And what’s the point of going on?” Emily stared into the darkness. The threadline was reaching out for them, trying to pull them back into reality. Another reality. “Why even bother to fight when there’s nothing left to fight for?”\n\n“I kept telling myself that I couldn’t give in,” Slave Emily told her. “But the truth was that I couldn’t even commit suicide. He owned me, body and soul. Frieda … made a choice to give her life. You owe it to her to keep going.”\n\nEmily gave her a sidelong look. “And you really believe that?”\n\n“I never had a real friend in my life,” Slave Emily said. “You did.”\n\n“I know.” Emily knew she hadn’t been a perfect friend, not to anyone. She was lucky Alassa and the others had given her as much tolerance and understanding as they had. “I wish …”\n\nShe shook her head. “We have to keep going,” she said. She was incredibly tired, every atom of her body insisting she needed sleep. She would have closed her eyes and rested if some instinct hadn’t warned her that sleeping in the space between dimensions, where reality was dangerously flexible, could easily end very badly. Her dreams and nightmares would shape the world around her. “And … I’ll try to teach you magic too.”\n\nHer legs ached as she pulled herself upright, the threadline twisting around them. She took her counterpart’s hand and reached for the threadline, a blaze of white light surrounding them as they stepped into a new timeline. There was a hint of resistance, as if the timeline itself was rejecting them … no, as if they were stepping into a heavily warded fortress. Someone screamed … a sudden hubbub surrounded them as the light faded, her eyes stinging painfully. They were in the middle of a crowd. She could barely see, but she could hear footsteps running towards them … guards, she guessed. They had the right cadence.\n\n“Hold,” a firm voice said. Female, familiar and yet not. Strong and confident and imposing by dint of existing. Nothing like her and yet … “We shall handle this personally.”\n\nEmily looked up and froze. “You have got to be kidding me.”\n\n### NOTES\nImperial throne room / informal court space where pizza is served.\nTruth spell available and used by Emily before her account.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe cannot look away from Empress Emily on the throne, takes a last bite of pizza, casts a truth spell, and talks—laying out the chase and the stakes while her counterpart’s eyes show nothing. Land on that silent listening.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Court strangeness under truth magic. Land on the counterpart’s opaque silence.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily couldn’t take her eyes off the woman on the throne.\n\nIt was her, it had to be, and yet … she was powerful and prominent and dominated the throne room merely by existing. She wore a simple white dress, threaded with gold, her long brown hair flowing down her back; she seemed larger than life, her existence something stamped on reality itself. The throne was smaller than King Randor’s, hardly as elaborate as many she’d seen over the years, but her counterpart could make a ducking stool look like a throne. And the man beside her, one hand resting on the back of the throne …\n\nImpossible, Emily thought. The man was blond, blue-eyed, muscular in a manner that caught the eye without being exaggerated to the point of parody. Is he …?\n\n“Our sisters are always welcome in our court,” Empress Emily said. Emily had no idea of her counterpart’s title, or what she was doing on the throne, but she couldn’t think of her as anything else. “You may all leave us.”\n\nEmily glanced around, suddenly very aware they were surrounded by hundreds of people: magicians, aristocrats, wealthy commoners and guards, the latter keeping their distance as they watched the two new arrivals warily. A rustle ran through the giant chamber as people started to withdraw, moving as slowly as they dared; throne rooms were far more than just places for kings to address their courts, Emily knew, and anyone who didn’t attend risked being last to find out what was happening … if they found out at all. Who knew which rival would be whispering poison in the monarch’s ear, if you weren’t at court to defend yourself? And to be seen.\n\nThe room emptied with surprising speed, the wards shifting around them to provide privacy and security. Emily studied them, keeping one hand on Slave Emily’s arm. She was trembling like a leaf, all too aware she was hopelessly vulnerable; Emily didn’t feel much better. She might be linked to her counterpart, sharing the same blood and magic, but somehow she doubted it would be enough if the meeting turned nasty. The woman on the throne ruled. If she decided to do something nasty …\n\n“Come forward,” Empress Emily said. Her tone was polite, but it was unmistakably an order. “Let me see you.”\n\nEmily forced herself forward. “I greet you,” she managed. She’d never thought about ruling, never thought about making herself a queen. She’d certainly never ruled Cockatrice in the manner of the old duke, whose name had been declared damnatio memoriae and so thoroughly wiped from the record that no trace remained of the man who’d once thought he could be king or kingmaker. “I pledge to hold my hand in your house.”\n\nThe empress gave her a considering look. “Me and not me,” she said. “Who are you?”\n\n“I’m you, from an alternate universe,” Emily said. The tiredness was gnawing at her. “My friend is from a different universe. Who are” – she glanced at the blond man – “who are you?”\n\n“Prince Consort Alexis of Zangaria,” the young man said. His face was masculine and yet … he was so much like Alassa they could be brother and sister. They technically were. An opposite sex counterpart? Why not? “I bid you welcome to the halls of Empress Emily, my wife.”\n\nEmily felt her head spin. The timeline was just … she shook her head, unsure if she should risk a full explanation. Her counterpart might not be a necromancer, but if she was an empress … how much did she rule? More than just Zangaria, she was sure, if she held a higher title than king. What would she do if she knew the truth? Could she be kept from learning it? They were the same person, after all, with the same concepts and understandings …\n\n“You’re trying to decide how much to tell us,” Empress Emily said. There was no anger in her tone, just amusement. “Why not just outline the truth?”\n\n“It’s a long story,” Emily said. Her stomach growled. She flushed. “I … I hope we haven’t caused you too many problems.”\n\n“Materialising in the middle of my throne room,” Empress Emily said. “People will talk. No one will be too surprised that I might have sisters, even if I don’t. Our father” – there was a hint of droll amusement in her tone – “was certainly supposed to have at least one bastard child.”\n\nShe stood, moving with a confidence Emily could only admire – and envy. “You will join us for dinner,” she said. “You can tell us your story over a meal.”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Slave Emily, then let her counterpart lead her through a hidden door into a smaller dining chamber. The room was simple and yet elegant, a long low table flanked by comfortable chairs; the domain of a young woman, Emily noted, with near-infinite resources and a certain reluctance to play political games past a certain point. It was a sign of great favour to be invited to share a meal with the monarch, she knew from Alassa, which meant she had to pick and choose who attended her table and rarely had the chance to eat alone. Or even with her husband. She wondered, suddenly, which of the two had designed the room. If it had been Alassa’s counterpart …\n\nThe sense of disorientation grew stronger as the servants arrived, serving plates of pizza and French fries as if they were the finest meals imaginable. Emily wasn’t sure if she should be reassured her counterpart wasn’t eating more traditional aristocratic foods or concerned she was stamping too much of herself on the world around her. The servants withdrew as silently as they’d come, the wards tightening around the chamber to ensure near-total privacy. It would be impossible, Emily thought, for anyone to spy on them without making it obvious. She hoped she was right.\n\n“Now,” Empress Emily said, once starvation was no longer an issue. “What is your story?”\n\nEmily took a final bite of her pizza, then cast the truth spell and started to talk. Her counterpart listened silently, her eyes revealing nothing of her innermost feelings as Emily outlined the whole story. It wasn't until Emily told her that Alexis was Alassa in her world that Empress Emily showed any reaction at all, a droll chuckle that made her seem human. Alexis himself seemed oddly disturbed by the thought. But then, if he’d been born a girl, he would have been in a very different place.\n", "completion": "Emily couldn’t take her eyes off the woman on the throne.\n\nIt was her, it had to be, and yet … she was powerful and prominent and dominated the throne room merely by existing. She wore a simple white dress, threaded with gold, her long brown hair flowing down her back; she seemed larger than life, her existence something stamped on reality itself. The throne was smaller than King Randor’s, hardly as elaborate as many she’d seen over the years, but her counterpart could make a ducking stool look like a throne. And the man beside her, one hand resting on the back of the throne …\n\nImpossible, Emily thought. The man was blond, blue-eyed, muscular in a manner that caught the eye without being exaggerated to the point of parody. Is he …?\n\n“Our sisters are always welcome in our court,” Empress Emily said. Emily had no idea of her counterpart’s title, or what she was doing on the throne, but she couldn’t think of her as anything else. “You may all leave us.”\n\nEmily glanced around, suddenly very aware they were surrounded by hundreds of people: magicians, aristocrats, wealthy commoners and guards, the latter keeping their distance as they watched the two new arrivals warily. A rustle ran through the giant chamber as people started to withdraw, moving as slowly as they dared; throne rooms were far more than just places for kings to address their courts, Emily knew, and anyone who didn’t attend risked being last to find out what was happening … if they found out at all. Who knew which rival would be whispering poison in the monarch’s ear, if you weren’t at court to defend yourself? And to be seen.\n\nThe room emptied with surprising speed, the wards shifting around them to provide privacy and security. Emily studied them, keeping one hand on Slave Emily’s arm. She was trembling like a leaf, all too aware she was hopelessly vulnerable; Emily didn’t feel much better. She might be linked to her counterpart, sharing the same blood and magic, but somehow she doubted it would be enough if the meeting turned nasty. The woman on the throne ruled. If she decided to do something nasty …\n\n“Come forward,” Empress Emily said. Her tone was polite, but it was unmistakably an order. “Let me see you.”\n\nEmily forced herself forward. “I greet you,” she managed. She’d never thought about ruling, never thought about making herself a queen. She’d certainly never ruled Cockatrice in the manner of the old duke, whose name had been declared damnatio memoriae and so thoroughly wiped from the record that no trace remained of the man who’d once thought he could be king or kingmaker. “I pledge to hold my hand in your house.”\n\nThe empress gave her a considering look. “Me and not me,” she said. “Who are you?”\n\n“I’m you, from an alternate universe,” Emily said. The tiredness was gnawing at her. “My friend is from a different universe. Who are” – she glanced at the blond man – “who are you?”\n\n“Prince Consort Alexis of Zangaria,” the young man said. His face was masculine and yet … he was so much like Alassa they could be brother and sister. They technically were. An opposite sex counterpart? Why not? “I bid you welcome to the halls of Empress Emily, my wife.”\n\nEmily felt her head spin. The timeline was just … she shook her head, unsure if she should risk a full explanation. Her counterpart might not be a necromancer, but if she was an empress … how much did she rule? More than just Zangaria, she was sure, if she held a higher title than king. What would she do if she knew the truth? Could she be kept from learning it? They were the same person, after all, with the same concepts and understandings …\n\n“You’re trying to decide how much to tell us,” Empress Emily said. There was no anger in her tone, just amusement. “Why not just outline the truth?”\n\n“It’s a long story,” Emily said. Her stomach growled. She flushed. “I … I hope we haven’t caused you too many problems.”\n\n“Materialising in the middle of my throne room,” Empress Emily said. “People will talk. No one will be too surprised that I might have sisters, even if I don’t. Our father” – there was a hint of droll amusement in her tone – “was certainly supposed to have at least one bastard child.”\n\nShe stood, moving with a confidence Emily could only admire – and envy. “You will join us for dinner,” she said. “You can tell us your story over a meal.”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Slave Emily, then let her counterpart lead her through a hidden door into a smaller dining chamber. The room was simple and yet elegant, a long low table flanked by comfortable chairs; the domain of a young woman, Emily noted, with near-infinite resources and a certain reluctance to play political games past a certain point. It was a sign of great favour to be invited to share a meal with the monarch, she knew from Alassa, which meant she had to pick and choose who attended her table and rarely had the chance to eat alone. Or even with her husband. She wondered, suddenly, which of the two had designed the room. If it had been Alassa’s counterpart …\n\nThe sense of disorientation grew stronger as the servants arrived, serving plates of pizza and French fries as if they were the finest meals imaginable. Emily wasn’t sure if she should be reassured her counterpart wasn’t eating more traditional aristocratic foods or concerned she was stamping too much of herself on the world around her. The servants withdrew as silently as they’d come, the wards tightening around the chamber to ensure near-total privacy. It would be impossible, Emily thought, for anyone to spy on them without making it obvious. She hoped she was right.\n\n“Now,” Empress Emily said, once starvation was no longer an issue. “What is your story?”\n\nEmily took a final bite of her pizza, then cast the truth spell and started to talk. Her counterpart listened silently, her eyes revealing nothing of her innermost feelings as Emily outlined the whole story. It wasn't until Emily told her that Alexis was Alassa in her world that Empress Emily showed any reaction at all, a droll chuckle that made her seem human. Alexis himself seemed oddly disturbed by the thought. But then, if he’d been born a girl, he would have been in a very different place.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1110, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch27-P2", "chapter": "ch27", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized; the mad god at stake.\nAlexis — capitalized.\nmagitech — one word.\n\n### STORY\nUnder a truth spell Emily tells Empress Emily about the mad-god war while pizza crumbs and imperial calm make the threat feel unreal.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nAngry that her counterpart knows the multiverse is at risk and still hedges; needs help and hates begging an empress who shares her face.\n\nEmpress Emily\nMuses that Emily is fighting a mad god—calls it insane; selfish calm that flares Emily’s temper.\n\nAlexis\nPresent in the imperial frame.\n\nFrieda\nPresent.\n\nSlave Emily\nPresent.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Materialising in the middle of my throne room,” Empress Emily said. “People will talk. No one will be too surprised that I might have sisters, even if I don’t. Our father” – there was a hint of droll amusement in her tone – “was certainly supposed to have at least one bastard child.”\n\nShe stood, moving with a confidence Emily could only admire – and envy. “You will join us for dinner,” she said. “You can tell us your story over a meal.”\n\nEmily exchanged glances with Slave Emily, then let her counterpart lead her through a hidden door into a smaller dining chamber. The room was simple and yet elegant, a long low table flanked by comfortable chairs; the domain of a young woman, Emily noted, with near-infinite resources and a certain reluctance to play political games past a certain point. It was a sign of great favour to be invited to share a meal with the monarch, she knew from Alassa, which meant she had to pick and choose who attended her table and rarely had the chance to eat alone. Or even with her husband. She wondered, suddenly, which of the two had designed the room. If it had been Alassa’s counterpart …\n\nThe sense of disorientation grew stronger as the servants arrived, serving plates of pizza and French fries as if they were the finest meals imaginable. Emily wasn’t sure if she should be reassured her counterpart wasn’t eating more traditional aristocratic foods or concerned she was stamping too much of herself on the world around her. The servants withdrew as silently as they’d come, the wards tightening around the chamber to ensure near-total privacy. It would be impossible, Emily thought, for anyone to spy on them without making it obvious. She hoped she was right.\n\n“Now,” Empress Emily said, once starvation was no longer an issue. “What is your story?”\n\nEmily took a final bite of her pizza, then cast the truth spell and started to talk. Her counterpart listened silently, her eyes revealing nothing of her innermost feelings as Emily outlined the whole story. It wasn't until Emily told her that Alexis was Alassa in her world that Empress Emily showed any reaction at all, a droll chuckle that made her seem human. Alexis himself seemed oddly disturbed by the thought. But then, if he’d been born a girl, he would have been in a very different place.\n\n### NOTES\nSame imperial audience; negotiation not yet sealed.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmpress Emily muses that fighting a mad god is insane; Emily’s temper spikes at the selfish calm when the whole multiverse is on the line. The argument presses toward what help will cost. Land on that hot flare of anger at the counterpart’s self-preservation.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Moral pressure dialogue. Land on Emily’s anger at imperial selfishness.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“And you’re fighting a mad god,” Empress Emily mused. “Insane.”\n\n“And you’re an empress,” Emily said. “How …?”\n\nEmpress Emily nodded to Alexis. “We fell in love,” she said. “One thing led to another. My defeat of Shadye made me important, my husband … we went from place to place, building up the Allied Lands and eventually binding them back into the Empire. Apparently, I am descended from the very last Emperor himself. It was something of a shock to discover I really did have a family after all.”\n\nHer lips twisted. Emily had to smile too.\n\n“The world united under our banner,” Alexis said. “The kings and princes accepted their place beneath us. The schools of magic serve us now, turning out magicians and mages who will fight for us. And now we are forging the army that will cleanse the Blighted Lands of the necromantic scourge and bring the rest of the world into the empire. It will change the world.”\n\n“Astonishing,” Slave Emily breathed.\n\nEmily nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. She’d met countless kings and princes and few had ever put the best interests of their kingdom, let alone the Allied Lands, ahead of themselves. The idea they’d just concede power without a fight was absurd. There was something missing … she frowned inwardly, recalling what Void had intended to do in her world. If he was here too, if he’d brought his plans forward, he could have cleared the way for them without ever wholly revealing his hand. And if her counterpart wasn’t aware of his true nature …\n\nOr she could have found a way to build an army herself, Emily mused. If Empress Emily wound up with a practically invincible army, with gunpowder weapons and magitech, she might be able to force everyone else to bend the knee. There are too many unanswered questions here.\n\nShe took another bite of her pizza, savouring the taste. “And you married Alassa … Alexis?”\n\n“Yes.” Empress Emily said. “Did yours never even hint at it?”\n\nEmily shrugged. Alassa had said as much once, pointing out that she’d be expected to court Emily if one of them had been the opposite sex. A male Emily would have worked in her favour, a near-invincible sorcerer with no real interest in taking the throne and a cultural background that didn’t expect him to take the lead in all things, forcing him to dominate his wife even though she was a queen. Emily had never given the matter any thought. It wouldn’t produce heirs and that was the monarch’s first responsibility. There’d never seemed any point in considering it.\n\n“No,” she said, finally. “We’re just friends. She married Jade.”\n\nAlexis looked faintly green. “Jade? My Knight?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily hid her amusement with an effort. “They married a few years ago. One child.”\n\nA thought struck her. “Do we have children in this world?”\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. “Three,” she said. “Two girls and a boy. Rachel, Mildred and Harry.”\n\nEmily groaned. “Poor kids.”\n\nAlexis gave her a sharp look. “Why …?”\n\n“No matter,” Empress Emily said. “It just seemed appropriate. Somehow.”\n\n“Somehow,” Emily agreed. The thought was weird. If the kids were hers, genetically speaking … were they? She wanted to ask if she could meet them and, at the same time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to take that step. The whole idea was just … “This is a very strange world.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “Yours is equally so,” she said. “A female Alexis?”\n\n“Very funny,” Alexis said.\n\n“What happened to the others?” Emily leaned forward, curious. “Imaiqah? Melissa? Caleb? Adam and Lilith? Frieda …”\n\nHer heart twisted, painfully. Frieda was dead.\n\n“Imaiqah is one of my closest companions,” Empress Emily said. “Melissa vanished in our fourth year at school – I don’t know what happened to her. The others” – she shook her head – “I don’t know them.”\n\n“There was a Caleb at Stronghold,” Alexis said. “Casper’s brother?”\n\nEmily nodded. “That’s him.”\n\n“I think he became a combat sorcerer,” Alexis said. “I never actually met him.”\n\nEmpress Emily cocked her head. “Should we be looking for them?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, flatly. Was there a Frieda in this universe? She didn’t want to know. If there was … she wouldn’t be the same person. “You’ll find them very helpful.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “And I suppose that leads to a very obvious question,” she said. “What are you prepared to offer me in exchange for my help?”\n\nEmily blinked in surprise. “You know what is at stake.”\n\n“I also know I need to keep this empire intact,” Empress Emily said. “The War of Reconquest is about to begin, leaving us somewhat exposed. I cannot devote resources to helping you without getting something in return.”\n\nHer lips thinned. “I’m not all-powerful. There are too many people out there” – she waved a hand at the walls – “who are just waiting for a hint of weakness. And then they start hiring assassins.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said, slowly. She couldn’t tell if her counterpart was lying or trying to gain some advantage through crosstime travel. She might wear Emily’s face, but she was hardly the same person. “I see.”\n\n“I could stay with you,” Slave Emily said. “If I can be useful …”\n\nEmpress Emily gave her a considering look. “We’ll discuss it later,” she said. “But right now we have other problems.”\n\nEmily felt a hot flare of anger. Her counterpart knew what was at stake. How could she be so selfish? The entire multiverse was at risk … surely she would help, just out of self-preservation if nothing else. But Necromancer Emily had been willing to risk losing everything too …\n", "completion": "“And you’re fighting a mad god,” Empress Emily mused. “Insane.”\n\n“And you’re an empress,” Emily said. “How …?”\n\nEmpress Emily nodded to Alexis. “We fell in love,” she said. “One thing led to another. My defeat of Shadye made me important, my husband … we went from place to place, building up the Allied Lands and eventually binding them back into the Empire. Apparently, I am descended from the very last Emperor himself. It was something of a shock to discover I really did have a family after all.”\n\nHer lips twisted. Emily had to smile too.\n\n“The world united under our banner,” Alexis said. “The kings and princes accepted their place beneath us. The schools of magic serve us now, turning out magicians and mages who will fight for us. And now we are forging the army that will cleanse the Blighted Lands of the necromantic scourge and bring the rest of the world into the empire. It will change the world.”\n\n“Astonishing,” Slave Emily breathed.\n\nEmily nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. She’d met countless kings and princes and few had ever put the best interests of their kingdom, let alone the Allied Lands, ahead of themselves. The idea they’d just concede power without a fight was absurd. There was something missing … she frowned inwardly, recalling what Void had intended to do in her world. If he was here too, if he’d brought his plans forward, he could have cleared the way for them without ever wholly revealing his hand. And if her counterpart wasn’t aware of his true nature …\n\nOr she could have found a way to build an army herself, Emily mused. If Empress Emily wound up with a practically invincible army, with gunpowder weapons and magitech, she might be able to force everyone else to bend the knee. There are too many unanswered questions here.\n\nShe took another bite of her pizza, savouring the taste. “And you married Alassa … Alexis?”\n\n“Yes.” Empress Emily said. “Did yours never even hint at it?”\n\nEmily shrugged. Alassa had said as much once, pointing out that she’d be expected to court Emily if one of them had been the opposite sex. A male Emily would have worked in her favour, a near-invincible sorcerer with no real interest in taking the throne and a cultural background that didn’t expect him to take the lead in all things, forcing him to dominate his wife even though she was a queen. Emily had never given the matter any thought. It wouldn’t produce heirs and that was the monarch’s first responsibility. There’d never seemed any point in considering it.\n\n“No,” she said, finally. “We’re just friends. She married Jade.”\n\nAlexis looked faintly green. “Jade? My Knight?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily hid her amusement with an effort. “They married a few years ago. One child.”\n\nA thought struck her. “Do we have children in this world?”\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. “Three,” she said. “Two girls and a boy. Rachel, Mildred and Harry.”\n\nEmily groaned. “Poor kids.”\n\nAlexis gave her a sharp look. “Why …?”\n\n“No matter,” Empress Emily said. “It just seemed appropriate. Somehow.”\n\n“Somehow,” Emily agreed. The thought was weird. If the kids were hers, genetically speaking … were they? She wanted to ask if she could meet them and, at the same time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to take that step. The whole idea was just … “This is a very strange world.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “Yours is equally so,” she said. “A female Alexis?”\n\n“Very funny,” Alexis said.\n\n“What happened to the others?” Emily leaned forward, curious. “Imaiqah? Melissa? Caleb? Adam and Lilith? Frieda …”\n\nHer heart twisted, painfully. Frieda was dead.\n\n“Imaiqah is one of my closest companions,” Empress Emily said. “Melissa vanished in our fourth year at school – I don’t know what happened to her. The others” – she shook her head – “I don’t know them.”\n\n“There was a Caleb at Stronghold,” Alexis said. “Casper’s brother?”\n\nEmily nodded. “That’s him.”\n\n“I think he became a combat sorcerer,” Alexis said. “I never actually met him.”\n\nEmpress Emily cocked her head. “Should we be looking for them?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, flatly. Was there a Frieda in this universe? She didn’t want to know. If there was … she wouldn’t be the same person. “You’ll find them very helpful.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “And I suppose that leads to a very obvious question,” she said. “What are you prepared to offer me in exchange for my help?”\n\nEmily blinked in surprise. “You know what is at stake.”\n\n“I also know I need to keep this empire intact,” Empress Emily said. “The War of Reconquest is about to begin, leaving us somewhat exposed. I cannot devote resources to helping you without getting something in return.”\n\nHer lips thinned. “I’m not all-powerful. There are too many people out there” – she waved a hand at the walls – “who are just waiting for a hint of weakness. And then they start hiring assassins.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said, slowly. She couldn’t tell if her counterpart was lying or trying to gain some advantage through crosstime travel. She might wear Emily’s face, but she was hardly the same person. “I see.”\n\n“I could stay with you,” Slave Emily said. “If I can be useful …”\n\nEmpress Emily gave her a considering look. “We’ll discuss it later,” she said. “But right now we have other problems.”\n\nEmily felt a hot flare of anger. Her counterpart knew what was at stake. How could she be so selfish? The entire multiverse was at risk … surely she would help, just out of self-preservation if nothing else. But Necromancer Emily had been willing to risk losing everything too …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 960, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch27-P3", "chapter": "ch27", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nmagitech — one word.\nAlexis — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily’s anger spikes when Empress Emily treats the mad-god war as an insane inconvenience rather than a shared existential threat.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nBargains magitech knowledge for help; exhausted; agrees to stay for the moment though time is against them.\n\nEmpress Emily\nWilling to host/help on terms; wink about bilocation and confusing family history; acknowledges Emily guessed right about something; hears Emily will stay briefly.\n\nAlexis\nIn the household/political background of the deal.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Somehow,” Emily agreed. The thought was weird. If the kids were hers, genetically speaking … were they? She wanted to ask if she could meet them and, at the same time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to take that step. The whole idea was just … “This is a very strange world.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “Yours is equally so,” she said. “A female Alexis?”\n\n“Very funny,” Alexis said.\n\n“What happened to the others?” Emily leaned forward, curious. “Imaiqah? Melissa? Caleb? Adam and Lilith? Frieda …”\n\nHer heart twisted, painfully. Frieda was dead.\n\n“Imaiqah is one of my closest companions,” Empress Emily said. “Melissa vanished in our fourth year at school – I don’t know what happened to her. The others” – she shook her head – “I don’t know them.”\n\n“There was a Caleb at Stronghold,” Alexis said. “Casper’s brother?”\n\nEmily nodded. “That’s him.”\n\n“I think he became a combat sorcerer,” Alexis said. “I never actually met him.”\n\nEmpress Emily cocked her head. “Should we be looking for them?”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said, flatly. Was there a Frieda in this universe? She didn’t want to know. If there was … she wouldn’t be the same person. “You’ll find them very helpful.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “And I suppose that leads to a very obvious question,” she said. “What are you prepared to offer me in exchange for my help?”\n\nEmily blinked in surprise. “You know what is at stake.”\n\n“I also know I need to keep this empire intact,” Empress Emily said. “The War of Reconquest is about to begin, leaving us somewhat exposed. I cannot devote resources to helping you without getting something in return.”\n\nHer lips thinned. “I’m not all-powerful. There are too many people out there” – she waved a hand at the walls – “who are just waiting for a hint of weakness. And then they start hiring assassins.”\n\n“I see,” Emily said, slowly. She couldn’t tell if her counterpart was lying or trying to gain some advantage through crosstime travel. She might wear Emily’s face, but she was hardly the same person. “I see.”\n\n“I could stay with you,” Slave Emily said. “If I can be useful …”\n\nEmpress Emily gave her a considering look. “We’ll discuss it later,” she said. “But right now we have other problems.”\n\nEmily felt a hot flare of anger. Her counterpart knew what was at stake. How could she be so selfish? The entire multiverse was at risk … surely she would help, just out of self-preservation if nothing else. But Necromancer Emily had been willing to risk losing everything too …\n\n### NOTES\nImperial private negotiation continuing from the audience.\nTime pressure explicit.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe offers magitech if they help; her counterpart sets terms with bilocation jokes and empire pragmatism; tiredness creeps in until Emily agrees to stay for the moment. Land on time is not on our side.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Deal-making after anger; weary close. Land on the time-pressure stay.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I know a great deal of magitech,” she said, finally. “And if you help us I will share it with you.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled, a faintly unpleasant expression Emily hoped never showed on her face. It was suddenly easy to imagine her counterpart as a loan shark, gleefully tightening the screws with every missed payment and enjoying every foreclosure as if it were a victory over a deadly foe. Her counterpart lived for power … like so many other abused children, she was drawn to power because it meant she would never be hurt again. And she didn’t care how many people were ground underfoot. She had to be on top, she had to assert herself, just to keep others from hurting her.\n\n“That might be suitable, yes,” her counterpart said. “And I would be grateful for any other insights you might have to offer.”\n\n“I’d need some rest first,” Emily said. “Will having your sisters around cause you any problems?”\n\n“Not here,” her counterpart said. “I've been known to be in two places at once” – she winked – “and much of my family history is confusing. Having two more sisters is hardly going to surprise people. Everyone knows that royal blood is dominant.”\n\nHer lips twitched. “It’s astonishing how many paintings of the Last Emperor look like me,” she said. “He could easily be my father.”\n\n“There weren’t many paintings of him in my world,” Emily said. A great deal had been lost in the final days of the empire, leaving being a hundred different versions of the story and dozens of paintings that were all supposed to be of the same person, yet clearly weren’t. “I take it they were rediscovered after the empire was re-established.”\n\n“They turned out to be buried under the White City, in a vault only a blood descendent could access,” Empress Emily said, deadpan. “It was a truly remarkable discovery that proved my right to rule beyond a shadow of a doubt.”\n\nEmily had to smile. “And everyone believed it?”\n\n“I’m sure a great many people did not believe it,” Empress Emily said. “But it hardly matters as long as most people do. Power is dependent on naked force and legitimacy and anything that proves my claim to the throne is legitimate works in my favour.”\n\nShe shrugged. “I freed the serfs. I broke feudal lords who thought the people on their lands were property. I taught the poor how to read and write, so they could claim their rights, and created a bureaucracy that ensures those rights are respected even by the most entitled of lords and ladies. And all of this is possible because those people believe in me.”\n\n“The king is never at fault,” Emily said. “It’s always the fault of his evil advisors.”\n\nShe scowled, inwardly. Kings had never been allowed to have feet of clay, in the medieval period. They presented themselves as kindly fathers, parental figures who were sometimes misled by the aristocrats and yet truly good at heart. The peasants had believed, in response, that if the king knew the truth he would dismiss his councillors and rule wisely and justly from that moment on … all nonsense, of course, but very useful and cynical nonsense. And when the kings forgot, when they let the mask slip, the results were often disastrous.\n\n“Quite,” Empress Emily agreed, echoing Emily’s thoughts. “Nicolas and Louis forgot that. I never will.”\n\n“Good,” Emily said. She couldn’t help feeling unsure of her ground. Her counterpart was playing from a more advanced playbook than the locals, just like some of the others. She could forge a secret service capable of rivalling the KGB, or craft a bureaucracy that would slowly steal autonomy and concentrate all power in her hands. And she had magic. There was no way anyone, even her husband, could bring her to heel easily. “Will you help us?”\n\n“We could,” Empress Emily agreed. “As long as you help us in exchange.”\n\nEmily groaned, inwardly. “We can start tomorrow,” she said. The tiredness was creeping up on her. “I …”\n\n“I’ve ordered suites prepared for you,” Empress Emily said. She was good. Emily had missed her sending the orders through the wards. “You can sleep and eat when you wake and … we’ll talk when you’re ready. I have work to do here. Sadly, everyone expects me to be in the throne room at all times.”\n\n“You knew the job was dangerous when you married me,” Alexis teased.\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. It wasn’t sardonic … it was genuine. Emily felt her heart miss a beat … Caleb was gone, presumed dead, and … she wanted to ask about their relationship, and about how it worked, but she couldn’t even begin to work out how to ask. Jade was content to serve as Alassa’s strong right arm, to stay in the background even though he was expected to lead his wife … somehow, she couldn’t imagine a male version of Alassa being willing to do the same. Even if Emily was the direct heir of the Last Emperor – a tissue-thin network of lies, held together by desperation – and therefore the rightful monarch, she couldn’t believe he’d just step aside and let her rule alone. But then, perhaps Alexis was more secure than Alassa. He would know he was the heir from birth.\n\n“Yeah,” Empress Emily said. “I guess I did.”\n\nShe stood, ending the meal. “I’ll have you shown to your suites,” she said. “Please stay in them until I send for you. There are people in this palace who would eat you alive.”\n\nEmily nodded. She spent as little time as possible in Alassa’s court, but she knew just how much political manoeuvring, quiet backstabbing – sometimes literally – and sometimes open violence pervaded the court. Her presence shifted the balance of power, in both. If they saw her as a possible successor to her sister …\n\n“I’ll stay, for the moment,” she said. “But time is not on our side.”\n", "completion": "“I know a great deal of magitech,” she said, finally. “And if you help us I will share it with you.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled, a faintly unpleasant expression Emily hoped never showed on her face. It was suddenly easy to imagine her counterpart as a loan shark, gleefully tightening the screws with every missed payment and enjoying every foreclosure as if it were a victory over a deadly foe. Her counterpart lived for power … like so many other abused children, she was drawn to power because it meant she would never be hurt again. And she didn’t care how many people were ground underfoot. She had to be on top, she had to assert herself, just to keep others from hurting her.\n\n“That might be suitable, yes,” her counterpart said. “And I would be grateful for any other insights you might have to offer.”\n\n“I’d need some rest first,” Emily said. “Will having your sisters around cause you any problems?”\n\n“Not here,” her counterpart said. “I've been known to be in two places at once” – she winked – “and much of my family history is confusing. Having two more sisters is hardly going to surprise people. Everyone knows that royal blood is dominant.”\n\nHer lips twitched. “It’s astonishing how many paintings of the Last Emperor look like me,” she said. “He could easily be my father.”\n\n“There weren’t many paintings of him in my world,” Emily said. A great deal had been lost in the final days of the empire, leaving being a hundred different versions of the story and dozens of paintings that were all supposed to be of the same person, yet clearly weren’t. “I take it they were rediscovered after the empire was re-established.”\n\n“They turned out to be buried under the White City, in a vault only a blood descendent could access,” Empress Emily said, deadpan. “It was a truly remarkable discovery that proved my right to rule beyond a shadow of a doubt.”\n\nEmily had to smile. “And everyone believed it?”\n\n“I’m sure a great many people did not believe it,” Empress Emily said. “But it hardly matters as long as most people do. Power is dependent on naked force and legitimacy and anything that proves my claim to the throne is legitimate works in my favour.”\n\nShe shrugged. “I freed the serfs. I broke feudal lords who thought the people on their lands were property. I taught the poor how to read and write, so they could claim their rights, and created a bureaucracy that ensures those rights are respected even by the most entitled of lords and ladies. And all of this is possible because those people believe in me.”\n\n“The king is never at fault,” Emily said. “It’s always the fault of his evil advisors.”\n\nShe scowled, inwardly. Kings had never been allowed to have feet of clay, in the medieval period. They presented themselves as kindly fathers, parental figures who were sometimes misled by the aristocrats and yet truly good at heart. The peasants had believed, in response, that if the king knew the truth he would dismiss his councillors and rule wisely and justly from that moment on … all nonsense, of course, but very useful and cynical nonsense. And when the kings forgot, when they let the mask slip, the results were often disastrous.\n\n“Quite,” Empress Emily agreed, echoing Emily’s thoughts. “Nicolas and Louis forgot that. I never will.”\n\n“Good,” Emily said. She couldn’t help feeling unsure of her ground. Her counterpart was playing from a more advanced playbook than the locals, just like some of the others. She could forge a secret service capable of rivalling the KGB, or craft a bureaucracy that would slowly steal autonomy and concentrate all power in her hands. And she had magic. There was no way anyone, even her husband, could bring her to heel easily. “Will you help us?”\n\n“We could,” Empress Emily agreed. “As long as you help us in exchange.”\n\nEmily groaned, inwardly. “We can start tomorrow,” she said. The tiredness was creeping up on her. “I …”\n\n“I’ve ordered suites prepared for you,” Empress Emily said. She was good. Emily had missed her sending the orders through the wards. “You can sleep and eat when you wake and … we’ll talk when you’re ready. I have work to do here. Sadly, everyone expects me to be in the throne room at all times.”\n\n“You knew the job was dangerous when you married me,” Alexis teased.\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. It wasn’t sardonic … it was genuine. Emily felt her heart miss a beat … Caleb was gone, presumed dead, and … she wanted to ask about their relationship, and about how it worked, but she couldn’t even begin to work out how to ask. Jade was content to serve as Alassa’s strong right arm, to stay in the background even though he was expected to lead his wife … somehow, she couldn’t imagine a male version of Alassa being willing to do the same. Even if Emily was the direct heir of the Last Emperor – a tissue-thin network of lies, held together by desperation – and therefore the rightful monarch, she couldn’t believe he’d just step aside and let her rule alone. But then, perhaps Alexis was more secure than Alassa. He would know he was the heir from birth.\n\n“Yeah,” Empress Emily said. “I guess I did.”\n\nShe stood, ending the meal. “I’ll have you shown to your suites,” she said. “Please stay in them until I send for you. There are people in this palace who would eat you alive.”\n\nEmily nodded. She spent as little time as possible in Alassa’s court, but she knew just how much political manoeuvring, quiet backstabbing – sometimes literally – and sometimes open violence pervaded the court. Her presence shifted the balance of power, in both. If they saw her as a possible successor to her sister …\n\n“I’ll stay, for the moment,” she said. “But time is not on our side.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1013, "split": "holdout", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch28-P1", "chapter": "ch28", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nAlexis — capitalized.\nMildred — capitalized; royal child.\nRachel — capitalized; royal child.\nThe X-Files — keep italics/caps as gold’s show-title reference if present; otherwise plain.\n\n### STORY\nEmily bargains magitech to Empress Emily for help against Master Wolfe and agrees to stay briefly though time is short.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nWakes in a suite designed for her; unsettled by power’s implications; meets Alexis and the royal children as “aunt”; studies Alexis as neither Caleb nor Jade nor Cat.\n\nEmpress Emily\nHums an X-Files theme; shepherds introductions.\n\nAlexis\nDistaff Alassa-analogue; notes Emily’s place that is not her place.\n\nMildred / Rachel\nRoyal children present for introductions.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Good,” Emily said. She couldn’t help feeling unsure of her ground. Her counterpart was playing from a more advanced playbook than the locals, just like some of the others. She could forge a secret service capable of rivalling the KGB, or craft a bureaucracy that would slowly steal autonomy and concentrate all power in her hands. And she had magic. There was no way anyone, even her husband, could bring her to heel easily. “Will you help us?”\n\n“We could,” Empress Emily agreed. “As long as you help us in exchange.”\n\nEmily groaned, inwardly. “We can start tomorrow,” she said. The tiredness was creeping up on her. “I …”\n\n“I’ve ordered suites prepared for you,” Empress Emily said. She was good. Emily had missed her sending the orders through the wards. “You can sleep and eat when you wake and … we’ll talk when you’re ready. I have work to do here. Sadly, everyone expects me to be in the throne room at all times.”\n\n“You knew the job was dangerous when you married me,” Alexis teased.\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. It wasn’t sardonic … it was genuine. Emily felt her heart miss a beat … Caleb was gone, presumed dead, and … she wanted to ask about their relationship, and about how it worked, but she couldn’t even begin to work out how to ask. Jade was content to serve as Alassa’s strong right arm, to stay in the background even though he was expected to lead his wife … somehow, she couldn’t imagine a male version of Alassa being willing to do the same. Even if Emily was the direct heir of the Last Emperor – a tissue-thin network of lies, held together by desperation – and therefore the rightful monarch, she couldn’t believe he’d just step aside and let her rule alone. But then, perhaps Alexis was more secure than Alassa. He would know he was the heir from birth.\n\n“Yeah,” Empress Emily said. “I guess I did.”\n\nShe stood, ending the meal. “I’ll have you shown to your suites,” she said. “Please stay in them until I send for you. There are people in this palace who would eat you alive.”\n\nEmily nodded. She spent as little time as possible in Alassa’s court, but she knew just how much political manoeuvring, quiet backstabbing – sometimes literally – and sometimes open violence pervaded the court. Her presence shifted the balance of power, in both. If they saw her as a possible successor to her sister …\n\n“I’ll stay, for the moment,” she said. “But time is not on our side.”\n\n### NOTES\nSuite unmistakably designed for Emily/her counterpart.\nMorning after a good sleep in the imperial household.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe wakes in a suite built for her face, gathers herself through a knock, and is led to meet Alexis and children who could genetically be hers—she manages aunt. Alexis names the strangeness of a place that is hers and not. Land on Emily studying him and flushing as the comparison lands.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Domestic uncanny; light dread under manners. Land on the Alexis study.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The disconcerting thing about their suite, Emily decided as she woke after a good night’s sleep, was that it was indisputably designed for her.\n\nA soft bed, large enough for two; a bathtub equally large, with hot and cold running water and bubble bath. Bookshelves groaning under the weight of heavy books, fiction and nonfiction; windows, shimmering with protective wards, allowed her to look over the city. The design spoke of a person who knew what she wanted and had no qualms about getting it, a mind strikingly similar to her own and yet different in a multitude of ways. Emily had never really wanted power, certainly not the kind of direct personal power her counterpart had amassed, and yet …\n\nWe’re the same, but different, she reminded herself. My life and hers don’t match.\n\nShe didn’t like the implications. Did her counterpart know when to stop? Power was power - Cersei Lannister had every reason to seek power and no way to know when she was going too far, at least until it blew up in her face – and yet, raw personal power wasn’t everything. Might wasn’t right. But it did tend to determine what happened and if someone, a version of her, had a more cynical take on the universe … she told herself, as she washed and dried and dressed in an outfit perfectly tailored for her, that she would wait and see what her counterpart could offer. It wasn’t her world.\n\nAnd Frieda was gone.\n\nEmily staggered as the full weight of Frieda’s absence struck her, tears prickling in her eyes as Frieda’s last moments ran through her mind. She hadn’t met any other versions of Frieda, no counterparts who’d been her friends and allies, and that meant … she didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t help herself. The odds of Frieda reaching the very highest levels without her were not good, given her early life and schooling. Every other Frieda might have died young, been turned into a brood cow, gone mad and embraced necromancy or … Emily didn’t want to know. Her friend was dead, she’d died saving her life, and there was hardly anyone else who’d remember her. Frieda wasn’t just gone, she was gone so completely she’d practically been erased from existence.\n\nThere was a quiet knock on the door. Emily gathered herself, blinking away tears. “Come.”\n\nA maid entered, dropping a polite curtsy. It was a little too polite, the maid moving in a calculated manner … Emily’s lips twitched, humourlessly, as she realised the young girl was far more than just a maid. No aristo ever paid attention to the servants, she knew from experience, and a maid who was little more than part of the furniture could be one hell of an effective spy. The guests would talk openly in front of her, without realising she could hear every word and report back to her mistress. Even the aristos smart enough to know better got tripped up by not paying attention to the human shadows surrounding them.\n\n“My Lady,” the maid said. Her face was a demure mask. “Her Majesty requests the pleasure of your company in her breakfast chambers.”\n\nEmily brushed down her dress. “It would be my pleasure,” she said, calmly. “Lead on.”\n\nThe maid curtseyed again, then led Emily through a maze of corridors that hummed with powerful magics. There were a dozen defensive spells bristling at the edge of her awareness, designed to protect the castle’s inhabitants from all threats, and several nastier ones hidden under the more overt charms, ready to catch someone cunning enough to bypass the obvious dangers. The workmanship was odd, her and not her; she wondered, sourly, if Empress Emily had found a way to bilocate herself several times over, allowing her to devote more hours to protecting herself than any normal sorceress. It wasn’t impossible, if unlikely. Her counterpart certainly had the force of will needed to keep the bilocation spell going indefinitely.\n\nA pair of wooden doors swung open as they approached, revealing a surprisingly modest breakfast chamber. Light streamed in from two large windows, illuminating a simple yet elegant wooden table and a row of simple chairs. Empress Emily was sitting at one end of the table, flanked by Slave Emily and her husband; the other end … Emily stopped, dead, as she saw the three children. Her heart skipped a beat. The children were hers and yet they weren’t …\n\nEmpress Emily hummed a tune. It took Emily a moment to recognise the theme from The X-Files.\n\n“My sister,” Empress Emily said. “Please allow me to introduce my children, Rachel, Harry and Mildred.”\n\nEmily felt her legs threatening to buckle. Rachel looked around four, which meant her counterpart had given birth at nineteen. Harry and Mildred appeared to be twins, around three years old … she sucked in her breath, noting how Rachel looked more like Alassa than her actual mother. A sense of unreality rose up within her, a faint sense of sheer disorientation that threatened to overwhelm her. It was too much and yet …\n\n“It’s good to meet you,” she managed. Coming face to face with kids who could have been hers was bizarre. Genetically speaking, they were hers. “I’m … I’m your aunt.”\n\n“Take a seat,” her counterpart said. “What would you like for breakfast?”\n\n“Anything,” Emily managed. The food laid out before the kids was both high-quality and plebeian, something else that reminded her of an eerie funhouse mirror version of herself. She helped herself to eggs and bacon, then bread. A maid brought her a mug of Kava and retreated as silently as she’d come. “I’m sorry, everything just feels so … strange.”\n\n“Your place, but not your place,” Alexis said. “It must be very strange.”\n\nEmily nodded, studying him thoughtfully. He wasn’t Caleb, nor was he Jade or Cat or any other young man she’d known over the last few years … she flushed, suddenly, as it dawned on her that he’d seen her naked, or rather he’d seen her counterpart naked. They had to have had sex at least twice, to produce children, and … it felt wrong to even consider the possibility, let alone think about it for more than a few seconds. It was … disorienting. The world had turned upside down.\n", "completion": "The disconcerting thing about their suite, Emily decided as she woke after a good night’s sleep, was that it was indisputably designed for her.\n\nA soft bed, large enough for two; a bathtub equally large, with hot and cold running water and bubble bath. Bookshelves groaning under the weight of heavy books, fiction and nonfiction; windows, shimmering with protective wards, allowed her to look over the city. The design spoke of a person who knew what she wanted and had no qualms about getting it, a mind strikingly similar to her own and yet different in a multitude of ways. Emily had never really wanted power, certainly not the kind of direct personal power her counterpart had amassed, and yet …\n\nWe’re the same, but different, she reminded herself. My life and hers don’t match.\n\nShe didn’t like the implications. Did her counterpart know when to stop? Power was power - Cersei Lannister had every reason to seek power and no way to know when she was going too far, at least until it blew up in her face – and yet, raw personal power wasn’t everything. Might wasn’t right. But it did tend to determine what happened and if someone, a version of her, had a more cynical take on the universe … she told herself, as she washed and dried and dressed in an outfit perfectly tailored for her, that she would wait and see what her counterpart could offer. It wasn’t her world.\n\nAnd Frieda was gone.\n\nEmily staggered as the full weight of Frieda’s absence struck her, tears prickling in her eyes as Frieda’s last moments ran through her mind. She hadn’t met any other versions of Frieda, no counterparts who’d been her friends and allies, and that meant … she didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t help herself. The odds of Frieda reaching the very highest levels without her were not good, given her early life and schooling. Every other Frieda might have died young, been turned into a brood cow, gone mad and embraced necromancy or … Emily didn’t want to know. Her friend was dead, she’d died saving her life, and there was hardly anyone else who’d remember her. Frieda wasn’t just gone, she was gone so completely she’d practically been erased from existence.\n\nThere was a quiet knock on the door. Emily gathered herself, blinking away tears. “Come.”\n\nA maid entered, dropping a polite curtsy. It was a little too polite, the maid moving in a calculated manner … Emily’s lips twitched, humourlessly, as she realised the young girl was far more than just a maid. No aristo ever paid attention to the servants, she knew from experience, and a maid who was little more than part of the furniture could be one hell of an effective spy. The guests would talk openly in front of her, without realising she could hear every word and report back to her mistress. Even the aristos smart enough to know better got tripped up by not paying attention to the human shadows surrounding them.\n\n“My Lady,” the maid said. Her face was a demure mask. “Her Majesty requests the pleasure of your company in her breakfast chambers.”\n\nEmily brushed down her dress. “It would be my pleasure,” she said, calmly. “Lead on.”\n\nThe maid curtseyed again, then led Emily through a maze of corridors that hummed with powerful magics. There were a dozen defensive spells bristling at the edge of her awareness, designed to protect the castle’s inhabitants from all threats, and several nastier ones hidden under the more overt charms, ready to catch someone cunning enough to bypass the obvious dangers. The workmanship was odd, her and not her; she wondered, sourly, if Empress Emily had found a way to bilocate herself several times over, allowing her to devote more hours to protecting herself than any normal sorceress. It wasn’t impossible, if unlikely. Her counterpart certainly had the force of will needed to keep the bilocation spell going indefinitely.\n\nA pair of wooden doors swung open as they approached, revealing a surprisingly modest breakfast chamber. Light streamed in from two large windows, illuminating a simple yet elegant wooden table and a row of simple chairs. Empress Emily was sitting at one end of the table, flanked by Slave Emily and her husband; the other end … Emily stopped, dead, as she saw the three children. Her heart skipped a beat. The children were hers and yet they weren’t …\n\nEmpress Emily hummed a tune. It took Emily a moment to recognise the theme from The X-Files.\n\n“My sister,” Empress Emily said. “Please allow me to introduce my children, Rachel, Harry and Mildred.”\n\nEmily felt her legs threatening to buckle. Rachel looked around four, which meant her counterpart had given birth at nineteen. Harry and Mildred appeared to be twins, around three years old … she sucked in her breath, noting how Rachel looked more like Alassa than her actual mother. A sense of unreality rose up within her, a faint sense of sheer disorientation that threatened to overwhelm her. It was too much and yet …\n\n“It’s good to meet you,” she managed. Coming face to face with kids who could have been hers was bizarre. Genetically speaking, they were hers. “I’m … I’m your aunt.”\n\n“Take a seat,” her counterpart said. “What would you like for breakfast?”\n\n“Anything,” Emily managed. The food laid out before the kids was both high-quality and plebeian, something else that reminded her of an eerie funhouse mirror version of herself. She helped herself to eggs and bacon, then bread. A maid brought her a mug of Kava and retreated as silently as she’d come. “I’m sorry, everything just feels so … strange.”\n\n“Your place, but not your place,” Alexis said. “It must be very strange.”\n\nEmily nodded, studying him thoughtfully. He wasn’t Caleb, nor was he Jade or Cat or any other young man she’d known over the last few years … she flushed, suddenly, as it dawned on her that he’d seen her naked, or rather he’d seen her counterpart naked. They had to have had sex at least twice, to produce children, and … it felt wrong to even consider the possibility, let alone think about it for more than a few seconds. It was … disorienting. The world had turned upside down.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1077, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch28-P2", "chapter": "ch28", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "middle", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nAlexis — capitalized.\nRose Red — both words capitalized; polity in dispute.\nAlluvia — capitalized; polity in dispute.\nFulvia — capitalized; House Ashworth matriarch question.\nHouse Ashworth — both words capitalized.\nLilith — capitalized; prospective student/aide.\nAdam — capitalized; prospective student/aide.\nSeventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries — keep the title form.\n\n### STORY\nEmily meets Alexis and the imperial children as aunt in a suite designed for her and starts reading this world’s court.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nBreakfasts through politics—Rose Red vs Alluvia, magitech questions, whether Fulvia still lives—and melts when a royal child lands in her arms.\n\nEmpress Emily\nDry about a daughter who will not be set aside for lacking a penis; changes topics with Alexis; quotes mercenary maxims.\n\nAlexis\nBriefs disputes; practices topic changes.\n\nLilith / Adam\nNamed as people to involve; not necessarily fully on-page yet.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe maid curtseyed again, then led Emily through a maze of corridors that hummed with powerful magics. There were a dozen defensive spells bristling at the edge of her awareness, designed to protect the castle’s inhabitants from all threats, and several nastier ones hidden under the more overt charms, ready to catch someone cunning enough to bypass the obvious dangers. The workmanship was odd, her and not her; she wondered, sourly, if Empress Emily had found a way to bilocate herself several times over, allowing her to devote more hours to protecting herself than any normal sorceress. It wasn’t impossible, if unlikely. Her counterpart certainly had the force of will needed to keep the bilocation spell going indefinitely.\n\nA pair of wooden doors swung open as they approached, revealing a surprisingly modest breakfast chamber. Light streamed in from two large windows, illuminating a simple yet elegant wooden table and a row of simple chairs. Empress Emily was sitting at one end of the table, flanked by Slave Emily and her husband; the other end … Emily stopped, dead, as she saw the three children. Her heart skipped a beat. The children were hers and yet they weren’t …\n\nEmpress Emily hummed a tune. It took Emily a moment to recognise the theme from The X-Files.\n\n“My sister,” Empress Emily said. “Please allow me to introduce my children, Rachel, Harry and Mildred.”\n\nEmily felt her legs threatening to buckle. Rachel looked around four, which meant her counterpart had given birth at nineteen. Harry and Mildred appeared to be twins, around three years old … she sucked in her breath, noting how Rachel looked more like Alassa than her actual mother. A sense of unreality rose up within her, a faint sense of sheer disorientation that threatened to overwhelm her. It was too much and yet …\n\n“It’s good to meet you,” she managed. Coming face to face with kids who could have been hers was bizarre. Genetically speaking, they were hers. “I’m … I’m your aunt.”\n\n“Take a seat,” her counterpart said. “What would you like for breakfast?”\n\n“Anything,” Emily managed. The food laid out before the kids was both high-quality and plebeian, something else that reminded her of an eerie funhouse mirror version of herself. She helped herself to eggs and bacon, then bread. A maid brought her a mug of Kava and retreated as silently as she’d come. “I’m sorry, everything just feels so … strange.”\n\n“Your place, but not your place,” Alexis said. “It must be very strange.”\n\nEmily nodded, studying him thoughtfully. He wasn’t Caleb, nor was he Jade or Cat or any other young man she’d known over the last few years … she flushed, suddenly, as it dawned on her that he’d seen her naked, or rather he’d seen her counterpart naked. They had to have had sex at least twice, to produce children, and … it felt wrong to even consider the possibility, let alone think about it for more than a few seconds. It was … disorienting. The world had turned upside down.\n\n### NOTES\nImperial breakfast / informal war-council table.\nChild present to be held near the end of the beat.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlexis and Empress Emily pull her through succession politics, border disputes, and magitech questions; she asks about Fulvia and hears maxims of rule. A child in her arms melts her understanding of why parents rave. Land on that soft shock.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Court breakfast banter into sudden tenderness. Land on the child in her arms.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“It is,” she admitted. Alexis looked like a man with more muscles than brains and yet, if he was a distaff version of Alassa, he would be dangerously smart and capable. “How does it feel to have three versions of your wife in the same room?”\n\n“I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds my wife is sitting next to me,” Alexis said, deadpan. His wife promptly poked him with a finger, which made Slave Emily gasp and – oddly – reassured Emily herself. “It’s strange, to say the least. But it isn’t the strangest thing I've seen.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. “I don’t know quite what to make of it,” she said. “I don’t have any kids.”\n\n“Being a mother is wanting to hug and strangle your children at the same time,” Empress Emily said, nodding to her eldest daughter. “You need to see to their education, while making sure the tutors are trustworthy and not inclined to fill their heads with nonsense.”\n\n“I know.” Emily studied the oldest child for a long moment. “Will Rachel become the Heir?”\n\n“She already is,” her counterpart said, dryly. “She won’t be put aside because she doesn’t have a penis. She’ll be raised to take my place, learning how to rule under controlled conditions before she ever has to govern the country in her own right. She will be the best-prepared heir to the throne in history, by the time she takes it for herself. The other two will find other roles, in time.”\n\nShe glanced at Slave Emily. “And your counterpart will assist us.”\n\nShe will, will she? Emily wasn’t sure what to make of that. The fact Empress Emily had clearly arranged to speak with Slave Emily first, without Emily herself, bothered her. The empress might not be the necromancer, true, but she was certainly more forceful, more used to getting what she wanted, than any of the other counterparts. And will you treat her well, giving her everything she needs to recover from her ordeal, or will you turn her into a slave in a gilded cage?\n\n“I’ll take care of her,” Empress Emily promised. She cocked her head. “She’s me, after all.”\n\nEmily nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She needed her counterpart’s help – and if she did take care of their slave counterpart …\n\n“There’s another dispute between Rose Red and Alluvia,” Alexis said, changing the subject with the ease of long practice. “What do you make of it?”\n\n“I don’t know enough to comment,” Emily said. Her Alluvia had been threatening to invade Rose Red for the last couple of years, as the revolutionary government became solidly established, but she had no idea if that was happening here. “What do you make of it?”\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. “I rarely invite outsiders to break their fast with me,” she said. “It’s a time for family, and family alone. But it does tend to limit conversation.”\n\n“It must,” Emily said. “How’s the court taking our arrival?”\n\n“Most appear to believe you two are my sisters,” Empress Emily said. “Or at least they’re pretending to believe, which is close enough. They’ll never be told the truth.”\n\nShe finished her breakfast and sat back in her chair. “What can you tell me about magitech?”\n\nTime to sing for my supper, Emily thought. She wasn’t sure how much she dared share – and she wasn’t sure, in truth, what her counterpart would do with it. If I tell her the wrong thing …\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “It’s a little too late to be worried about the Prime Directive now.”\n\nEmily flushed, torn between embarrassment and yet another reminder they were essentially the same person. “In its basic form, magitech works by channelling magic into runes which are used to generate … holographic … spell components,” she said. “Adam’s peculiar genius led him to find a way to use blood to store magic, which could then be used to power everything from wands to ongoing spell devices …”\n\n“Interesting,” Empress Emily said. “I sent for Adam and Lilith, of course.”\n\n“They won’t be the same people, not here,” Emily said. Lilith hailed from House Ashworth, which meant … a thought struck her and she frowned. “Is Fulvia still around in this world?”\n\n“She’s around,” Empress Emily said. “One of my closest allies.”\n\n“I’d keep an eye on her, if I were you,” Emily said. If Melissa had vanished in this world … she wanted to believe she’d married Markus and gone into hiding, to set herself up somewhere well away from her toxic family, but there was no way to know. Fulvia had been ruthless enough to murder her granddaughter in the name of family honour and in this world she might have succeeded. “She is not to be trusted.”\n\nAnd Lilith won’t be the person who fell for Adam, not here, her thoughts added. Summoning them both could be worse than useless.\n\n“I always do,” Empress Emily said. “A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.”\n\n“The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries,\" Emily said, recognising the line. “Good advice, if you’re ruling the world.”\n\n“Quite,” Empress Emily said. “If you’ve eaten enough, we can repair to the war room …?”\n\n“Please.” Emily pushed her plate aside. “I think I’ve eaten my fill.”\n\n“You think?” Her counterpart stood and picked up Mildred, then passed her to Emily. “You need to show a little more confidence when facing the assembled nobility.”\n\nEmily barely heard her. The child in her arms drew her attention. She was unbearably cute and … Emily felt her heart melt, understanding why Alassa spoke of her child in rapturous terms. Mildred was hers and yet she wasn’t … Emily held her gently as her counterpart led the way through a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago, into a war room that looked oddly familiar. It took her a moment to realise it looked just like a movie set …\n", "completion": "“It is,” she admitted. Alexis looked like a man with more muscles than brains and yet, if he was a distaff version of Alassa, he would be dangerously smart and capable. “How does it feel to have three versions of your wife in the same room?”\n\n“I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds my wife is sitting next to me,” Alexis said, deadpan. His wife promptly poked him with a finger, which made Slave Emily gasp and – oddly – reassured Emily herself. “It’s strange, to say the least. But it isn’t the strangest thing I've seen.”\n\nEmily couldn’t disagree. “I don’t know quite what to make of it,” she said. “I don’t have any kids.”\n\n“Being a mother is wanting to hug and strangle your children at the same time,” Empress Emily said, nodding to her eldest daughter. “You need to see to their education, while making sure the tutors are trustworthy and not inclined to fill their heads with nonsense.”\n\n“I know.” Emily studied the oldest child for a long moment. “Will Rachel become the Heir?”\n\n“She already is,” her counterpart said, dryly. “She won’t be put aside because she doesn’t have a penis. She’ll be raised to take my place, learning how to rule under controlled conditions before she ever has to govern the country in her own right. She will be the best-prepared heir to the throne in history, by the time she takes it for herself. The other two will find other roles, in time.”\n\nShe glanced at Slave Emily. “And your counterpart will assist us.”\n\nShe will, will she? Emily wasn’t sure what to make of that. The fact Empress Emily had clearly arranged to speak with Slave Emily first, without Emily herself, bothered her. The empress might not be the necromancer, true, but she was certainly more forceful, more used to getting what she wanted, than any of the other counterparts. And will you treat her well, giving her everything she needs to recover from her ordeal, or will you turn her into a slave in a gilded cage?\n\n“I’ll take care of her,” Empress Emily promised. She cocked her head. “She’s me, after all.”\n\nEmily nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She needed her counterpart’s help – and if she did take care of their slave counterpart …\n\n“There’s another dispute between Rose Red and Alluvia,” Alexis said, changing the subject with the ease of long practice. “What do you make of it?”\n\n“I don’t know enough to comment,” Emily said. Her Alluvia had been threatening to invade Rose Red for the last couple of years, as the revolutionary government became solidly established, but she had no idea if that was happening here. “What do you make of it?”\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. “I rarely invite outsiders to break their fast with me,” she said. “It’s a time for family, and family alone. But it does tend to limit conversation.”\n\n“It must,” Emily said. “How’s the court taking our arrival?”\n\n“Most appear to believe you two are my sisters,” Empress Emily said. “Or at least they’re pretending to believe, which is close enough. They’ll never be told the truth.”\n\nShe finished her breakfast and sat back in her chair. “What can you tell me about magitech?”\n\nTime to sing for my supper, Emily thought. She wasn’t sure how much she dared share – and she wasn’t sure, in truth, what her counterpart would do with it. If I tell her the wrong thing …\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “It’s a little too late to be worried about the Prime Directive now.”\n\nEmily flushed, torn between embarrassment and yet another reminder they were essentially the same person. “In its basic form, magitech works by channelling magic into runes which are used to generate … holographic … spell components,” she said. “Adam’s peculiar genius led him to find a way to use blood to store magic, which could then be used to power everything from wands to ongoing spell devices …”\n\n“Interesting,” Empress Emily said. “I sent for Adam and Lilith, of course.”\n\n“They won’t be the same people, not here,” Emily said. Lilith hailed from House Ashworth, which meant … a thought struck her and she frowned. “Is Fulvia still around in this world?”\n\n“She’s around,” Empress Emily said. “One of my closest allies.”\n\n“I’d keep an eye on her, if I were you,” Emily said. If Melissa had vanished in this world … she wanted to believe she’d married Markus and gone into hiding, to set herself up somewhere well away from her toxic family, but there was no way to know. Fulvia had been ruthless enough to murder her granddaughter in the name of family honour and in this world she might have succeeded. “She is not to be trusted.”\n\nAnd Lilith won’t be the person who fell for Adam, not here, her thoughts added. Summoning them both could be worse than useless.\n\n“I always do,” Empress Emily said. “A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.”\n\n“The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries,\" Emily said, recognising the line. “Good advice, if you’re ruling the world.”\n\n“Quite,” Empress Emily said. “If you’ve eaten enough, we can repair to the war room …?”\n\n“Please.” Emily pushed her plate aside. “I think I’ve eaten my fill.”\n\n“You think?” Her counterpart stood and picked up Mildred, then passed her to Emily. “You need to show a little more confidence when facing the assembled nobility.”\n\nEmily barely heard her. The child in her arms drew her attention. She was unbearably cute and … Emily felt her heart melt, understanding why Alassa spoke of her child in rapturous terms. Mildred was hers and yet she wasn’t … Emily held her gently as her counterpart led the way through a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago, into a war room that looked oddly familiar. It took her a moment to realise it looked just like a movie set …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1021, "split": "train", "region": "middle", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch28-P3", "chapter": "ch28", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nBoswell — capitalized; Hierarchy agent arriving.\nHierarchy — capitalized; clandestine organization.\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized when relevant.\nwar room — two words as labeled space.\n\n### STORY\nOver breakfast Emily hears imperial succession and border politics, asks after Fulvia, and softens holding a royal child.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nIn the war room; not a military officer; watching plans for operations and firearm limits against mobs; present when visitors are announced.\n\nEmpress Emily\nConfident the operation will succeed; announces visitors; has maids remove children.\n\nBoswell\nOf the Hierarchy; the arriving visitor named at the land.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily flushed, torn between embarrassment and yet another reminder they were essentially the same person. “In its basic form, magitech works by channelling magic into runes which are used to generate … holographic … spell components,” she said. “Adam’s peculiar genius led him to find a way to use blood to store magic, which could then be used to power everything from wands to ongoing spell devices …”\n\n“Interesting,” Empress Emily said. “I sent for Adam and Lilith, of course.”\n\n“They won’t be the same people, not here,” Emily said. Lilith hailed from House Ashworth, which meant … a thought struck her and she frowned. “Is Fulvia still around in this world?”\n\n“She’s around,” Empress Emily said. “One of my closest allies.”\n\n“I’d keep an eye on her, if I were you,” Emily said. If Melissa had vanished in this world … she wanted to believe she’d married Markus and gone into hiding, to set herself up somewhere well away from her toxic family, but there was no way to know. Fulvia had been ruthless enough to murder her granddaughter in the name of family honour and in this world she might have succeeded. “She is not to be trusted.”\n\nAnd Lilith won’t be the person who fell for Adam, not here, her thoughts added. Summoning them both could be worse than useless.\n\n“I always do,” Empress Emily said. “A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.”\n\n“The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries,\" Emily said, recognising the line. “Good advice, if you’re ruling the world.”\n\n“Quite,” Empress Emily said. “If you’ve eaten enough, we can repair to the war room …?”\n\n“Please.” Emily pushed her plate aside. “I think I’ve eaten my fill.”\n\n“You think?” Her counterpart stood and picked up Mildred, then passed her to Emily. “You need to show a little more confidence when facing the assembled nobility.”\n\nEmily barely heard her. The child in her arms drew her attention. She was unbearably cute and … Emily felt her heart melt, understanding why Alassa spoke of her child in rapturous terms. Mildred was hers and yet she wasn’t … Emily held her gently as her counterpart led the way through a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago, into a war room that looked oddly familiar. It took her a moment to realise it looked just like a movie set …\n\n### NOTES\nImperial war room; children removed before visitors.\nHierarchy presence incoming.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe warns against fighting in the war room, shrugs she is no officer, and listens through an operation brief and the limits of primitive firearms on mobs. Empress Emily smiles confidence, clears the children, and goes to greet visitors. Land on Boswell of the Hierarchy.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. War-room pragmatism into arrival sting. Land on Boswell’s name.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“You can’t fight here,” she said. “This is the war room.”\n\nHer counterpart laughed. “Quite.”\n\nEmily passed Mildred to Alexis, then looked around. The walls were covered with maps, all more accurate than the older maps she’d seen in her world, with everything from castles and fortifications to the magic schools and nexus points carefully marked in precise detail. The table held a playing board, a game that reminded her of Chess and Risk smashed together … it puzzled her until she realised it was the closest the world could come to a computer display, showing the location of units in realtime. She hoped her counterpart knew there was no such thing as realtime command and control, not here. Coordinating a war on such a massive scale would be difficult, if not impossible, without radios. Or chat parchments.\n\n“I can teach you how to make chat parchments,” Emily said, although she suspected it was something her counterpart already knew. Radio was hardly outside her frame of reference and she knew she needed it. Or something magic that served the same purpose. “And a few other tricks.”\n\nThe Empress indicated the table. “What do you make of it?”\n\nEmily shrugged. “I’m not a military officer …”\n\n“You are a person of importance,” Empress Emily told her. “Either you know the basics or you get snowballed by someone who talks a good game, because you don’t know enough to realise you’re being lied to.”\n\n“I don’t assume everyone is automatically lying to me,” Emily said, a little more waspishly than she’d intended. “They don’t always lie.”\n\n“Everyone is self-interested, everyone is always out for himself. Or herself.” Empress Emily spoke coldly, but firmly. “Everyone will look for a way to take advantage of you, to benefit themselves even as they benefit you. They will tell you what they think you want to hear, at best; at worst, they will work to make sure you only hear things that steer you in the direction they want you to go. That’s a lesson I learnt the hard way.”\n\nEmily studied the display table for a long moment. “You’re going to invade the Blighted Lands.”\n\n“Correct,” her counterpart said. “And the operation will succeed.”\n\nEmily wasn’t so sure. “Do you have batteries? Steam engines? Tanks and guns and bombs and everything else …?”\n\n“In a manner of speaking,” Empress Emily said. “It wasn’t that hard to produce magical guns.”\n\n“Gunpowder?” Emily had considered doing that herself, but she’d thought magicless gunpowder would be more effective in the long run. “And … will it be enough?”\n\n“The orcs can charge into a hail of arrows and keep going,” Empress Emily said. “But if they try to charge into a nest of machine guns, they’ll wind up dead. The spells we used to charm the barrels will make sure of it.”\n\nEmily grimaced. Primitive firearms weren’t that effective against mobs. The dead bodies slowed and stopped the bullets, the front ranks dying so the remainder could live. A machine gun, by contrast, could tear apart an entire crowd, turning hundreds of men and women into blood and guts on the streets. The orcs were tough, but nowhere near tough enough to survive such fire. They’d be wiped out before their charge took them anywhere near the army.\n\n“It should work,” she said. “And then the necromancers come out to play.”\n\n“We have surprises for them too,” Empress Emily said.\n\nEmily hesitated. Necromancers were difficult to kill … no, they’d been difficult to kill. The batteries and valves she’d invented had turned their strengths into weaknesses, allowing even comparatively weak magicians to defeat necromancers with ease. She’d seen nothing to suggest her counterpart had batteries herself, as it didn’t sound as if she had any way to store magic. Giving her the killer might win some goodwill, as well as saving countless lives, but … she couldn’t put her doubts into words. Her counterpart would take the batteries and build on them. It was what she would do.\n\n“I have a killer,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure she should, but it was the best of a bad set of choices. “I can give it to you, if you like.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “Of course.”\n\n“And once the Blighted Lands are cleared of infestations, we can claim them for the crown,” Alexis said. He waved a hand at the map. “Think about all the resources lying there, just waiting for us.”\n\n“After we win,” Empress Emily said. “The war isn’t over yet.”\n\nAlexis gave her a bright smile. “It has only just begun.”\n\nEmily glanced at the map. It was war on an improbable scale, for a world barely out of the medieval period. Her counterpart was picking a fight with several necromancers at once, trusting in her magic weapons and modern concepts. Emily would have preferred to target one necromancer at a time, although that might not be an option. Necromancers didn’t like working together, but they could if they felt threatened.\n\nEmpress Emily cocked her head. “We have visitors,” she said. A pair of maids seemed to appear from nowhere, taking the royal children from the chamber. “Let us go greet them.”\n\nShe swept out of the room, leaving Emily to awkwardly follow in her wake. Alexis and Slave Emily remained behind. The corridors kept shifting around her, as if they were wrapped in a labyrinth spell … perhaps they were. Emily could feel the nexus point below them … she wondered, suddenly, just where they were. She’d assumed they were in the White City, but had this Emily found a way to reignite the nexus points? She didn’t know if she dared ask.\n\nHer counterpart stepped into the small chamber, wrapping her authority around her like a shroud. Emily followed … and stopped, dead, as she saw the three people waiting for them. Adam and Lilith were odd but recognisable, yet it wasn’t them who caught her eye. The man behind them was someone she knew all too well.\n\nBoswell.\n\nBoswell of the Hierarchy.\n", "completion": "“You can’t fight here,” she said. “This is the war room.”\n\nHer counterpart laughed. “Quite.”\n\nEmily passed Mildred to Alexis, then looked around. The walls were covered with maps, all more accurate than the older maps she’d seen in her world, with everything from castles and fortifications to the magic schools and nexus points carefully marked in precise detail. The table held a playing board, a game that reminded her of Chess and Risk smashed together … it puzzled her until she realised it was the closest the world could come to a computer display, showing the location of units in realtime. She hoped her counterpart knew there was no such thing as realtime command and control, not here. Coordinating a war on such a massive scale would be difficult, if not impossible, without radios. Or chat parchments.\n\n“I can teach you how to make chat parchments,” Emily said, although she suspected it was something her counterpart already knew. Radio was hardly outside her frame of reference and she knew she needed it. Or something magic that served the same purpose. “And a few other tricks.”\n\nThe Empress indicated the table. “What do you make of it?”\n\nEmily shrugged. “I’m not a military officer …”\n\n“You are a person of importance,” Empress Emily told her. “Either you know the basics or you get snowballed by someone who talks a good game, because you don’t know enough to realise you’re being lied to.”\n\n“I don’t assume everyone is automatically lying to me,” Emily said, a little more waspishly than she’d intended. “They don’t always lie.”\n\n“Everyone is self-interested, everyone is always out for himself. Or herself.” Empress Emily spoke coldly, but firmly. “Everyone will look for a way to take advantage of you, to benefit themselves even as they benefit you. They will tell you what they think you want to hear, at best; at worst, they will work to make sure you only hear things that steer you in the direction they want you to go. That’s a lesson I learnt the hard way.”\n\nEmily studied the display table for a long moment. “You’re going to invade the Blighted Lands.”\n\n“Correct,” her counterpart said. “And the operation will succeed.”\n\nEmily wasn’t so sure. “Do you have batteries? Steam engines? Tanks and guns and bombs and everything else …?”\n\n“In a manner of speaking,” Empress Emily said. “It wasn’t that hard to produce magical guns.”\n\n“Gunpowder?” Emily had considered doing that herself, but she’d thought magicless gunpowder would be more effective in the long run. “And … will it be enough?”\n\n“The orcs can charge into a hail of arrows and keep going,” Empress Emily said. “But if they try to charge into a nest of machine guns, they’ll wind up dead. The spells we used to charm the barrels will make sure of it.”\n\nEmily grimaced. Primitive firearms weren’t that effective against mobs. The dead bodies slowed and stopped the bullets, the front ranks dying so the remainder could live. A machine gun, by contrast, could tear apart an entire crowd, turning hundreds of men and women into blood and guts on the streets. The orcs were tough, but nowhere near tough enough to survive such fire. They’d be wiped out before their charge took them anywhere near the army.\n\n“It should work,” she said. “And then the necromancers come out to play.”\n\n“We have surprises for them too,” Empress Emily said.\n\nEmily hesitated. Necromancers were difficult to kill … no, they’d been difficult to kill. The batteries and valves she’d invented had turned their strengths into weaknesses, allowing even comparatively weak magicians to defeat necromancers with ease. She’d seen nothing to suggest her counterpart had batteries herself, as it didn’t sound as if she had any way to store magic. Giving her the killer might win some goodwill, as well as saving countless lives, but … she couldn’t put her doubts into words. Her counterpart would take the batteries and build on them. It was what she would do.\n\n“I have a killer,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure she should, but it was the best of a bad set of choices. “I can give it to you, if you like.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “Of course.”\n\n“And once the Blighted Lands are cleared of infestations, we can claim them for the crown,” Alexis said. He waved a hand at the map. “Think about all the resources lying there, just waiting for us.”\n\n“After we win,” Empress Emily said. “The war isn’t over yet.”\n\nAlexis gave her a bright smile. “It has only just begun.”\n\nEmily glanced at the map. It was war on an improbable scale, for a world barely out of the medieval period. Her counterpart was picking a fight with several necromancers at once, trusting in her magic weapons and modern concepts. Emily would have preferred to target one necromancer at a time, although that might not be an option. Necromancers didn’t like working together, but they could if they felt threatened.\n\nEmpress Emily cocked her head. “We have visitors,” she said. A pair of maids seemed to appear from nowhere, taking the royal children from the chamber. “Let us go greet them.”\n\nShe swept out of the room, leaving Emily to awkwardly follow in her wake. Alexis and Slave Emily remained behind. The corridors kept shifting around her, as if they were wrapped in a labyrinth spell … perhaps they were. Emily could feel the nexus point below them … she wondered, suddenly, just where they were. She’d assumed they were in the White City, but had this Emily found a way to reignite the nexus points? She didn’t know if she dared ask.\n\nHer counterpart stepped into the small chamber, wrapping her authority around her like a shroud. Emily followed … and stopped, dead, as she saw the three people waiting for them. Adam and Lilith were odd but recognisable, yet it wasn’t them who caught her eye. The man behind them was someone she knew all too well.\n\nBoswell.\n\nBoswell of the Hierarchy.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1027, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch29-P1", "chapter": "ch29", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nBoswell — capitalized; Hierarchy agent, Jeeves-like manner.\nAdam — capitalized; summoned commoner with potential.\nLilith — capitalized; spoilt magical brat summoned with him.\nLady Fulvia — title and name as written.\nHeart’s Eye — possessive as written.\nNanette — capitalized; comparison for Boswell’s skill.\n\n### STORY\nEmpress Emily clears the war room and greets Boswell of the Hierarchy as visitor.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nKeeping her face blank; watching Boswell as carefully as Nanette; standing by while Empress Emily summons Adam and Lilith for a divination-driven task and puts Lilith in her place; moves them toward a workroom.\n\nEmpress Emily\nCommands the summons without preamble; dominance presence.\n\nAdam\nKneels; snickers at Lilith; looks like the dream may turn nightmare—asks why me.\n\nLilith\nCurtseys then spoilt; put firmly in her place.\n\nBoswell\nEscorting; superb servant-agent; Hierarchy.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily hesitated. Necromancers were difficult to kill … no, they’d been difficult to kill. The batteries and valves she’d invented had turned their strengths into weaknesses, allowing even comparatively weak magicians to defeat necromancers with ease. She’d seen nothing to suggest her counterpart had batteries herself, as it didn’t sound as if she had any way to store magic. Giving her the killer might win some goodwill, as well as saving countless lives, but … she couldn’t put her doubts into words. Her counterpart would take the batteries and build on them. It was what she would do.\n\n“I have a killer,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure she should, but it was the best of a bad set of choices. “I can give it to you, if you like.”\n\nHer counterpart smiled. “Of course.”\n\n“And once the Blighted Lands are cleared of infestations, we can claim them for the crown,” Alexis said. He waved a hand at the map. “Think about all the resources lying there, just waiting for us.”\n\n“After we win,” Empress Emily said. “The war isn’t over yet.”\n\nAlexis gave her a bright smile. “It has only just begun.”\n\nEmily glanced at the map. It was war on an improbable scale, for a world barely out of the medieval period. Her counterpart was picking a fight with several necromancers at once, trusting in her magic weapons and modern concepts. Emily would have preferred to target one necromancer at a time, although that might not be an option. Necromancers didn’t like working together, but they could if they felt threatened.\n\nEmpress Emily cocked her head. “We have visitors,” she said. A pair of maids seemed to appear from nowhere, taking the royal children from the chamber. “Let us go greet them.”\n\nShe swept out of the room, leaving Emily to awkwardly follow in her wake. Alexis and Slave Emily remained behind. The corridors kept shifting around her, as if they were wrapped in a labyrinth spell … perhaps they were. Emily could feel the nexus point below them … she wondered, suddenly, just where they were. She’d assumed they were in the White City, but had this Emily found a way to reignite the nexus points? She didn’t know if she dared ask.\n\nHer counterpart stepped into the small chamber, wrapping her authority around her like a shroud. Emily followed … and stopped, dead, as she saw the three people waiting for them. Adam and Lilith were odd but recognisable, yet it wasn’t them who caught her eye. The man behind them was someone she knew all too well.\n\nBoswell.\n\nBoswell of the Hierarchy.\n\n### NOTES\nImperial audience into a large workroom of tools, materials, and potion shelves.\nDivination pretext for summoning Adam and Lilith.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe locks down her expression as Adam kneels and Lilith curtseys; Empress Emily announces a divination reason and crushes Lilith’s brat posture while Emily watches Boswell. They are taken to a strewn workroom; Adam asks why him. Land on that question.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Court mask; servant-agent paranoia. Land on Adam’s why me.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "It took Emily everything she had to keep her face under control.\n\nBoswell looked harmless, embarrassingly so. His face was so drab it was instantly forgettable, so bland Emily found it hard to recall, let alone describe, his appearance. He wore a simple grey suit that marked him out as a secretary, a faint aura of magic surrounding him … too much to make him a mundane and too little to make him a powerful magician. It would have fooled her, she acknowledged in the privacy of her own mind, if she hadn’t already known his counterpart from Celeste. Boswell was masking remarkably well, hiding his power under a façade of utter harmlessness. And Empress Emily had missed it.\n\nShe dragged her attention away from him before he noticed, looking at the other two. Adam looked like a shopboy, right down to the potion-stained clothes, while Lilith looked as if she had something disgusting under her nose. It was strange to see such an expression of disdain on her face, even in front of her empress … Emily wondered, not for the first time, just how stable her counterpart’s empire truly was. She knew how to take criticism, but she wasn’t the all-powerful ruler of all she surveyed. If Lilith felt free to show her emotions so openly … was it a good sign or a bad?\n\nAdam hesitated, then went down on one knee. Lilith dropped a simple curtsey then straightened up, every inch the spoilt brat. She was only a year or two younger than Emily and yet she looked like a child wearing adult clothing, her dress seemingly too large for her even though it was just the right size. It was strange, as if she really was a brat … perhaps she was. She’d never fallen in love with a mundane in this world. And Adam had never had a chance to prove himself.\n\nA flicker of something shot through her. This wasn’t her Adam, nor was he Technomage Adam. The empress had reached out and summoned him from halfway around the known world, sending agents to take him into custody and bring him to her … it sounded absurd, an abuse of power on a scale that she could comprehend, and to him it had to be absurd. Being summoned by the Empress had to be like a random stranger, a version of herself who had never left Earth, being called to the White House. It just didn’t happen.\n\nAnd it is a reminder of just how much power my counterpart has, Emily thought. And her willingness to use it.\n\n“We have summoned you here for a reason,” Empress Emily said, without preamble. She drew their attention like moths to flame, her sheer presence holding them firmly. “Our divinations have revealed you have a certain talent for developing magic and devices, a talent that requires development so you may contribute to the war effort. You will work together, with my sister, to develop your talents.”\n\nLilith sucked in a breath. “Your Majesty, you expect me to work with this guttersnipe commoner?”\n\n“That is Our command,” Empress Emily said. “And you will obey.”\n\nEmily kept her eyes on Boswell, without trying to make it obvious, as Empress Emily put Lilith firmly in her place. He truly was good, as good as Nanette … was she around somewhere too? The bearing, the outfit … everything spoke of a harmless servant, a figure who could be trusted to carry out his orders and never think of thinking for himself at all. She had no doubt he’d endured Lilith’s barbs with a bland smile, keeping his resentments carefully hidden. Assuming, of course, he had resentments. He was playing a role, not living it.\n\nShe dragged her attention back to Lilith, who was still arguing. “My Grandmother will …”\n\n“Your Grandmother has no say in this affair,” Empress Emily said, coldly. “Do you wish to follow orders or do you wish to be treated like the spoilt brat you are?”\n\nAdam snickered. Lilith shot him a look that could have killed.\n\n“I will attempt to carry out your orders, Your Majesty,” Lilith said. Her tone was icy cold. “I do not promise success.”\n\n“Of course,” Empress Emily said. “Jeeves” – she indicated Boswell – “will show the three of you to the workroom. You will listen to Our sister and you will learn from her.”\n\nOr else, her tone added.\n\nEmily wanted to talk to her counterpart, to ask a dozen questions, but there was no time. She kept her face blank as Boswell motioned them back, escorting them through yet another maze of private corridors. Jeeves, her counterpart had called him? A private joke that might come back to bite her. Emily’s back itched in anticipation of the blade, even though the man was in front of her. A declared enemy was safer than a snake in the grass, particularly when she didn’t know when or how the snake would try to bite. Boswell was very far from stupid. He’d take everything she showed him to his masters. To Master Wolfe.\n\nHer earlier idea surfaced. Again. Perhaps she could …\n\nThe workroom was larger than she’d expected, the tables strewn with everything from tools to raw materials. The walls were lined with shelves, groaning under the weight of countless potion jars, ingredient hampers and devices she didn’t recognise … some eerily familiar, some completely new. It struck her, suddenly, that it was her counterpart’s private workshop, a place she could come to tinker when the burdens of ruling the known world became too great. She reached for a certain tool and found it right where it should be, where she would have left it. The room was hers.\n\n“My Lady,” Lilith said. “Why am I here?”\n\n“Because you have a great deal of potential and my sister doesn’t wish to see it wasted,” Emily said. “Nor does Lady Fulvia.”\n\nAdam looked as if he thought he were dreaming – and the dream was on the verge of turning into a nightmare. “Why me?”\n", "completion": "It took Emily everything she had to keep her face under control.\n\nBoswell looked harmless, embarrassingly so. His face was so drab it was instantly forgettable, so bland Emily found it hard to recall, let alone describe, his appearance. He wore a simple grey suit that marked him out as a secretary, a faint aura of magic surrounding him … too much to make him a mundane and too little to make him a powerful magician. It would have fooled her, she acknowledged in the privacy of her own mind, if she hadn’t already known his counterpart from Celeste. Boswell was masking remarkably well, hiding his power under a façade of utter harmlessness. And Empress Emily had missed it.\n\nShe dragged her attention away from him before he noticed, looking at the other two. Adam looked like a shopboy, right down to the potion-stained clothes, while Lilith looked as if she had something disgusting under her nose. It was strange to see such an expression of disdain on her face, even in front of her empress … Emily wondered, not for the first time, just how stable her counterpart’s empire truly was. She knew how to take criticism, but she wasn’t the all-powerful ruler of all she surveyed. If Lilith felt free to show her emotions so openly … was it a good sign or a bad?\n\nAdam hesitated, then went down on one knee. Lilith dropped a simple curtsey then straightened up, every inch the spoilt brat. She was only a year or two younger than Emily and yet she looked like a child wearing adult clothing, her dress seemingly too large for her even though it was just the right size. It was strange, as if she really was a brat … perhaps she was. She’d never fallen in love with a mundane in this world. And Adam had never had a chance to prove himself.\n\nA flicker of something shot through her. This wasn’t her Adam, nor was he Technomage Adam. The empress had reached out and summoned him from halfway around the known world, sending agents to take him into custody and bring him to her … it sounded absurd, an abuse of power on a scale that she could comprehend, and to him it had to be absurd. Being summoned by the Empress had to be like a random stranger, a version of herself who had never left Earth, being called to the White House. It just didn’t happen.\n\nAnd it is a reminder of just how much power my counterpart has, Emily thought. And her willingness to use it.\n\n“We have summoned you here for a reason,” Empress Emily said, without preamble. She drew their attention like moths to flame, her sheer presence holding them firmly. “Our divinations have revealed you have a certain talent for developing magic and devices, a talent that requires development so you may contribute to the war effort. You will work together, with my sister, to develop your talents.”\n\nLilith sucked in a breath. “Your Majesty, you expect me to work with this guttersnipe commoner?”\n\n“That is Our command,” Empress Emily said. “And you will obey.”\n\nEmily kept her eyes on Boswell, without trying to make it obvious, as Empress Emily put Lilith firmly in her place. He truly was good, as good as Nanette … was she around somewhere too? The bearing, the outfit … everything spoke of a harmless servant, a figure who could be trusted to carry out his orders and never think of thinking for himself at all. She had no doubt he’d endured Lilith’s barbs with a bland smile, keeping his resentments carefully hidden. Assuming, of course, he had resentments. He was playing a role, not living it.\n\nShe dragged her attention back to Lilith, who was still arguing. “My Grandmother will …”\n\n“Your Grandmother has no say in this affair,” Empress Emily said, coldly. “Do you wish to follow orders or do you wish to be treated like the spoilt brat you are?”\n\nAdam snickered. Lilith shot him a look that could have killed.\n\n“I will attempt to carry out your orders, Your Majesty,” Lilith said. Her tone was icy cold. “I do not promise success.”\n\n“Of course,” Empress Emily said. “Jeeves” – she indicated Boswell – “will show the three of you to the workroom. You will listen to Our sister and you will learn from her.”\n\nOr else, her tone added.\n\nEmily wanted to talk to her counterpart, to ask a dozen questions, but there was no time. She kept her face blank as Boswell motioned them back, escorting them through yet another maze of private corridors. Jeeves, her counterpart had called him? A private joke that might come back to bite her. Emily’s back itched in anticipation of the blade, even though the man was in front of her. A declared enemy was safer than a snake in the grass, particularly when she didn’t know when or how the snake would try to bite. Boswell was very far from stupid. He’d take everything she showed him to his masters. To Master Wolfe.\n\nHer earlier idea surfaced. Again. Perhaps she could …\n\nThe workroom was larger than she’d expected, the tables strewn with everything from tools to raw materials. The walls were lined with shelves, groaning under the weight of countless potion jars, ingredient hampers and devices she didn’t recognise … some eerily familiar, some completely new. It struck her, suddenly, that it was her counterpart’s private workshop, a place she could come to tinker when the burdens of ruling the known world became too great. She reached for a certain tool and found it right where it should be, where she would have left it. The room was hers.\n\n“My Lady,” Lilith said. “Why am I here?”\n\n“Because you have a great deal of potential and my sister doesn’t wish to see it wasted,” Emily said. “Nor does Lady Fulvia.”\n\nAdam looked as if he thought he were dreaming – and the dream was on the verge of turning into a nightmare. “Why me?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1018, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch29-P2", "chapter": "ch29", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nAdam — capitalized.\nLilith — capitalized.\nBoswell — capitalized.\nmagitech — one word.\nLady Barb — title and name as written.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized; not reaching here yet.\n\n### STORY\nEmpress Emily assigns Adam and Lilith to Emily’s workroom under a divination pretext while Boswell escorts and Emily watches him like Nanette.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nTeaching outside-the-box basics; lying that they are doing better; altering workshop wards between Boswell’s visits; comparing Lilith’s spite to lessons with Lady Barb or Void.\n\nAdam\nStaying; resentful of Lilith’s power and manners; capable thinker.\n\nLilith\nStays to police Adam; waspish that tiles and blood tricks are pointless beside real spells.\n\nBoswell\nComes and goes at command; bowing gentleman’s gentleman.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily kept her eyes on Boswell, without trying to make it obvious, as Empress Emily put Lilith firmly in her place. He truly was good, as good as Nanette … was she around somewhere too? The bearing, the outfit … everything spoke of a harmless servant, a figure who could be trusted to carry out his orders and never think of thinking for himself at all. She had no doubt he’d endured Lilith’s barbs with a bland smile, keeping his resentments carefully hidden. Assuming, of course, he had resentments. He was playing a role, not living it.\n\nShe dragged her attention back to Lilith, who was still arguing. “My Grandmother will …”\n\n“Your Grandmother has no say in this affair,” Empress Emily said, coldly. “Do you wish to follow orders or do you wish to be treated like the spoilt brat you are?”\n\nAdam snickered. Lilith shot him a look that could have killed.\n\n“I will attempt to carry out your orders, Your Majesty,” Lilith said. Her tone was icy cold. “I do not promise success.”\n\n“Of course,” Empress Emily said. “Jeeves” – she indicated Boswell – “will show the three of you to the workroom. You will listen to Our sister and you will learn from her.”\n\nOr else, her tone added.\n\nEmily wanted to talk to her counterpart, to ask a dozen questions, but there was no time. She kept her face blank as Boswell motioned them back, escorting them through yet another maze of private corridors. Jeeves, her counterpart had called him? A private joke that might come back to bite her. Emily’s back itched in anticipation of the blade, even though the man was in front of her. A declared enemy was safer than a snake in the grass, particularly when she didn’t know when or how the snake would try to bite. Boswell was very far from stupid. He’d take everything she showed him to his masters. To Master Wolfe.\n\nHer earlier idea surfaced. Again. Perhaps she could …\n\nThe workroom was larger than she’d expected, the tables strewn with everything from tools to raw materials. The walls were lined with shelves, groaning under the weight of countless potion jars, ingredient hampers and devices she didn’t recognise … some eerily familiar, some completely new. It struck her, suddenly, that it was her counterpart’s private workshop, a place she could come to tinker when the burdens of ruling the known world became too great. She reached for a certain tool and found it right where it should be, where she would have left it. The room was hers.\n\n“My Lady,” Lilith said. “Why am I here?”\n\n“Because you have a great deal of potential and my sister doesn’t wish to see it wasted,” Emily said. “Nor does Lady Fulvia.”\n\nAdam looked as if he thought he were dreaming – and the dream was on the verge of turning into a nightmare. “Why me?”\n\n### NOTES\nWorkshop wards under Emily’s quiet revision.\nSandwiches on a lesson break.\nMaster Wolfe’s counterpart not yet reaching for godhood in this world.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe tells Adam he has potential precisely because he is not blinded by magical preconceptions; Lilith sneers at foundational tricks; both agree to stay. Emily splits attention to study Boswell through the wards, flatters progress over sandwiches, and after they leave finishes ward changes for her own plan. Land on those final alterations.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Lesson friction and secret ward-work. Land on Emily alone finishing her plan.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Like I said, you have potential.” Emily studied him for a long moment. No university, no chance to study magic … no chance to develop magitech. “And you are capable of thinking outside the box, which is something most magicians cannot.”\n\n“I can,” Lilith said. “How can a mundane help us with magic?”\n\nEmily saw a multitude of expressions cross Adam’s face, mainly helpless resentment, bitterness and jealousy. Lilith had all the power in the world at her fingertips and yet she was a spoilt brat, seemingly unwilling to do anything to develop her powers, while he had nothing. He could climb to the top if he could get on the first rung, he knew, but he couldn’t. His lack of magic and connections ensured he couldn’t rise any higher, that he’d only ever be a shopboy. The idea someone like Lilith would fall in love with him …\n\n“He can think outside the box,” Emily said. “He isn’t blinded by our preconceptions. And that it all that matters.”\n\nShe looked from one to the other, trying not to wince at the strange blur of familiar and unfamiliar. She would almost sooner have worked with total strangers. She wouldn’t have so many preconceptions blinding her to their true natures. But that wasn’t an option any longer.\n\n“I don’t expect you to like each other,” she said, feeling her heart break – just a little – as she spoke. “But I do expect you to be civil and work together. This is an opportunity beyond your wildest dreams, but you have to work together to use it. You can reach for the skies or you can leave. What’s it to be?”\n\nAdam and Lilith exchanged glances. “I’ll stay,” Lilith said. She shot Adam a look that promised trouble if he did anything stupid. “And I’m sure he will too.”\n\nEmily nodded, trying not to smile as Adam pinched himself. “Of course,” she said. She glanced at Boswell. “Fetch us some Kava, please, and sandwiches. We have much work to do.”\n\nBoswell bowed, for all the world a dignified older gentleman’s gentleman. Emily watched him go, then hastily made a handful of changes to the workshop’s wards. Boswell would be back shortly and then … she put the thought aside as she started to outline the basics of magitech, watching in droll amusement as Adam grew fascinated and Lilith looked revolted. Magicians were warned not to let anyone get their hands on their blood, for good reason, and using it to store magic was just … ugh. She had to admit it had never occurred to her either, even as she added the first shaping runes to the set and helped Adam to carve them. They needed a proper craftsman too, she noted coldly. Neither Adam nor Lilith possessed the right skills.\n\nShe split her attention as best she could as the day wore on, studying Boswell through the wards as he came and went at her command. The one advantage of being in her counterpart’s castle was that she could use the wards herself, as long as she was careful, although she didn’t care for the implications. Her counterpart could spy on anyone within the castle, even in their most private moments. She pushed the thought aside as she studied Boswell carefully, noting the hidden shadow surrounding him. The Hierarchy’s soulmark was concealed within his soul. She would never have found it if she hadn’t studied the soulmark earlier …\n\nAnd they never learnt from me in this world, she mused. Master Wolfe’s counterpart won’t be reaching for godhood, not yet.\n\nShe would have grown frustrated if she hadn’t been so focused on laying her own plans. Adam and Lilith weren’t dumb, but they were missing pieces of knowledge and skills her Adam and Lilith knew and, of course, they disliked each other. It wasn’t sexual tension; it was classism and racism and a whole bunch of other problems and bigotries. Camaraderie was a little too much to ask when they were both products of their own societies, without the melting pot of Heart’s Eye allowing them to meet as near-equals.\n\n“You’re doing better than I thought,” she lied, as they took a break to eat more sandwiches. “I think we’re making progress.”\n\n“We’re trying,” Adam said. He seemed torn between pleasure at finally brewing a working potion and irritation at Lilith’s casual dismissal of his achievement. “It’s just a whole new way of thinking.”\n\n“And a pointless one,” Lilith said, waspishly. “I could cast a dozen spells, all more powerful, in the time it takes him to put together just one. And without the runes and tiles and blood he wouldn’t be able to do even that!”\n\nEmily hoped to hell she’d never been that unpleasant, when she’d had private lessons with Lady Barb or Void or anyone. Lady Barb wouldn’t have let her get away with it … Void probably wouldn’t have been very pleased either. She hadn’t been older than Lilith when she'd become his apprentice either. Lilith might act like a child, but she was in her early twenties. She had no excuse for acting like someone closer to five than twenty-five.\n\n“What use is a newborn baby?” Emily met Lilith’s eyes. “These tricks are basic, true, but they are a foundation we can build on. And we will.”\n\nShe leaned back in her chair. “Boswell will show you to your suites,” she said. They both needed a break from each other, a chance to think about their day and prepare for tomorrow. “Wash. Rest. We’ll be continuing tomorrow.”\n\nAdam and Lilith stood. Boswell bowed, once again, and led them out of the chamber. Emily shook her head and hastily put the rest of her own plan together, altering the wards one final time before inserting the magitech. Boswell was sharp, sharp enough to understand what he was seeing even if he’d never seen anything like it. And there was no way to know how far he’d take it, once he was free of his role. He needed to be dealt with now.\n", "completion": "“Like I said, you have potential.” Emily studied him for a long moment. No university, no chance to study magic … no chance to develop magitech. “And you are capable of thinking outside the box, which is something most magicians cannot.”\n\n“I can,” Lilith said. “How can a mundane help us with magic?”\n\nEmily saw a multitude of expressions cross Adam’s face, mainly helpless resentment, bitterness and jealousy. Lilith had all the power in the world at her fingertips and yet she was a spoilt brat, seemingly unwilling to do anything to develop her powers, while he had nothing. He could climb to the top if he could get on the first rung, he knew, but he couldn’t. His lack of magic and connections ensured he couldn’t rise any higher, that he’d only ever be a shopboy. The idea someone like Lilith would fall in love with him …\n\n“He can think outside the box,” Emily said. “He isn’t blinded by our preconceptions. And that it all that matters.”\n\nShe looked from one to the other, trying not to wince at the strange blur of familiar and unfamiliar. She would almost sooner have worked with total strangers. She wouldn’t have so many preconceptions blinding her to their true natures. But that wasn’t an option any longer.\n\n“I don’t expect you to like each other,” she said, feeling her heart break – just a little – as she spoke. “But I do expect you to be civil and work together. This is an opportunity beyond your wildest dreams, but you have to work together to use it. You can reach for the skies or you can leave. What’s it to be?”\n\nAdam and Lilith exchanged glances. “I’ll stay,” Lilith said. She shot Adam a look that promised trouble if he did anything stupid. “And I’m sure he will too.”\n\nEmily nodded, trying not to smile as Adam pinched himself. “Of course,” she said. She glanced at Boswell. “Fetch us some Kava, please, and sandwiches. We have much work to do.”\n\nBoswell bowed, for all the world a dignified older gentleman’s gentleman. Emily watched him go, then hastily made a handful of changes to the workshop’s wards. Boswell would be back shortly and then … she put the thought aside as she started to outline the basics of magitech, watching in droll amusement as Adam grew fascinated and Lilith looked revolted. Magicians were warned not to let anyone get their hands on their blood, for good reason, and using it to store magic was just … ugh. She had to admit it had never occurred to her either, even as she added the first shaping runes to the set and helped Adam to carve them. They needed a proper craftsman too, she noted coldly. Neither Adam nor Lilith possessed the right skills.\n\nShe split her attention as best she could as the day wore on, studying Boswell through the wards as he came and went at her command. The one advantage of being in her counterpart’s castle was that she could use the wards herself, as long as she was careful, although she didn’t care for the implications. Her counterpart could spy on anyone within the castle, even in their most private moments. She pushed the thought aside as she studied Boswell carefully, noting the hidden shadow surrounding him. The Hierarchy’s soulmark was concealed within his soul. She would never have found it if she hadn’t studied the soulmark earlier …\n\nAnd they never learnt from me in this world, she mused. Master Wolfe’s counterpart won’t be reaching for godhood, not yet.\n\nShe would have grown frustrated if she hadn’t been so focused on laying her own plans. Adam and Lilith weren’t dumb, but they were missing pieces of knowledge and skills her Adam and Lilith knew and, of course, they disliked each other. It wasn’t sexual tension; it was classism and racism and a whole bunch of other problems and bigotries. Camaraderie was a little too much to ask when they were both products of their own societies, without the melting pot of Heart’s Eye allowing them to meet as near-equals.\n\n“You’re doing better than I thought,” she lied, as they took a break to eat more sandwiches. “I think we’re making progress.”\n\n“We’re trying,” Adam said. He seemed torn between pleasure at finally brewing a working potion and irritation at Lilith’s casual dismissal of his achievement. “It’s just a whole new way of thinking.”\n\n“And a pointless one,” Lilith said, waspishly. “I could cast a dozen spells, all more powerful, in the time it takes him to put together just one. And without the runes and tiles and blood he wouldn’t be able to do even that!”\n\nEmily hoped to hell she’d never been that unpleasant, when she’d had private lessons with Lady Barb or Void or anyone. Lady Barb wouldn’t have let her get away with it … Void probably wouldn’t have been very pleased either. She hadn’t been older than Lilith when she'd become his apprentice either. Lilith might act like a child, but she was in her early twenties. She had no excuse for acting like someone closer to five than twenty-five.\n\n“What use is a newborn baby?” Emily met Lilith’s eyes. “These tricks are basic, true, but they are a foundation we can build on. And we will.”\n\nShe leaned back in her chair. “Boswell will show you to your suites,” she said. They both needed a break from each other, a chance to think about their day and prepare for tomorrow. “Wash. Rest. We’ll be continuing tomorrow.”\n\nAdam and Lilith stood. Boswell bowed, once again, and led them out of the chamber. Emily shook her head and hastily put the rest of her own plan together, altering the wards one final time before inserting the magitech. Boswell was sharp, sharp enough to understand what he was seeing even if he’d never seen anything like it. And there was no way to know how far he’d take it, once he was free of his role. He needed to be dealt with now.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1049, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch29-P3", "chapter": "ch29", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nBoswell — capitalized.\nsoulmark — one word; keep the compound spelling.\nHierarchy — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nVoid — capitalized; arrives at the end.\nbattery — lowercase in technical sketches.\nvalve — lowercase; paired with battery design.\n\n### STORY\nEmily drills Adam and Lilith on foundational magitech while rewriting workshop wards and watching Boswell between bows.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSketches battery and valve, freezes Boswell in warped time, parses his Hierarchy soulmark, smooths wards, dismisses him—and greets Void behind her.\n\nBoswell\nCompelled Hierarchy agent; freeze-trap risk of suicide orders; released unaware if she is quick.\n\nVoid\nTightly controlled magic behind her; the expected visitor.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe would have grown frustrated if she hadn’t been so focused on laying her own plans. Adam and Lilith weren’t dumb, but they were missing pieces of knowledge and skills her Adam and Lilith knew and, of course, they disliked each other. It wasn’t sexual tension; it was classism and racism and a whole bunch of other problems and bigotries. Camaraderie was a little too much to ask when they were both products of their own societies, without the melting pot of Heart’s Eye allowing them to meet as near-equals.\n\n“You’re doing better than I thought,” she lied, as they took a break to eat more sandwiches. “I think we’re making progress.”\n\n“We’re trying,” Adam said. He seemed torn between pleasure at finally brewing a working potion and irritation at Lilith’s casual dismissal of his achievement. “It’s just a whole new way of thinking.”\n\n“And a pointless one,” Lilith said, waspishly. “I could cast a dozen spells, all more powerful, in the time it takes him to put together just one. And without the runes and tiles and blood he wouldn’t be able to do even that!”\n\nEmily hoped to hell she’d never been that unpleasant, when she’d had private lessons with Lady Barb or Void or anyone. Lady Barb wouldn’t have let her get away with it … Void probably wouldn’t have been very pleased either. She hadn’t been older than Lilith when she'd become his apprentice either. Lilith might act like a child, but she was in her early twenties. She had no excuse for acting like someone closer to five than twenty-five.\n\n“What use is a newborn baby?” Emily met Lilith’s eyes. “These tricks are basic, true, but they are a foundation we can build on. And we will.”\n\nShe leaned back in her chair. “Boswell will show you to your suites,” she said. They both needed a break from each other, a chance to think about their day and prepare for tomorrow. “Wash. Rest. We’ll be continuing tomorrow.”\n\nAdam and Lilith stood. Boswell bowed, once again, and led them out of the chamber. Emily shook her head and hastily put the rest of her own plan together, altering the wards one final time before inserting the magitech. Boswell was sharp, sharp enough to understand what he was seeing even if he’d never seen anything like it. And there was no way to know how far he’d take it, once he was free of his role. He needed to be dealt with now.\n\n### NOTES\nWorkshop with clock Emily watches so Boswell loses only minutes.\nSoulmark like a black dagger-shadow in his frame.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAlone, she pockets battery and valve sketches, freezes Boswell mid-service, reads and meddles with the Hierarchy soulmark under time pressure, then releases and dismisses him. Magic flickers behind her; she steadies and says hello to Void. Land on that greeting.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Covert tradecraft; calm voice at the sting. Land on Hello, Void.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily sketched out the battery design, followed by the valve, and pocketed it for later use. Her counterpart’s notes suggested she was less interested in studying magic than Emily herself, her research aimed more at developing ways to use magic to replace technology than allow any kind of parallel or merged society. Her guns used magic in place of gunpowder, her tanks drew on magic … there was little wonder, no sense of magic as anything other than an alternate form of technology. In some ways, she’d missed a few tricks too. Her radio-counterpart was crude compared to chat parchments, or later pieces of magitech that were far more effective …\n\nBoswell returned, his face as bland as ever. “Do you require anything else, Your Ladyship?”\n\n“I require a great many things,” Emily said. She indicated the table, causing him to glance away from her, then triggered the wards as soon as she was out of eyesight. “Freeze.”\n\nTime itself seemed to flicker, Boswell’s form jerking oddly as the wards clamped down hard. He had orders – compulsions – to kill himself if he were trapped, if there was no way out, but if time was frozen around him he shouldn’t be aware of anything being wrong. She hoped … the soulmark could probably detect a stasis spell and react accordingly – it would be one hell of an oversight if it couldn’t – but she was warping time itself. Boswell was caught in an endless moment in time, a prisoner who didn’t even know it. Emily let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She had him!\n\nAnd as long as I am quick, I can release him without anyone being any the wiser, she told herself. Boswell wouldn’t know he’d been compromised, unless it occurred to him to wonder why he was missing ten minutes of time. I can make use of him later.\n\nShe put the thought aside as she altered the wards, scanning his body carefully. The soulmark was clearly visible now, a black dagger of a spell buried deep within his frame … more of a shadow of a charm than a charm itself, she noted coldly, but nonetheless deadly. She carefully buried into the soulmark itself, trying to work out just how it steered its bearer to the Hierarchy’s fortress. It was an impressive piece of work, if one happened to be fond of abominations. It wasn’t so much a compulsion spell inflicted on a helpless victim as a compulsion spell cast on the spellcaster himself. It was near-impossible to remove because it blended so perfectly into the caster’s own magic, because the victim and the victimiser were the same person.\n\nI wonder just when Master Wolfe started thinking about alternate realities, she mused, as she parsed out the soulmark. The magic reminded her of how her magic interacted with her counterpart’s, their spells yielding to her because, in a sense, they belonged to her. Did he deduce their existence before he met me?\n\nIt was far from impossible. There was no way to know if the Hierarchy had been involved in the final days of Heart’s Eye or not, but there was a very good chance they'd known what was happening right from the start. Once they realised the alternate realities were real, rather than twisted mirror images … could they have worked out how to use them? Void had told her about two sorcerers who had stepped out of reality itself … in hindsight, had they made their way into the interstices? And if so … where were they? She would probably never know.\n\n“Right,” she said, keeping a wary eye on the clock. A few minutes wouldn’t be noticed, but if Boswell lost an hour or two, he’d certainly wonder why. “The soulmark should be triggered and …”\n\nShe gritted her teeth as the magic unfolded in front of her. It felt fundamentally wrong, as if it was designed to push the victim in a certain direction, to make them do something without knowing precisely how. Most compulsion spells couldn’t force someone to do something if they didn’t know how to do it, but this one did. The sheer level of direction worked into the charm was terrifying, all the more because she knew how it had to be applied. If she poked it in just the right way, she’d be teleported to the Hierarchy’s fortress. And then …\n\nGet him out of the castle first, she told herself. That shouldn’t be too difficult. She suspected Boswell would be more than happy to escort her anywhere she pleased, following orders from both sets of masters. He wouldn’t think anything of it, as long as Emily came up with a suitable excuse. Take him by surprise and then use him.\n\nShe stepped back, carefully smoothing out the wards to ensure he had little reason to suspect something had happened. The clock was outside his field of view … hopefully, he wouldn’t look too closely. She would have preferred to take him now, but she needed time to think and plan. The fortress wouldn’t be an easy target, even with the soulmark clearing the way. She released the spell and breathed a sigh of relief as Boswell kept talking, without missing a beat. It looked as though she’d gotten away with it.\n\n“Thank you,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”\n\nBoswell bowed and left. The door closed. Something moved, behind her. A flicker of magic, so tightly controlled that she knew who was behind her. She knew who it had to be. The only real surprise was that she wasn’t surprised. She’d guessed the truth the moment her counterpart told her how she’d gained the throne. She should have known he’d come looking for her. She was a rogue element in his plans.\n\nShe took a breath, calming herself. “Hello, Void.”\n", "completion": "Emily sketched out the battery design, followed by the valve, and pocketed it for later use. Her counterpart’s notes suggested she was less interested in studying magic than Emily herself, her research aimed more at developing ways to use magic to replace technology than allow any kind of parallel or merged society. Her guns used magic in place of gunpowder, her tanks drew on magic … there was little wonder, no sense of magic as anything other than an alternate form of technology. In some ways, she’d missed a few tricks too. Her radio-counterpart was crude compared to chat parchments, or later pieces of magitech that were far more effective …\n\nBoswell returned, his face as bland as ever. “Do you require anything else, Your Ladyship?”\n\n“I require a great many things,” Emily said. She indicated the table, causing him to glance away from her, then triggered the wards as soon as she was out of eyesight. “Freeze.”\n\nTime itself seemed to flicker, Boswell’s form jerking oddly as the wards clamped down hard. He had orders – compulsions – to kill himself if he were trapped, if there was no way out, but if time was frozen around him he shouldn’t be aware of anything being wrong. She hoped … the soulmark could probably detect a stasis spell and react accordingly – it would be one hell of an oversight if it couldn’t – but she was warping time itself. Boswell was caught in an endless moment in time, a prisoner who didn’t even know it. Emily let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She had him!\n\nAnd as long as I am quick, I can release him without anyone being any the wiser, she told herself. Boswell wouldn’t know he’d been compromised, unless it occurred to him to wonder why he was missing ten minutes of time. I can make use of him later.\n\nShe put the thought aside as she altered the wards, scanning his body carefully. The soulmark was clearly visible now, a black dagger of a spell buried deep within his frame … more of a shadow of a charm than a charm itself, she noted coldly, but nonetheless deadly. She carefully buried into the soulmark itself, trying to work out just how it steered its bearer to the Hierarchy’s fortress. It was an impressive piece of work, if one happened to be fond of abominations. It wasn’t so much a compulsion spell inflicted on a helpless victim as a compulsion spell cast on the spellcaster himself. It was near-impossible to remove because it blended so perfectly into the caster’s own magic, because the victim and the victimiser were the same person.\n\nI wonder just when Master Wolfe started thinking about alternate realities, she mused, as she parsed out the soulmark. The magic reminded her of how her magic interacted with her counterpart’s, their spells yielding to her because, in a sense, they belonged to her. Did he deduce their existence before he met me?\n\nIt was far from impossible. There was no way to know if the Hierarchy had been involved in the final days of Heart’s Eye or not, but there was a very good chance they'd known what was happening right from the start. Once they realised the alternate realities were real, rather than twisted mirror images … could they have worked out how to use them? Void had told her about two sorcerers who had stepped out of reality itself … in hindsight, had they made their way into the interstices? And if so … where were they? She would probably never know.\n\n“Right,” she said, keeping a wary eye on the clock. A few minutes wouldn’t be noticed, but if Boswell lost an hour or two, he’d certainly wonder why. “The soulmark should be triggered and …”\n\nShe gritted her teeth as the magic unfolded in front of her. It felt fundamentally wrong, as if it was designed to push the victim in a certain direction, to make them do something without knowing precisely how. Most compulsion spells couldn’t force someone to do something if they didn’t know how to do it, but this one did. The sheer level of direction worked into the charm was terrifying, all the more because she knew how it had to be applied. If she poked it in just the right way, she’d be teleported to the Hierarchy’s fortress. And then …\n\nGet him out of the castle first, she told herself. That shouldn’t be too difficult. She suspected Boswell would be more than happy to escort her anywhere she pleased, following orders from both sets of masters. He wouldn’t think anything of it, as long as Emily came up with a suitable excuse. Take him by surprise and then use him.\n\nShe stepped back, carefully smoothing out the wards to ensure he had little reason to suspect something had happened. The clock was outside his field of view … hopefully, he wouldn’t look too closely. She would have preferred to take him now, but she needed time to think and plan. The fortress wouldn’t be an easy target, even with the soulmark clearing the way. She released the spell and breathed a sigh of relief as Boswell kept talking, without missing a beat. It looked as though she’d gotten away with it.\n\n“Thank you,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”\n\nBoswell bowed and left. The door closed. Something moved, behind her. A flicker of magic, so tightly controlled that she knew who was behind her. She knew who it had to be. The only real surprise was that she wasn’t surprised. She’d guessed the truth the moment her counterpart told her how she’d gained the throne. She should have known he’d come looking for her. She was a rogue element in his plans.\n\nShe took a breath, calming herself. “Hello, Void.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1008, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch30-P1", "chapter": "ch30", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nVoid — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nHierarchy — capitalized.\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nAllied Lands — both words capitalized.\nDumbledore — capitalized; guise comparison.\nGandalf — capitalized; guise comparison.\n\n### STORY\nEmily freezes Boswell, inspects his Hierarchy soulmark, releases him unnoticed, and turns to find Void behind her.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFacing this world’s Void in Dumbledore/Gandalf guise; wants to hug and slap him; tells him she is stopping a mad god; follows him through a mundane secret bookcase into a shabby sitting room.\n\nVoid\nOlder-looking guise; opens a non-magical secret passage; pours herbal tea; asks if he exists in her world; unbothered by ward-guardian scandal implications.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nIt was far from impossible. There was no way to know if the Hierarchy had been involved in the final days of Heart’s Eye or not, but there was a very good chance they'd known what was happening right from the start. Once they realised the alternate realities were real, rather than twisted mirror images … could they have worked out how to use them? Void had told her about two sorcerers who had stepped out of reality itself … in hindsight, had they made their way into the interstices? And if so … where were they? She would probably never know.\n\n“Right,” she said, keeping a wary eye on the clock. A few minutes wouldn’t be noticed, but if Boswell lost an hour or two, he’d certainly wonder why. “The soulmark should be triggered and …”\n\nShe gritted her teeth as the magic unfolded in front of her. It felt fundamentally wrong, as if it was designed to push the victim in a certain direction, to make them do something without knowing precisely how. Most compulsion spells couldn’t force someone to do something if they didn’t know how to do it, but this one did. The sheer level of direction worked into the charm was terrifying, all the more because she knew how it had to be applied. If she poked it in just the right way, she’d be teleported to the Hierarchy’s fortress. And then …\n\nGet him out of the castle first, she told herself. That shouldn’t be too difficult. She suspected Boswell would be more than happy to escort her anywhere she pleased, following orders from both sets of masters. He wouldn’t think anything of it, as long as Emily came up with a suitable excuse. Take him by surprise and then use him.\n\nShe stepped back, carefully smoothing out the wards to ensure he had little reason to suspect something had happened. The clock was outside his field of view … hopefully, he wouldn’t look too closely. She would have preferred to take him now, but she needed time to think and plan. The fortress wouldn’t be an easy target, even with the soulmark clearing the way. She released the spell and breathed a sigh of relief as Boswell kept talking, without missing a beat. It looked as though she’d gotten away with it.\n\n“Thank you,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”\n\nBoswell bowed and left. The door closed. Something moved, behind her. A flicker of magic, so tightly controlled that she knew who was behind her. She knew who it had to be. The only real surprise was that she wasn’t surprised. She’d guessed the truth the moment her counterpart told her how she’d gained the throne. She should have known he’d come looking for her. She was a rogue element in his plans.\n\nShe took a breath, calming herself. “Hello, Void.”\n\n### NOTES\nSecret sitting room behind a mundane bookcase lock in a heavily warded building.\nSubtle forget-me wards in the passage.\nHerbal tea poured.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nVoid looks like a blend of Dumbledore and Gandalf; she tells him the mad-god truth and follows through a deliberately mundane secret door into a shabby sitting room that proves nothing. Tea in hand, she asks if he put Empress Emily in power and flinches that people think he slept with his ward. Land on that disgusted question.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Mentor uncanny; quiet intensity. Land on the ward-scandal question.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "He looked older than Emily recalled, wearing a guise that looked like a cross between Dumbledore and Gandalf; close enough to the latter to make her smile, close enough to the former to make her wary. It was something that came from her counterpart’s memories, she was sure, and probably something she’d given him as a subtle reminder to herself not to trust him completely. Interesting, if so. It suggested her counterpart was very far from naive.\n\nBut his appearance didn’t matter. It was him.\n\nEmily felt conflicted as he studied her, his kindly eyes masking a cool calculating intellect. Void had not only saved her life, he’d sent her to magic school and become the closest thing she had to a true father. He’d certainly held more than a little affection for her, given that he’d spared her life after they’d became enemies and left her his property in the wake of his fall. And he’d meant well … Emily understood his thinking, even as she knew it would only lead to utter disaster. But it seemed to have worked here.\n\nFor the moment, she reminded herself. The final chapter is not yet written.\n\nShe wanted to hug him. She wanted to slap him. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.\n\n“Emily,” Void said. He sounded calm, but she knew him well enough to sense the curiosity behind it. He’d always been the sort of person who’d poke something just to see what would happen. “You are Emily, are you not?”\n\n“You know it,” Emily said. The wards responded to her as well as they responded to her counterpart, suggesting they were far closer than sisters. Void was one of the few people who would think of alternate timelines, after both his experiments and meeting a traveller from another world. “I assume you heard the explanation.”\n\nVoid didn’t bother to deny it. “Why are you here? You and the third … you?”\n\n“You heard the truth,” Emily said. “I’m trying to stop a mad god.”\n\nThe words caught in her throat. If she could convince him to join her, to assist her … she could hardly hope for a better ally. Void was easily the most powerful and capable magician she’d ever met, save perhaps Master Wolfe, and even now she knew she was no match for him in a straight fight. His magic hummed around him, hundreds of spell components carefully woven into a single entity … perhaps the most complex aura she’d ever seen. It was like watching a martial artist so advanced that he didn’t make moves; instead, everything was part of a single move. She wished they had more time to talk, but …\n\n“So I heard,” Void said. “And Boswell?”\n\n“Boswell is from the Hierarchy,” Emily said. “His soulmark can lead me to Master Wolfe’s counterpart, his mimic, and hack him. And then I can use it to get inside the godform.”\n\nVoid frowned. “And he’s been by her side for years,” he said. “Clever. And worrying.”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said. She knew precisely how that felt. “Will you help me?”\n\n“Do I have a choice?” Void gave her a mischievous look. “What’ll happen if you fail?”\n\nEmily felt cold. “The end of everything.”\n\n“Precisely,” Void said. He strode over to a bookcase, removed a pair of books and pressed a hidden button. The bookcase opened, revealing a simple – and seemingly completely mundane – locking mechanism and a secret passageway leading into the darkness. “Come.”\n\nEmily followed, glancing at the mechanism thoughtfully. It didn’t look to have any magic woven into the design, a curious choice for the most powerful magician in the known world and his adopted daughter. Perhaps that was the point. Anyone looking for the entrance in such a magical building would assume it was concealed and operated by magic, the real entrance remaining hidden in plain sight … there would be other traps, of course, waiting for anyone who did manage to find the entrance. Subtle wards brushed against her as she walked through the passageway, trying to convince her to turn and leave without ever putting the feeling into something she could articulate. A mundane wouldn’t know what had hit them, if they walked into the passageway. They wouldn’t just leave. They’d forget that they’d ever known it existed.\n\nVoid led her into a comfortable sitting room, crammed with shabby sofas and armchairs. Emily felt her heart twist as she surveyed the chamber, noting the lack of elegance or taste. There was nothing about it designed to impress people, nothing to show off the owner’s wealth and power. Void didn’t need to design sterile chambers, nor did he feel the urge to purchase and display tasteless but expensive pieces of art. He had nothing to prove and everyone knew it. He could walk around in a tutu and no one would take him any less seriously.\n\nEmily’s lips quirked at the thought. That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.\n\n“Please, sit,” Void said. He poured two mugs of herbal tea, passed one to her and sat facing her. “I assume I exist in your world too?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily wasn’t sure how much she dared tell him. “You’re the power behind the throne, aren’t you?”\n\nVoid gave her a thoughtful look. “Do you really think so little of yourself?”\n\nEmily flushed. “No, but …”\n\nShe waved a hand at the walls. “You put her in power, didn’t you?”\n\n“She did a great deal for herself,” Void said. “Courting Alexis … it opened up an unexpected door, a way to unite the Allied Lands under her banner. I forged a half-true story about taking the lost heir to a throne as my ward, wove a tissue of lies to suggest she was your mother … let them all draw the wrong conclusions, with perfect confidence. Once you were clearly established as the last known heir to the empire, it was simple enough to put you on the throne.”\n\nEmily frowned. “And you don’t mind people thinking you slept with your ward?”\n", "completion": "He looked older than Emily recalled, wearing a guise that looked like a cross between Dumbledore and Gandalf; close enough to the latter to make her smile, close enough to the former to make her wary. It was something that came from her counterpart’s memories, she was sure, and probably something she’d given him as a subtle reminder to herself not to trust him completely. Interesting, if so. It suggested her counterpart was very far from naive.\n\nBut his appearance didn’t matter. It was him.\n\nEmily felt conflicted as he studied her, his kindly eyes masking a cool calculating intellect. Void had not only saved her life, he’d sent her to magic school and become the closest thing she had to a true father. He’d certainly held more than a little affection for her, given that he’d spared her life after they’d became enemies and left her his property in the wake of his fall. And he’d meant well … Emily understood his thinking, even as she knew it would only lead to utter disaster. But it seemed to have worked here.\n\nFor the moment, she reminded herself. The final chapter is not yet written.\n\nShe wanted to hug him. She wanted to slap him. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.\n\n“Emily,” Void said. He sounded calm, but she knew him well enough to sense the curiosity behind it. He’d always been the sort of person who’d poke something just to see what would happen. “You are Emily, are you not?”\n\n“You know it,” Emily said. The wards responded to her as well as they responded to her counterpart, suggesting they were far closer than sisters. Void was one of the few people who would think of alternate timelines, after both his experiments and meeting a traveller from another world. “I assume you heard the explanation.”\n\nVoid didn’t bother to deny it. “Why are you here? You and the third … you?”\n\n“You heard the truth,” Emily said. “I’m trying to stop a mad god.”\n\nThe words caught in her throat. If she could convince him to join her, to assist her … she could hardly hope for a better ally. Void was easily the most powerful and capable magician she’d ever met, save perhaps Master Wolfe, and even now she knew she was no match for him in a straight fight. His magic hummed around him, hundreds of spell components carefully woven into a single entity … perhaps the most complex aura she’d ever seen. It was like watching a martial artist so advanced that he didn’t make moves; instead, everything was part of a single move. She wished they had more time to talk, but …\n\n“So I heard,” Void said. “And Boswell?”\n\n“Boswell is from the Hierarchy,” Emily said. “His soulmark can lead me to Master Wolfe’s counterpart, his mimic, and hack him. And then I can use it to get inside the godform.”\n\nVoid frowned. “And he’s been by her side for years,” he said. “Clever. And worrying.”\n\n“Yeah,” Emily said. She knew precisely how that felt. “Will you help me?”\n\n“Do I have a choice?” Void gave her a mischievous look. “What’ll happen if you fail?”\n\nEmily felt cold. “The end of everything.”\n\n“Precisely,” Void said. He strode over to a bookcase, removed a pair of books and pressed a hidden button. The bookcase opened, revealing a simple – and seemingly completely mundane – locking mechanism and a secret passageway leading into the darkness. “Come.”\n\nEmily followed, glancing at the mechanism thoughtfully. It didn’t look to have any magic woven into the design, a curious choice for the most powerful magician in the known world and his adopted daughter. Perhaps that was the point. Anyone looking for the entrance in such a magical building would assume it was concealed and operated by magic, the real entrance remaining hidden in plain sight … there would be other traps, of course, waiting for anyone who did manage to find the entrance. Subtle wards brushed against her as she walked through the passageway, trying to convince her to turn and leave without ever putting the feeling into something she could articulate. A mundane wouldn’t know what had hit them, if they walked into the passageway. They wouldn’t just leave. They’d forget that they’d ever known it existed.\n\nVoid led her into a comfortable sitting room, crammed with shabby sofas and armchairs. Emily felt her heart twist as she surveyed the chamber, noting the lack of elegance or taste. There was nothing about it designed to impress people, nothing to show off the owner’s wealth and power. Void didn’t need to design sterile chambers, nor did he feel the urge to purchase and display tasteless but expensive pieces of art. He had nothing to prove and everyone knew it. He could walk around in a tutu and no one would take him any less seriously.\n\nEmily’s lips quirked at the thought. That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.\n\n“Please, sit,” Void said. He poured two mugs of herbal tea, passed one to her and sat facing her. “I assume I exist in your world too?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily wasn’t sure how much she dared tell him. “You’re the power behind the throne, aren’t you?”\n\nVoid gave her a thoughtful look. “Do you really think so little of yourself?”\n\nEmily flushed. “No, but …”\n\nShe waved a hand at the walls. “You put her in power, didn’t you?”\n\n“She did a great deal for herself,” Void said. “Courting Alexis … it opened up an unexpected door, a way to unite the Allied Lands under her banner. I forged a half-true story about taking the lost heir to a throne as my ward, wove a tissue of lies to suggest she was your mother … let them all draw the wrong conclusions, with perfect confidence. Once you were clearly established as the last known heir to the empire, it was simple enough to put you on the throne.”\n\nEmily frowned. “And you don’t mind people thinking you slept with your ward?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1034, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch30-P2", "chapter": "ch30", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nVoid — capitalized.\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\nAllied Lands — both words capitalized.\nAlexis — capitalized; courtship path to empire.\nKing Randor — title and name as written when referenced.\n\n### STORY\nEmily confronts Void in his secret sitting room about putting her counterpart on the throne and the rumors about his ward.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nDisgusted by guardian-ward marriage patterns; hears how Void spun heir stories and revolutions to seat Empress Emily; admits her world’s Void is declared dead and that she fought his coup; confesses she misses him.\n\nVoid\nAmused/unconcerned by scandal; explains empire assembly; reads her face; asks what she is not telling; pats her shoulder with unfamiliar affection.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily followed, glancing at the mechanism thoughtfully. It didn’t look to have any magic woven into the design, a curious choice for the most powerful magician in the known world and his adopted daughter. Perhaps that was the point. Anyone looking for the entrance in such a magical building would assume it was concealed and operated by magic, the real entrance remaining hidden in plain sight … there would be other traps, of course, waiting for anyone who did manage to find the entrance. Subtle wards brushed against her as she walked through the passageway, trying to convince her to turn and leave without ever putting the feeling into something she could articulate. A mundane wouldn’t know what had hit them, if they walked into the passageway. They wouldn’t just leave. They’d forget that they’d ever known it existed.\n\nVoid led her into a comfortable sitting room, crammed with shabby sofas and armchairs. Emily felt her heart twist as she surveyed the chamber, noting the lack of elegance or taste. There was nothing about it designed to impress people, nothing to show off the owner’s wealth and power. Void didn’t need to design sterile chambers, nor did he feel the urge to purchase and display tasteless but expensive pieces of art. He had nothing to prove and everyone knew it. He could walk around in a tutu and no one would take him any less seriously.\n\nEmily’s lips quirked at the thought. That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.\n\n“Please, sit,” Void said. He poured two mugs of herbal tea, passed one to her and sat facing her. “I assume I exist in your world too?”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily wasn’t sure how much she dared tell him. “You’re the power behind the throne, aren’t you?”\n\nVoid gave her a thoughtful look. “Do you really think so little of yourself?”\n\nEmily flushed. “No, but …”\n\nShe waved a hand at the walls. “You put her in power, didn’t you?”\n\n“She did a great deal for herself,” Void said. “Courting Alexis … it opened up an unexpected door, a way to unite the Allied Lands under her banner. I forged a half-true story about taking the lost heir to a throne as my ward, wove a tissue of lies to suggest she was your mother … let them all draw the wrong conclusions, with perfect confidence. Once you were clearly established as the last known heir to the empire, it was simple enough to put you on the throne.”\n\nEmily frowned. “And you don’t mind people thinking you slept with your ward?”\n\n### NOTES\nSame shabby sitting room; tea between them.\nCross-world Void comparison live.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe cannot hide disgust at guardian-ward games; Void shrugs and details how empires and revolts seated her counterpart as real power, not puppet. He pries what she withholds until she says her Void launched too early and too late—and that she stood against him. Tears; she misses him; he pats her shoulder. Land on that conflicted touch.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Confession under sharp reading. Land on the shoulder pat.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She couldn’t hide her disgust. Older guardians marrying their wards was a common problem, one that was frighteningly difficult to stamp out. It was never easy to keep the guardian from courting the ward, nor prevent them from arranging the estate to suit themselves before their charge reached her majority. King Randor had been fond of parcelling out heiresses to his favourites, both to reward them for their service and ensure that the estates remained in friendly hands; Alassa had managed to ban the practice, but it was still hard to keep it from happening informally.\n\nVoid shrugged. “What does it matter what they think?”\n\nEmily had to admit he had a point. Hell, it would have been easy to suggest an adult ward seduced her guardian in hopes of bearing a powerful child. Void wouldn’t care if he looked the fool and his unnamed ward would seem prudent, binding her guardian to her through blood, as well as mindful of her responsibilities to the realm by ensuring a powerful successor. She was probably hailed as a hero in public and cursed in private. A sorceress as powerful as Empress Emily wouldn’t be as constrained as most monarchs, regardless of their gender.\n\n“And you were already finding ways to take control of the kingdoms,” Emily said. “You just repurposed the network to support your supposed child.”\n\n“Quite.” Void sounded amused. “Some kingdoms bent the knee rapidly, accepting lesser status within the empire in exchange for their survival. Others needed to be put down … it was astonishing how many spontaneous revolts broke out, once the empire came into focus, all in favour of her. Proclaiming the end of serfdom and a multitude of other concessions made it easier. It’s still a very ramshackle structure in a lot of ways, but we’re tightening it up as we go along.”\n\nEmily could imagine it. She’d never set out to cause a series of revolutions, let alone put herself into power, but her counterpart had. There were all sorts of ways her innovations could be used to take control of the Allied Lands, from newspapers and broadsheets allowing ideas to spread far faster than ever before to guns and gunpowder providing the firepower to shatter medieval armies and mercenaries beyond all hope of repair. Her counterpart knew how revolutions had spread through Europe and Russia, which gave her a playbook her enemies could not match, let alone counter. They’d have to become her in order to beat her and that would be lethal too.\n\nAnd that means she was directly involved in the whole affair, Emily mused. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Void never set her up as a puppet. She’s the power on the throne.\n\nVoid leaned forward. “And what happened in your world?”\n\n“It’s a long story,” Emily said. She found herself uncertain what to say. How would he react to the truth? “We beat the necromancers completely, then went on from there.”\n\n“Really?” Void studied her for a long moment. “And what are you carefully not telling me?”\n\nEmily felt her cheeks redden. He was old, old enough to understand people very well … and he knew her counterpart. He could probably read her perfectly. They weren’t the same person … except, in a sense, they were. Void knew she was hiding something. He just didn’t know what.\n\n“We beat the necromancers,” Emily said. “The Allied Lands slowly started falling into chaos, as all the frozen flashpoints and conflicts that were put on hold during the war started to unfreeze themselves. You tried to take control, to keep the chaos from growing worse, but … it didn’t go well. You were declared dead nearly a year ago.”\n\nVoid frowned.  “Declared dead?”\n\n“There’s some uncertainty over what happened to you,” Emily said, truthfully. “It’s a long story.”\n\n“I see.” Void’s eyes never left her face. “What went wrong?”\n\nEverything, Emily thought. No, that wasn’t entirely true. A great deal had worked as he’d intended, but … he’d had to launch his coup too early and far too many loose ends had been left to dangle, with the intention of dealing with them later. And if I’d helped instead of opposing you …\n\n“I think you launched the coup too early and too late,” Emily said, finally. “Too many things had already changed, making it impossible for you to take control quickly and …”\n\n“And you fought me,” Void said. There was no accusation in his voice, merely calm acceptance, but Emily felt as if she’d been slapped. A real slap would have been easier to take. She would at least know why she was hurting. “Why did you stand against me, when your counterpart joined me?”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. He was sharp. He didn’t have to read her mind when he could read her face. And that meant …\n\n“I thought you were in the wrong,” she said, finally. “A lone man controlling the world is a recipe for disaster, no matter his motives or the power behind them. The sheer scale of ruling the known world would make it impossible to focus on anything and a great many problems would fester until they got too big to ignore. I thought it better to let people breathe, to let them make choices of their own, rather than try to micromanage every little detail or create a bureaucracy that would eventually strangle the life out of the world. And …”\n\nShe felt her heart twist, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. “I miss you,” she admitted. “I just wish …”\n\nVoid reached out and patted her shoulder, gently. Emily felt a confused multitude of emotions washing through her. Void – her Void – had never been prone to showing physical affection … offhand, she couldn’t recall him ever giving her a hug. Part of her welcomed the touch and part of her found it odd, in a manner she couldn’t put into words. Perhaps this Void had been much more affectionate from the start. He’d certainly worked closely with Empress Emily once he’d realised she could be very useful.\n", "completion": "She couldn’t hide her disgust. Older guardians marrying their wards was a common problem, one that was frighteningly difficult to stamp out. It was never easy to keep the guardian from courting the ward, nor prevent them from arranging the estate to suit themselves before their charge reached her majority. King Randor had been fond of parcelling out heiresses to his favourites, both to reward them for their service and ensure that the estates remained in friendly hands; Alassa had managed to ban the practice, but it was still hard to keep it from happening informally.\n\nVoid shrugged. “What does it matter what they think?”\n\nEmily had to admit he had a point. Hell, it would have been easy to suggest an adult ward seduced her guardian in hopes of bearing a powerful child. Void wouldn’t care if he looked the fool and his unnamed ward would seem prudent, binding her guardian to her through blood, as well as mindful of her responsibilities to the realm by ensuring a powerful successor. She was probably hailed as a hero in public and cursed in private. A sorceress as powerful as Empress Emily wouldn’t be as constrained as most monarchs, regardless of their gender.\n\n“And you were already finding ways to take control of the kingdoms,” Emily said. “You just repurposed the network to support your supposed child.”\n\n“Quite.” Void sounded amused. “Some kingdoms bent the knee rapidly, accepting lesser status within the empire in exchange for their survival. Others needed to be put down … it was astonishing how many spontaneous revolts broke out, once the empire came into focus, all in favour of her. Proclaiming the end of serfdom and a multitude of other concessions made it easier. It’s still a very ramshackle structure in a lot of ways, but we’re tightening it up as we go along.”\n\nEmily could imagine it. She’d never set out to cause a series of revolutions, let alone put herself into power, but her counterpart had. There were all sorts of ways her innovations could be used to take control of the Allied Lands, from newspapers and broadsheets allowing ideas to spread far faster than ever before to guns and gunpowder providing the firepower to shatter medieval armies and mercenaries beyond all hope of repair. Her counterpart knew how revolutions had spread through Europe and Russia, which gave her a playbook her enemies could not match, let alone counter. They’d have to become her in order to beat her and that would be lethal too.\n\nAnd that means she was directly involved in the whole affair, Emily mused. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Void never set her up as a puppet. She’s the power on the throne.\n\nVoid leaned forward. “And what happened in your world?”\n\n“It’s a long story,” Emily said. She found herself uncertain what to say. How would he react to the truth? “We beat the necromancers completely, then went on from there.”\n\n“Really?” Void studied her for a long moment. “And what are you carefully not telling me?”\n\nEmily felt her cheeks redden. He was old, old enough to understand people very well … and he knew her counterpart. He could probably read her perfectly. They weren’t the same person … except, in a sense, they were. Void knew she was hiding something. He just didn’t know what.\n\n“We beat the necromancers,” Emily said. “The Allied Lands slowly started falling into chaos, as all the frozen flashpoints and conflicts that were put on hold during the war started to unfreeze themselves. You tried to take control, to keep the chaos from growing worse, but … it didn’t go well. You were declared dead nearly a year ago.”\n\nVoid frowned.  “Declared dead?”\n\n“There’s some uncertainty over what happened to you,” Emily said, truthfully. “It’s a long story.”\n\n“I see.” Void’s eyes never left her face. “What went wrong?”\n\nEverything, Emily thought. No, that wasn’t entirely true. A great deal had worked as he’d intended, but … he’d had to launch his coup too early and far too many loose ends had been left to dangle, with the intention of dealing with them later. And if I’d helped instead of opposing you …\n\n“I think you launched the coup too early and too late,” Emily said, finally. “Too many things had already changed, making it impossible for you to take control quickly and …”\n\n“And you fought me,” Void said. There was no accusation in his voice, merely calm acceptance, but Emily felt as if she’d been slapped. A real slap would have been easier to take. She would at least know why she was hurting. “Why did you stand against me, when your counterpart joined me?”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. He was sharp. He didn’t have to read her mind when he could read her face. And that meant …\n\n“I thought you were in the wrong,” she said, finally. “A lone man controlling the world is a recipe for disaster, no matter his motives or the power behind them. The sheer scale of ruling the known world would make it impossible to focus on anything and a great many problems would fester until they got too big to ignore. I thought it better to let people breathe, to let them make choices of their own, rather than try to micromanage every little detail or create a bureaucracy that would eventually strangle the life out of the world. And …”\n\nShe felt her heart twist, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. “I miss you,” she admitted. “I just wish …”\n\nVoid reached out and patted her shoulder, gently. Emily felt a confused multitude of emotions washing through her. Void – her Void – had never been prone to showing physical affection … offhand, she couldn’t recall him ever giving her a hug. Part of her welcomed the touch and part of her found it odd, in a manner she couldn’t put into words. Perhaps this Void had been much more affectionate from the start. He’d certainly worked closely with Empress Emily once he’d realised she could be very useful.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1036, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch30-P3", "chapter": "ch30", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nVoid — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words capitalized.\nHierarchy — capitalized.\nAlexis — capitalized.\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily tells Void she fought her world’s version of him, admits she misses him, and accepts an uncharacteristic comforting touch.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nExplains her counterpart may have fallen for Alexis too fast into princess logic; must leave to hunt Master Wolfe; notes Hierarchy founder implications; stands to go when the talk is done.\n\nVoid\nAsks why the counterpart helped him; dry about her intelligence; engages Hierarchy and strangeness; ready to move with her.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nVoid frowned.  “Declared dead?”\n\n“There’s some uncertainty over what happened to you,” Emily said, truthfully. “It’s a long story.”\n\n“I see.” Void’s eyes never left her face. “What went wrong?”\n\nEverything, Emily thought. No, that wasn’t entirely true. A great deal had worked as he’d intended, but … he’d had to launch his coup too early and far too many loose ends had been left to dangle, with the intention of dealing with them later. And if I’d helped instead of opposing you …\n\n“I think you launched the coup too early and too late,” Emily said, finally. “Too many things had already changed, making it impossible for you to take control quickly and …”\n\n“And you fought me,” Void said. There was no accusation in his voice, merely calm acceptance, but Emily felt as if she’d been slapped. A real slap would have been easier to take. She would at least know why she was hurting. “Why did you stand against me, when your counterpart joined me?”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. He was sharp. He didn’t have to read her mind when he could read her face. And that meant …\n\n“I thought you were in the wrong,” she said, finally. “A lone man controlling the world is a recipe for disaster, no matter his motives or the power behind them. The sheer scale of ruling the known world would make it impossible to focus on anything and a great many problems would fester until they got too big to ignore. I thought it better to let people breathe, to let them make choices of their own, rather than try to micromanage every little detail or create a bureaucracy that would eventually strangle the life out of the world. And …”\n\nShe felt her heart twist, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. “I miss you,” she admitted. “I just wish …”\n\nVoid reached out and patted her shoulder, gently. Emily felt a confused multitude of emotions washing through her. Void – her Void – had never been prone to showing physical affection … offhand, she couldn’t recall him ever giving her a hug. Part of her welcomed the touch and part of her found it odd, in a manner she couldn’t put into words. Perhaps this Void had been much more affectionate from the start. He’d certainly worked closely with Empress Emily once he’d realised she could be very useful.\n\n### NOTES\nSitting-room talk winding down into action.\nWolf still able to shred even solid-seeming worlds.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nVoid asks why her counterpart helped him; Emily tries answers—Alexis, paradise rationalizations—and insists she cannot stay while Master Wolfe remains. Hierarchy threads and gender-flipped counterparts jar her; Void notices the conflict. She stands, saying she has not forgotten. Land on Let’s go.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Closing counsel into motion. Land on Let’s go.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I am sorry,” he said. “Why did your counterpart help me?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. “I’m not her.”\n\n“But you are the same person, in a way,” Void said. “What would change your mind?”\n\n“Good question.” Emily forced herself to think. She didn’t want to believe she could be anything else, even though she’d met variants of herself that were everything from a necromancer to an all-powerful empress. Slave Emily, at least, had the excuse of being enslaved. She’d had no free will. “I think …”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly. She knew people who talked about wanting to go back to a simpler time, to the Antebellum South or Medieval England or Jacobite Scotland, dreamers who were too ignorant to realise that life had been nasty, brutish and short for the vast majority of the people in those eras. Even someone resting comfortably at the very top wouldn’t be assured of a decent life, nor would they be aware of the price others paid for it. Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation relied upon an underclass of slaves, de jure and de facto, who did all the work and received little of the credit. The thought of becoming someone like Scarlett was abhorrent. And yet her counterpart appeared to have embraced the idea of being waited on by maids with enthusiasm.\n\n“She may have fallen for Alexis too quickly,” Emily said, finally. It was the only answer she could think of, or at least the only one that made sense. “If she became his princess, she might not have grasped that his kingdom isn’t just noblewomen in fancy dresses.”\n\n“I'm sure she knows it,” Void said, dryly. “She is very far from stupid.”\n\n“There’s a difference between knowing something and believing it,” Emily said. “She might not have grasped the truth. Or she might have grown used to it too quickly.”\n\nShe scowled. Princess fantasies were hardly uncommon. God knew she’d had them. The idea of her father being a wealthy man, her father coming back for her and giving her the life of her dreams … it had haunted her, all the more as she grew older and realised she was caught in a trap she’d never escape. It was a pleasant fantasy, especially because she knew nothing about her father. But the dream could easily turn into a nightmare if it became reality.\n\nAnd it is easy to rationalise taking control for everyone’s good, she reminded herself. The smarter you were, the easier it was to talk yourself into doing something stupid – or wrong – and then come up with excuses afterwards. My counterpart might sincerely believe she’s doing the right thing.\n\nShe kept that thought to herself. “I can’t stay here, even though my other counterpart does want to remain,” she said. “I need to track down Master Wolfe – and quickly.”\n\nVoid smiled. “You are sure he has a counterpart here?”\n\n“He must,” Emily said. “If the Hierarchy exists here, their founder must exist too.”\n\nShe glanced at him, a thought crossing her mind. “Did you know about the Hierarchy?”\n\n“Only vaguely,” Void said. “Underground quarrels are nothing new, Emily, and it always seemed a minor issue, not worth worrying about. They researched magic and little else, as far as we knew, and the advantages of keeping them around seemed to outweigh the disadvantages. We had no idea they had any greater agenda, not until now.”\n\nEmily had to smile. “You see what I mean about missing things?”\n\nVoid conceded the point with a nod. “An oversight, clearly,” he said. “But I doubt they would risk showing their hand too openly when the empire could track them down and destroy them.”\n\n“Unless they find a way to make the godform here too,” Emily pointed out. How many of her innovations had been used to turn Master Wolfe into a god? How far could he get without magitech? This Master Wolfe would be far less powerful, she thought, but it was hard to be certain. She could be sticking her neck into a deadly trap. “We may not have much time.”\n\nAnd the wolf might be looking for me too, she reminded herself. The world around her was so reassuringly solid it was hard to remember the wolf could tear it to shreds at any time. The more she thought about it, the greater the risk of it catching her. Time really isn’t on our side.\n\nVoid nodded. “My daughter has invited you to join her and the family for dinner,” he said, thoughtfully. “We’ll set off tomorrow.”\n\n“Of course,” Emily said. “Is it strange to you, meeting me?”\n\n“The world is a very strange place,” Void said. “I’m sure you know that by now.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily had to smile. “And do you approve of her marrying Alexis?”\n\n“The lad has his uses,” Void said, deadpan. It was hard to tell if he liked Alexis on a personal level or not. “He’s smart enough to know not to overplay his hand – or to treat his wife, the sorceress empress, like dirt. He’s a skilled warrior and a talented general, which fills in the gaps nicely. And he fathered three children, heirs to the throne.”\n\nHe paused. “And he was chosen by her. What right have I to say no?”\n\nEmily felt conflicted. Void noticed.\n\n“Does it bother you?”\n\n“It’s just … jarring,” Emily said. She’d known, logically, there was no reason someone couldn’t have a gender-flipped counterpart, but it was still hard to believe they were the same person. The gulf between them was very wide. “In my world, he’s female.”\n\n“And I’m sure it shocked him, to hear that from you,” Void said. His lips were unmoving, but she could see the smile dancing in his eyes. “Just remember he isn’t the same person as the girl you know.”\n\n“I haven’t forgotten.” Emily stood. “Let’s go.”\n", "completion": "“I am sorry,” he said. “Why did your counterpart help me?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. “I’m not her.”\n\n“But you are the same person, in a way,” Void said. “What would change your mind?”\n\n“Good question.” Emily forced herself to think. She didn’t want to believe she could be anything else, even though she’d met variants of herself that were everything from a necromancer to an all-powerful empress. Slave Emily, at least, had the excuse of being enslaved. She’d had no free will. “I think …”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly. She knew people who talked about wanting to go back to a simpler time, to the Antebellum South or Medieval England or Jacobite Scotland, dreamers who were too ignorant to realise that life had been nasty, brutish and short for the vast majority of the people in those eras. Even someone resting comfortably at the very top wouldn’t be assured of a decent life, nor would they be aware of the price others paid for it. Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation relied upon an underclass of slaves, de jure and de facto, who did all the work and received little of the credit. The thought of becoming someone like Scarlett was abhorrent. And yet her counterpart appeared to have embraced the idea of being waited on by maids with enthusiasm.\n\n“She may have fallen for Alexis too quickly,” Emily said, finally. It was the only answer she could think of, or at least the only one that made sense. “If she became his princess, she might not have grasped that his kingdom isn’t just noblewomen in fancy dresses.”\n\n“I'm sure she knows it,” Void said, dryly. “She is very far from stupid.”\n\n“There’s a difference between knowing something and believing it,” Emily said. “She might not have grasped the truth. Or she might have grown used to it too quickly.”\n\nShe scowled. Princess fantasies were hardly uncommon. God knew she’d had them. The idea of her father being a wealthy man, her father coming back for her and giving her the life of her dreams … it had haunted her, all the more as she grew older and realised she was caught in a trap she’d never escape. It was a pleasant fantasy, especially because she knew nothing about her father. But the dream could easily turn into a nightmare if it became reality.\n\nAnd it is easy to rationalise taking control for everyone’s good, she reminded herself. The smarter you were, the easier it was to talk yourself into doing something stupid – or wrong – and then come up with excuses afterwards. My counterpart might sincerely believe she’s doing the right thing.\n\nShe kept that thought to herself. “I can’t stay here, even though my other counterpart does want to remain,” she said. “I need to track down Master Wolfe – and quickly.”\n\nVoid smiled. “You are sure he has a counterpart here?”\n\n“He must,” Emily said. “If the Hierarchy exists here, their founder must exist too.”\n\nShe glanced at him, a thought crossing her mind. “Did you know about the Hierarchy?”\n\n“Only vaguely,” Void said. “Underground quarrels are nothing new, Emily, and it always seemed a minor issue, not worth worrying about. They researched magic and little else, as far as we knew, and the advantages of keeping them around seemed to outweigh the disadvantages. We had no idea they had any greater agenda, not until now.”\n\nEmily had to smile. “You see what I mean about missing things?”\n\nVoid conceded the point with a nod. “An oversight, clearly,” he said. “But I doubt they would risk showing their hand too openly when the empire could track them down and destroy them.”\n\n“Unless they find a way to make the godform here too,” Emily pointed out. How many of her innovations had been used to turn Master Wolfe into a god? How far could he get without magitech? This Master Wolfe would be far less powerful, she thought, but it was hard to be certain. She could be sticking her neck into a deadly trap. “We may not have much time.”\n\nAnd the wolf might be looking for me too, she reminded herself. The world around her was so reassuringly solid it was hard to remember the wolf could tear it to shreds at any time. The more she thought about it, the greater the risk of it catching her. Time really isn’t on our side.\n\nVoid nodded. “My daughter has invited you to join her and the family for dinner,” he said, thoughtfully. “We’ll set off tomorrow.”\n\n“Of course,” Emily said. “Is it strange to you, meeting me?”\n\n“The world is a very strange place,” Void said. “I’m sure you know that by now.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily had to smile. “And do you approve of her marrying Alexis?”\n\n“The lad has his uses,” Void said, deadpan. It was hard to tell if he liked Alexis on a personal level or not. “He’s smart enough to know not to overplay his hand – or to treat his wife, the sorceress empress, like dirt. He’s a skilled warrior and a talented general, which fills in the gaps nicely. And he fathered three children, heirs to the throne.”\n\nHe paused. “And he was chosen by her. What right have I to say no?”\n\nEmily felt conflicted. Void noticed.\n\n“Does it bother you?”\n\n“It’s just … jarring,” Emily said. She’d known, logically, there was no reason someone couldn’t have a gender-flipped counterpart, but it was still hard to believe they were the same person. The gulf between them was very wide. “In my world, he’s female.”\n\n“And I’m sure it shocked him, to hear that from you,” Void said. His lips were unmoving, but she could see the smile dancing in his eyes. “Just remember he isn’t the same person as the girl you know.”\n\n“I haven’t forgotten.” Emily stood. “Let’s go.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1003, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch31-P1", "chapter": "ch31", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nYour Ladyship — form of address Boswell uses for Emily; capitalize both words as spoken.\nWhite City — both words capitalized; city name.\nNew Learning — both words capitalized; reform movement from Emily’s world.\nsoulmark — one word, lowercase; Hierarchy control-mark on Boswell.\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily meets this timeline’s Void in his tower; she asks help against Master Wolfe’s rising godform and explains Boswell’s Hierarchy soulmark can lead to the local mimic; Void opens a mundane-hidden passage into a shabby private sitting room and tests how much she will say about her counterpart’s power.\nVoid and Emily press the Boswell plan in the sitting room; they weigh whether this Master Wolfe can raise a godform without magitech and whether the Hierarchy will show its hand; Void notes his daughter has invited Emily to family dinner and they will set off the next day.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nAlternate-timeline traveller posing as Empress Emily’s guest. Fresh from dinner talk with Void about Alexis and the coming assault on Master Wolfe’s mimic via Boswell’s soulmark. Determined, guilty about using people as tools, and alert that Boswell may have noticed the earlier freeze. Knows Adam and Lilith were summoned into this world and are volatile.\n\nBoswell\nCourt functionary and Hierarchy spy whose soulmark links him to Master Wolfe’s mimic. Uncertain how to address Emily; does not seem to realize he lost fifteen minutes. Will lead her out of the castle toward the White City and the teleport that feeds the fortress.\n\nVoid\nThis timeline’s archmage and Empress Emily’s adoptive father. Waiting outside to help trigger the soulmark teleport. Mischievous, calculating, and already contemptuous of Boswell as a milksop spy. Knows the end-of-everything stakes.\n\nEmpress Emily\nReferenced; ruler of this White City; married to Alexis; not present on the street walk.\n\nAlexis\nReferenced; Empress Emily’s husband; boastful and possessive in Emily’s judgment; not present.\n\nAdam\nReferenced; summoned youth who fought Lilith overnight and ended shorter, greener, and mucus-covered.\n\nLilith\nReferenced; summoned girl who fought Adam; lacks proper development in this universe.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nBoswell carries a Hierarchy soulmark that can be forced to teleport its bearer to Master Wolfe’s mimic; Emily’s plan is to ride that link, freeze or rewrite the mimic, and use its essence to hack the rising godform.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily had to smile. “You see what I mean about missing things?”\n\nVoid conceded the point with a nod. “An oversight, clearly,” he said. “But I doubt they would risk showing their hand too openly when the empire could track them down and destroy them.”\n\n“Unless they find a way to make the godform here too,” Emily pointed out. How many of her innovations had been used to turn Master Wolfe into a god? How far could he get without magitech? This Master Wolfe would be far less powerful, she thought, but it was hard to be certain. She could be sticking her neck into a deadly trap. “We may not have much time.”\n\nAnd the wolf might be looking for me too, she reminded herself. The world around her was so reassuringly solid it was hard to remember the wolf could tear it to shreds at any time. The more she thought about it, the greater the risk of it catching her. Time really isn’t on our side.\n\nVoid nodded. “My daughter has invited you to join her and the family for dinner,” he said, thoughtfully. “We’ll set off tomorrow.”\n\n“Of course,” Emily said. “Is it strange to you, meeting me?”\n\n“The world is a very strange place,” Void said. “I’m sure you know that by now.”\n\n“Yeah.” Emily had to smile. “And do you approve of her marrying Alexis?”\n\n“The lad has his uses,” Void said, deadpan. It was hard to tell if he liked Alexis on a personal level or not. “He’s smart enough to know not to overplay his hand – or to treat his wife, the sorceress empress, like dirt. He’s a skilled warrior and a talented general, which fills in the gaps nicely. And he fathered three children, heirs to the throne.”\n\nHe paused. “And he was chosen by her. What right have I to say no?”\n\nEmily felt conflicted. Void noticed.\n\n“Does it bother you?”\n\n“It’s just … jarring,” Emily said. She’d known, logically, there was no reason someone couldn’t have a gender-flipped counterpart, but it was still hard to believe they were the same person. The gulf between them was very wide. “In my world, he’s female.”\n\n“And I’m sure it shocked him, to hear that from you,” Void said. His lips were unmoving, but she could see the smile dancing in his eyes. “Just remember he isn’t the same person as the girl you know.”\n\n“I haven’t forgotten.” Emily stood. “Let’s go.”\n\n### NOTES\nWhite City streets: giant statues of Empress Emily flanked by Alexis; broadsheet criers; few horses.\nTunnel under the mountain opens onto logging camps and army barracks outside the city.\nTeleport chamber at the far end of the soulmark jump is warded in stone.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nMorning after the awkward dinner, Boswell greets her as Your Ladyship and she watches for any sign he noticed the missing quarter-hour. She papers over Adam and Lilith’s mucus-and-frog dispute, orders him to take her where they planned, and follows him through the White City’s statue-lined streets and the mountain tunnel to the logging camps and barracks. She asks what the locals make of their empress and gets only the safe answer; she notes the missing New Learning and the lingering stench.\n\nOutside, Void is waiting. Emily hexes Boswell frozen, threads her magic into the soulmark beneath his shadow-form, and with Void’s mischievous ready she grips Boswell’s arm and triggers the mark. The world goes white as the draining teleport dumps them into a warded chamber, and the scene lands on the wards buzzing against her mind.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Clear action and court-to-street motion; keep the soulmark trigger taut. Land on arrival in the warded chamber.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I trust you had a good evening, Your Ladyship,” Boswell said.\n\nHe spoke with the tone of a man who didn’t quite know how to address her. Emily studied him thoughtfully, noting he didn’t seem to have realised he’d lost fifteen minutes of time … although it was hard to be certain. A skilled magician might pick up on it and keep it to himself while he tried to figure out who had frozen him and why. That wouldn’t prove too difficult if he knew when and where he’d been frozen, she reminded herself. She was the only logical suspect.\n\n“It was interesting,” Emily said. It had been more awkward than interesting, with the children and her servile counterpart and a husband who wasn’t her husband … it struck her as strange, beyond words, that Empress Emily had married a man like Alexis. He had so many traits Emily regarded as red flags, from open boastfulness to ill-concealed possessiveness. “Did you take care of Adam and Lilith?”\n\n“They had a dispute last night,” Boswell said. “I’m afraid that Adam ended up shorter, greener and covered in mucus.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. That was something that would have to be dealt with … probably by her counterpart. Or Void. Lilith hadn’t had any proper character development in this universe and so … hell, it was equally possible Adam had crossed the line in some way. Perhaps summoning them had been a mistake, given how little time they’d had to grow up. If they were given a little more time …\n\n“We’ll deal with it later,” she said. “You know where you’re taking me?”\n\nBoswell bowed, in a manner that indicated his disapproval. “Yes, Your Ladyship.”\n\n“Then we’ll go there now,” she said. She’d prepared a cover story, if Boswell asked too many questions, but it seemed she didn’t have to bother using it. “There is much work to do.”\n\nBoswell bowed again, then led the way through a maze of corridors and out onto the streets. The White City had changed a great deal – no, was different in this world – and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Giant statues of Empress Emily sat at every street corner, flanked by smaller statues of Alexis and a handful of people she didn’t recognise; broadsheet criers hurried up and down, screaming the headlines as loudly as they could. The shops didn’t seem to be that different, not here, but the crowds definitely were. Aristocrats and military officers rubbed shoulders with merchants, soldiers and other commoners, without a trace of the tensions she’d seen back in her world. There weren’t many horses on the streets, she noted thoughtfully. Her counterpart must have restricted their presence, knowing they posed a public health threat. It was good thinking on her part. Horse manure had its uses, but it was also a breeding ground for disease.\n\nShe glanced at Boswell. “What do the locals make of their empress?”\n\n“I am sure they love and honour her in all they do,” Boswell said, in a tone that suggested there could be no other answer. “She has brought peace and prosperity to these lands.”\n\nAt a price, Emily thought, as they kept walking. The shops didn’t look as innovative as the ones back home, without the New Learning taking off the way it did in her world, and there’d clearly been less work on the gutters and sewers than she would have expected. A faint stench hung in the air, stubborn enough not to fade even when she muttered a spell to keep it from her nostrils. Do the locals think the price was right?\n\nShe put the thought aside – Boswell would hardly give her a straight answer – as they walked through the tunnel under the mountain. The White City had always been confined by the mountains, as if it were resting within a volcano, and the geography had placed hard limits on expansion. Here … she frowned, inwardly, as they reached the end of the tunnel and saw the logging camps outside. The trees were being cut down ruthlessly, the logs converted into planks to build houses … she sucked in her breath as she spotted the army barracks, thousands of men being put through training before being marched to the front. She hoped her counterpart understood the importance of basic sanitation. There was no modern medicine to deal with a disease outbreak here.\n\nBoswell flinched, just slightly, as he saw Void waiting for them. “Your Grace …”\n\nEmily hexed him in the back, freezing him. “Are you ready?”\n\n“Of course,” Void said, studying Boswell. “To think this milksop is a spy.”\n\nEmily reached out with her magic, tendrils of raw power slipping into the shadowy form surrounding Boswell’s material body. The soulmark was easier to find now … she wasn’t sure if it was because she’d found it already or because they were outside the castle. The soulmark was designed to be incredibly difficult to find and in a warded building it would need to bury itself almost completely … she took a breath, plunging her awareness into the soulmark, and glanced at Void. He seemed surprisingly calm.\n\n“Ready?”\n\n“Yes.” Void shot her a mischievous look. “Ready.”\n\nEmily took a firm grip of Boswell’s arm, then triggered the soulmark. The world went white, his magic sparking oddly as she forced him to cast a spell … she felt a twinge of guilt, despite knowing what Boswell had done in her timeline. Master Wolfe had been cunning, part of her mind noted coldly. The teleport spell was incredibly draining, even for powerful magicians, making it difficult for a would-be assassin to arrive in the fortress and start cursing. If he tried, he’d be at a profound disadvantage. The world spun around her, the wards seemingly unsure what to make of them, before they crashed back into reality. The teleport chamber around them seemed surprisingly normal, but the wards woven into the stone were dangerously powerful. She could feel them buzzing against her mind.\n", "completion": "“I trust you had a good evening, Your Ladyship,” Boswell said.\n\nHe spoke with the tone of a man who didn’t quite know how to address her. Emily studied him thoughtfully, noting he didn’t seem to have realised he’d lost fifteen minutes of time … although it was hard to be certain. A skilled magician might pick up on it and keep it to himself while he tried to figure out who had frozen him and why. That wouldn’t prove too difficult if he knew when and where he’d been frozen, she reminded herself. She was the only logical suspect.\n\n“It was interesting,” Emily said. It had been more awkward than interesting, with the children and her servile counterpart and a husband who wasn’t her husband … it struck her as strange, beyond words, that Empress Emily had married a man like Alexis. He had so many traits Emily regarded as red flags, from open boastfulness to ill-concealed possessiveness. “Did you take care of Adam and Lilith?”\n\n“They had a dispute last night,” Boswell said. “I’m afraid that Adam ended up shorter, greener and covered in mucus.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. That was something that would have to be dealt with … probably by her counterpart. Or Void. Lilith hadn’t had any proper character development in this universe and so … hell, it was equally possible Adam had crossed the line in some way. Perhaps summoning them had been a mistake, given how little time they’d had to grow up. If they were given a little more time …\n\n“We’ll deal with it later,” she said. “You know where you’re taking me?”\n\nBoswell bowed, in a manner that indicated his disapproval. “Yes, Your Ladyship.”\n\n“Then we’ll go there now,” she said. She’d prepared a cover story, if Boswell asked too many questions, but it seemed she didn’t have to bother using it. “There is much work to do.”\n\nBoswell bowed again, then led the way through a maze of corridors and out onto the streets. The White City had changed a great deal – no, was different in this world – and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Giant statues of Empress Emily sat at every street corner, flanked by smaller statues of Alexis and a handful of people she didn’t recognise; broadsheet criers hurried up and down, screaming the headlines as loudly as they could. The shops didn’t seem to be that different, not here, but the crowds definitely were. Aristocrats and military officers rubbed shoulders with merchants, soldiers and other commoners, without a trace of the tensions she’d seen back in her world. There weren’t many horses on the streets, she noted thoughtfully. Her counterpart must have restricted their presence, knowing they posed a public health threat. It was good thinking on her part. Horse manure had its uses, but it was also a breeding ground for disease.\n\nShe glanced at Boswell. “What do the locals make of their empress?”\n\n“I am sure they love and honour her in all they do,” Boswell said, in a tone that suggested there could be no other answer. “She has brought peace and prosperity to these lands.”\n\nAt a price, Emily thought, as they kept walking. The shops didn’t look as innovative as the ones back home, without the New Learning taking off the way it did in her world, and there’d clearly been less work on the gutters and sewers than she would have expected. A faint stench hung in the air, stubborn enough not to fade even when she muttered a spell to keep it from her nostrils. Do the locals think the price was right?\n\nShe put the thought aside – Boswell would hardly give her a straight answer – as they walked through the tunnel under the mountain. The White City had always been confined by the mountains, as if it were resting within a volcano, and the geography had placed hard limits on expansion. Here … she frowned, inwardly, as they reached the end of the tunnel and saw the logging camps outside. The trees were being cut down ruthlessly, the logs converted into planks to build houses … she sucked in her breath as she spotted the army barracks, thousands of men being put through training before being marched to the front. She hoped her counterpart understood the importance of basic sanitation. There was no modern medicine to deal with a disease outbreak here.\n\nBoswell flinched, just slightly, as he saw Void waiting for them. “Your Grace …”\n\nEmily hexed him in the back, freezing him. “Are you ready?”\n\n“Of course,” Void said, studying Boswell. “To think this milksop is a spy.”\n\nEmily reached out with her magic, tendrils of raw power slipping into the shadowy form surrounding Boswell’s material body. The soulmark was easier to find now … she wasn’t sure if it was because she’d found it already or because they were outside the castle. The soulmark was designed to be incredibly difficult to find and in a warded building it would need to bury itself almost completely … she took a breath, plunging her awareness into the soulmark, and glanced at Void. He seemed surprisingly calm.\n\n“Ready?”\n\n“Yes.” Void shot her a mischievous look. “Ready.”\n\nEmily took a firm grip of Boswell’s arm, then triggered the soulmark. The world went white, his magic sparking oddly as she forced him to cast a spell … she felt a twinge of guilt, despite knowing what Boswell had done in her timeline. Master Wolfe had been cunning, part of her mind noted coldly. The teleport spell was incredibly draining, even for powerful magicians, making it difficult for a would-be assassin to arrive in the fortress and start cursing. If he tried, he’d be at a profound disadvantage. The world spun around her, the wards seemingly unsure what to make of them, before they crashed back into reality. The teleport chamber around them seemed surprisingly normal, but the wards woven into the stone were dangerously powerful. She could feel them buzzing against her mind.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1021, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch31-P2", "chapter": "ch31", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nsoulmark — one word, lowercase.\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized; school name in Emily’s comparison.\nHierarchy — capitalized; secret order behind the mimics.\n\n### STORY\nMorning after dinner, Emily has Boswell escort her through the White City’s statue-lined streets and mountain tunnel to the logging camps; outside she freezes him, Void joins, and they ride Boswell’s soulmark teleport into a heavily warded chamber.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nJust arrived via soulmark teleport with Void and a frozen Boswell. Guilty about what she is about to do to Boswell’s mind; focused on reaching Master Wolfe’s mimic and channeling spells through the link. Knows mimics absorb lives into spellware and that this world’s people treat them as supernatural creatures.\n\nBoswell\nSoulmarked Hierarchy spy, freshly dominated into a mindless trance after the teleport. Will lead them to the underground spellchamber, then be exploded by Master Wolfe’s spell.\n\nVoid\nBeside Emily in the fortress. Calm enough to banter mid-fight; his magic can deny itself to a mimic, holding Master Wolfe immobile while Emily works.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nThis timeline’s mimic-host, appearance different but the same multiplicity. Waiting in the heart spellchamber; powerful enough to explode Boswell and shove Emily aside until Void pins him.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe put the thought aside – Boswell would hardly give her a straight answer – as they walked through the tunnel under the mountain. The White City had always been confined by the mountains, as if it were resting within a volcano, and the geography had placed hard limits on expansion. Here … she frowned, inwardly, as they reached the end of the tunnel and saw the logging camps outside. The trees were being cut down ruthlessly, the logs converted into planks to build houses … she sucked in her breath as she spotted the army barracks, thousands of men being put through training before being marched to the front. She hoped her counterpart understood the importance of basic sanitation. There was no modern medicine to deal with a disease outbreak here.\n\nBoswell flinched, just slightly, as he saw Void waiting for them. “Your Grace …”\n\nEmily hexed him in the back, freezing him. “Are you ready?”\n\n“Of course,” Void said, studying Boswell. “To think this milksop is a spy.”\n\nEmily reached out with her magic, tendrils of raw power slipping into the shadowy form surrounding Boswell’s material body. The soulmark was easier to find now … she wasn’t sure if it was because she’d found it already or because they were outside the castle. The soulmark was designed to be incredibly difficult to find and in a warded building it would need to bury itself almost completely … she took a breath, plunging her awareness into the soulmark, and glanced at Void. He seemed surprisingly calm.\n\n“Ready?”\n\n“Yes.” Void shot her a mischievous look. “Ready.”\n\nEmily took a firm grip of Boswell’s arm, then triggered the soulmark. The world went white, his magic sparking oddly as she forced him to cast a spell … she felt a twinge of guilt, despite knowing what Boswell had done in her timeline. Master Wolfe had been cunning, part of her mind noted coldly. The teleport spell was incredibly draining, even for powerful magicians, making it difficult for a would-be assassin to arrive in the fortress and start cursing. If he tried, he’d be at a profound disadvantage. The world spun around her, the wards seemingly unsure what to make of them, before they crashed back into reality. The teleport chamber around them seemed surprisingly normal, but the wards woven into the stone were dangerously powerful. She could feel them buzzing against her mind.\n\n### NOTES\nThe fortress is underground, likely in the Blighted Lands; no windows; stone door into a large spellchamber.\nEmily has prepared parchments of anti-mimic charms in her pocket.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nBoswell jerks as she rams a domination spell into his mind and forces herself past the guilt; Void asks if she is sure she is different from her ruthless counterpart. She sends Boswell shuffling to the heart of the windowless fortress and through a stone door into Master Wolfe’s spellchamber. Her first spells die on the soulmark link; Master Wolfe explodes Boswell in blood and knocks her aside until Void flares his magic and denies the mimic any hold.\n\nWhile Void holds the frozen multiplicity, Emily feeds parchment charms into the mimic. In a world that never learned what mimics truly are, the complex spellform simply freezes. She begins dissecting the living spellware as Void asks whether the freeze is permanent and notes what a spy the thing would make if its core programming ever reasserted — and the scene lands on that thought.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Violent close-quarters magic; keep Void’s calm against Emily’s nausea. Land on the spy observation.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Boswell jerked. Emily shoved her guilt aside and rammed a domination spell into his mind. The man jerked violently, his mind fighting a spell that would leave him a drooling moron if she left it on him too long, then settled into a mindless trance. Emily felt sick, knowing she was crossing a line even though everything was at stake; it was something she would never normally do and yet …\n\nVoid looked at her. “Are you sure you’re that different from her?”\n\nEmily ignored him and directed Boswell to take her to the heart of the fortress. He shuffled forward, past a series of closed and locked doors and down a flight of stairs, until finally reaching a single stone door. The complex was huge, yet there were no windows … Emily guessed they were underground, probably somewhere within the Blighted Lands. The necromancers would be a threat, true, but the fortress would likely remain hidden as long as they did nothing to draw attention. There were quite a few groups that had escaped discovery in the Blighted Lands …\n\nThe door opened, revealing a large spellchamber … and Master Wolfe. The appearance was different, but it was the same person. His eyes went wide as he saw Boswell and his two companions, then magic crackled around his form. Emily shoved the first set of spells through Boswell, trying to channel them through the soulmark and right into the mimic, but the magic flickered and died as soon as it tried to cross the link. She couldn’t see why.\n\nMaster Wolfe cast a spell. Boswell exploded, showering Emily in blood. She gritted her teeth and cast a spell of her own, only to be shoved aside with extreme force. Master Wolfe wasn’t the godform, not yet, but he was still powerful beyond belief and incredibly skilled. She had the nasty feeling she might have bitten off more than she could chew.\n\nVoid moved forward, his magic flaring around him. Master Wolfe turned to meet him, his form flickering slightly as the mimic asserted itself. Emily opened her mouth to cry a warning, but … the mimic reached for Void and stopped dead. Void’s magic was practically holding it in place … she sucked in her breath as she realised just what he was doing. His magic was his and he was denying it to the mimic, which meant …\n\n“You might want to think of something,” Void said. He sounded as if he were ordering dinner, not engaged in a life-or-death struggle for survival. “I can’t hold him forever.”\n\nEmily blinked, then caught herself and grabbed the parchments she’d stuck in her pocket. Master Wolfe was a mimic, the most advanced she’d ever seen … she shuddered to think how many lives had been consumed, how many magicians had been tricked and forcibly absorbed into the multiplicity. What could they have become, if they hadn’t been lured into a trap and sacrificed for power …? The thought mocked her as she cast the first charm. If things had been different, would she have been tempted? There could easily be a version of her who’d joined the Hierarchy …\n\nAnd that might be useful, she thought, as she shoved the parchment forward. The soulmark might have been designed to limit Boswell’s ability to fight his master, but … it was more likely it was designed to prevent someone else using it to attack the mimic. Master Wolfe wanted the strongest magicians and hampering their development would limit them in a multitude of ways … it made her wonder if someone else had tried to use the soulmarks, years ago. If this works …\n\nMagic flared. The mimic’s great advantage was that almost no one knew what mimics truly were – or they hadn’t, at least until she’d worked it out. In this world, there had been no murderous rampage through Whitehall and her counterpart had never come face-to-face with one of the most complex spells in the known world. Everyone knew the mimics were supernatural creatures … she sucked in her breath, relieved, as the mimic simply froze. It was over.\n\n“That was oddly anticlimactic,” Void said. He wasn’t even breathing hard.  “I’ve known weak magicians who put up more of a fight.”\n\n“His great advantage is that no one knew his true nature,” Emily said. A world with no concept of tanks might gaze upon one and assume it was a dragon or some other kind of living creature, rather than an armoured vehicle. A gun might look like a club to someone who had no idea what guns actually were. They would have no idea of what would happen, when the trigger was pulled, until it was far too late. “We do, and so …”\n\nShe studied the frozen spellform for a long moment. It really was fantastically complex, hundreds of lives dissected with soul magic and recorded onto spell components woven together to form a piece of spellware that was practically a living thing. It was living, in a sense … she shook her head slowly and started to dissect it with her magic, carefully working out how the pieces went together. It wasn’t easy. The basics were easy to see, and deduce, but the more complex aspects were fiendishly confusing. She hadn’t seen anything like it since a younger student had cast a merging spell and somehow wound up integrated with two other students. He’d been very lucky to survive.\n\n“Impressive,” Void said. “Are you sure he’s permanently frozen?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. Most mimics could be dispelled easily, once you knew what they were, but most mimics didn’t retain the memories they’d absorbed for very long. Master Wolfe was something very different, a living thing composed of spellware rather than flesh and blood. “I think so …”\n\n“Keep an eye on him,” Void said, thoughtfully. “He would make a fantastic spy. He wouldn’t know what he was, until the core programming reasserted itself.”\n", "completion": "Boswell jerked. Emily shoved her guilt aside and rammed a domination spell into his mind. The man jerked violently, his mind fighting a spell that would leave him a drooling moron if she left it on him too long, then settled into a mindless trance. Emily felt sick, knowing she was crossing a line even though everything was at stake; it was something she would never normally do and yet …\n\nVoid looked at her. “Are you sure you’re that different from her?”\n\nEmily ignored him and directed Boswell to take her to the heart of the fortress. He shuffled forward, past a series of closed and locked doors and down a flight of stairs, until finally reaching a single stone door. The complex was huge, yet there were no windows … Emily guessed they were underground, probably somewhere within the Blighted Lands. The necromancers would be a threat, true, but the fortress would likely remain hidden as long as they did nothing to draw attention. There were quite a few groups that had escaped discovery in the Blighted Lands …\n\nThe door opened, revealing a large spellchamber … and Master Wolfe. The appearance was different, but it was the same person. His eyes went wide as he saw Boswell and his two companions, then magic crackled around his form. Emily shoved the first set of spells through Boswell, trying to channel them through the soulmark and right into the mimic, but the magic flickered and died as soon as it tried to cross the link. She couldn’t see why.\n\nMaster Wolfe cast a spell. Boswell exploded, showering Emily in blood. She gritted her teeth and cast a spell of her own, only to be shoved aside with extreme force. Master Wolfe wasn’t the godform, not yet, but he was still powerful beyond belief and incredibly skilled. She had the nasty feeling she might have bitten off more than she could chew.\n\nVoid moved forward, his magic flaring around him. Master Wolfe turned to meet him, his form flickering slightly as the mimic asserted itself. Emily opened her mouth to cry a warning, but … the mimic reached for Void and stopped dead. Void’s magic was practically holding it in place … she sucked in her breath as she realised just what he was doing. His magic was his and he was denying it to the mimic, which meant …\n\n“You might want to think of something,” Void said. He sounded as if he were ordering dinner, not engaged in a life-or-death struggle for survival. “I can’t hold him forever.”\n\nEmily blinked, then caught herself and grabbed the parchments she’d stuck in her pocket. Master Wolfe was a mimic, the most advanced she’d ever seen … she shuddered to think how many lives had been consumed, how many magicians had been tricked and forcibly absorbed into the multiplicity. What could they have become, if they hadn’t been lured into a trap and sacrificed for power …? The thought mocked her as she cast the first charm. If things had been different, would she have been tempted? There could easily be a version of her who’d joined the Hierarchy …\n\nAnd that might be useful, she thought, as she shoved the parchment forward. The soulmark might have been designed to limit Boswell’s ability to fight his master, but … it was more likely it was designed to prevent someone else using it to attack the mimic. Master Wolfe wanted the strongest magicians and hampering their development would limit them in a multitude of ways … it made her wonder if someone else had tried to use the soulmarks, years ago. If this works …\n\nMagic flared. The mimic’s great advantage was that almost no one knew what mimics truly were – or they hadn’t, at least until she’d worked it out. In this world, there had been no murderous rampage through Whitehall and her counterpart had never come face-to-face with one of the most complex spells in the known world. Everyone knew the mimics were supernatural creatures … she sucked in her breath, relieved, as the mimic simply froze. It was over.\n\n“That was oddly anticlimactic,” Void said. He wasn’t even breathing hard.  “I’ve known weak magicians who put up more of a fight.”\n\n“His great advantage is that no one knew his true nature,” Emily said. A world with no concept of tanks might gaze upon one and assume it was a dragon or some other kind of living creature, rather than an armoured vehicle. A gun might look like a club to someone who had no idea what guns actually were. They would have no idea of what would happen, when the trigger was pulled, until it was far too late. “We do, and so …”\n\nShe studied the frozen spellform for a long moment. It really was fantastically complex, hundreds of lives dissected with soul magic and recorded onto spell components woven together to form a piece of spellware that was practically a living thing. It was living, in a sense … she shook her head slowly and started to dissect it with her magic, carefully working out how the pieces went together. It wasn’t easy. The basics were easy to see, and deduce, but the more complex aspects were fiendishly confusing. She hadn’t seen anything like it since a younger student had cast a merging spell and somehow wound up integrated with two other students. He’d been very lucky to survive.\n\n“Impressive,” Void said. “Are you sure he’s permanently frozen?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. Most mimics could be dispelled easily, once you knew what they were, but most mimics didn’t retain the memories they’d absorbed for very long. Master Wolfe was something very different, a living thing composed of spellware rather than flesh and blood. “I think so …”\n\n“Keep an eye on him,” Void said, thoughtfully. “He would make a fantastic spy. He wouldn’t know what he was, until the core programming reasserted itself.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1008, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch31-P3", "chapter": "ch31", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nmimic — lowercase; the living spellware entity.\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\ngodform — one word, lowercase when naming the ascending construct.\n\n### STORY\nMorning after dinner, Emily and Void ride Boswell’s soulmark into Master Wolfe’s fortress; she dominates Boswell, reaches the spellchamber, and with Void pinning the mimic she freezes Master Wolfe’s spellform and begins to dissect it.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStanding over the frozen Master Wolfe mimic after the fight. Exhausted, tempted to reprogram it into a virus against the godform, and shaken when the mimic nearly absorbs her. Knows she lost the essence she needed and that other Master Wolfe-mimics exist across timelines. Recoils from mind-rape even while Void argues necessity.\n\nVoid\nReturns from exploring the fortress in time to shake her free of the mimic’s absorption. Blunt about clean hands being a luxury; defends sacrificing his daughter’s innocence for the war. Present for the moral argument that closes the scene.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nFrozen mimic on the table; nearly absorbs Emily when she pokes too deep; later fragmented by her desperate spell.\n\nCaleb\nReferenced only in the life-flash as the mimic nearly takes her; not present.\n\nEmpress Emily\nReferenced as Void’s more careful daughter; not present.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nAnd that might be useful, she thought, as she shoved the parchment forward. The soulmark might have been designed to limit Boswell’s ability to fight his master, but … it was more likely it was designed to prevent someone else using it to attack the mimic. Master Wolfe wanted the strongest magicians and hampering their development would limit them in a multitude of ways … it made her wonder if someone else had tried to use the soulmarks, years ago. If this works …\n\nMagic flared. The mimic’s great advantage was that almost no one knew what mimics truly were – or they hadn’t, at least until she’d worked it out. In this world, there had been no murderous rampage through Whitehall and her counterpart had never come face-to-face with one of the most complex spells in the known world. Everyone knew the mimics were supernatural creatures … she sucked in her breath, relieved, as the mimic simply froze. It was over.\n\n“That was oddly anticlimactic,” Void said. He wasn’t even breathing hard.  “I’ve known weak magicians who put up more of a fight.”\n\n“His great advantage is that no one knew his true nature,” Emily said. A world with no concept of tanks might gaze upon one and assume it was a dragon or some other kind of living creature, rather than an armoured vehicle. A gun might look like a club to someone who had no idea what guns actually were. They would have no idea of what would happen, when the trigger was pulled, until it was far too late. “We do, and so …”\n\nShe studied the frozen spellform for a long moment. It really was fantastically complex, hundreds of lives dissected with soul magic and recorded onto spell components woven together to form a piece of spellware that was practically a living thing. It was living, in a sense … she shook her head slowly and started to dissect it with her magic, carefully working out how the pieces went together. It wasn’t easy. The basics were easy to see, and deduce, but the more complex aspects were fiendishly confusing. She hadn’t seen anything like it since a younger student had cast a merging spell and somehow wound up integrated with two other students. He’d been very lucky to survive.\n\n“Impressive,” Void said. “Are you sure he’s permanently frozen?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. Most mimics could be dispelled easily, once you knew what they were, but most mimics didn’t retain the memories they’d absorbed for very long. Master Wolfe was something very different, a living thing composed of spellware rather than flesh and blood. “I think so …”\n\n“Keep an eye on him,” Void said, thoughtfully. “He would make a fantastic spy. He wouldn’t know what he was, until the core programming reasserted itself.”\n\n### NOTES\nSpellchamber in the captured fortress; mimic remains as glowing spellform on the working surface.\nVoid has been exploring elsewhere in the fortress and returns mid-crisis.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe and Void weigh turning the frozen mimic into a spy or a rewriteable weapon; he leaves to explore while she dissects the spellware and wonders what rewriting him makes her. Fatigue hits; her life flashes — Caleb among the images — and the mimic nearly absorbs her until Void shakes her hard and she fragments it in a near-killing effort.\n\nShe admits the plan failed: the essence she needed to hack the godform is gone. Void points out she can hunt other Master Wolfe-mimics across worlds. The talk turns harsh — reprogramming as mind rape, clean hands as luxury, the sacrifice of her counterpart’s innocence — and Emily meets his eyes hoping he is right without believing it. The scene lands on that unresolved hope.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Moral pressure after the fight; keep the near-absorption frightening. Land on Emily’s unsettled hope.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I know.” Emily rather suspected the original mimics had been used as spies as well as assassins. It was never easy to replace someone with an imposter, when the imposter couldn’t be expected to know every last detail of the target’s life, but a mimic could absorb and replace the target and step into his life without raising suspicions. He would be so lost in the role he would forget it was a role. “But you’d have to fiddle with the programming to turn him into a spy and …\n\nShe smiled, rather grimly. A mimic who killed and replaced a loyalist would become a loyalist too. That would be an interesting headache …\n\nVoid nodded, then left to explore the fortress. Emily devoted herself to dissecting what remained of the mimic, noting its weaknesses and planning how best to take advantage of them. It would be tricky to leave the mimic in existence, but with a little reprogramming … it might become a computer virus of sorts, the key to attacking the godform from within. It should work. She had influence over her counterpart’s wards because they were the same person.\n\n“But I will be rewriting him,” she mused. “And that makes me … what?”\n\nThe mimic glowed and glittered in front of her. She felt tired all of a sudden, so very tired. Her mind missed a beat, then another beat … she felt her life start to flash in front of her, each moment passing infinitely quickly and yet also slowly enough for her to cringe from every little detail. Some were embarrassing, others were … she caught a glimpse of Caleb and thought, just for a second, that her heart would break. A dullness settled over her, a sense the world was drifting away …\n\nVoid shook her, hard. She almost lashed out at him. He’d been away … no, he was right in front of her. He was … she stared at the remains of the mimic, only dully aware of just how close she’d come to total disaster. The mimic had nearly absorbed her, threatening to start the whole nightmare all over again. And if it knew what she knew … she cast a spell, the effort nearly killing her. The mimic fragmented, each fragment giving her a glimpse into a long-gone life before it was gone again. If Void hadn’t come back … it would have been the end.\n\n“Thanks,” she muttered.\n\n“You’re not that much like her,” Void said. “She’s a little more careful about poking dangerous things.”\n\n“You can talk,” Emily said. She started to stumble to her feet, then caught herself as her legs buckled under her. “I failed.”\n\nVoid raised his eyebrow. “It looks to me as though you managed to take him down.”\n\n“But I lost the essence I needed to hack the godform,” Emily said. Her plan had failed and she wasn’t sure how to proceed. There was no way to recreate what she’d seen from scratch. “And that means …”\n\n“You travel from world to world,” Void pointed out. “How many other Master Wolfe-Mimics are there?”\n\nEmily blinked, then chuckled. Void was right. There had to be others. And now she knew what she was doing … she’d have to be more careful next time, assuming she was alone, but it could be done.\n\n“I will have to reprogram him completely,” she mused. The thought bothered her. It was little more than mind rape, carried out on a spellform so advanced it was an intelligent being in its own right. “And that means I’ll be taking his free will.”\n\nVoid spoke with cold certainty. “First, he would certainly not extend the same courtesy to you,” he said. “By your account, he has absorbed hundreds of lives into his collective multiplicity and will go on to do the same to hundreds more, if he isn’t stopped. Even if he doesn’t become a god in every timeline, he can and will do a great deal of damage. Second, everything is at stake. You cannot afford moral judgements when the alternative is losing everything.”\n\n“I know,” Emily said. The good of the many equation was far too easy to solve. The threat was so great that any countermeasures were morally justified, up to and including mind control and necromancy. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to see it that way. It felt as if she were crossing a line, slipping onto a path that could only lead to madness and death. “It doesn’t help.”\n\n“There is no room for doubt or scruple, when the threat is overpowering,” Void told her, sternly. “Some problems can only be eliminated before they grow too big to be handled easily, others require you to compromise yourself for the good of everyone else. Clean hands are a luxury we cannot always afford.”\n\nEmily scowled. “If you say ‘ours is a high and lonely destiny’ I’m going to throw something at you.”\n\n“A common belief, which always leads to trouble,” Void said, dryly. He didn’t seem moved by her threat. “If you have the power to deal with a problem, you have the responsibility to do so.”\n\nHe shrugged. “There’s no such thing as a perfect solution. You solve one problem and cause a second in the process, then a third from the process of solving the second. You do the best you can and hope you can fix the problems you cause.”\n\nEmily met his eyes. “Is that what you told my counterpart?”\n\n“The alternative was losing the war,” Void pointed out. “Her innocence had to be sacrificed to the greater good, to turn her into the leader she could be. You find that appalling. I do understand, really I do, but clean hands are a luxury in our world. I did what I had to do.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. She knew what he meant, intellectually, but she didn’t believe it. “I really do.”\n", "completion": "“I know.” Emily rather suspected the original mimics had been used as spies as well as assassins. It was never easy to replace someone with an imposter, when the imposter couldn’t be expected to know every last detail of the target’s life, but a mimic could absorb and replace the target and step into his life without raising suspicions. He would be so lost in the role he would forget it was a role. “But you’d have to fiddle with the programming to turn him into a spy and …\n\nShe smiled, rather grimly. A mimic who killed and replaced a loyalist would become a loyalist too. That would be an interesting headache …\n\nVoid nodded, then left to explore the fortress. Emily devoted herself to dissecting what remained of the mimic, noting its weaknesses and planning how best to take advantage of them. It would be tricky to leave the mimic in existence, but with a little reprogramming … it might become a computer virus of sorts, the key to attacking the godform from within. It should work. She had influence over her counterpart’s wards because they were the same person.\n\n“But I will be rewriting him,” she mused. “And that makes me … what?”\n\nThe mimic glowed and glittered in front of her. She felt tired all of a sudden, so very tired. Her mind missed a beat, then another beat … she felt her life start to flash in front of her, each moment passing infinitely quickly and yet also slowly enough for her to cringe from every little detail. Some were embarrassing, others were … she caught a glimpse of Caleb and thought, just for a second, that her heart would break. A dullness settled over her, a sense the world was drifting away …\n\nVoid shook her, hard. She almost lashed out at him. He’d been away … no, he was right in front of her. He was … she stared at the remains of the mimic, only dully aware of just how close she’d come to total disaster. The mimic had nearly absorbed her, threatening to start the whole nightmare all over again. And if it knew what she knew … she cast a spell, the effort nearly killing her. The mimic fragmented, each fragment giving her a glimpse into a long-gone life before it was gone again. If Void hadn’t come back … it would have been the end.\n\n“Thanks,” she muttered.\n\n“You’re not that much like her,” Void said. “She’s a little more careful about poking dangerous things.”\n\n“You can talk,” Emily said. She started to stumble to her feet, then caught herself as her legs buckled under her. “I failed.”\n\nVoid raised his eyebrow. “It looks to me as though you managed to take him down.”\n\n“But I lost the essence I needed to hack the godform,” Emily said. Her plan had failed and she wasn’t sure how to proceed. There was no way to recreate what she’d seen from scratch. “And that means …”\n\n“You travel from world to world,” Void pointed out. “How many other Master Wolfe-Mimics are there?”\n\nEmily blinked, then chuckled. Void was right. There had to be others. And now she knew what she was doing … she’d have to be more careful next time, assuming she was alone, but it could be done.\n\n“I will have to reprogram him completely,” she mused. The thought bothered her. It was little more than mind rape, carried out on a spellform so advanced it was an intelligent being in its own right. “And that means I’ll be taking his free will.”\n\nVoid spoke with cold certainty. “First, he would certainly not extend the same courtesy to you,” he said. “By your account, he has absorbed hundreds of lives into his collective multiplicity and will go on to do the same to hundreds more, if he isn’t stopped. Even if he doesn’t become a god in every timeline, he can and will do a great deal of damage. Second, everything is at stake. You cannot afford moral judgements when the alternative is losing everything.”\n\n“I know,” Emily said. The good of the many equation was far too easy to solve. The threat was so great that any countermeasures were morally justified, up to and including mind control and necromancy. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to see it that way. It felt as if she were crossing a line, slipping onto a path that could only lead to madness and death. “It doesn’t help.”\n\n“There is no room for doubt or scruple, when the threat is overpowering,” Void told her, sternly. “Some problems can only be eliminated before they grow too big to be handled easily, others require you to compromise yourself for the good of everyone else. Clean hands are a luxury we cannot always afford.”\n\nEmily scowled. “If you say ‘ours is a high and lonely destiny’ I’m going to throw something at you.”\n\n“A common belief, which always leads to trouble,” Void said, dryly. He didn’t seem moved by her threat. “If you have the power to deal with a problem, you have the responsibility to do so.”\n\nHe shrugged. “There’s no such thing as a perfect solution. You solve one problem and cause a second in the process, then a third from the process of solving the second. You do the best you can and hope you can fix the problems you cause.”\n\nEmily met his eyes. “Is that what you told my counterpart?”\n\n“The alternative was losing the war,” Void pointed out. “Her innocence had to be sacrificed to the greater good, to turn her into the leader she could be. You find that appalling. I do understand, really I do, but clean hands are a luxury in our world. I did what I had to do.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. She knew what he meant, intellectually, but she didn’t believe it. “I really do.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1004, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch32-P1", "chapter": "ch32", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase; paths between timelines.\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized as the counterpart’s designation.\nAdam — capitalized; summoned youth.\nLilith — capitalized; summoned girl.\nAlexis — capitalized; Empress Emily’s husband.\nmagitech — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily and Void ride Boswell’s soulmark into Master Wolfe’s fortress, freeze the mimic, then nearly lose Emily to its absorption; Void argues that clean hands are a luxury and that other mimics await across the worlds.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nGuest in Empress Emily’s private chambers after the failed mimic raid. Pressed for time against Master Wolfe on the threadlines; protective of Slave Emily; unsure whether Adam and Lilith can be trusted here; willing to leave after dinner with gifts of knowledge and the necromancer-killer.\n\nEmpress Emily\nRuler in her private chambers among alternates and family. Public persona fused to the private woman; stiff about Emily leaving; promises care for Slave Emily; doubtful about Adam and Lilith; hungry for magitech advantages and wary of the risk.\n\nSlave Emily\nPresent as the traumatized alternate; years of enchanted enslavement; has chosen to stay; needs medical care Empress Emily has begun.\n\nAlexis\nPresent as Empress Emily’s husband; in Emily’s world his counterpart is female; here a boastful general and father.\n\nAdam\nReferenced; potential ally for magitech; may or may not pair with Lilith in this world.\n\nLilith\nReferenced; same.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nReferenced; advancing toward his goal outside normal time.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nSlave Emily was freed from Shadye’s collar into Empress Emily’s care; Adam and Lilith were summoned as volatile young talents; Emily’s necromancer-killer and magitech notes are bargaining gifts before she leaves this timeline.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I will have to reprogram him completely,” she mused. The thought bothered her. It was little more than mind rape, carried out on a spellform so advanced it was an intelligent being in its own right. “And that means I’ll be taking his free will.”\n\nVoid spoke with cold certainty. “First, he would certainly not extend the same courtesy to you,” he said. “By your account, he has absorbed hundreds of lives into his collective multiplicity and will go on to do the same to hundreds more, if he isn’t stopped. Even if he doesn’t become a god in every timeline, he can and will do a great deal of damage. Second, everything is at stake. You cannot afford moral judgements when the alternative is losing everything.”\n\n“I know,” Emily said. The good of the many equation was far too easy to solve. The threat was so great that any countermeasures were morally justified, up to and including mind control and necromancy. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to see it that way. It felt as if she were crossing a line, slipping onto a path that could only lead to madness and death. “It doesn’t help.”\n\n“There is no room for doubt or scruple, when the threat is overpowering,” Void told her, sternly. “Some problems can only be eliminated before they grow too big to be handled easily, others require you to compromise yourself for the good of everyone else. Clean hands are a luxury we cannot always afford.”\n\nEmily scowled. “If you say ‘ours is a high and lonely destiny’ I’m going to throw something at you.”\n\n“A common belief, which always leads to trouble,” Void said, dryly. He didn’t seem moved by her threat. “If you have the power to deal with a problem, you have the responsibility to do so.”\n\nHe shrugged. “There’s no such thing as a perfect solution. You solve one problem and cause a second in the process, then a third from the process of solving the second. You do the best you can and hope you can fix the problems you cause.”\n\nEmily met his eyes. “Is that what you told my counterpart?”\n\n“The alternative was losing the war,” Void pointed out. “Her innocence had to be sacrificed to the greater good, to turn her into the leader she could be. You find that appalling. I do understand, really I do, but clean hands are a luxury in our world. I did what I had to do.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. She knew what he meant, intellectually, but she didn’t believe it. “I really do.”\n\n### NOTES\nEmpress Emily’s private chambers; dinner to follow before Emily’s departure.\nFamily and alternate Emilys are in the household.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmpress Emily presses her to stay and help with Adam and Lilith; Emily refuses, citing unknowable threadline time and Master Wolfe’s advance. She extracts a promise of care for Slave Emily, doubts whether that choice was truly free, and fields the empress’s skepticism about Adam, Lilith, and a world where Alexis is male. They bargain over magitech control, rewards if the youths succeed, and the necromancer-killer Emily leaves behind.\n\nThe empress admits the plan is one hell of a risk — hero if it works, disaster if not — and the scene lands on that unfinished admission.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Court-chamber dialogue; keep the leaving tension under the politeness. Land on the risk admission.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“So you’ll be leaving us,” Empress Emily said. “You can’t be talked into staying and helping with Adam and Lilith?”\n\n“I don’t know how much time I have,” Emily said. The threadlines stood outside the normal rules of space and time, free from the laws of cause and effect. She had no way to know how much time, insofar as the word had a meaning, had passed for Master Wolfe; she had no way to guess how close he was to achieving his goal. It might have been bare seconds for him; it might have been years, decades, centuries or even millenniums. “The sooner I get started, the better.”\n\nThe Empress studied her for a long moment. Even in her private chambers, surrounded by her alternates and her family, Empress Emily was every bit an empress. Her public persona was very much a mask she could no longer remove, if she even wished to. Emily had a sudden mental image of a brash woman, speaking loudly to cover her insecurities, and wondered just how much that image applied to her counterpart. There was no way to know. She’d never felt the urge to become ruler of all she surveyed, and she’d certainly believed that anyone who reached for such power should never be allowed to take it. And yet her counterpart clearly disagreed.\n\n“You may take your leave after dinner, then,” Empress Emily said, stiffly. She made it sound like a huge concession. Emily suspected the empress wanted to share a meal with someone who wasn’t too impressed with her, or the titles she’d amassed over the last few years. “And if there is anything else you wish to take, you may ask and you may receive.”\n\n“Just give me your word you’ll take care of her,” Emily said, indicating Slave Emily. She had improved a little over the last few hours, but years of enchanted enslavement and trauma wouldn’t go away in a hurry. It spoke well of the empress that she’d arranged for proper medical treatment, although it didn’t go as far as Emily thought it should. No one dared offer mental health treatment for fear of empowering a necromancer, not here. “She deserves so much better.”\n\n“I’ll take care of her,” Empress Emily promised. “She will always have a place here.”\n\nEmily wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, but she kept that thought to herself. Slave Emily had had no agency ever since she’d fallen into Shadye’s hands, not even the freedom to spit in her master’s food. Her body had been completely under his control and her mind had been steadily cracking … she’d made the choice to stay, the first truly free choice she’d made in a long while, and Emily refused to invalidate it by taking Slave Emily against her will. And yet, given her mental state, could her decision be considered truly free? Could Empress Emily be trusted not to take advantage of her?\n\nIf you can’t trust yourself, Emily mused, who can you trust?\n\n“You think Adam and Lilith can be trusted?” Empress Emily cocked her head. “Really?”\n\nEmily wasn’t surprised by the sudden change of topic. “They have the potential,” she said, although she knew it wouldn’t be easy. “And they did get together in my world.”\n\n“In yours, Alexis is a girl,” Empress Emily pointed out, indicating her husband. “There’s no guarantee they’ll get together in this world.”\n\n“Or even that they can work together,” Alexis added. “I had to speak most severely to Lilith.”\n\nEmily sighed, inwardly. “I gave them everything they needed to get started,” she said. “If they succeed, you can reward them; if not …”\n\n“There are others,” Empress Emily said. “There’s no reason it has to be them.”\n\n“Depends on how much control you want to retain over magitech,” Emily commented. “In my world, the magitech got loose before anyone could try to rein it in.”\n\n“Very little remains secret for long, with hundreds of magicians trying to figure out how the trick is done,” Empress Emily said, with a sardonic smile. “As long as there is magic, of course. So far, none have managed to crack a wholly mundane trick. They can’t wrap their heads around the fact there is no magic involved.”\n\nThey shared a smile. “But that’ll change,” the empress added. “And who know what’ll happen then?”\n\nEmily sat back in her chair, feeling oddly unsure of herself as the conversation echoed around the table. Empress Emily was her and yet not her, Alexis was so like Alassa in some ways and so different in others that it was surreal; the kids, genetically her kids, were strange to behold. She’d never had children and yet the kids in front of her were hers … she felt drawn to them in a manner she couldn’t put into words. It was bizarre.\n\nThere must be other realities in which I have kids, she thought. If she hadn’t had magic, the best she could hope for would be Void arranging for someone to adopt her. Or marry her. She might vanish completely into local society, or wind up enslaved, or … she would be someone small and insignificant, as the world changed around her. These kids might share my genetics, but they’re not mine.\n\n“The invasion starts two days from now,” Empress Emily said. “Do you have any thoughts on the war plan?”\n\n“Nothing,” Emily said. Somewhere out there, there was an Emily who’d been fascinated by the military and yearned to sign up the day she turned eighteen. That Emily knew so much about military matters that she’d be a priceless asset, even if she’d never had the chance to turn theory into reality. But that Emily wasn’t her. “I know too little to be helpful.”\n\n“You beat your necromancers,” Empress Emily pressed. “How?”\n\n“I gave you the necromancer-killer,” Emily said. There wouldn’t be any problems in duplicating it, even if Adam and Lilith refused to work together. “Everything else is just gravy.”\n\n“It is one hell of a risk,” Empress Emily admitted. She had her doubts, even though she hid them well. “If it succeeds, I will be a hero” – her lips quirked – “more of a hero. If it fails …”\n", "completion": "“So you’ll be leaving us,” Empress Emily said. “You can’t be talked into staying and helping with Adam and Lilith?”\n\n“I don’t know how much time I have,” Emily said. The threadlines stood outside the normal rules of space and time, free from the laws of cause and effect. She had no way to know how much time, insofar as the word had a meaning, had passed for Master Wolfe; she had no way to guess how close he was to achieving his goal. It might have been bare seconds for him; it might have been years, decades, centuries or even millenniums. “The sooner I get started, the better.”\n\nThe Empress studied her for a long moment. Even in her private chambers, surrounded by her alternates and her family, Empress Emily was every bit an empress. Her public persona was very much a mask she could no longer remove, if she even wished to. Emily had a sudden mental image of a brash woman, speaking loudly to cover her insecurities, and wondered just how much that image applied to her counterpart. There was no way to know. She’d never felt the urge to become ruler of all she surveyed, and she’d certainly believed that anyone who reached for such power should never be allowed to take it. And yet her counterpart clearly disagreed.\n\n“You may take your leave after dinner, then,” Empress Emily said, stiffly. She made it sound like a huge concession. Emily suspected the empress wanted to share a meal with someone who wasn’t too impressed with her, or the titles she’d amassed over the last few years. “And if there is anything else you wish to take, you may ask and you may receive.”\n\n“Just give me your word you’ll take care of her,” Emily said, indicating Slave Emily. She had improved a little over the last few hours, but years of enchanted enslavement and trauma wouldn’t go away in a hurry. It spoke well of the empress that she’d arranged for proper medical treatment, although it didn’t go as far as Emily thought it should. No one dared offer mental health treatment for fear of empowering a necromancer, not here. “She deserves so much better.”\n\n“I’ll take care of her,” Empress Emily promised. “She will always have a place here.”\n\nEmily wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, but she kept that thought to herself. Slave Emily had had no agency ever since she’d fallen into Shadye’s hands, not even the freedom to spit in her master’s food. Her body had been completely under his control and her mind had been steadily cracking … she’d made the choice to stay, the first truly free choice she’d made in a long while, and Emily refused to invalidate it by taking Slave Emily against her will. And yet, given her mental state, could her decision be considered truly free? Could Empress Emily be trusted not to take advantage of her?\n\nIf you can’t trust yourself, Emily mused, who can you trust?\n\n“You think Adam and Lilith can be trusted?” Empress Emily cocked her head. “Really?”\n\nEmily wasn’t surprised by the sudden change of topic. “They have the potential,” she said, although she knew it wouldn’t be easy. “And they did get together in my world.”\n\n“In yours, Alexis is a girl,” Empress Emily pointed out, indicating her husband. “There’s no guarantee they’ll get together in this world.”\n\n“Or even that they can work together,” Alexis added. “I had to speak most severely to Lilith.”\n\nEmily sighed, inwardly. “I gave them everything they needed to get started,” she said. “If they succeed, you can reward them; if not …”\n\n“There are others,” Empress Emily said. “There’s no reason it has to be them.”\n\n“Depends on how much control you want to retain over magitech,” Emily commented. “In my world, the magitech got loose before anyone could try to rein it in.”\n\n“Very little remains secret for long, with hundreds of magicians trying to figure out how the trick is done,” Empress Emily said, with a sardonic smile. “As long as there is magic, of course. So far, none have managed to crack a wholly mundane trick. They can’t wrap their heads around the fact there is no magic involved.”\n\nThey shared a smile. “But that’ll change,” the empress added. “And who know what’ll happen then?”\n\nEmily sat back in her chair, feeling oddly unsure of herself as the conversation echoed around the table. Empress Emily was her and yet not her, Alexis was so like Alassa in some ways and so different in others that it was surreal; the kids, genetically her kids, were strange to behold. She’d never had children and yet the kids in front of her were hers … she felt drawn to them in a manner she couldn’t put into words. It was bizarre.\n\nThere must be other realities in which I have kids, she thought. If she hadn’t had magic, the best she could hope for would be Void arranging for someone to adopt her. Or marry her. She might vanish completely into local society, or wind up enslaved, or … she would be someone small and insignificant, as the world changed around her. These kids might share my genetics, but they’re not mine.\n\n“The invasion starts two days from now,” Empress Emily said. “Do you have any thoughts on the war plan?”\n\n“Nothing,” Emily said. Somewhere out there, there was an Emily who’d been fascinated by the military and yearned to sign up the day she turned eighteen. That Emily knew so much about military matters that she’d be a priceless asset, even if she’d never had the chance to turn theory into reality. But that Emily wasn’t her. “I know too little to be helpful.”\n\n“You beat your necromancers,” Empress Emily pressed. “How?”\n\n“I gave you the necromancer-killer,” Emily said. There wouldn’t be any problems in duplicating it, even if Adam and Lilith refused to work together. “Everything else is just gravy.”\n\n“It is one hell of a risk,” Empress Emily admitted. She had her doubts, even though she hid them well. “If it succeeds, I will be a hero” – her lips quirked – “more of a hero. If it fails …”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1072, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch32-P2", "chapter": "ch32", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nBlighted Lands — both words capitalized.\nFulvia — capitalized; attacker’s name as used.\nwards — lowercase ordinary; castle defensive spell-network.\n\n### STORY\nIn Empress Emily’s chambers Emily refuses to stay, secures care for Slave Emily, and bargains magitech help and the necromancer-killer; the empress admits the departure plan is a hero-or-disaster risk.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill at the clearing dinner table with Empress Emily. Ready to leave; unsettled by the empress’s sudden frost; combat-ready when the wards scream. Will fight intruders and feel sick at how hard she hits.\n\nEmpress Emily\nFrosty as she dismisses Emily; then furious when the wards are hacked from within and her children come under attack. Lashes out with immense power against the materializing magicians.\n\nAlexis\nPresent; battle-ready beside his wife when the attack hits.\n\nAdam / Lilith\nReferenced as under threat once the wards fail; not yet on-page in the fight proper.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Depends on how much control you want to retain over magitech,” Emily commented. “In my world, the magitech got loose before anyone could try to rein it in.”\n\n“Very little remains secret for long, with hundreds of magicians trying to figure out how the trick is done,” Empress Emily said, with a sardonic smile. “As long as there is magic, of course. So far, none have managed to crack a wholly mundane trick. They can’t wrap their heads around the fact there is no magic involved.”\n\nThey shared a smile. “But that’ll change,” the empress added. “And who know what’ll happen then?”\n\nEmily sat back in her chair, feeling oddly unsure of herself as the conversation echoed around the table. Empress Emily was her and yet not her, Alexis was so like Alassa in some ways and so different in others that it was surreal; the kids, genetically her kids, were strange to behold. She’d never had children and yet the kids in front of her were hers … she felt drawn to them in a manner she couldn’t put into words. It was bizarre.\n\nThere must be other realities in which I have kids, she thought. If she hadn’t had magic, the best she could hope for would be Void arranging for someone to adopt her. Or marry her. She might vanish completely into local society, or wind up enslaved, or … she would be someone small and insignificant, as the world changed around her. These kids might share my genetics, but they’re not mine.\n\n“The invasion starts two days from now,” Empress Emily said. “Do you have any thoughts on the war plan?”\n\n“Nothing,” Emily said. Somewhere out there, there was an Emily who’d been fascinated by the military and yearned to sign up the day she turned eighteen. That Emily knew so much about military matters that she’d be a priceless asset, even if she’d never had the chance to turn theory into reality. But that Emily wasn’t her. “I know too little to be helpful.”\n\n“You beat your necromancers,” Empress Emily pressed. “How?”\n\n“I gave you the necromancer-killer,” Emily said. There wouldn’t be any problems in duplicating it, even if Adam and Lilith refused to work together. “Everything else is just gravy.”\n\n“It is one hell of a risk,” Empress Emily admitted. She had her doubts, even though she hid them well. “If it succeeds, I will be a hero” – her lips quirked – “more of a hero. If it fails …”\n\n### NOTES\nDining table in the private chambers; servants clearing.\nCastle wards can be felt vibrating when hacked from inside.\nAttackers materialize on the table in a flash of light.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe calls the steampunk-and-Blighted-Lands plan solid; Empress Emily frostily sends her on her way, then thanks her — and breaks off as the wards scream, shredded by an inside attack. Magicians materialize on the shattered table; the empress smashes two; Emily joins the fight and feels sick at how hard she strikes.\n\nThe empress refuses the idea of walking away while her children are under attack. Emily reaches for the wards again, finds them hammered from inside in a way that should be impossible, and the scene lands on that wrongness.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Sudden breach and fight; keep the frost-to-fury turn sharp. Land on the impossible inward ward-hack.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“The plan seems solid,” Emily said. She had a sudden mental image of a steampunk army advancing into the Blighted Lands, drawing the orcs onto their guns and luring the necromancers into a final fatal trap. “But how it will work in reality I don’t know.”\n\nEmpress Emily motioned for the servants to clear the table. “You’d best be on your way,” she said, in a decidedly frosty tone. Emily blinked, surprised. Had she crossed a line in some way or was her counterpart unwilling to prolong their goodbye. “The mirror you requested has been set up for you.”\n\nAnd Void is waiting there, Emily mused. She wanted to talk him into coming with her – or at least have one final chat to clear the air before she left – but at the same time she wasn’t sure she wanted to face him once again. It was easier dealing with known allies and enemies than someone who’d been both, leaving her with conflicted feelings and a gnawing uncertainty that would never fade. What can I say to him? What will I say?\n\nShe stood, brushing down her shirt. Empress Emily had provided her with a new outfit, thankfully, but she still felt grimy. Part of her wanted to return to her suite and have another bath, part of her heard the howl of the approaching wolf and knew it was time to go. The longer she stayed, the greater the chance Master Wolfe would track her down and tear the timeline apart to get her. He only had to be lucky once. She had to be lucky all the time.\n\n“Thank you for your hospitality,” Emily said. She looked at Slave Emily, who met her eyes for a second before dropping them again. “If you want to come with me …”\n\n“I’ll stay,” Slave Emily said. Emily couldn’t tell if she was willing, or if she’d been pushed into staying, or if she was so far gone she simply didn’t care. Her voice was oddly dead, as if she was past all emotion. “And thank you.”\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. “Thank you from me too …”\n\nShe broke off, her eyes going wide. Emily felt the wards vibrate a second later, their internal structure being hacked from within … she heard the entire twisted network of spells scream in agony, scream as they were shredded by a powerful attack perfectly targeted on the handful of weak points within the structure. It was impossible for anyone other than Empress Emily herself to do such a thing, the wards were so tightly tied to her that anyone else couldn’t hope to influence them without setting off the alarm, but it was happening. Alexis stood, drawing his sword in one smooth motion; Emily blinked as an odd little thought ran through her, something she recalled from her own world. She’d seen that sword before and …\n\nThere was a blinding flash of light. A handful of magicians, their hands glowing with lethal spells, materialised on top of the table. It shattered under their weight, allowing them to drop to the floor; Empress Emily lashed out with immense power, smashing two of the nearest magicians into the walls. Alexis cut down three more, his blade glowing with an eerie alien light as it cut through flesh and bone like a hot knife passing through butter. Emily sucked in her breath as a final magician came towards her, eyes burning like hot coals; his face was already skeletal, as if he were burning up his own life force to power his spells. She shuddered in disgust as his magic crackled against her wards, burning through her outer defences with terrifying speed. She cast a force punch and threw him across the room. He landed neatly, yet … his body disintegrated into fire and ash.\n\nEmily felt sick. She hadn’t hit him that hard.\n\n“Dead Men Walking,” Empress Emily said. The wards were shattering around them now, the entire castle suddenly exposed to the enemy. “They’re practicing necromancy on themselves.”\n\nA set of guards hurried into the chamber, their faces grim. “Your Majesty …”\n\n“Get the children to the Blue Room,” Empress Emily snapped. “I won’t run. Not here.”\n\nEmily reached out with her magic, cursing under her breath as she realised the enemy spells were tuned to attack the empress … and she was affected too. The spell structure was odd, a strange combination of overt force and subtle pressure … the blunt attacks, she was sure, were designed to conceal the more dangerous subtle spells. She could feel them plucking at her mind, trying to get her to ignore the evidence of her own eyes. She’d never seen an offensive obscurification charm before – normally, obscurification charms were only effective if the victim didn’t know they were under attack – but she had to admit it was effective. It was surprisingly hard to keep it from affecting her mind.\n\n“I’ve lost touch with the lower levels,” Empress Emily said. A dull rumble echoed through the castle, followed by a painfully hot flash of tainted magic. “They’ll be storming the gates right now.”\n\n“I’ll deal with it,” Alexis said. His face was so much like Alassa’s when she was angry that Emily did a double take. “Can you get a sense of our attackers?”\n\n“No.” Empress Emily sounded furious. Her children were under attack. “But they won’t walk away from this.”\n\nEmily reached out again, trying to work out what had happened to the wards. They’d been hammered from the inside, which should have been impossible … did the attackers have a sample of the empress’s blood? If so … no, it felt different, almost familiar. A flash of panic shot through her as she recalled Slave Emily, someone who could easily be bullied into handing over almost anything, only to fade as she realised it was unlikely anyone would have the chance. Another shockwave echoed through the building, a dull reminder the castle was too close to dozens of other buildings. An attacker with nerve could get an entire army practically up to the gates before the alarm was sounded, if they were careful. It looked as if they’d succeeded.\n", "completion": "“The plan seems solid,” Emily said. She had a sudden mental image of a steampunk army advancing into the Blighted Lands, drawing the orcs onto their guns and luring the necromancers into a final fatal trap. “But how it will work in reality I don’t know.”\n\nEmpress Emily motioned for the servants to clear the table. “You’d best be on your way,” she said, in a decidedly frosty tone. Emily blinked, surprised. Had she crossed a line in some way or was her counterpart unwilling to prolong their goodbye. “The mirror you requested has been set up for you.”\n\nAnd Void is waiting there, Emily mused. She wanted to talk him into coming with her – or at least have one final chat to clear the air before she left – but at the same time she wasn’t sure she wanted to face him once again. It was easier dealing with known allies and enemies than someone who’d been both, leaving her with conflicted feelings and a gnawing uncertainty that would never fade. What can I say to him? What will I say?\n\nShe stood, brushing down her shirt. Empress Emily had provided her with a new outfit, thankfully, but she still felt grimy. Part of her wanted to return to her suite and have another bath, part of her heard the howl of the approaching wolf and knew it was time to go. The longer she stayed, the greater the chance Master Wolfe would track her down and tear the timeline apart to get her. He only had to be lucky once. She had to be lucky all the time.\n\n“Thank you for your hospitality,” Emily said. She looked at Slave Emily, who met her eyes for a second before dropping them again. “If you want to come with me …”\n\n“I’ll stay,” Slave Emily said. Emily couldn’t tell if she was willing, or if she’d been pushed into staying, or if she was so far gone she simply didn’t care. Her voice was oddly dead, as if she was past all emotion. “And thank you.”\n\nEmpress Emily smiled. “Thank you from me too …”\n\nShe broke off, her eyes going wide. Emily felt the wards vibrate a second later, their internal structure being hacked from within … she heard the entire twisted network of spells scream in agony, scream as they were shredded by a powerful attack perfectly targeted on the handful of weak points within the structure. It was impossible for anyone other than Empress Emily herself to do such a thing, the wards were so tightly tied to her that anyone else couldn’t hope to influence them without setting off the alarm, but it was happening. Alexis stood, drawing his sword in one smooth motion; Emily blinked as an odd little thought ran through her, something she recalled from her own world. She’d seen that sword before and …\n\nThere was a blinding flash of light. A handful of magicians, their hands glowing with lethal spells, materialised on top of the table. It shattered under their weight, allowing them to drop to the floor; Empress Emily lashed out with immense power, smashing two of the nearest magicians into the walls. Alexis cut down three more, his blade glowing with an eerie alien light as it cut through flesh and bone like a hot knife passing through butter. Emily sucked in her breath as a final magician came towards her, eyes burning like hot coals; his face was already skeletal, as if he were burning up his own life force to power his spells. She shuddered in disgust as his magic crackled against her wards, burning through her outer defences with terrifying speed. She cast a force punch and threw him across the room. He landed neatly, yet … his body disintegrated into fire and ash.\n\nEmily felt sick. She hadn’t hit him that hard.\n\n“Dead Men Walking,” Empress Emily said. The wards were shattering around them now, the entire castle suddenly exposed to the enemy. “They’re practicing necromancy on themselves.”\n\nA set of guards hurried into the chamber, their faces grim. “Your Majesty …”\n\n“Get the children to the Blue Room,” Empress Emily snapped. “I won’t run. Not here.”\n\nEmily reached out with her magic, cursing under her breath as she realised the enemy spells were tuned to attack the empress … and she was affected too. The spell structure was odd, a strange combination of overt force and subtle pressure … the blunt attacks, she was sure, were designed to conceal the more dangerous subtle spells. She could feel them plucking at her mind, trying to get her to ignore the evidence of her own eyes. She’d never seen an offensive obscurification charm before – normally, obscurification charms were only effective if the victim didn’t know they were under attack – but she had to admit it was effective. It was surprisingly hard to keep it from affecting her mind.\n\n“I’ve lost touch with the lower levels,” Empress Emily said. A dull rumble echoed through the castle, followed by a painfully hot flash of tainted magic. “They’ll be storming the gates right now.”\n\n“I’ll deal with it,” Alexis said. His face was so much like Alassa’s when she was angry that Emily did a double take. “Can you get a sense of our attackers?”\n\n“No.” Empress Emily sounded furious. Her children were under attack. “But they won’t walk away from this.”\n\nEmily reached out again, trying to work out what had happened to the wards. They’d been hammered from the inside, which should have been impossible … did the attackers have a sample of the empress’s blood? If so … no, it felt different, almost familiar. A flash of panic shot through her as she recalled Slave Emily, someone who could easily be bullied into handing over almost anything, only to fade as she realised it was unlikely anyone would have the chance. Another shockwave echoed through the building, a dull reminder the castle was too close to dozens of other buildings. An attacker with nerve could get an entire army practically up to the gates before the alarm was sounded, if they were careful. It looked as if they’d succeeded.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1045, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch32-P3", "chapter": "ch32", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized as the counterpart’s designation.\nFulvia — capitalized.\nAdam — capitalized.\nLilith — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nAt dinner Emily prepares to leave Empress Emily’s world; the castle wards are hacked from within; attackers materialize on the table and the empress fights while Emily realizes the inward strike should have been impossible.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nRacing with Empress Emily and Alexis toward the children’s rooms and the mirror exit. Jealous for a flicker at the battle couple, then focused on Lilith’s compulsion, Adam-as-frog, and escape. Knows Fulvia is likely doomed once the empress locks down.\n\nEmpress Emily\nGrabbing Emily toward the mirror, then striding to the crisis with Alexis; taking control of the wards; locking the castle down.\n\nAlexis\nBeside the empress into the fight for the children.\n\nLilith\nKneeling with black bleeding eyes under a compulsion; stain of lost control; Adam hopping as a frog beside her until restored.\n\nAdam\nFrog, then restored human; stunned; ordered to care for Lilith.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nSteps out of the warped mirror at the end; not yet engaged.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily felt sick. She hadn’t hit him that hard.\n\n“Dead Men Walking,” Empress Emily said. The wards were shattering around them now, the entire castle suddenly exposed to the enemy. “They’re practicing necromancy on themselves.”\n\nA set of guards hurried into the chamber, their faces grim. “Your Majesty …”\n\n“Get the children to the Blue Room,” Empress Emily snapped. “I won’t run. Not here.”\n\nEmily reached out with her magic, cursing under her breath as she realised the enemy spells were tuned to attack the empress … and she was affected too. The spell structure was odd, a strange combination of overt force and subtle pressure … the blunt attacks, she was sure, were designed to conceal the more dangerous subtle spells. She could feel them plucking at her mind, trying to get her to ignore the evidence of her own eyes. She’d never seen an offensive obscurification charm before – normally, obscurification charms were only effective if the victim didn’t know they were under attack – but she had to admit it was effective. It was surprisingly hard to keep it from affecting her mind.\n\n“I’ve lost touch with the lower levels,” Empress Emily said. A dull rumble echoed through the castle, followed by a painfully hot flash of tainted magic. “They’ll be storming the gates right now.”\n\n“I’ll deal with it,” Alexis said. His face was so much like Alassa’s when she was angry that Emily did a double take. “Can you get a sense of our attackers?”\n\n“No.” Empress Emily sounded furious. Her children were under attack. “But they won’t walk away from this.”\n\nEmily reached out again, trying to work out what had happened to the wards. They’d been hammered from the inside, which should have been impossible … did the attackers have a sample of the empress’s blood? If so … no, it felt different, almost familiar. A flash of panic shot through her as she recalled Slave Emily, someone who could easily be bullied into handing over almost anything, only to fade as she realised it was unlikely anyone would have the chance. Another shockwave echoed through the building, a dull reminder the castle was too close to dozens of other buildings. An attacker with nerve could get an entire army practically up to the gates before the alarm was sounded, if they were careful. It looked as if they’d succeeded.\n\n### NOTES\nChildren’s room: Lilith kneeling, Adam as frog.\nDeparture mirror that opens onto threadlines.\nCastle wards strengthening as Empress Emily locks down.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmpress Emily tells her to take the mirror and go; Emily follows the battle couple toward the crisis, finds Lilith compulsion-broken with Adam as a frog, snaps him back to human, and orders him to care for her before the strengthening wards drive her out. She guesses Fulvia is already dead or reserved for a show trial.\n\nAt the mirror her reflection twists into something terrible — and Necromancer Emily steps out into the light. The scene lands on that arrival.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Rescue sprint then uncanny mirror beat; do not explain the necromancer yet. Land on her stepping through.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Empress Emily grabbed her arm. “Get to the mirror and go,” she said. “We’ll deal with the crisis …”\n\nShe turned and strode out the door, her husband right beside her. Emily felt a flicker of jealousy – they looked a perfect battle couple – which she ruthlessly suppressed as she followed them, her mind racing ahead. The wards were so badly fragmented that there were all kinds of weak spots, a multitude of places she couldn’t see … it bothered her, somehow, that her counterpart had been able to see into every last corner of her castle. No one had any privacy, if their monarch chose to violate it. But someone had clearly brought something dangerous into the castle. It just didn’t make sense.\n\nEmpress Emily kept walking, right down the stairs leading to the entrance hall. Emily stopped and watched from above as a small army of magicians turned to face their monarch, led by an old woman who crackled with dark magic. Emily sucked in her breath as she recognised Fulvia, Melissa’s grandmother, leading the charge. She should have known Fulvia would be one of Empress Emily’s opponents, given what she’d done in her timeline. Fulvia had not spent decades clawing for every last scrap of power she could to hand everything over to a newcomer, even if she was the heir to the long-gone empire. And …\n\nEmily swore under her breath. Lilith! They’d brought Lilith of House Ashworth into the castle and Fulvia had used her blood to hack the wards, knowing she was already inside the outer defences. Of course Fulvia had struck … she’d known there was no guarantee they’d ever get a second chance. Emily had never considered the possibility, but why should she? By the time she’d met her Lilith Fulvia had been dead for years. She hesitated as Empress Emily and Alexis started exchanging blows with the magicians, then turned and hurried back down the corridor. Empress Emily had given Adam and Lilith a luxury suite, to make it clear they were welcome … the wards around the chamber were already gone, worn down from within. Emily shoved the door open and glanced inside, bracing herself. The stench of tainted magic struck her in the face.\n\nShe gritted her teeth. Lilith was kneeling in the centre of the room, her eyes black and bleeding; a small frog was hopping beside her, desperately trying to attract her attention … Adam, Emily guessed. The power surrounding Lilith felt ghastly, as if she’d cast a compulsion charm on herself … no, as if she’d been forced to compel herself to obey. Fulvia had been quite happy to try to do the same to Melissa, and to damage Frieda’s mind … why would she hesitate to warp and twist Lilith’s mind when she saw her children and grandchildren as nothing more than tools?\n\nEmily walked up to Lilith and cursed under her breath. She couldn’t tell if Lilith was fighting or not … the stain between her legs suggested she’d lost all control, that her mind had been completely suppressed. There was no time to figure out how to take the spell apart piece by piece, no time to work out how to save her … Emily drew back her hand and slapped Lilith as hard as she could, weaving a knock-out spell into the blow. Lilith staggered, her entire body shaking … Emily gritted her teeth and cast another spell into the morass surrounding her. The wards shook violently, as the hacking spells weakened … Emily slapped Lilith again, knocking her out completely. The link to the wards vanished. If they weren’t too badly damaged, Empress Emily could use them to crush her opponents.\n\nShe snapped her fingers at the frog, restoring Adam to human form. “Take care of Lilith,” she snapped. Adam looked stunned and bedraggled, there was no way to know how much he knew of what had happened; he might assume that Lilith had attacked him – again – before willingly committing treason. “She’s not responsible for this …”\n\nAdam hesitated, but nodded. Emily turned and hurried out the room, feeling the wards growing stronger. Her counterpart was taking control, locking down the entire castle. Fulvia was probably already dead, unless Empress Emily intended to keep her alive long enough for a show trial and truly horrific execution. There was no time to wait any longer. She dared not stay. Empress Emily might blame her for bringing Lilith into the castle. It had been her idea.\n\nVoid was waiting for her, beside the mirror. The children sat against the far wall, their faces pale; the guards, their eyes flickering from Void to the door and back again, looked as if they expected to be blasted into atoms or turned into frogs at any moment. Emily wondered why Void hadn’t joined the battle, then looked at the kids and knew the answer. He was their grandfather in every way that mattered. Taking care of them was his first priority.\n\n“I have to go,” Emily said. There were a dozen things she wanted to say, but … there was no time. Perhaps she’d be able to come back, if the threadlines remained open, and say it later; perhaps not. Perhaps it would be better not to say it at all. He wasn’t her Void. “Thank you for everything and …”\n\nThe mirror shimmered, warping in directions a human mind couldn’t comprehend. Emily saw her reflection, just for a second, before it twisted into something terrible …\n\nAnd Necromancer Emily stepped out of the mirror and into the light.\n", "completion": "Empress Emily grabbed her arm. “Get to the mirror and go,” she said. “We’ll deal with the crisis …”\n\nShe turned and strode out the door, her husband right beside her. Emily felt a flicker of jealousy – they looked a perfect battle couple – which she ruthlessly suppressed as she followed them, her mind racing ahead. The wards were so badly fragmented that there were all kinds of weak spots, a multitude of places she couldn’t see … it bothered her, somehow, that her counterpart had been able to see into every last corner of her castle. No one had any privacy, if their monarch chose to violate it. But someone had clearly brought something dangerous into the castle. It just didn’t make sense.\n\nEmpress Emily kept walking, right down the stairs leading to the entrance hall. Emily stopped and watched from above as a small army of magicians turned to face their monarch, led by an old woman who crackled with dark magic. Emily sucked in her breath as she recognised Fulvia, Melissa’s grandmother, leading the charge. She should have known Fulvia would be one of Empress Emily’s opponents, given what she’d done in her timeline. Fulvia had not spent decades clawing for every last scrap of power she could to hand everything over to a newcomer, even if she was the heir to the long-gone empire. And …\n\nEmily swore under her breath. Lilith! They’d brought Lilith of House Ashworth into the castle and Fulvia had used her blood to hack the wards, knowing she was already inside the outer defences. Of course Fulvia had struck … she’d known there was no guarantee they’d ever get a second chance. Emily had never considered the possibility, but why should she? By the time she’d met her Lilith Fulvia had been dead for years. She hesitated as Empress Emily and Alexis started exchanging blows with the magicians, then turned and hurried back down the corridor. Empress Emily had given Adam and Lilith a luxury suite, to make it clear they were welcome … the wards around the chamber were already gone, worn down from within. Emily shoved the door open and glanced inside, bracing herself. The stench of tainted magic struck her in the face.\n\nShe gritted her teeth. Lilith was kneeling in the centre of the room, her eyes black and bleeding; a small frog was hopping beside her, desperately trying to attract her attention … Adam, Emily guessed. The power surrounding Lilith felt ghastly, as if she’d cast a compulsion charm on herself … no, as if she’d been forced to compel herself to obey. Fulvia had been quite happy to try to do the same to Melissa, and to damage Frieda’s mind … why would she hesitate to warp and twist Lilith’s mind when she saw her children and grandchildren as nothing more than tools?\n\nEmily walked up to Lilith and cursed under her breath. She couldn’t tell if Lilith was fighting or not … the stain between her legs suggested she’d lost all control, that her mind had been completely suppressed. There was no time to figure out how to take the spell apart piece by piece, no time to work out how to save her … Emily drew back her hand and slapped Lilith as hard as she could, weaving a knock-out spell into the blow. Lilith staggered, her entire body shaking … Emily gritted her teeth and cast another spell into the morass surrounding her. The wards shook violently, as the hacking spells weakened … Emily slapped Lilith again, knocking her out completely. The link to the wards vanished. If they weren’t too badly damaged, Empress Emily could use them to crush her opponents.\n\nShe snapped her fingers at the frog, restoring Adam to human form. “Take care of Lilith,” she snapped. Adam looked stunned and bedraggled, there was no way to know how much he knew of what had happened; he might assume that Lilith had attacked him – again – before willingly committing treason. “She’s not responsible for this …”\n\nAdam hesitated, but nodded. Emily turned and hurried out the room, feeling the wards growing stronger. Her counterpart was taking control, locking down the entire castle. Fulvia was probably already dead, unless Empress Emily intended to keep her alive long enough for a show trial and truly horrific execution. There was no time to wait any longer. She dared not stay. Empress Emily might blame her for bringing Lilith into the castle. It had been her idea.\n\nVoid was waiting for her, beside the mirror. The children sat against the far wall, their faces pale; the guards, their eyes flickering from Void to the door and back again, looked as if they expected to be blasted into atoms or turned into frogs at any moment. Emily wondered why Void hadn’t joined the battle, then looked at the kids and knew the answer. He was their grandfather in every way that mattered. Taking care of them was his first priority.\n\n“I have to go,” Emily said. There were a dozen things she wanted to say, but … there was no time. Perhaps she’d be able to come back, if the threadlines remained open, and say it later; perhaps not. Perhaps it would be better not to say it at all. He wasn’t her Void. “Thank you for everything and …”\n\nThe mirror shimmered, warping in directions a human mind couldn’t comprehend. Emily saw her reflection, just for a second, before it twisted into something terrible …\n\nAnd Necromancer Emily stepped out of the mirror and into the light.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 940, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch33-P1", "chapter": "ch33", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized as the counterpart’s designation.\nRachel — capitalized; child present.\nVoid — capitalized.\nwolf — lowercase when naming the multiversal predator Emily senses.\n\n### STORY\nEmpress Emily’s dinner farewell turns into a ward-breach; Emily restores Adam from frog-form beside compulsion-broken Lilith and reaches the departure mirror just as Necromancer Emily steps through.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFacing Necromancer Emily in the castle with the children present. Refuses to blast her counterpart’s back near the kids; trying to draw the fight; can feel reality starting to break and the wolf’s pressure. Knows the wards will not target someone who is practically the empress.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nRed-eyed, malicious beyond madness; wears the children’s mother’s face; warps guards into cancerous flesh; keeps the kids as hostages; high on power and taunting.\n\nVoid\nShaken behind a blank face; signals guards to extract the kids; his nightmare of the monster he might have unleashed.\n\nRachel\nChild who screams at the necromancer’s face.\n\nGuards\nPresent; warped and killed when they try to move the children.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily walked up to Lilith and cursed under her breath. She couldn’t tell if Lilith was fighting or not … the stain between her legs suggested she’d lost all control, that her mind had been completely suppressed. There was no time to figure out how to take the spell apart piece by piece, no time to work out how to save her … Emily drew back her hand and slapped Lilith as hard as she could, weaving a knock-out spell into the blow. Lilith staggered, her entire body shaking … Emily gritted her teeth and cast another spell into the morass surrounding her. The wards shook violently, as the hacking spells weakened … Emily slapped Lilith again, knocking her out completely. The link to the wards vanished. If they weren’t too badly damaged, Empress Emily could use them to crush her opponents.\n\nShe snapped her fingers at the frog, restoring Adam to human form. “Take care of Lilith,” she snapped. Adam looked stunned and bedraggled, there was no way to know how much he knew of what had happened; he might assume that Lilith had attacked him – again – before willingly committing treason. “She’s not responsible for this …”\n\nAdam hesitated, but nodded. Emily turned and hurried out the room, feeling the wards growing stronger. Her counterpart was taking control, locking down the entire castle. Fulvia was probably already dead, unless Empress Emily intended to keep her alive long enough for a show trial and truly horrific execution. There was no time to wait any longer. She dared not stay. Empress Emily might blame her for bringing Lilith into the castle. It had been her idea.\n\nVoid was waiting for her, beside the mirror. The children sat against the far wall, their faces pale; the guards, their eyes flickering from Void to the door and back again, looked as if they expected to be blasted into atoms or turned into frogs at any moment. Emily wondered why Void hadn’t joined the battle, then looked at the kids and knew the answer. He was their grandfather in every way that mattered. Taking care of them was his first priority.\n\n“I have to go,” Emily said. There were a dozen things she wanted to say, but … there was no time. Perhaps she’d be able to come back, if the threadlines remained open, and say it later; perhaps not. Perhaps it would be better not to say it at all. He wasn’t her Void. “Thank you for everything and …”\n\nThe mirror shimmered, warping in directions a human mind couldn’t comprehend. Emily saw her reflection, just for a second, before it twisted into something terrible …\n\nAnd Necromancer Emily stepped out of the mirror and into the light.\n\n### NOTES\nCastle interior where the mirror opened; children present at the start.\nReality already stressing under necromantic power.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nRachel screams as Necromancer Emily turns with glowing red eyes on the children who wear their mother’s nightmare. Emily calls the fight onto herself; Void signals the guards; the necromancer snaps them into cancerous ruin and keeps the kids. She taunts Void as Darth Daddy Issues, giggles that the world is insane, and feels less than human under the skin.\n\nEmily searches for a tipping point against a blazing magical fire while the castle rocks; she flings the children downstairs toward their parents and screams for them to run as reality breaks — and the scene lands on that shattering floor.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Horror-action; keep the children’s peril immediate. Land on the castle floor shattering as they are flung clear.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Rachel screamed.\n\nNecromancer Emily turned to face her, red eyes glowing with a malice that went beyond madness. Emily had no idea if her mad counterpart had ever thought about having children, if she even could with the damage necromancy was surely doing to her body, and coming face to face with the kids had to be a shock even if she knew they couldn’t possibly be hers. The kids had to be faring no better … Empress Emily was a more involved mother than most monarchs, making sure to spend time with the kids every day, and the nightmare in front of them wore their mother’s face.\n\n“I’m here,” Emily said. She didn’t dare try to blast the necromancer in the back. She was far too close to the kids. The wards wouldn’t target her either … very few magicians would risk letting the wards target anyone close to her and the necromancer was practically the same person as the empress. “It’s me you want.”\n\nVoid made a hand signal to the guards, ordering them to take the kids out of the room. Emily could tell he was shaken, even though his face was blank. Necromancer Emily had to be his nightmare too, a monster he’d unleashed on the world … it hadn’t been him but that was small consolation in the face of total disaster. Emily wondered, morbidly, if that version of Void had ever wished he’d snapped Emily’s neck, or turned her into something harmless, rather than let her grow in power and knowledge until it was far too late. He probably hadn’t had much time to realise the danger. Necromancer Emily had not only outdone him in ruthlessness, she’d outdone him in destructive power too.\n\nNecromancer Emily snapped her fingers. The guards screamed as their bodies warped and twisted, as if she was trying to turn them into several separate animals at the same time. Emily reached out desperately, trying to cast a cancellation spell, but it was already too late. Their bodies rippled and collapsed into piles of cancerous flesh, their screams dying away as their tongues rotted to nothingness. She could do nothing to save them.\n\nHer counterpart wagged her finger at them. “Ah, ah, ah,” she said. “The kids are staying here.”\n\nEmily glared at her. “Was that necessary?”\n\n“I wouldn’t want anyone getting in the way between us and Darth Daddy Issues over here,” her counterpart said, in a tone that suggested she was on an emotional high. “Or are you the one with daddy issues? Darth Emily sounds silly, does it not? Think of all the fanboys arguing a Sith can’t be female, because the force itself isn’t female. Tsk.”\n\n“You’re insane,” Emily said, flatly.\n\n“The world is insane,” Necromancer Emily pointed out. She giggled. “Why not embrace the madness as it sweeps over the world?”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. Her counterpart felt more real than her, yet … there was something about her that suggested she was no longer wholly human. Her face was unchanged, but Emily was sure she saw things crawling under her skin, things that belonged to a whole other world.\n\n“Let the kids go,” she said, as calmly as she could. “They have nothing to do with you.”\n\n“Don’t they?” Her counterpart giggled, again. “Do you know what you can do with the blood of your children?”\n\n“I won’t let you.” Void stepped forward, power shimmering around him. “I won’t.”\n\n“Did he ever tell you the price he paid for his powers?” Necromancer Emily seemed unimpressed. “The price was far too high. He bore the burden of his shame until I killed him.”\n\nEmily made a show of raising her eyebrows. “Do tell,” she said, hoping it would keep her counterpart talking long enough to reprogram the wards. There was no way to use them directly against her dark reflection, not without striking herself too, but she should be able to use them to save the children. “Why did you embrace necromancy?”\n\n“They would have killed me, so I killed them first,” Necromancer Emily said. Her face curved into a bright smile that was thoroughly horrific. “For me, it was Tuesday!”\n\nShe paused. “And that trick won’t work,” she added. “I think …”\n\nVoid stepped forward, his magic lashing out on a hundred levels at once. Emily didn’t hesitate. She drew on the wards, wrapping the kids in a protective shell as the two superpowered magicians met, then linking their wards to the nexus point to ensure they were as close to safe as possible. Raw magic flashed in front of her, Void’s power tightly controlled even as his opponent hammered his protections with a combination of elegant spells and staggering power that threatened to set the air ablaze. Emily couldn’t help admiring Void’s skill … there was nothing spectacular about his spells, no flashes of light expending energy, yet that was what made them so impressive. They were perfect and deadly and if he’d been facing almost anyone else he would have won quickly. Necromancer Emily was too self-centred to be defeated so easily.\n\nEmily closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to sense a way to tip the balance. Her counterpart was a blazing fire – just looking at her through magic was like sticking a hand into hot water – and it was hard to spot any weaknesses, let alone figure out a way to take advantage of them. There was something about her, a multitude … horror washed through her as she realised there were a hundred other versions of her dark counterpart, hovering potentials just waiting to be born. It was …\n\nThe castle rocked, the floor shattering under the impact. Emily grabbed the children with her magic, sending them downstairs to their parents and screaming a command to run. Reality itself was already breaking down as the struggle intensified, the mirror wavering weirdly even though it should have fallen too. It had become something else, a gateway to another reality where the laws were different … she felt something hot at the back of her neck and looked up, realising her mistake a second too late. The wolf was overhead, forcing its way into the new timeline with terrifying inevitability. Its paws came down hard, cancerous cracks in the universe following in their wake. Emily felt nothing but numb horror. She had condemned an entire universe to die. Again.\n", "completion": "Rachel screamed.\n\nNecromancer Emily turned to face her, red eyes glowing with a malice that went beyond madness. Emily had no idea if her mad counterpart had ever thought about having children, if she even could with the damage necromancy was surely doing to her body, and coming face to face with the kids had to be a shock even if she knew they couldn’t possibly be hers. The kids had to be faring no better … Empress Emily was a more involved mother than most monarchs, making sure to spend time with the kids every day, and the nightmare in front of them wore their mother’s face.\n\n“I’m here,” Emily said. She didn’t dare try to blast the necromancer in the back. She was far too close to the kids. The wards wouldn’t target her either … very few magicians would risk letting the wards target anyone close to her and the necromancer was practically the same person as the empress. “It’s me you want.”\n\nVoid made a hand signal to the guards, ordering them to take the kids out of the room. Emily could tell he was shaken, even though his face was blank. Necromancer Emily had to be his nightmare too, a monster he’d unleashed on the world … it hadn’t been him but that was small consolation in the face of total disaster. Emily wondered, morbidly, if that version of Void had ever wished he’d snapped Emily’s neck, or turned her into something harmless, rather than let her grow in power and knowledge until it was far too late. He probably hadn’t had much time to realise the danger. Necromancer Emily had not only outdone him in ruthlessness, she’d outdone him in destructive power too.\n\nNecromancer Emily snapped her fingers. The guards screamed as their bodies warped and twisted, as if she was trying to turn them into several separate animals at the same time. Emily reached out desperately, trying to cast a cancellation spell, but it was already too late. Their bodies rippled and collapsed into piles of cancerous flesh, their screams dying away as their tongues rotted to nothingness. She could do nothing to save them.\n\nHer counterpart wagged her finger at them. “Ah, ah, ah,” she said. “The kids are staying here.”\n\nEmily glared at her. “Was that necessary?”\n\n“I wouldn’t want anyone getting in the way between us and Darth Daddy Issues over here,” her counterpart said, in a tone that suggested she was on an emotional high. “Or are you the one with daddy issues? Darth Emily sounds silly, does it not? Think of all the fanboys arguing a Sith can’t be female, because the force itself isn’t female. Tsk.”\n\n“You’re insane,” Emily said, flatly.\n\n“The world is insane,” Necromancer Emily pointed out. She giggled. “Why not embrace the madness as it sweeps over the world?”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth. Her counterpart felt more real than her, yet … there was something about her that suggested she was no longer wholly human. Her face was unchanged, but Emily was sure she saw things crawling under her skin, things that belonged to a whole other world.\n\n“Let the kids go,” she said, as calmly as she could. “They have nothing to do with you.”\n\n“Don’t they?” Her counterpart giggled, again. “Do you know what you can do with the blood of your children?”\n\n“I won’t let you.” Void stepped forward, power shimmering around him. “I won’t.”\n\n“Did he ever tell you the price he paid for his powers?” Necromancer Emily seemed unimpressed. “The price was far too high. He bore the burden of his shame until I killed him.”\n\nEmily made a show of raising her eyebrows. “Do tell,” she said, hoping it would keep her counterpart talking long enough to reprogram the wards. There was no way to use them directly against her dark reflection, not without striking herself too, but she should be able to use them to save the children. “Why did you embrace necromancy?”\n\n“They would have killed me, so I killed them first,” Necromancer Emily said. Her face curved into a bright smile that was thoroughly horrific. “For me, it was Tuesday!”\n\nShe paused. “And that trick won’t work,” she added. “I think …”\n\nVoid stepped forward, his magic lashing out on a hundred levels at once. Emily didn’t hesitate. She drew on the wards, wrapping the kids in a protective shell as the two superpowered magicians met, then linking their wards to the nexus point to ensure they were as close to safe as possible. Raw magic flashed in front of her, Void’s power tightly controlled even as his opponent hammered his protections with a combination of elegant spells and staggering power that threatened to set the air ablaze. Emily couldn’t help admiring Void’s skill … there was nothing spectacular about his spells, no flashes of light expending energy, yet that was what made them so impressive. They were perfect and deadly and if he’d been facing almost anyone else he would have won quickly. Necromancer Emily was too self-centred to be defeated so easily.\n\nEmily closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to sense a way to tip the balance. Her counterpart was a blazing fire – just looking at her through magic was like sticking a hand into hot water – and it was hard to spot any weaknesses, let alone figure out a way to take advantage of them. There was something about her, a multitude … horror washed through her as she realised there were a hundred other versions of her dark counterpart, hovering potentials just waiting to be born. It was …\n\nThe castle rocked, the floor shattering under the impact. Emily grabbed the children with her magic, sending them downstairs to their parents and screaming a command to run. Reality itself was already breaking down as the struggle intensified, the mirror wavering weirdly even though it should have fallen too. It had become something else, a gateway to another reality where the laws were different … she felt something hot at the back of her neck and looked up, realising her mistake a second too late. The wolf was overhead, forcing its way into the new timeline with terrifying inevitability. Its paws came down hard, cancerous cracks in the universe following in their wake. Emily felt nothing but numb horror. She had condemned an entire universe to die. Again.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1085, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch33-P2", "chapter": "ch33", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nbilocated — lowercase; Emily’s split-self state.\nFrieda — capitalized; remembered friend.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\nwolf — lowercase for the multiversal predator.\n\n### STORY\nNecromancer Emily holds Empress Emily’s children hostage, butchers the guards, and forces a fight; Emily flings the kids clear as the castle floor shatters and reality starts to break.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nIn the breaking fight with Necromancer Emily and Void; aware of the wolf overhead; will flee onto shifting threadline paths and answer a bilocated whisper from her other self. Still raw from Frieda’s absence.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nSnarling, blasting; Void breaks up her strikes; she may not see the wolf.\n\nVoid\nCatching and redirecting necromantic blasts; apparently unaware of the wolf.\n\nFrieda\nReferenced as gone; not present.\n\nOther Emily\nBilocated voice on the wind; linked; asking if Emily can hear her.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nFrieda’s death still weighs on Emily; bilocation and threadline travel let versions of Emily speak across timelines when the walls thin.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“They would have killed me, so I killed them first,” Necromancer Emily said. Her face curved into a bright smile that was thoroughly horrific. “For me, it was Tuesday!”\n\nShe paused. “And that trick won’t work,” she added. “I think …”\n\nVoid stepped forward, his magic lashing out on a hundred levels at once. Emily didn’t hesitate. She drew on the wards, wrapping the kids in a protective shell as the two superpowered magicians met, then linking their wards to the nexus point to ensure they were as close to safe as possible. Raw magic flashed in front of her, Void’s power tightly controlled even as his opponent hammered his protections with a combination of elegant spells and staggering power that threatened to set the air ablaze. Emily couldn’t help admiring Void’s skill … there was nothing spectacular about his spells, no flashes of light expending energy, yet that was what made them so impressive. They were perfect and deadly and if he’d been facing almost anyone else he would have won quickly. Necromancer Emily was too self-centred to be defeated so easily.\n\nEmily closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to sense a way to tip the balance. Her counterpart was a blazing fire – just looking at her through magic was like sticking a hand into hot water – and it was hard to spot any weaknesses, let alone figure out a way to take advantage of them. There was something about her, a multitude … horror washed through her as she realised there were a hundred other versions of her dark counterpart, hovering potentials just waiting to be born. It was …\n\nThe castle rocked, the floor shattering under the impact. Emily grabbed the children with her magic, sending them downstairs to their parents and screaming a command to run. Reality itself was already breaking down as the struggle intensified, the mirror wavering weirdly even though it should have fallen too. It had become something else, a gateway to another reality where the laws were different … she felt something hot at the back of her neck and looked up, realising her mistake a second too late. The wolf was overhead, forcing its way into the new timeline with terrifying inevitability. Its paws came down hard, cancerous cracks in the universe following in their wake. Emily felt nothing but numb horror. She had condemned an entire universe to die. Again.\n\n### NOTES\nShifting path between worlds after leaving the castle fight.\nWolf overhead as a sensed shadow; looking at it risks attention.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nNecromancer Emily lashes out; Void catches the blast and scatters it; Emily refuses to lose this time and takes a crazy idea into motion while Frieda’s absence aches. She walks a path that changes underfoot, refusing to look up at the wolf’s shadow running through the multiverse.\n\nA voice on a windless wind asks if she can hear; the bilocation link twitches; she answers that she can. Her other self asks about a point of divergence, and Emily hesitates over how alternate universes really branch — landing on that uncertainty.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Flee into uncanny threadline quiet after the brawl; keep the wolf sensed, not described at length. Land on the divergence question.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Necromancer Emily snarled and lashed out. Void’s spells caught her blast, breaking it up and channelling the magic in a multitude of different directions … he didn’t seem aware of the wolf. Perhaps he couldn’t see it … the creature existed in the cracks between patches of reality, forcing its way slowly into the mundane world. Emily might be the only one aware it was even there, no matter how much damage it did. It was so different it was hard to see if you weren’t already accustomed to crosstime travel.\n\nNot this time, she thought. A crazy idea ran through her head. Not this time …\n\n“Hold her still,” she shouted at Void. “Hold her!”\n\nVoid moved with remarkable speed, his magic snapping around the necromancer … gambling his life she was right. Emily felt a flash of pride as she ran forward, reaching for the mirror … and the link between herself and her counterpart. The threadlines were complex … her counterpart was both a living being in her own right and a quantum duplicate, summoned into existence by Master Wolfe. It made no sense … Emily told herself an ant would have just as little understanding of the human realm, even as she grabbed hold of the threadlines surrounding her counterpart and yanked as hard as she could. Necromancer Emily managed one final blast before they both fell into the mirror, back onto the paths between universes. Emily gave her a shove and watched her fall …\n\nShe isn’t dead, she thought, as the pathway back to the last world shattered behind her. And nor is the rest of the timeline.\n\nThe thought gave her strength as the threadlines shifted around her. Empress Emily, her husband and her kids … they were still alive. Void and Slave Emily, Adam and Lilith … they were alive too. She had no idea what would happen, between the latter two, but she hoped the experience of being brutally betrayed by her aunt would teach Lilith not to put too much trust in magical bloodlines, but … she shook her head. She wasn’t her Lilith. Perhaps it had been a mistake to assume Adam and Lilith would click, when they’d grown up in profoundly different worlds and become profoundly different people …\n\nAnd Frieda was gone.\n\nEmily took a long breath and forced herself to keep walking, ignoring the way the path changed and shifted around her. The wolf might be overhead … she dared not look, knowing it would bring its attention. She could sense the shadow running through the multiverse, a darkness slowly changing the infinite and reshaping it in Master Wolfe’s image. Time was running out … she wondered if she could hop back into a timeline, like pressing pause on a video game, long enough to rest and plan. But the wolf was still hunting her. She might be condemning yet another timeline to death.\n\nA voice whispered on the wind, even though there was no wind. “Can you hear me?”\n\n“I can,” Emily said. The link between her and her bilocated self twitched, just slightly … just enough to confirm it was real. “Can you hear me?”\n\n“Yeah,” her other self said. “I don’t know how much longer we have.”\n\nEmily nodded. She’d had the same thought … of course she had. They were the same person. “I …”\n\nShe broke off. “Are they all right? The Empress and her family?”\n\nThere was a faint hint of embarrassment through the link. “I believe so,” her other self said. “But you sealed the timeline. If I go to look, I’ll have to take my eyes off me. Off you.”\n\n“We’re going to have to invent a whole new grammar for this sort of thing, aren’t we?” Emily shook her head. English wasn’t designed to cope with multiple alternate timelines, and alternate versions of a single person – let alone more – or the complexities of crosstime travel where a time traveller could reduce their entire existence to a time loop or a paradox, existing and not existing at the same time. Playing with time was like playing with fire, someone had said, except you got burnt before you lit the match. “We have an in, but …”\n\nShe kept walking, the pathway shifting under her feet as her mind struggled to comprehend what she was seeing and present it in a way she could understand. Closing your eyes and pretending an enemy didn’t exist didn’t work elsewhere, but here … it sort of did. The pathway threatened to branch into a thousand other paths, each one leading to a different threadline; doors floated in nothing, offering the chance to step into a very strange world. She was tempted to wonder if CS Lewis had ever found his way into the interstices – some of the doors could easily have passed for wardrobes – but it was far more likely her preconceptions were colouring the world around her.\n\n“You need to look for a specific world for me,” Emily said. It was hard to tell how much she still shared with her bilocated self. They weren’t in close contact any longer and she dared not risk opening the link any further. If they accidentally merged back together, there would be no easy way to split again. She wasn’t sure it could be done. “Can you trace a specific set of possibilities?”\n\nThere was a long pause. “Perhaps,” her other self said. “Do you have a point of divergence?”\n\nEmily hesitated. In theory, each and every decision point should birth an alternate universe. In practice, she doubted that was true. Some decisions were so obviously absurd they would never be made in the real multiverse, not even once. Hitler wouldn’t take the decision to invade Britain in 1940 in many timelines because it was a bridge too far, even for him, and in most of the timelines where he had launched the invasion it was certain to fail. There couldn’t be many – if any – timelines in which the invasion had both gone ahead and succeeded. And that meant …\n", "completion": "Necromancer Emily snarled and lashed out. Void’s spells caught her blast, breaking it up and channelling the magic in a multitude of different directions … he didn’t seem aware of the wolf. Perhaps he couldn’t see it … the creature existed in the cracks between patches of reality, forcing its way slowly into the mundane world. Emily might be the only one aware it was even there, no matter how much damage it did. It was so different it was hard to see if you weren’t already accustomed to crosstime travel.\n\nNot this time, she thought. A crazy idea ran through her head. Not this time …\n\n“Hold her still,” she shouted at Void. “Hold her!”\n\nVoid moved with remarkable speed, his magic snapping around the necromancer … gambling his life she was right. Emily felt a flash of pride as she ran forward, reaching for the mirror … and the link between herself and her counterpart. The threadlines were complex … her counterpart was both a living being in her own right and a quantum duplicate, summoned into existence by Master Wolfe. It made no sense … Emily told herself an ant would have just as little understanding of the human realm, even as she grabbed hold of the threadlines surrounding her counterpart and yanked as hard as she could. Necromancer Emily managed one final blast before they both fell into the mirror, back onto the paths between universes. Emily gave her a shove and watched her fall …\n\nShe isn’t dead, she thought, as the pathway back to the last world shattered behind her. And nor is the rest of the timeline.\n\nThe thought gave her strength as the threadlines shifted around her. Empress Emily, her husband and her kids … they were still alive. Void and Slave Emily, Adam and Lilith … they were alive too. She had no idea what would happen, between the latter two, but she hoped the experience of being brutally betrayed by her aunt would teach Lilith not to put too much trust in magical bloodlines, but … she shook her head. She wasn’t her Lilith. Perhaps it had been a mistake to assume Adam and Lilith would click, when they’d grown up in profoundly different worlds and become profoundly different people …\n\nAnd Frieda was gone.\n\nEmily took a long breath and forced herself to keep walking, ignoring the way the path changed and shifted around her. The wolf might be overhead … she dared not look, knowing it would bring its attention. She could sense the shadow running through the multiverse, a darkness slowly changing the infinite and reshaping it in Master Wolfe’s image. Time was running out … she wondered if she could hop back into a timeline, like pressing pause on a video game, long enough to rest and plan. But the wolf was still hunting her. She might be condemning yet another timeline to death.\n\nA voice whispered on the wind, even though there was no wind. “Can you hear me?”\n\n“I can,” Emily said. The link between her and her bilocated self twitched, just slightly … just enough to confirm it was real. “Can you hear me?”\n\n“Yeah,” her other self said. “I don’t know how much longer we have.”\n\nEmily nodded. She’d had the same thought … of course she had. They were the same person. “I …”\n\nShe broke off. “Are they all right? The Empress and her family?”\n\nThere was a faint hint of embarrassment through the link. “I believe so,” her other self said. “But you sealed the timeline. If I go to look, I’ll have to take my eyes off me. Off you.”\n\n“We’re going to have to invent a whole new grammar for this sort of thing, aren’t we?” Emily shook her head. English wasn’t designed to cope with multiple alternate timelines, and alternate versions of a single person – let alone more – or the complexities of crosstime travel where a time traveller could reduce their entire existence to a time loop or a paradox, existing and not existing at the same time. Playing with time was like playing with fire, someone had said, except you got burnt before you lit the match. “We have an in, but …”\n\nShe kept walking, the pathway shifting under her feet as her mind struggled to comprehend what she was seeing and present it in a way she could understand. Closing your eyes and pretending an enemy didn’t exist didn’t work elsewhere, but here … it sort of did. The pathway threatened to branch into a thousand other paths, each one leading to a different threadline; doors floated in nothing, offering the chance to step into a very strange world. She was tempted to wonder if CS Lewis had ever found his way into the interstices – some of the doors could easily have passed for wardrobes – but it was far more likely her preconceptions were colouring the world around her.\n\n“You need to look for a specific world for me,” Emily said. It was hard to tell how much she still shared with her bilocated self. They weren’t in close contact any longer and she dared not risk opening the link any further. If they accidentally merged back together, there would be no easy way to split again. She wasn’t sure it could be done. “Can you trace a specific set of possibilities?”\n\nThere was a long pause. “Perhaps,” her other self said. “Do you have a point of divergence?”\n\nEmily hesitated. In theory, each and every decision point should birth an alternate universe. In practice, she doubted that was true. Some decisions were so obviously absurd they would never be made in the real multiverse, not even once. Hitler wouldn’t take the decision to invade Britain in 1940 in many timelines because it was a bridge too far, even for him, and in most of the timelines where he had launched the invasion it was certain to fail. There couldn’t be many – if any – timelines in which the invasion had both gone ahead and succeeded. And that meant …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1016, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch33-P3", "chapter": "ch33", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nHierarchy — capitalized.\nEmile — capitalized; male counterpart’s name as spoken.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nAfter the necromancer fight Emily flees onto shifting threadlines, refuses to look at the wolf, and answers a bilocated other self who asks about a point of divergence.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nSpeaking with her bilocated other self on the threadlines. Wants a timeline where they joined the Hierarchy to find another Master Wolfe-mimic; wary of obvious emotional traps; startled when the search yields a male counterpart.\n\nOther Emily\nBilocated partner searching timelines; cautious about looking too closely; reports an old divergence and uncertain magic laws.\n\nEmile\nMale counterpart who appears at the end; surprised; asks who the hell she is.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“We’re going to have to invent a whole new grammar for this sort of thing, aren’t we?” Emily shook her head. English wasn’t designed to cope with multiple alternate timelines, and alternate versions of a single person – let alone more – or the complexities of crosstime travel where a time traveller could reduce their entire existence to a time loop or a paradox, existing and not existing at the same time. Playing with time was like playing with fire, someone had said, except you got burnt before you lit the match. “We have an in, but …”\n\nShe kept walking, the pathway shifting under her feet as her mind struggled to comprehend what she was seeing and present it in a way she could understand. Closing your eyes and pretending an enemy didn’t exist didn’t work elsewhere, but here … it sort of did. The pathway threatened to branch into a thousand other paths, each one leading to a different threadline; doors floated in nothing, offering the chance to step into a very strange world. She was tempted to wonder if CS Lewis had ever found his way into the interstices – some of the doors could easily have passed for wardrobes – but it was far more likely her preconceptions were colouring the world around her.\n\n“You need to look for a specific world for me,” Emily said. It was hard to tell how much she still shared with her bilocated self. They weren’t in close contact any longer and she dared not risk opening the link any further. If they accidentally merged back together, there would be no easy way to split again. She wasn’t sure it could be done. “Can you trace a specific set of possibilities?”\n\nThere was a long pause. “Perhaps,” her other self said. “Do you have a point of divergence?”\n\nEmily hesitated. In theory, each and every decision point should birth an alternate universe. In practice, she doubted that was true. Some decisions were so obviously absurd they would never be made in the real multiverse, not even once. Hitler wouldn’t take the decision to invade Britain in 1940 in many timelines because it was a bridge too far, even for him, and in most of the timelines where he had launched the invasion it was certain to fail. There couldn’t be many – if any – timelines in which the invasion had both gone ahead and succeeded. And that meant …\n\n### NOTES\nThreadline vantage between timelines; no fixed physical room.\nTarget search: a Hierarchy-recruitment timeline.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe admits she wants a timeline where they joined the Hierarchy, asking whether recruitment was ever tried, even as she distrusts her own hunger for connection. Her other self hunts an old point of divergence and warns that magic laws may differ; they doubt the Hierarchy exists in a world too unlike theirs.\n\nThe search resolves into shock — Impossible — as her male counterpart stares back and demands who the hell she is. The scene lands on that mutual surprise.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Quiet planning dialogue then the reveal beat. Land on Emile’s who-the-hell-are-you.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She liked to think she was too smart to be caught by an obvious trap, that she couldn’t be fooled by painfully obvious manipulations and appeals to her desire for human connection. She wanted to believe she couldn’t fall for such a trick. But a great many cultists had felt the same way once.\n\nThe words didn’t come easily. “I want you to find a timeline where we joined the Hierarchy,” she said. “Did they never attempt to recruit us?”\n\nThere was no answer. She’d gone through her memories, racking her brains for a covert approach she’d rejected without ever knowing what was behind it, and drawn a blank. Perhaps they’d stayed well clear of someone as public as herself, no matter how much of a genius they considered her to be; perhaps she’d simply missed the offer when it had been made. She’d been buried in letters from people she’d never met, trying to convince her to marry their sons or beg for her patronage or give them her favour or asking if they could take her up on invitations she’d never offered. It was astonishing how many people thought she owed them her time, even though she didn’t even know them. Void had stemmed the flow when she’d been at school – he’d kept the letters, giving them to her when she’d thought to ask – but now …\n\nPerhaps they were too scared of Void and the Grandmaster to risk such an approach, she thought. They would both be wary, for different reasons. Or maybe they did and I just never realised it.\n\nShe waited, wondering which invitation might have come from the Hierarchy. Quite a few students had invited her to spend the summers with them, invitations that had really come from their parents. She’d turned them down as politely as possible, but if she’d accepted in another world … what would have happened, if she’d gone? Perhaps Irving’s offer had been the bait to lure her into their clutches, perhaps Gavin’s invitation had been more than a chance to court her. Perhaps …\n\nAnd perhaps looking for a specific timeline is like studying a multitude of different records in search of a conspiracy, she mused. It was easy to spot patterns that weren’t there, to deduce the presence of a guiding mind that simply didn’t exist. Most conspiracy theories were about imposing order on chaos and she had a feeling that browsing for a specific timeline worked in much the same way. Those who look for such things often find them.\n\n“I may have one.” Her other self sounded doubtful. “It’s hard to be sure.”\n\nEmily frowned. “What’s the point of divergence?”\n\n“I'm not sure,” her other self said. “It’s hard to pick out any details without looking too closely and that risks taking my eyes off you. But the point of divergence does seem to be quite some time ago.”\n\n“Which means the laws of magic might be different,” Emily mused. So far, every timeline she’d visited had had magic. But there was no reason to think all timelines had magic – hell, her homeworld had none. Unless there truly was a Wizarding World hidden from mundane view … she put the thought out of her head. “Or is it something a little closer?”\n\n“Unknown,” her other self said. “Unlikely, though. The Hierarchy won’t exist in a timeline that different from ours.”\n\nShe paused. “I can open a path for you, if you want?”\n\n“Do it,” Emily said. She felt another flicker of something through the link. She was doing something. Her counterpart could only watch and wait and pray. “And keep your vigil as long as possible.”\n\nThe path opened in front of her, its appearance shifting rapidly as she fell towards the light. A blinding white haze enveloped her, the threadlines vanishing in the light as the real world – or one of them – welcomed her once again. She grunted as she hit the floor, magic sparking around her. The room was so dim it took her a few moments to grow accustomed to the near darkness. The air was clean and yet there was something heavy about it, as if something was waiting to happen. A prickle ran down her spine. The whole place felt wrong.\n\nOdd, she mused. The wards were very much like hers, but different in a manner she couldn’t quite put into words. The caster seemed to be operating from different ideas about how the world worked … maybe not completely different, maybe following the same rules of magic, yet different enough to bother her. It was like discovering two plus two equalled five and then reading a set of insane troll logic arguments that purported to prove just that. What is this place?\n\nHer eyes swept the room. The only source of light was a single crystal, embedded in the stone overhead, illuminating a table strewn with parchment scrolls and manuscripts and a handful of contraptions that looked decidedly unsafe. Her counterpart seemed to have been working along the same lines as Adam and Lilith, although her devices were far more magical. She was looking for ways to enhance her magic, rather than give it to those who had none.\n\nA door opened. Her counterpart stepped into the room. She was …\n\nEmily blinked. She?\n\nThe person in front of her was very definitely a man. And he shared her magical signature. And that meant … he was her.\n\n“Impossible,” she breathed.\n\nHer male counterpart seemed equally surprised. “Who the hell are you?”\n", "completion": "She liked to think she was too smart to be caught by an obvious trap, that she couldn’t be fooled by painfully obvious manipulations and appeals to her desire for human connection. She wanted to believe she couldn’t fall for such a trick. But a great many cultists had felt the same way once.\n\nThe words didn’t come easily. “I want you to find a timeline where we joined the Hierarchy,” she said. “Did they never attempt to recruit us?”\n\nThere was no answer. She’d gone through her memories, racking her brains for a covert approach she’d rejected without ever knowing what was behind it, and drawn a blank. Perhaps they’d stayed well clear of someone as public as herself, no matter how much of a genius they considered her to be; perhaps she’d simply missed the offer when it had been made. She’d been buried in letters from people she’d never met, trying to convince her to marry their sons or beg for her patronage or give them her favour or asking if they could take her up on invitations she’d never offered. It was astonishing how many people thought she owed them her time, even though she didn’t even know them. Void had stemmed the flow when she’d been at school – he’d kept the letters, giving them to her when she’d thought to ask – but now …\n\nPerhaps they were too scared of Void and the Grandmaster to risk such an approach, she thought. They would both be wary, for different reasons. Or maybe they did and I just never realised it.\n\nShe waited, wondering which invitation might have come from the Hierarchy. Quite a few students had invited her to spend the summers with them, invitations that had really come from their parents. She’d turned them down as politely as possible, but if she’d accepted in another world … what would have happened, if she’d gone? Perhaps Irving’s offer had been the bait to lure her into their clutches, perhaps Gavin’s invitation had been more than a chance to court her. Perhaps …\n\nAnd perhaps looking for a specific timeline is like studying a multitude of different records in search of a conspiracy, she mused. It was easy to spot patterns that weren’t there, to deduce the presence of a guiding mind that simply didn’t exist. Most conspiracy theories were about imposing order on chaos and she had a feeling that browsing for a specific timeline worked in much the same way. Those who look for such things often find them.\n\n“I may have one.” Her other self sounded doubtful. “It’s hard to be sure.”\n\nEmily frowned. “What’s the point of divergence?”\n\n“I'm not sure,” her other self said. “It’s hard to pick out any details without looking too closely and that risks taking my eyes off you. But the point of divergence does seem to be quite some time ago.”\n\n“Which means the laws of magic might be different,” Emily mused. So far, every timeline she’d visited had had magic. But there was no reason to think all timelines had magic – hell, her homeworld had none. Unless there truly was a Wizarding World hidden from mundane view … she put the thought out of her head. “Or is it something a little closer?”\n\n“Unknown,” her other self said. “Unlikely, though. The Hierarchy won’t exist in a timeline that different from ours.”\n\nShe paused. “I can open a path for you, if you want?”\n\n“Do it,” Emily said. She felt another flicker of something through the link. She was doing something. Her counterpart could only watch and wait and pray. “And keep your vigil as long as possible.”\n\nThe path opened in front of her, its appearance shifting rapidly as she fell towards the light. A blinding white haze enveloped her, the threadlines vanishing in the light as the real world – or one of them – welcomed her once again. She grunted as she hit the floor, magic sparking around her. The room was so dim it took her a few moments to grow accustomed to the near darkness. The air was clean and yet there was something heavy about it, as if something was waiting to happen. A prickle ran down her spine. The whole place felt wrong.\n\nOdd, she mused. The wards were very much like hers, but different in a manner she couldn’t quite put into words. The caster seemed to be operating from different ideas about how the world worked … maybe not completely different, maybe following the same rules of magic, yet different enough to bother her. It was like discovering two plus two equalled five and then reading a set of insane troll logic arguments that purported to prove just that. What is this place?\n\nHer eyes swept the room. The only source of light was a single crystal, embedded in the stone overhead, illuminating a table strewn with parchment scrolls and manuscripts and a handful of contraptions that looked decidedly unsafe. Her counterpart seemed to have been working along the same lines as Adam and Lilith, although her devices were far more magical. She was looking for ways to enhance her magic, rather than give it to those who had none.\n\nA door opened. Her counterpart stepped into the room. She was …\n\nEmily blinked. She?\n\nThe person in front of her was very definitely a man. And he shared her magical signature. And that meant … he was her.\n\n“Impossible,” she breathed.\n\nHer male counterpart seemed equally surprised. “Who the hell are you?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 944, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch34-P1", "chapter": "ch34", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmile — capitalized; male counterpart; do not respell as Emil.\nHierarchy — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nOn the threadlines Emily and her bilocated self hunt a Hierarchy-recruitment timeline and find Emile, a male counterpart who demands to know who she is.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFace-to-face with Emile in his world. Trying Star Wars banter and soft honesty to prove she is him; comparing him favorably to Necromancer Emily; aware he expects a blow; curious about his constructed servants and the word slaves.\n\nEmile\nMale alternate of Emily. Casting-ready, darkly wounded, sure this is a final joke; inching away as if expecting violence; sour about past pranks; leads her onward while holding himself carefully.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Which means the laws of magic might be different,” Emily mused. So far, every timeline she’d visited had had magic. But there was no reason to think all timelines had magic – hell, her homeworld had none. Unless there truly was a Wizarding World hidden from mundane view … she put the thought out of her head. “Or is it something a little closer?”\n\n“Unknown,” her other self said. “Unlikely, though. The Hierarchy won’t exist in a timeline that different from ours.”\n\nShe paused. “I can open a path for you, if you want?”\n\n“Do it,” Emily said. She felt another flicker of something through the link. She was doing something. Her counterpart could only watch and wait and pray. “And keep your vigil as long as possible.”\n\nThe path opened in front of her, its appearance shifting rapidly as she fell towards the light. A blinding white haze enveloped her, the threadlines vanishing in the light as the real world – or one of them – welcomed her once again. She grunted as she hit the floor, magic sparking around her. The room was so dim it took her a few moments to grow accustomed to the near darkness. The air was clean and yet there was something heavy about it, as if something was waiting to happen. A prickle ran down her spine. The whole place felt wrong.\n\nOdd, she mused. The wards were very much like hers, but different in a manner she couldn’t quite put into words. The caster seemed to be operating from different ideas about how the world worked … maybe not completely different, maybe following the same rules of magic, yet different enough to bother her. It was like discovering two plus two equalled five and then reading a set of insane troll logic arguments that purported to prove just that. What is this place?\n\nHer eyes swept the room. The only source of light was a single crystal, embedded in the stone overhead, illuminating a table strewn with parchment scrolls and manuscripts and a handful of contraptions that looked decidedly unsafe. Her counterpart seemed to have been working along the same lines as Adam and Lilith, although her devices were far more magical. She was looking for ways to enhance her magic, rather than give it to those who had none.\n\nA door opened. Her counterpart stepped into the room. She was …\n\nEmily blinked. She?\n\nThe person in front of her was very definitely a man. And he shared her magical signature. And that meant … he was her.\n\n“Impossible,” she breathed.\n\nHer male counterpart seemed equally surprised. “Who the hell are you?”\n\n### NOTES\nEmile’s residence; impressive constructed servants visible.\nOnly the two of them share Earth-English references.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe tells Emile she is him; he denies it until Search your feelings lands, then darkens at the joke. She calls him reassuringly normal beside the necromancer version; he leads her on, flinching from expected blows, and she tries small talk about his impressive servants — only to blink at the word slaves. She works to look unthreatening while insisting her question matters, and the scene lands on that careful plea.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Awkward first contact; keep Emile’s flinch visible. Land on Emily’s insistence that it matters.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I’m you,” Emily managed. “Emile?”\n\nEmile nodded, one hand raised in a casting pose. “You’re not me.”\n\n“Search your feelings,” Emily said. They were the only two people in this world who’d recognise the line. Or spoke English. “You know it to be true.”\n\nHis face darkened. “You have got to be kidding me.”\n\n“Compared to the necromancer version of me, of us, you’re reassuringly normal,” Emily said. She saw a shadow cross his face and wondered if she’d made a mistake. “It’s only a small difference.”\n\n“Really now,” her counterpart said, with heavy sarcasm. “A small difference.”\n\nEmily forced herself to study him carefully. He was slightly taller than she was, but thinner in a way that suggested he hadn’t quite matured into a physical adult even though they had to be around the same age; his skin was paler than hers, so much so she was convinced he rarely went out in the sun. His hairline was slowly receding, his face was thinner and sharper than hers; his outfit hung around him loosely, revealing nothing below the neckline, but she had the impression she was physically stronger than he was. His magic felt strange, as if it had developed in entirely different directions. There was no trace of redness in his eyes, but she couldn’t help thinking he wasn’t entirely stable. The way he looked at her was not reassuring. He looked almost envious.\n\nAnd he dresses like a child wearing his father’s uniform, she thought, slowly. A nasty little suspicion was starting to form in her mind, one that refused to fade no matter how much she tried to tell it to go away. What has he gone through, over the last ten years?\n\n“And you’re me,” Emile said, slowly. There was a wealth of pain in his tone. “Is this the last final joke?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. She found herself uncertain what to say next, so she tried for a reassuring smile. “I need your help.”\n\n“The last time someone said that to me, it turned out to be a prank,” Emile said, sourly. He turned and inched away, holding himself as if he expected a blow at any moment. “Come with me.”\n\nEmily followed, reaching out gingerly with her magic. Wards hung in the air, some clearly flavoured by Emile and others far older. They were so strong it was hard to get any sense of anything more than a few feet from her, making any sort of long-range spying impossible. The corridors were bare stone, illuminated only by glowing crystals; the floor beneath her feet was dusty, suggesting her counterpart couldn’t be bothered to clean or hire someone else to do it for him. It felt oddly familiar and she wasn’t sure why. Something nagged at her as he led her into a sitting room and indicated a chair, then snapped his fingers. Invisible servants – spells, nearly as complex as a mimic – hummed through the air, bringing them mugs of steaming liquid. Emily took a sniff and frowned inwardly. The scent of alcohol was faint, but unmistakable.\n\n“Your servants are very impressive,” she said, trying to break the awkward silence. “Did you construct them yourself?”\n\n“Yes,” her counterpart said. “And everyone told me I should be purchasing slaves.”\n\nEmily blinked. “Slaves?”\n\nThe flash of anger and shame and bitter resentment and self-loathing that crossed her counterpart’s face was impossible to miss. She could feel it feeding into his magic, the air sparkling with his anger and curdling with his disgust … disgust and something else, something worse, aimed at himself. It struck her, suddenly, that this was an Emily who had never learnt to open up, never learnt to trust others. And there was something else …\n\n“Yeah, slaves,” her counterpart said. “They thought I should have a few collared women serving me.”\n\n“And you don’t?” Emily had a nasty idea just where the conversation was going. “That’s good, right?”\n\nThe look her counterpart shot her suggested otherwise. She knew how he felt, because she’d felt the same way herself before growing out of it. Others did things, bad things, that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do … and it felt unfair, because she wanted to do things she knew she really shouldn’t. It would be much worse as a teenage boy, she supposed, watching all your friends surrounded by girls who really couldn’t say no and knowing you could do the same yourself, if only you were prepared to sacrifice your morals and cross the line into doing something you knew to be wrong.\n\nOr maybe it’s worse, she thought grimly. Perhaps he doesn’t have the nerve even if he has the power.\n\n“Who cares what they think?” Her counterpart sipped his drink. “We’re alone out here.”\n\nEmily winced. Everyone needed human contact from time to time, even her, and Emile was clearly lacking in any sort of human contact. He’d said they were alone … his servants were nothing more than complex spells, little different from dishwashers or microwaves and certainly just as incapable of carrying on a conversation. She might be the only person he’d spoken to in months, and in a sense they were the same person.\n\nShe leaned forward, then caught herself and held back. “Why did you join the Hierarchy?”\n\nEmile shot her a look, half-surprised and half-angry. He looked as if he were cringing without quite making it obvious, as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was on the verge of facing a punishment too harsh for child molesters and murderers. She could see the urge to lie crossing his face, the urge to dissemble and minimise and take no responsibility for his own actions; it struck her, suddenly, that her counterpart had had so little agency throughout his life that it hadn’t quite occurred to him that he had it now. The power in his fingertips alone could change the world, if he believed in himself and used it. But he didn’t and couldn’t.\n\n“Why do you ask?”\n\n“Because it’s important,” Emily said. She tried to look as unthreatening as possible. People being scared of her magic or her supposed father were one thing, but she couldn’t remember a time when anyone had ever seen her as a physical threat. Lady Barb had been so much stronger than Emily was that Lady Barb hadn’t had any trouble besting Emily with one hand tied behind her back. “I need to know.”\n", "completion": "“I’m you,” Emily managed. “Emile?”\n\nEmile nodded, one hand raised in a casting pose. “You’re not me.”\n\n“Search your feelings,” Emily said. They were the only two people in this world who’d recognise the line. Or spoke English. “You know it to be true.”\n\nHis face darkened. “You have got to be kidding me.”\n\n“Compared to the necromancer version of me, of us, you’re reassuringly normal,” Emily said. She saw a shadow cross his face and wondered if she’d made a mistake. “It’s only a small difference.”\n\n“Really now,” her counterpart said, with heavy sarcasm. “A small difference.”\n\nEmily forced herself to study him carefully. He was slightly taller than she was, but thinner in a way that suggested he hadn’t quite matured into a physical adult even though they had to be around the same age; his skin was paler than hers, so much so she was convinced he rarely went out in the sun. His hairline was slowly receding, his face was thinner and sharper than hers; his outfit hung around him loosely, revealing nothing below the neckline, but she had the impression she was physically stronger than he was. His magic felt strange, as if it had developed in entirely different directions. There was no trace of redness in his eyes, but she couldn’t help thinking he wasn’t entirely stable. The way he looked at her was not reassuring. He looked almost envious.\n\nAnd he dresses like a child wearing his father’s uniform, she thought, slowly. A nasty little suspicion was starting to form in her mind, one that refused to fade no matter how much she tried to tell it to go away. What has he gone through, over the last ten years?\n\n“And you’re me,” Emile said, slowly. There was a wealth of pain in his tone. “Is this the last final joke?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. She found herself uncertain what to say next, so she tried for a reassuring smile. “I need your help.”\n\n“The last time someone said that to me, it turned out to be a prank,” Emile said, sourly. He turned and inched away, holding himself as if he expected a blow at any moment. “Come with me.”\n\nEmily followed, reaching out gingerly with her magic. Wards hung in the air, some clearly flavoured by Emile and others far older. They were so strong it was hard to get any sense of anything more than a few feet from her, making any sort of long-range spying impossible. The corridors were bare stone, illuminated only by glowing crystals; the floor beneath her feet was dusty, suggesting her counterpart couldn’t be bothered to clean or hire someone else to do it for him. It felt oddly familiar and she wasn’t sure why. Something nagged at her as he led her into a sitting room and indicated a chair, then snapped his fingers. Invisible servants – spells, nearly as complex as a mimic – hummed through the air, bringing them mugs of steaming liquid. Emily took a sniff and frowned inwardly. The scent of alcohol was faint, but unmistakable.\n\n“Your servants are very impressive,” she said, trying to break the awkward silence. “Did you construct them yourself?”\n\n“Yes,” her counterpart said. “And everyone told me I should be purchasing slaves.”\n\nEmily blinked. “Slaves?”\n\nThe flash of anger and shame and bitter resentment and self-loathing that crossed her counterpart’s face was impossible to miss. She could feel it feeding into his magic, the air sparkling with his anger and curdling with his disgust … disgust and something else, something worse, aimed at himself. It struck her, suddenly, that this was an Emily who had never learnt to open up, never learnt to trust others. And there was something else …\n\n“Yeah, slaves,” her counterpart said. “They thought I should have a few collared women serving me.”\n\n“And you don’t?” Emily had a nasty idea just where the conversation was going. “That’s good, right?”\n\nThe look her counterpart shot her suggested otherwise. She knew how he felt, because she’d felt the same way herself before growing out of it. Others did things, bad things, that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do … and it felt unfair, because she wanted to do things she knew she really shouldn’t. It would be much worse as a teenage boy, she supposed, watching all your friends surrounded by girls who really couldn’t say no and knowing you could do the same yourself, if only you were prepared to sacrifice your morals and cross the line into doing something you knew to be wrong.\n\nOr maybe it’s worse, she thought grimly. Perhaps he doesn’t have the nerve even if he has the power.\n\n“Who cares what they think?” Her counterpart sipped his drink. “We’re alone out here.”\n\nEmily winced. Everyone needed human contact from time to time, even her, and Emile was clearly lacking in any sort of human contact. He’d said they were alone … his servants were nothing more than complex spells, little different from dishwashers or microwaves and certainly just as incapable of carrying on a conversation. She might be the only person he’d spoken to in months, and in a sense they were the same person.\n\nShe leaned forward, then caught herself and held back. “Why did you join the Hierarchy?”\n\nEmile shot her a look, half-surprised and half-angry. He looked as if he were cringing without quite making it obvious, as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was on the verge of facing a punishment too harsh for child molesters and murderers. She could see the urge to lie crossing his face, the urge to dissemble and minimise and take no responsibility for his own actions; it struck her, suddenly, that her counterpart had had so little agency throughout his life that it hadn’t quite occurred to him that he had it now. The power in his fingertips alone could change the world, if he believed in himself and used it. But he didn’t and couldn’t.\n\n“Why do you ask?”\n\n“Because it’s important,” Emily said. She tried to look as unthreatening as possible. People being scared of her magic or her supposed father were one thing, but she couldn’t remember a time when anyone had ever seen her as a physical threat. Lady Barb had been so much stronger than Emily was that Lady Barb hadn’t had any trouble besting Emily with one hand tied behind her back. “I need to know.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1112, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch34-P2", "chapter": "ch34", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmile — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nImaiqah — capitalized.\nJade — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily confronts Emile as her male counterpart; Star Wars banter fails to charm him; he leads her past constructed servants he calls slaves while flinching from expected blows.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nTrying to earn Emile’s trust with the line about trusting yourself. Sorry about Alassa, Imaiqah, Jade, Frieda; recognizing how alone he has been.\n\nEmile\nTired smile about magic twisting trust; bitter that her friends thrived while his world left him friendless; voice hurting when he says he had no one else.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nThe look her counterpart shot her suggested otherwise. She knew how he felt, because she’d felt the same way herself before growing out of it. Others did things, bad things, that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do … and it felt unfair, because she wanted to do things she knew she really shouldn’t. It would be much worse as a teenage boy, she supposed, watching all your friends surrounded by girls who really couldn’t say no and knowing you could do the same yourself, if only you were prepared to sacrifice your morals and cross the line into doing something you knew to be wrong.\n\nOr maybe it’s worse, she thought grimly. Perhaps he doesn’t have the nerve even if he has the power.\n\n“Who cares what they think?” Her counterpart sipped his drink. “We’re alone out here.”\n\nEmily winced. Everyone needed human contact from time to time, even her, and Emile was clearly lacking in any sort of human contact. He’d said they were alone … his servants were nothing more than complex spells, little different from dishwashers or microwaves and certainly just as incapable of carrying on a conversation. She might be the only person he’d spoken to in months, and in a sense they were the same person.\n\nShe leaned forward, then caught herself and held back. “Why did you join the Hierarchy?”\n\nEmile shot her a look, half-surprised and half-angry. He looked as if he were cringing without quite making it obvious, as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was on the verge of facing a punishment too harsh for child molesters and murderers. She could see the urge to lie crossing his face, the urge to dissemble and minimise and take no responsibility for his own actions; it struck her, suddenly, that her counterpart had had so little agency throughout his life that it hadn’t quite occurred to him that he had it now. The power in his fingertips alone could change the world, if he believed in himself and used it. But he didn’t and couldn’t.\n\n“Why do you ask?”\n\n“Because it’s important,” Emily said. She tried to look as unthreatening as possible. People being scared of her magic or her supposed father were one thing, but she couldn’t remember a time when anyone had ever seen her as a physical threat. Lady Barb had been so much stronger than Emily was that Lady Barb hadn’t had any trouble besting Emily with one hand tied behind her back. “I need to know.”\n\n### NOTES\nContinuing conversation in Emile’s residence after the first contact.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe offers If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?; Emile answers that magic can twist a mind until trust dies. She apologizes for what happened to Alassa, Imaiqah, Jade; learns Frieda was his first friend and is gone; hears the bitterness that she was lucky. His face darkens as he asks when she lost her virginity — and the scene lands on that abrupt, hurting question.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Intimate painful dialogue; keep pity out of Emily’s mouth. Land on Emile’s virginity question.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She offered a reassuring smile. “If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?”\n\n“Well, actually …” Emile offered her a tired little smile. “Magic can twist someone’s mind until they no longer trust themselves.”\n\n“True,” Emily agreed. “And why …?”\n\nEmile spoke with a bitterness that told her he’d been brooding for a long, long time. “I thought it would be like Harry Potter, when Void sent me to Whitehall,” he said, staring down at his pale and scarred hands. “I would have a Ron and Hermione of my own and … I’d even have settled for Draco, if it meant I had friends. It wasn’t like that. It was more like Tom Brown’s Schooldays with magic. They saw me as Void’s son and picked on me and” – he laughed harshly, humourlessly – “it was just like home.”\n\nChad never laid a finger on me, Emily thought, but he sure as hell would have if I’d been a boy.\n\nHer counterpart was still talking. “I got beaten up by everyone, including the ones who got beaten up by everyone else. I think I spent more time as a frog than a human, that first fucking year. No matter how hard I worked to master magic, there was always someone better than me … I was always alone. No friends, no lovers, no nothing ..,.”\n\nEmily swallowed. “Did you beat Shadye?”\n\n“I cheated,” Emile said. His voice dripped bitterness. “Lured him into a corridor and fucked around with the time-space gradient. Aged him a billion years in a second or two and left him a pile of dust. I thought it would make me a hero, but too many people knew what I’d done and insisted they could have done it too … if they’d thought of it. It just got worse. And worse.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said, sincerely. “What happened to Alassa? Or Imaiqah? Or Jade?”\n\n“Alassa was one of my tormentors.” Emile laughed harshly. “The last I heard, she was married to some inbred moron and turned into a brood mare. Jade” – the sudden flash of pure hated in his voice shocked her – “swanned around like he was the best of the best. I don’t know what happened to him after he graduated. Imaiqah … I don’t know her. Lucky her.”\n\n“She was my first friend,” Emily said, quietly.\n\n“Lucky you.” Emile shook his head. “I never had any real friends. Not one.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said, and meant it. “Why …?”\n\nEmile sighed. “After third year, when I was staying in Dragon’s Den, I was approached by someone who claimed to be interested in my magic. It was … it was like having someone who was genuinely interested in me. We chatted and chatted and compared notes; he introduced me to others who shared my interests, people who I could talk to … one thing led to another and eventually he told me about the Hierarchy, inviting me to join. Where else was there to go?”\n\nHis voice hurt. “I had no one else.”\n\n“What about Void?”\n\n“He sent me to school,” Emile said. “I never saw him again.”\n\nEmily understood, better than she cared to admit. A lonely boy, utterly friendless and desperate for almost any kind of companionship, would be easy meat for a radical group. The group would offer the human contact he needed, slowly luring the victim deeper and deeper into the organisation until they could no longer tell right from wrong. It was hard to go against someone offering you everything you ever wanted, someone who thought and acted like your friend; harder still to realise that you’d made a mistake, that you’d fucked up and needed to admit, at least to yourself, that you needed to get out. Emile had been horrifically vulnerable and the Hierarchy had taken full advantage. He wouldn’t find it easy to betray them.\n\n“Tell me,” Emile said. “Is it easier being a girl?”\n\nEmily hesitated. The answer was probably yes, at least in part. Magicians liked jostling other magicians to establish the pecking order and a male version of her would likely face a great deal more of it. She’d had fewer challenges before facing Shadye and after she’d killed a necromancer most of her peers had thought twice before picking on her. There’d certainly been little physical violence. But the answer was also no, because a girl would be assumed to be subordinate until she proved otherwise and she’d be treated as her father’s property, then her husband’s. Emily hadn’t faced the threat of being married off to someone against her will, but she had friends who had. It rarely ended well.\n\n“The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill,” she said quietly. “Being female caused me problems …”\n\n“None as bad as mine, I am sure,” Emile said. “How many boys challenged you to a fight in your first week?”\n\n“None,” Emily said.\n\nShe winced, again. Jade and Cat and the others like them had been trained from birth, practically speaking. Even a common-born magician who grew up on a farm would likely have more physical strength than the average teenager from her world. Chad might have seen himself as the big bad guy on the schoolyard, but he was a wimp compared to even a younger boy from the Nameless World. He’d be put in his place very quickly. And for someone lacking Chad’s self-confidence, as misplaced as it was …\n\n“There you have it,” Emile said, bitterly. “I’m happy for you, really I am, but … lucky you.”\n\nHis face darkened. “When did you lose your virginity?”\n", "completion": "She offered a reassuring smile. “If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?”\n\n“Well, actually …” Emile offered her a tired little smile. “Magic can twist someone’s mind until they no longer trust themselves.”\n\n“True,” Emily agreed. “And why …?”\n\nEmile spoke with a bitterness that told her he’d been brooding for a long, long time. “I thought it would be like Harry Potter, when Void sent me to Whitehall,” he said, staring down at his pale and scarred hands. “I would have a Ron and Hermione of my own and … I’d even have settled for Draco, if it meant I had friends. It wasn’t like that. It was more like Tom Brown’s Schooldays with magic. They saw me as Void’s son and picked on me and” – he laughed harshly, humourlessly – “it was just like home.”\n\nChad never laid a finger on me, Emily thought, but he sure as hell would have if I’d been a boy.\n\nHer counterpart was still talking. “I got beaten up by everyone, including the ones who got beaten up by everyone else. I think I spent more time as a frog than a human, that first fucking year. No matter how hard I worked to master magic, there was always someone better than me … I was always alone. No friends, no lovers, no nothing ..,.”\n\nEmily swallowed. “Did you beat Shadye?”\n\n“I cheated,” Emile said. His voice dripped bitterness. “Lured him into a corridor and fucked around with the time-space gradient. Aged him a billion years in a second or two and left him a pile of dust. I thought it would make me a hero, but too many people knew what I’d done and insisted they could have done it too … if they’d thought of it. It just got worse. And worse.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said, sincerely. “What happened to Alassa? Or Imaiqah? Or Jade?”\n\n“Alassa was one of my tormentors.” Emile laughed harshly. “The last I heard, she was married to some inbred moron and turned into a brood mare. Jade” – the sudden flash of pure hated in his voice shocked her – “swanned around like he was the best of the best. I don’t know what happened to him after he graduated. Imaiqah … I don’t know her. Lucky her.”\n\n“She was my first friend,” Emily said, quietly.\n\n“Lucky you.” Emile shook his head. “I never had any real friends. Not one.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said, and meant it. “Why …?”\n\nEmile sighed. “After third year, when I was staying in Dragon’s Den, I was approached by someone who claimed to be interested in my magic. It was … it was like having someone who was genuinely interested in me. We chatted and chatted and compared notes; he introduced me to others who shared my interests, people who I could talk to … one thing led to another and eventually he told me about the Hierarchy, inviting me to join. Where else was there to go?”\n\nHis voice hurt. “I had no one else.”\n\n“What about Void?”\n\n“He sent me to school,” Emile said. “I never saw him again.”\n\nEmily understood, better than she cared to admit. A lonely boy, utterly friendless and desperate for almost any kind of companionship, would be easy meat for a radical group. The group would offer the human contact he needed, slowly luring the victim deeper and deeper into the organisation until they could no longer tell right from wrong. It was hard to go against someone offering you everything you ever wanted, someone who thought and acted like your friend; harder still to realise that you’d made a mistake, that you’d fucked up and needed to admit, at least to yourself, that you needed to get out. Emile had been horrifically vulnerable and the Hierarchy had taken full advantage. He wouldn’t find it easy to betray them.\n\n“Tell me,” Emile said. “Is it easier being a girl?”\n\nEmily hesitated. The answer was probably yes, at least in part. Magicians liked jostling other magicians to establish the pecking order and a male version of her would likely face a great deal more of it. She’d had fewer challenges before facing Shadye and after she’d killed a necromancer most of her peers had thought twice before picking on her. There’d certainly been little physical violence. But the answer was also no, because a girl would be assumed to be subordinate until she proved otherwise and she’d be treated as her father’s property, then her husband’s. Emily hadn’t faced the threat of being married off to someone against her will, but she had friends who had. It rarely ended well.\n\n“The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill,” she said quietly. “Being female caused me problems …”\n\n“None as bad as mine, I am sure,” Emile said. “How many boys challenged you to a fight in your first week?”\n\n“None,” Emily said.\n\nShe winced, again. Jade and Cat and the others like them had been trained from birth, practically speaking. Even a common-born magician who grew up on a farm would likely have more physical strength than the average teenager from her world. Chad might have seen himself as the big bad guy on the schoolyard, but he was a wimp compared to even a younger boy from the Nameless World. He’d be put in his place very quickly. And for someone lacking Chad’s self-confidence, as misplaced as it was …\n\n“There you have it,” Emile said, bitterly. “I’m happy for you, really I am, but … lucky you.”\n\nHis face darkened. “When did you lose your virginity?”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 956, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch34-P3", "chapter": "ch34", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmile — capitalized.\nInverse Shadow — both words capitalized; structure name.\nAllied Lands — both words capitalized.\nnecromancer — lowercase ordinary unless in a title.\n\n### STORY\nEmily listens as Emile bitter-compares their friendships and flinches from ordinary touch; he turns the intimacy cruel and abrupt by asking when she lost her virginity.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFlushed at Emile’s question; sharing mind-contact carefully; laying out a plan that needs him near the Inverse Shadow. Knows the Allied Lands likely fear him as a necromancer.\n\nEmile\nNever had willing partners; collapsed under the weight of seeing her life; will agree to her plan despite hesitation.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily understood, better than she cared to admit. A lonely boy, utterly friendless and desperate for almost any kind of companionship, would be easy meat for a radical group. The group would offer the human contact he needed, slowly luring the victim deeper and deeper into the organisation until they could no longer tell right from wrong. It was hard to go against someone offering you everything you ever wanted, someone who thought and acted like your friend; harder still to realise that you’d made a mistake, that you’d fucked up and needed to admit, at least to yourself, that you needed to get out. Emile had been horrifically vulnerable and the Hierarchy had taken full advantage. He wouldn’t find it easy to betray them.\n\n“Tell me,” Emile said. “Is it easier being a girl?”\n\nEmily hesitated. The answer was probably yes, at least in part. Magicians liked jostling other magicians to establish the pecking order and a male version of her would likely face a great deal more of it. She’d had fewer challenges before facing Shadye and after she’d killed a necromancer most of her peers had thought twice before picking on her. There’d certainly been little physical violence. But the answer was also no, because a girl would be assumed to be subordinate until she proved otherwise and she’d be treated as her father’s property, then her husband’s. Emily hadn’t faced the threat of being married off to someone against her will, but she had friends who had. It rarely ended well.\n\n“The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill,” she said quietly. “Being female caused me problems …”\n\n“None as bad as mine, I am sure,” Emile said. “How many boys challenged you to a fight in your first week?”\n\n“None,” Emily said.\n\nShe winced, again. Jade and Cat and the others like them had been trained from birth, practically speaking. Even a common-born magician who grew up on a farm would likely have more physical strength than the average teenager from her world. Chad might have seen himself as the big bad guy on the schoolyard, but he was a wimp compared to even a younger boy from the Nameless World. He’d be put in his place very quickly. And for someone lacking Chad’s self-confidence, as misplaced as it was …\n\n“There you have it,” Emile said, bitterly. “I’m happy for you, really I am, but … lucky you.”\n\nHis face darkened. “When did you lose your virginity?”\n\n### NOTES\nThey are close to the Inverse Shadow geographically.\nMind-sharing is voluntary and directed by Emily.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe flushes and shuts down the virginity question; Emile admits he never did, that asking him out was a joke, that he never dared a brothel. She opens a careful mind-share so he sees what she has done and survived; he pulls back stunned that everyone loves her and nearly collapses. She keeps her thoughts about Allied Lands fear to herself, tells him they are close to the Inverse Shadow, and begins to explain what she wants him to do — landing as the plan starts.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Confession into planning; keep the mind-share brief. Land on the opening of the plan.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily flushed. “That’s none of your business.”\n\n“I never did,” Emile said. “The girls were never interested in me. Not really. Asking me out was just a joke to them. I never had the nerve to go to a brothel.  Buying a collared girl …”\n\nHis face twisted. “It would be rape! Real rape! I couldn’t do it and …”\n\nEmily heard the frustration in his voice and cursed under her breath. She knew how easy it was to be bitter about watching others do the wrong thing and get away with it, to wrestle with the temptation to do something awful even though she knew it was wrong … the idea of actually raping someone was horrific, and she knew having sex with a slave was beyond any hope of informed consent, but  … she’d heard too many teenage boys bemoaning their virginities or bragging over losing them to think it didn’t gnaw on them. Emile was alone, without anyone who could give him a sanity check. And so he was spiralling down the rabbit hole to madness.\n\n“I need you to listen to me,” she said, quietly. “The Hierarchy isn’t what you think it is.”\n\nShe ran through a quick explanation, ending with an outline of Master Wolfe’s true nature. She’d wondered why Empress Emily’s Master Wolfe hadn’t started the path towards becoming a god, back when they’d destroyed him; she thought she knew the answer now. No human, not even a human who had turned himself into a mimic, could hope to channel so much power without magitech and magitech simply didn’t exist in his world. It required Emily, but also Adam and Lilith …\n\nAnd without it, he’s much less of a threat, she told herself. She hoped to hell that was true, or she might find herself fighting an endless series of godly beings. He shouldn’t be able to make the jump into godhood.\n\nEmile said nothing for a long moment, when she’d finished, then spoke with a bitterness flavoured with resignation. “You’re lying.”\n\n“I’m not,” Emily said. She met his eyes. “Do you want to see my memories?”\n\nHe hesitated, visibly. “Are you sure …?”\n\nNo, Emily thought. The idea of letting anyone ransack her mind was terrifying. He could easily do immense damage without intending to hurt her. But she needed to convince him and he was too cynical to believe anything less. And that meant she had to take the risk.\n\nShe met his eyes. “Yes.”\n\nEmile’s mind touched hers, the sensation unpleasant and rough … as if she was hitting herself. She tasted his bitterness, the deep-rooted resentment that had overwhelmed his mind … she had the sudden impression of Scrooge sitting alone at Christmas, unwilling to change and yet all too aware he was wallowing in his own failings and memories. Her memories flickered in front of her, dancing across her mind’s eye … she made no attempt to steer him, even as he peered deeper and deeper. It was a gesture of trust she feared might have been grossly misplaced.\n\n“You did all that,” Emile said. He pulled back, his mind falling back into his own body. “And everyone loves you.”\n\n“They fear me too,” Emily said. She’d seen a few of his memories too. He’d never liked the sergeants, never had any sort of contact with Jade or Cat or Lady Barb or even the Grandmaster. No one had reached out to him and he’d been unable to reach out by himself. Chad had hit her … the memory was so strong, so overpowering, that it was tricky to remind herself that it wasn’t her memory. “And …”\n\nEmile sagged. If he hadn’t been sitting, he would have collapsed.\n\n“They promised me everything,” he said. Tears shone in his eyes. He didn’t bother to wipe them away. “And I would have wound up as just another part of the multiplicity.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said, and meant it. The Hierarchy had taken advantage of his loneliness, exploiting it ruthlessly to turn him into a powerful ally … no, a useful tool. And he’d been too blinded by his resentments to notice. “I …”\n\n“Help me,” she said. “And I’ll help you.”\n\n“Do you think you can?” Emile shook his head. “Look at me!”\n\nEmily looked. Emile wasn’t unattractive, not really. It was his manner that poisoned the air and made it harder to make friends, let alone find a girlfriend or a wife. She knew how hard it could be to open up to people, to extend the hand of friendship when you knew it would likely be slapped; she knew how hard it was to do it, again and again, in the fading hope someone would take the hand instead of pushing it away.\n\n“You have to be the kind of person someone wants to be with,” Emily said. “And …”\n\n“Easy for you to say,” Emile snapped. “You have tits! People don’t give a shit about your personality when you have a great body!”\n\n“I can help you,” Emily said quietly, ignoring his previous comment. “You help me and I’ll help you.”\n\n“Hah,” Emile said. She could see the thoughts crossing his mind. He didn’t have a choice and he knew it and it really gnawed at him. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“Where are we?” Emily had several ideas, but they depended on just where they were. “What is this place?”\n\n“It used to be Shadye’s fortress,” Emile said. A faint smile crossed his lips, one of the few happy memories since he’d hit adolescence. “Mine now.”\n\nEmily nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. The Allied Lands probably thought Emile was a necromancer himself. They’d feared the same of her, with far less cause. No wonder they’d left him alone. But he wasn’t that far gone. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.\n\n“Good,” she said. They were close to the Inverse Shadow. That might make things easier. “I have a plan. This is what I want you to do …”\n", "completion": "Emily flushed. “That’s none of your business.”\n\n“I never did,” Emile said. “The girls were never interested in me. Not really. Asking me out was just a joke to them. I never had the nerve to go to a brothel.  Buying a collared girl …”\n\nHis face twisted. “It would be rape! Real rape! I couldn’t do it and …”\n\nEmily heard the frustration in his voice and cursed under her breath. She knew how easy it was to be bitter about watching others do the wrong thing and get away with it, to wrestle with the temptation to do something awful even though she knew it was wrong … the idea of actually raping someone was horrific, and she knew having sex with a slave was beyond any hope of informed consent, but  … she’d heard too many teenage boys bemoaning their virginities or bragging over losing them to think it didn’t gnaw on them. Emile was alone, without anyone who could give him a sanity check. And so he was spiralling down the rabbit hole to madness.\n\n“I need you to listen to me,” she said, quietly. “The Hierarchy isn’t what you think it is.”\n\nShe ran through a quick explanation, ending with an outline of Master Wolfe’s true nature. She’d wondered why Empress Emily’s Master Wolfe hadn’t started the path towards becoming a god, back when they’d destroyed him; she thought she knew the answer now. No human, not even a human who had turned himself into a mimic, could hope to channel so much power without magitech and magitech simply didn’t exist in his world. It required Emily, but also Adam and Lilith …\n\nAnd without it, he’s much less of a threat, she told herself. She hoped to hell that was true, or she might find herself fighting an endless series of godly beings. He shouldn’t be able to make the jump into godhood.\n\nEmile said nothing for a long moment, when she’d finished, then spoke with a bitterness flavoured with resignation. “You’re lying.”\n\n“I’m not,” Emily said. She met his eyes. “Do you want to see my memories?”\n\nHe hesitated, visibly. “Are you sure …?”\n\nNo, Emily thought. The idea of letting anyone ransack her mind was terrifying. He could easily do immense damage without intending to hurt her. But she needed to convince him and he was too cynical to believe anything less. And that meant she had to take the risk.\n\nShe met his eyes. “Yes.”\n\nEmile’s mind touched hers, the sensation unpleasant and rough … as if she was hitting herself. She tasted his bitterness, the deep-rooted resentment that had overwhelmed his mind … she had the sudden impression of Scrooge sitting alone at Christmas, unwilling to change and yet all too aware he was wallowing in his own failings and memories. Her memories flickered in front of her, dancing across her mind’s eye … she made no attempt to steer him, even as he peered deeper and deeper. It was a gesture of trust she feared might have been grossly misplaced.\n\n“You did all that,” Emile said. He pulled back, his mind falling back into his own body. “And everyone loves you.”\n\n“They fear me too,” Emily said. She’d seen a few of his memories too. He’d never liked the sergeants, never had any sort of contact with Jade or Cat or Lady Barb or even the Grandmaster. No one had reached out to him and he’d been unable to reach out by himself. Chad had hit her … the memory was so strong, so overpowering, that it was tricky to remind herself that it wasn’t her memory. “And …”\n\nEmile sagged. If he hadn’t been sitting, he would have collapsed.\n\n“They promised me everything,” he said. Tears shone in his eyes. He didn’t bother to wipe them away. “And I would have wound up as just another part of the multiplicity.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said, and meant it. The Hierarchy had taken advantage of his loneliness, exploiting it ruthlessly to turn him into a powerful ally … no, a useful tool. And he’d been too blinded by his resentments to notice. “I …”\n\n“Help me,” she said. “And I’ll help you.”\n\n“Do you think you can?” Emile shook his head. “Look at me!”\n\nEmily looked. Emile wasn’t unattractive, not really. It was his manner that poisoned the air and made it harder to make friends, let alone find a girlfriend or a wife. She knew how hard it could be to open up to people, to extend the hand of friendship when you knew it would likely be slapped; she knew how hard it was to do it, again and again, in the fading hope someone would take the hand instead of pushing it away.\n\n“You have to be the kind of person someone wants to be with,” Emily said. “And …”\n\n“Easy for you to say,” Emile snapped. “You have tits! People don’t give a shit about your personality when you have a great body!”\n\n“I can help you,” Emily said quietly, ignoring his previous comment. “You help me and I’ll help you.”\n\n“Hah,” Emile said. She could see the thoughts crossing his mind. He didn’t have a choice and he knew it and it really gnawed at him. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“Where are we?” Emily had several ideas, but they depended on just where they were. “What is this place?”\n\n“It used to be Shadye’s fortress,” Emile said. A faint smile crossed his lips, one of the few happy memories since he’d hit adolescence. “Mine now.”\n\nEmily nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. The Allied Lands probably thought Emile was a necromancer himself. They’d feared the same of her, with far less cause. No wonder they’d left him alone. But he wasn’t that far gone. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.\n\n“Good,” she said. They were close to the Inverse Shadow. That might make things easier. “I have a plan. This is what I want you to do …”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1027, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch35-P1", "chapter": "ch35", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nInverse Shadow — both words capitalized; ever-shifting structure name.\nEmile — capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\nsoulmark — one word, lowercase.\nKing Randor — both words capitalized in comparison.\n\n### STORY\nEmily mind-shares enough of her life with Emile to stagger him into near-collapse; then, near the Inverse Shadow, she begins outlining the risky plan that needs him as bait and ally.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nWith Emile approaching and entering the Inverse Shadow. Counting on Master Wolfe’s hunger for every magic to draw him in; aware praise made Emile easy to manipulate; grossed out by aspects of the structure; planning to catch a mimic before explanations to anyone else.\n\nEmile\nIncredulous the plan will work; craving the praise Master Wolfe offers; distracting himself with whether they are the same person; touch-sensitive.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nMaster Wolfe seeks every kind of magic on the road to godhood; a mimic’s essence is the key Emily still needs to hack the godform; Emile’s soulmark ties him dangerously toward that multiplicity.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“They fear me too,” Emily said. She’d seen a few of his memories too. He’d never liked the sergeants, never had any sort of contact with Jade or Cat or Lady Barb or even the Grandmaster. No one had reached out to him and he’d been unable to reach out by himself. Chad had hit her … the memory was so strong, so overpowering, that it was tricky to remind herself that it wasn’t her memory. “And …”\n\nEmile sagged. If he hadn’t been sitting, he would have collapsed.\n\n“They promised me everything,” he said. Tears shone in his eyes. He didn’t bother to wipe them away. “And I would have wound up as just another part of the multiplicity.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” Emily said, and meant it. The Hierarchy had taken advantage of his loneliness, exploiting it ruthlessly to turn him into a powerful ally … no, a useful tool. And he’d been too blinded by his resentments to notice. “I …”\n\n“Help me,” she said. “And I’ll help you.”\n\n“Do you think you can?” Emile shook his head. “Look at me!”\n\nEmily looked. Emile wasn’t unattractive, not really. It was his manner that poisoned the air and made it harder to make friends, let alone find a girlfriend or a wife. She knew how hard it could be to open up to people, to extend the hand of friendship when you knew it would likely be slapped; she knew how hard it was to do it, again and again, in the fading hope someone would take the hand instead of pushing it away.\n\n“You have to be the kind of person someone wants to be with,” Emily said. “And …”\n\n“Easy for you to say,” Emile snapped. “You have tits! People don’t give a shit about your personality when you have a great body!”\n\n“I can help you,” Emily said quietly, ignoring his previous comment. “You help me and I’ll help you.”\n\n“Hah,” Emile said. She could see the thoughts crossing his mind. He didn’t have a choice and he knew it and it really gnawed at him. “What do you want me to do?”\n\n“Where are we?” Emily had several ideas, but they depended on just where they were. “What is this place?”\n\n“It used to be Shadye’s fortress,” Emile said. A faint smile crossed his lips, one of the few happy memories since he’d hit adolescence. “Mine now.”\n\nEmily nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. The Allied Lands probably thought Emile was a necromancer himself. They’d feared the same of her, with far less cause. No wonder they’d left him alone. But he wasn’t that far gone. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.\n\n“Good,” she said. They were close to the Inverse Shadow. That might make things easier. “I have a plan. This is what I want you to do …”\n\n### NOTES\nInverse Shadow: ever-shifting cathedral/mansion/machine; walls lost in shadow; bigger on the inside.\nReality tumors and warped fragments are becoming visible outside ordinary time.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmile cannot believe the lure will work; she nods — Master Wolfe needs every magic, and the Inverse Shadow is bait once he hears a gateway into the multiverse waits inside. They enter the ever-shifting structure; she notes how praise made him easy to manipulate; things move in and out of reality; gross details and sameness questions rattle them both.\n\nShe promises explanations later if she can — brother, perhaps — but first they have to catch a mimic. She studies the vast chamber and reaches gingerly with her magic, and the scene lands on that next-move pause.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Uncanny exploration; keep the lure logic clear. Land on the chamber survey before the catch.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emile couldn’t hide the incredulousness in his voice. “You think this’ll work? Really?”\n\nEmily nodded. Master Wolfe wanted – needed – to understand every last kind of magic, in his quest for supreme power and godhood. Luring Master Wolfe to the Inverse Shadow shouldn’t be difficult, once he was informed that Emile had found the key to understanding the alien structure. He would come and they would strike … she hoped. She eyed her counterpart thoughtfully as they walked out of the fortress, wondering just how far his bitterness would take him. She had never been so bitter, but she’d had a very different life. Would he be tempted to betray her?\n\nWe’re the same person, her thoughts pointed out. He knows what’s at stake.\n\nAnd his bitterness may overshadow his common sense, her thoughts answered. Try using gratitude on a dog that’s been kicked once too often.\n\nShe kept that thought to herself as she followed him. Emile was a powerful sorcerer in his own right, but he walked like someone who expected to be attacked at any moment. There was no confidence in his gait, no conviction the world would stand aside to let him pass; no belief, no matter how misplaced, that he mattered. She’d seen penniless aristocrats walking with more confidence than a magician powerful enough to face a combat sorcerer and win, if he had the nerve to go through with it. Emile could be bested by someone much weaker because the idea he might win had never entered his head.\n\n“I meant to ask,” she said. “How did you rise in the ranks?”\n\nEmile gave her a sidelong look. “I designed new pieces of magical technology for them,” he said, finally. “And they were very grateful. They praised me to the skies.”\n\nAnd that praise was everything you ever wanted, Emily thought. It made you easy to manipulate.\n\nShe didn’t say that out loud as she mentally ran through the options, considering what Master Wolfe might have done in this timeline. There was little magitech, not here; Adam was presumably still a shopboy in Beneficence, while Lilith was suffering under the iron grip of Fulvia, her family’s matriarch. This Master Wolfe couldn’t have made a godform of his own, not here, but what else had he done? There was no way to be sure. She was tempted to go seek help from others, perhaps Void and the Grandmaster, but she had a nasty feeling they were running out of time. Emile was all she had.\n\nThe Inverse Shadow loomed in front of them, an ever-shifting structure that seemed to be everything at the same time. A cathedral, a mansion, a giant machine, a … Emily lowered her eyes, trying not to look too closely. Things were moving in and out of reality, nesting within a multitude of pocket dimensions … no, it was a machine, but one built on such a scale she couldn’t help thinking of Master Wolfe’s tower. Perhaps Shadye had done the world a favour, when he’d set up shop near the Inverse Shadow. He’d certainly made it impossible for anyone to study the alien artefact. And that meant Master Wolfe had to begin his rise to godhood without any shortcuts.\n\nEmile glanced at her as they stepped into the building. “If you and I were to … you know … would that be masturbation or incest?”\n\n“Gross,” Emily said. “I ...”\n\nShe started again. “I don’t know and I don’t care.” She’d read a story once in which a bilocated sorceress had fallen in love with herself, but she didn’t believe it. Bilocating was tricky at the best of times and if the two bodies remained close together they’d certainly merge back into one person. She didn’t want to think about it. “Perhaps we should focus on the issue at hand.”\n\n“You never thought about it?” Emile sounded odd, as if he was trying to distract himself. “Are we not the same person?”\n\nEmily shrugged. “Yes and no,” she said. “We’re the same person who also happens to be very different, with different bodies and different lives.”\n\n“So we’re not the same, but we are the same,” Emile said. “You could get a good flame war going on the internet with that sort of argument.”\n\n“I suppose,” Emily said. She’d never much cared for flame wars. “Are you ready?”\n\nEmile hesitated, visibly. “Are you sure this is the only way to proceed?”\n\n“You saw my memories,” Emily said. “Do you see any other choice?”\n\nHe said nothing for a long moment, but his face told the whole story. He’d been kicked so many times, literally and metaphorically, that he was almost pathetically loyal to the handful of people who’d been nice to him. Never mind that they were murderous cultists, never mind that they were climbing up a ladder that led to death and a permanent afterlife as part of Master Wolfe’s multiplicity, never mind that they’d only sought to use him … they’d been good to him, really they had, and the thought of betraying them felt wrong. She supposed it was why so many people clung to toxic friends and bad influences even after it was clear they were nothing but; it felt wrong to betray them. And yet, what choice did they have? Everything was at stake.\n\n“No,” he admitted, finally. “But after this is done, you take me to your world.”\n\n“If I can, I will,” Emily said. God only knew how she was going to explain it. Emile could be her brother, perhaps. They were certainly related. “But first we have to catch a mimic.”\n\nShe looked around the chamber thoughtfully, considering their next move. The chamber was vast, so immense in size the walls were lost in the shadows. It was much bigger on the inside … she reached out gingerly with her mind, expecting to feel the same spells she’d used to create pocket dimensions, and instead felt something boiling through space-time, something so horrific she couldn’t even look at it for more than a second without feeling sick. The entire multiverse was screaming in pain, a keening sound made up of hundreds of millions of voices blurred together into a single terrifying howl. She shut her mind as best she could, yet the sound still battered against her defences. It was …\n", "completion": "Emile couldn’t hide the incredulousness in his voice. “You think this’ll work? Really?”\n\nEmily nodded. Master Wolfe wanted – needed – to understand every last kind of magic, in his quest for supreme power and godhood. Luring Master Wolfe to the Inverse Shadow shouldn’t be difficult, once he was informed that Emile had found the key to understanding the alien structure. He would come and they would strike … she hoped. She eyed her counterpart thoughtfully as they walked out of the fortress, wondering just how far his bitterness would take him. She had never been so bitter, but she’d had a very different life. Would he be tempted to betray her?\n\nWe’re the same person, her thoughts pointed out. He knows what’s at stake.\n\nAnd his bitterness may overshadow his common sense, her thoughts answered. Try using gratitude on a dog that’s been kicked once too often.\n\nShe kept that thought to herself as she followed him. Emile was a powerful sorcerer in his own right, but he walked like someone who expected to be attacked at any moment. There was no confidence in his gait, no conviction the world would stand aside to let him pass; no belief, no matter how misplaced, that he mattered. She’d seen penniless aristocrats walking with more confidence than a magician powerful enough to face a combat sorcerer and win, if he had the nerve to go through with it. Emile could be bested by someone much weaker because the idea he might win had never entered his head.\n\n“I meant to ask,” she said. “How did you rise in the ranks?”\n\nEmile gave her a sidelong look. “I designed new pieces of magical technology for them,” he said, finally. “And they were very grateful. They praised me to the skies.”\n\nAnd that praise was everything you ever wanted, Emily thought. It made you easy to manipulate.\n\nShe didn’t say that out loud as she mentally ran through the options, considering what Master Wolfe might have done in this timeline. There was little magitech, not here; Adam was presumably still a shopboy in Beneficence, while Lilith was suffering under the iron grip of Fulvia, her family’s matriarch. This Master Wolfe couldn’t have made a godform of his own, not here, but what else had he done? There was no way to be sure. She was tempted to go seek help from others, perhaps Void and the Grandmaster, but she had a nasty feeling they were running out of time. Emile was all she had.\n\nThe Inverse Shadow loomed in front of them, an ever-shifting structure that seemed to be everything at the same time. A cathedral, a mansion, a giant machine, a … Emily lowered her eyes, trying not to look too closely. Things were moving in and out of reality, nesting within a multitude of pocket dimensions … no, it was a machine, but one built on such a scale she couldn’t help thinking of Master Wolfe’s tower. Perhaps Shadye had done the world a favour, when he’d set up shop near the Inverse Shadow. He’d certainly made it impossible for anyone to study the alien artefact. And that meant Master Wolfe had to begin his rise to godhood without any shortcuts.\n\nEmile glanced at her as they stepped into the building. “If you and I were to … you know … would that be masturbation or incest?”\n\n“Gross,” Emily said. “I ...”\n\nShe started again. “I don’t know and I don’t care.” She’d read a story once in which a bilocated sorceress had fallen in love with herself, but she didn’t believe it. Bilocating was tricky at the best of times and if the two bodies remained close together they’d certainly merge back into one person. She didn’t want to think about it. “Perhaps we should focus on the issue at hand.”\n\n“You never thought about it?” Emile sounded odd, as if he was trying to distract himself. “Are we not the same person?”\n\nEmily shrugged. “Yes and no,” she said. “We’re the same person who also happens to be very different, with different bodies and different lives.”\n\n“So we’re not the same, but we are the same,” Emile said. “You could get a good flame war going on the internet with that sort of argument.”\n\n“I suppose,” Emily said. She’d never much cared for flame wars. “Are you ready?”\n\nEmile hesitated, visibly. “Are you sure this is the only way to proceed?”\n\n“You saw my memories,” Emily said. “Do you see any other choice?”\n\nHe said nothing for a long moment, but his face told the whole story. He’d been kicked so many times, literally and metaphorically, that he was almost pathetically loyal to the handful of people who’d been nice to him. Never mind that they were murderous cultists, never mind that they were climbing up a ladder that led to death and a permanent afterlife as part of Master Wolfe’s multiplicity, never mind that they’d only sought to use him … they’d been good to him, really they had, and the thought of betraying them felt wrong. She supposed it was why so many people clung to toxic friends and bad influences even after it was clear they were nothing but; it felt wrong to betray them. And yet, what choice did they have? Everything was at stake.\n\n“No,” he admitted, finally. “But after this is done, you take me to your world.”\n\n“If I can, I will,” Emily said. God only knew how she was going to explain it. Emile could be her brother, perhaps. They were certainly related. “But first we have to catch a mimic.”\n\nShe looked around the chamber thoughtfully, considering their next move. The chamber was vast, so immense in size the walls were lost in the shadows. It was much bigger on the inside … she reached out gingerly with her mind, expecting to feel the same spells she’d used to create pocket dimensions, and instead felt something boiling through space-time, something so horrific she couldn’t even look at it for more than a second without feeling sick. The entire multiverse was screaming in pain, a keening sound made up of hundreds of millions of voices blurred together into a single terrifying howl. She shut her mind as best she could, yet the sound still battered against her defences. It was …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1082, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch35-P2", "chapter": "ch35", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\nEmile — capitalized.\nsoulmark — one word, lowercase.\nInverse Shadow — both words capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily and Emile enter the Inverse Shadow to bait Master Wolfe; she surveys the vast inner chamber and commits to catching a mimic before any outside explanations.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nInside the Inverse Shadow as timelines bubble into cancer. Ready to strike the mimic’s core through Emile’s link; knows time is collapsing.\n\nEmile\nJumps and cringes when Master Wolfe appears inside rather than walking in; forced into the traitor moment the soulmark creates.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nMaterializes inside looking jovial and Randor-like; expects a good report; horror when the multiplicity realizes it is under attack through the soulmark.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“You never thought about it?” Emile sounded odd, as if he was trying to distract himself. “Are we not the same person?”\n\nEmily shrugged. “Yes and no,” she said. “We’re the same person who also happens to be very different, with different bodies and different lives.”\n\n“So we’re not the same, but we are the same,” Emile said. “You could get a good flame war going on the internet with that sort of argument.”\n\n“I suppose,” Emily said. She’d never much cared for flame wars. “Are you ready?”\n\nEmile hesitated, visibly. “Are you sure this is the only way to proceed?”\n\n“You saw my memories,” Emily said. “Do you see any other choice?”\n\nHe said nothing for a long moment, but his face told the whole story. He’d been kicked so many times, literally and metaphorically, that he was almost pathetically loyal to the handful of people who’d been nice to him. Never mind that they were murderous cultists, never mind that they were climbing up a ladder that led to death and a permanent afterlife as part of Master Wolfe’s multiplicity, never mind that they’d only sought to use him … they’d been good to him, really they had, and the thought of betraying them felt wrong. She supposed it was why so many people clung to toxic friends and bad influences even after it was clear they were nothing but; it felt wrong to betray them. And yet, what choice did they have? Everything was at stake.\n\n“No,” he admitted, finally. “But after this is done, you take me to your world.”\n\n“If I can, I will,” Emily said. God only knew how she was going to explain it. Emile could be her brother, perhaps. They were certainly related. “But first we have to catch a mimic.”\n\nShe looked around the chamber thoughtfully, considering their next move. The chamber was vast, so immense in size the walls were lost in the shadows. It was much bigger on the inside … she reached out gingerly with her mind, expecting to feel the same spells she’d used to create pocket dimensions, and instead felt something boiling through space-time, something so horrific she couldn’t even look at it for more than a second without feeling sick. The entire multiverse was screaming in pain, a keening sound made up of hundreds of millions of voices blurred together into a single terrifying howl. She shut her mind as best she could, yet the sound still battered against her defences. It was …\n\n### NOTES\nInterior of the Inverse Shadow; Master Wolfe can materialize inside.\nSoulmark link from Emile into the mimic becomes a liability under attack.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmile grabs her shoulder as reality tumors swallow timelines; she says time is running out. Master Wolfe appears inside — wrong place, wrong confidence — jovial red-bearded warmth that still means This had better be good. Emile confesses the structure is a multiverse gateway; Emily checks her strike and hits the core of his being.\n\nThe multiplicity recoils in horror; Master Wolfe tastes the soulmark link to Emile and thinks traitor — and the scene lands on that accusation.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Trap springing; keep Emile’s cringe and the mimic’s horror sharp. Land on traitor.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emile caught her shoulder. His touch shocked her. “What happened?”\n\n“Time is running out,” Emily said. Reality was bubbling into cancer, great tumours growing into monstrous fragments of warped nightmares. She could sense entire timelines being swallowed, their inhabitants consumed in a split second that lasted forever. The sheer scale of the disaster was the only thing that kept her from panicking, and only then because she simply couldn’t wrap her mind around it. “We have to move.”\n\nEmile nodded and stepped back. “I’m ready.”\n\nEmily took a breath, then wrapped a simple concealment charm around herself. She had no idea how Master Wolfe saw the world, but she doubted he had anything beyond the normal human senses. He’d need to keep his mind from dissolving into the mimic and that meant convincing himself he was still human, telling himself a lie he knew to be a lie. She had a nasty feeling he would have made a nightmarish necromancer, if he’d experimented with such magics before it was too late. He was self-centred enough to remain focused, even as the madness threatened to take his mind. And now … if she was right, he shouldn’t see her behind the charm. She’d tuned it to conceal herself from human eyes.\n\nEmile stared at her for a long moment, then muttered a handful of ancient words just loudly enough to be heard. Emily saw the soulmark spiralling through him, a shadow that permeated every cell of his body and yet … it was like two things were occupying the same space, yet kept apart by a force she couldn’t quite understand. She suspected she knew, now, why no one had ever removed the soulmark. Any attempt to try would likely snap it back into the normal world, causing an explosion powerful enough to obliterate every trace of the Hierarchy’s involvement.\n\nBut there was no explosion when some Hierarchists died, Emily recalled. Why not …?\n\nThe air rippled. Master Wolfe was suddenly standing there … Emily saw Emile jump, and cringe, and winced inwardly. They’d expected him to appear outside the Inverse Shadow and walk in … the fact he’d materialised inside the structure suggested worrying things about his skill, and his understanding of how space-time was warped and twisted by the alien structure. Emily would never have dared risk teleporting anywhere near the artefact. There was no way to tell where, and when, she’d appear.\n\n“Emile,” Master Wolfe said. He looked different here, his face more akin to King Randor’s than the face she knew. A larger-than-life jovial fellow, with a bright red beard and a smile that should have been unpleasant and yet somehow managed to be warm and welcoming. He reminded her again of Gaston, someone who would happily sing a song about his own wonderfulness and yet be willing to do whatever it took to get whatever he wanted. “It’s been some little while. What do you have for me?”\n\nEmily shivered. She could hear the unspoken words very clearly. This had better be good.\n\n“I found out the truth,” Emile said. “This structure is a gateway into the multiverse.”\n\n“Is it now?” Master Wolfe sounded unimpressed. “And is it a gateway we can use?”\n\n“It should be,” Emile said. Emily could see sweat on his brow. He wasn’t good at stalling. “It’s just …”\n\n“And what are you hiding from me?” Master Wolfe’s voice was suddenly sharp. He took a step forward and Emile stepped back. “Did you bring me here to tell me something I already know?”\n\nHis magic billowed on the air, an unmistakable threat. Emile took another step back. Emily gritted her teeth and reached out through the bloodlink, sending her thoughts through the soulmark and into the soulless creature that had created it. Master Wolfe’s multiplicity surrounded her as she slipped into his mind, hastily rewriting chunks of his spellware to hide her presence as she hacked her way through his outer layers. A hundred memories assaulted her mind, the thoughts and feelings of Hierarchists who had climbed to the top only to discover it was a trap; she ignored them as best she could, pushing onwards to target the vital parts of his structure and take control. This time, it would be different. He could not have prepared for someone who had dissected an alternate version of himself. How could he?\n\n“You were put here to study the Inverse Shadow,” Master Wolfe said, to Emile. Emily could taste his fear and resentment and helpless anger pervading the link, the old belief that standing up to an abuser would only make things worse poisoning his mind. “You called me here. Do you not have anything for me?”\n\nYou need better friends, Emily thought. She felt a wave of pity, mingled with something she didn’t care to look at too closely. You really do.\n\nShe allowed herself a moment to check everything, then struck at the core of his being. The recoil shocked the whole multiplicity, horror rushing through the whole network as the controlling mind realised it was under attack. Worse … the attacker was targeting everything perfectly, as if it were running down a checklist. Emily might as well have brought a cheat sheet to the battlefield, knowing in advance where the enemy’s forces were lurking and targeting them accordingly. She kept pushing, trying to hack away at the core of his being before he managed to counterattack. She liked playing chess, but she doubted she could best a grandmaster ... she dared not give him a moment to catch his breath. He knew his own mind too well.\n\nTreason, Master Wolfe thought. He could sense the mental link to Emile now. The soulmark was tied directly to the mimic, something that was now a colossal liability. You traitor …\n", "completion": "Emile caught her shoulder. His touch shocked her. “What happened?”\n\n“Time is running out,” Emily said. Reality was bubbling into cancer, great tumours growing into monstrous fragments of warped nightmares. She could sense entire timelines being swallowed, their inhabitants consumed in a split second that lasted forever. The sheer scale of the disaster was the only thing that kept her from panicking, and only then because she simply couldn’t wrap her mind around it. “We have to move.”\n\nEmile nodded and stepped back. “I’m ready.”\n\nEmily took a breath, then wrapped a simple concealment charm around herself. She had no idea how Master Wolfe saw the world, but she doubted he had anything beyond the normal human senses. He’d need to keep his mind from dissolving into the mimic and that meant convincing himself he was still human, telling himself a lie he knew to be a lie. She had a nasty feeling he would have made a nightmarish necromancer, if he’d experimented with such magics before it was too late. He was self-centred enough to remain focused, even as the madness threatened to take his mind. And now … if she was right, he shouldn’t see her behind the charm. She’d tuned it to conceal herself from human eyes.\n\nEmile stared at her for a long moment, then muttered a handful of ancient words just loudly enough to be heard. Emily saw the soulmark spiralling through him, a shadow that permeated every cell of his body and yet … it was like two things were occupying the same space, yet kept apart by a force she couldn’t quite understand. She suspected she knew, now, why no one had ever removed the soulmark. Any attempt to try would likely snap it back into the normal world, causing an explosion powerful enough to obliterate every trace of the Hierarchy’s involvement.\n\nBut there was no explosion when some Hierarchists died, Emily recalled. Why not …?\n\nThe air rippled. Master Wolfe was suddenly standing there … Emily saw Emile jump, and cringe, and winced inwardly. They’d expected him to appear outside the Inverse Shadow and walk in … the fact he’d materialised inside the structure suggested worrying things about his skill, and his understanding of how space-time was warped and twisted by the alien structure. Emily would never have dared risk teleporting anywhere near the artefact. There was no way to tell where, and when, she’d appear.\n\n“Emile,” Master Wolfe said. He looked different here, his face more akin to King Randor’s than the face she knew. A larger-than-life jovial fellow, with a bright red beard and a smile that should have been unpleasant and yet somehow managed to be warm and welcoming. He reminded her again of Gaston, someone who would happily sing a song about his own wonderfulness and yet be willing to do whatever it took to get whatever he wanted. “It’s been some little while. What do you have for me?”\n\nEmily shivered. She could hear the unspoken words very clearly. This had better be good.\n\n“I found out the truth,” Emile said. “This structure is a gateway into the multiverse.”\n\n“Is it now?” Master Wolfe sounded unimpressed. “And is it a gateway we can use?”\n\n“It should be,” Emile said. Emily could see sweat on his brow. He wasn’t good at stalling. “It’s just …”\n\n“And what are you hiding from me?” Master Wolfe’s voice was suddenly sharp. He took a step forward and Emile stepped back. “Did you bring me here to tell me something I already know?”\n\nHis magic billowed on the air, an unmistakable threat. Emile took another step back. Emily gritted her teeth and reached out through the bloodlink, sending her thoughts through the soulmark and into the soulless creature that had created it. Master Wolfe’s multiplicity surrounded her as she slipped into his mind, hastily rewriting chunks of his spellware to hide her presence as she hacked her way through his outer layers. A hundred memories assaulted her mind, the thoughts and feelings of Hierarchists who had climbed to the top only to discover it was a trap; she ignored them as best she could, pushing onwards to target the vital parts of his structure and take control. This time, it would be different. He could not have prepared for someone who had dissected an alternate version of himself. How could he?\n\n“You were put here to study the Inverse Shadow,” Master Wolfe said, to Emile. Emily could taste his fear and resentment and helpless anger pervading the link, the old belief that standing up to an abuser would only make things worse poisoning his mind. “You called me here. Do you not have anything for me?”\n\nYou need better friends, Emily thought. She felt a wave of pity, mingled with something she didn’t care to look at too closely. You really do.\n\nShe allowed herself a moment to check everything, then struck at the core of his being. The recoil shocked the whole multiplicity, horror rushing through the whole network as the controlling mind realised it was under attack. Worse … the attacker was targeting everything perfectly, as if it were running down a checklist. Emily might as well have brought a cheat sheet to the battlefield, knowing in advance where the enemy’s forces were lurking and targeting them accordingly. She kept pushing, trying to hack away at the core of his being before he managed to counterattack. She liked playing chess, but she doubted she could best a grandmaster ... she dared not give him a moment to catch his breath. He knew his own mind too well.\n\nTreason, Master Wolfe thought. He could sense the mental link to Emile now. The soulmark was tied directly to the mimic, something that was now a colossal liability. You traitor …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 982, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch35-P3", "chapter": "ch35", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nEmile — capitalized.\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nGrandmaster — capitalized as title/name.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\nmimic — lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nInside the Inverse Shadow Emily strikes Master Wolfe through Emile’s soulmark; the multiplicity freezes on the thought of traitor as she takes the mimic down into a doll-form.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nHolding a doll-form Master Wolfe mimic after freezing him. Tired from wakefulness spells; planning a nexus point at Whitehall; willing to sneak and plead to the Grandmaster if caught.\n\nEmile\nSurprised it was easy; doubtful about the Grandmaster; carrying learned helplessness Emily refuses to indulge.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nFrozen and reshaped into a doll-like form in Emily’s hands.\n\nGrandmaster\nReferenced; Emile’s poor standing with him versus Emily’s history.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“And what are you hiding from me?” Master Wolfe’s voice was suddenly sharp. He took a step forward and Emile stepped back. “Did you bring me here to tell me something I already know?”\n\nHis magic billowed on the air, an unmistakable threat. Emile took another step back. Emily gritted her teeth and reached out through the bloodlink, sending her thoughts through the soulmark and into the soulless creature that had created it. Master Wolfe’s multiplicity surrounded her as she slipped into his mind, hastily rewriting chunks of his spellware to hide her presence as she hacked her way through his outer layers. A hundred memories assaulted her mind, the thoughts and feelings of Hierarchists who had climbed to the top only to discover it was a trap; she ignored them as best she could, pushing onwards to target the vital parts of his structure and take control. This time, it would be different. He could not have prepared for someone who had dissected an alternate version of himself. How could he?\n\n“You were put here to study the Inverse Shadow,” Master Wolfe said, to Emile. Emily could taste his fear and resentment and helpless anger pervading the link, the old belief that standing up to an abuser would only make things worse poisoning his mind. “You called me here. Do you not have anything for me?”\n\nYou need better friends, Emily thought. She felt a wave of pity, mingled with something she didn’t care to look at too closely. You really do.\n\nShe allowed herself a moment to check everything, then struck at the core of his being. The recoil shocked the whole multiplicity, horror rushing through the whole network as the controlling mind realised it was under attack. Worse … the attacker was targeting everything perfectly, as if it were running down a checklist. Emily might as well have brought a cheat sheet to the battlefield, knowing in advance where the enemy’s forces were lurking and targeting them accordingly. She kept pushing, trying to hack away at the core of his being before he managed to counterattack. She liked playing chess, but she doubted she could best a grandmaster ... she dared not give him a moment to catch his breath. He knew his own mind too well.\n\nTreason, Master Wolfe thought. He could sense the mental link to Emile now. The soulmark was tied directly to the mimic, something that was now a colossal liability. You traitor …\n\n### NOTES\nPost-capture in the Inverse Shadow chamber.\nNext destination implied: Whitehall and its nexus point.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe freezes the mimic, reshapes Master Wolfe into a doll, and examines him while Emile calls it surprisingly easy. She says they need a nexus point and asks how he stands with the Grandmaster; his answer is bad enough that sneaking into Whitehall is the plan, with a plea if they are caught. Wakefulness debt presses; time is still running out. She tells him to come on — let’s go — and the scene lands on departure.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Aftermath planning; keep fatigue under the resolve. Land on Let’s go.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily froze him. The mimic stopped, his thoughts frozen in a single moment of time. Emily let out a breath as she reshaped the mimic, forcing Master Wolfe into a doll-like form. She picked him up, examined him carefully, and placed him in her pocket. The mimic was the key to hacking the godform itself, if she was right. She should be. Master Wolfe and his counterpart were, at a very basic level, the same person. Necromancer Emily had used her blood to get into Heart’s Eye. Why could she not do the same?\n\n“That was surprisingly easy,” Emile said. He brushed down his outfit, his eyes shadowed. “I thought he was the most powerful magician in the world.”\n\n“I cheated,” Emily said. If it had come down to a straight fight, she suspected they’d have lost decisively. Here … she had an unfair advantage, one she’d weaponised ruthlessly. “He had no way to know I knew what he was, or how best to take control of him.”\n\nA flash of guilt ran through her. She had practically killed him, along with the hundreds of minds he’d absorbed into his multiplicity. They would have to be released when she was done, the souls going onwards to … to wherever they were going. She wondered, numbly, if they were souls, if Master Wolfe was keeping them from their final destination, or if they were just copies, no more alive than a portrait of a man. She feared she’d never know.\n\n“You’re astonishing,” Emile said. “Why can’t I do that?”\n\n“Because you lack confidence in yourself,” Emily said. “You’re pretty astonishing too. You just don’t believe it.”\n\nEmile snorted. “If I’m so astonishing, why don’t I kick butt all the time? Why do I get pushed around by people who are so dumb they can’t count past twenty without taking off their pants?”\n\n“Because you don’t have the confidence to stand up to them,” Emily said. “You have the power. You’re just held back by your own mindset.”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly. There were horror stories about people who used compulsion spells on themselves, to make themselves braver and more willing to do things they would normally be unable or unwilling to do. They rarely ended well. One girl with power had made herself willing to use that power to hit back at her tormentors, only to turn herself into a bully that made her bullies look harmless. Emily suspected she knew what had gone wrong, in most cases, but she wasn’t inclined to experiment. Casting spells on yourself was always dangerous, because it was impossible to separate the spell from your own magical signature. The idiot had removed all sense of moral clarity, as well as restraint.\n\nEmile snorted. “You make it sound so easy.”\n\nEmily straightened up, then looked around the Inverse Shadow. She’d intended to use it as a gateway back onto the threadlines, but she was starting to suspect that was no longer possible. The multiverse was going crazy, a sound she thought only she could hear tearing through reality and battering at her mind. Emile looked disturbed … could he hear it too? Or was she mistaken?\n\n“We need a nexus point,” she said. The mirrors alone wouldn’t be enough, not now. “How do you get on with the Grandmaster?”\n\n“He never liked me,” Emile said. “He was just … ugh.”\n\n“I imagine so,” Emily said. It was hard to believe, but … she shook her head. The Grandmaster would have little patience for learned helplessness. “We’ll just have to sneak into Whitehall then.”\n\n“You make it sound easy,” Emile said. “If we’re caught …”\n\n“If we’re caught, we’ll plead our case to the Grandmaster,” Emily said. Her Grandmaster would have helped, but he knew her. Emile had been a contemptible little prat who had never even tried to stand up for himself, by contrast, and it was a minor surprise he’d managed to last the full six years at Whitehall. “He’ll listen to us.”\n\nEmile made a rude noise. “I doubt it,” he said. “He never listened to me.”\n\nEmily countered to ten under her breath. His attitude would have been bad enough at the best of times, but coming from an alternate version of herself … it was galling to know he could have been her, if things were different. If she’d been like him …\n\n“You recall that movie we watched” – she wondered, suddenly, if he had watched it – “about the tabloid reporter who hit the big time, but managed to lose friends and alienate people through being himself?”\n\n“I always loathed his fucking confidence,” Emile said. “He could be a right asshole and everyone still loved him.”\n\n“The movie argued otherwise,” Emily pointed out. “Thing is, halfway through the movie the boss points out that he’s hit the big time, even though he doesn’t really believe it. He’s no longer the gadfly reporter, bitter at being excluded from the bright lights; he’s in with the in crowd now, one of the people at the top. He doesn’t have to be the caustic resentful critic any longer. He has arrived.”\n\n“But he won’t stay there forever,” Emile said. “What’s your point?”\n\n“We’re the same person,” Emily said. “I know you were weak and helpless because I was weak and helpless. I know you were victimised because I was victimised. You complain about girls not paying attention to you; I nearly got raped! But those days are over. You have power now. How you use it is up to you.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emile said. “But it’s hard …”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. Emile had been beaten down so often it was hard for him to think it could possibly be otherwise. “But nothing worth doing is easy.”\n\nShe smiled, rather tiredly. How long had it been since she’d slept? Hours? Days? She was going to pay for using wakefulness spells, sooner rather than later, when it all caught up with her. But they were running out of time.\n\n“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”\n", "completion": "Emily froze him. The mimic stopped, his thoughts frozen in a single moment of time. Emily let out a breath as she reshaped the mimic, forcing Master Wolfe into a doll-like form. She picked him up, examined him carefully, and placed him in her pocket. The mimic was the key to hacking the godform itself, if she was right. She should be. Master Wolfe and his counterpart were, at a very basic level, the same person. Necromancer Emily had used her blood to get into Heart’s Eye. Why could she not do the same?\n\n“That was surprisingly easy,” Emile said. He brushed down his outfit, his eyes shadowed. “I thought he was the most powerful magician in the world.”\n\n“I cheated,” Emily said. If it had come down to a straight fight, she suspected they’d have lost decisively. Here … she had an unfair advantage, one she’d weaponised ruthlessly. “He had no way to know I knew what he was, or how best to take control of him.”\n\nA flash of guilt ran through her. She had practically killed him, along with the hundreds of minds he’d absorbed into his multiplicity. They would have to be released when she was done, the souls going onwards to … to wherever they were going. She wondered, numbly, if they were souls, if Master Wolfe was keeping them from their final destination, or if they were just copies, no more alive than a portrait of a man. She feared she’d never know.\n\n“You’re astonishing,” Emile said. “Why can’t I do that?”\n\n“Because you lack confidence in yourself,” Emily said. “You’re pretty astonishing too. You just don’t believe it.”\n\nEmile snorted. “If I’m so astonishing, why don’t I kick butt all the time? Why do I get pushed around by people who are so dumb they can’t count past twenty without taking off their pants?”\n\n“Because you don’t have the confidence to stand up to them,” Emily said. “You have the power. You’re just held back by your own mindset.”\n\nShe sighed, inwardly. There were horror stories about people who used compulsion spells on themselves, to make themselves braver and more willing to do things they would normally be unable or unwilling to do. They rarely ended well. One girl with power had made herself willing to use that power to hit back at her tormentors, only to turn herself into a bully that made her bullies look harmless. Emily suspected she knew what had gone wrong, in most cases, but she wasn’t inclined to experiment. Casting spells on yourself was always dangerous, because it was impossible to separate the spell from your own magical signature. The idiot had removed all sense of moral clarity, as well as restraint.\n\nEmile snorted. “You make it sound so easy.”\n\nEmily straightened up, then looked around the Inverse Shadow. She’d intended to use it as a gateway back onto the threadlines, but she was starting to suspect that was no longer possible. The multiverse was going crazy, a sound she thought only she could hear tearing through reality and battering at her mind. Emile looked disturbed … could he hear it too? Or was she mistaken?\n\n“We need a nexus point,” she said. The mirrors alone wouldn’t be enough, not now. “How do you get on with the Grandmaster?”\n\n“He never liked me,” Emile said. “He was just … ugh.”\n\n“I imagine so,” Emily said. It was hard to believe, but … she shook her head. The Grandmaster would have little patience for learned helplessness. “We’ll just have to sneak into Whitehall then.”\n\n“You make it sound easy,” Emile said. “If we’re caught …”\n\n“If we’re caught, we’ll plead our case to the Grandmaster,” Emily said. Her Grandmaster would have helped, but he knew her. Emile had been a contemptible little prat who had never even tried to stand up for himself, by contrast, and it was a minor surprise he’d managed to last the full six years at Whitehall. “He’ll listen to us.”\n\nEmile made a rude noise. “I doubt it,” he said. “He never listened to me.”\n\nEmily countered to ten under her breath. His attitude would have been bad enough at the best of times, but coming from an alternate version of herself … it was galling to know he could have been her, if things were different. If she’d been like him …\n\n“You recall that movie we watched” – she wondered, suddenly, if he had watched it – “about the tabloid reporter who hit the big time, but managed to lose friends and alienate people through being himself?”\n\n“I always loathed his fucking confidence,” Emile said. “He could be a right asshole and everyone still loved him.”\n\n“The movie argued otherwise,” Emily pointed out. “Thing is, halfway through the movie the boss points out that he’s hit the big time, even though he doesn’t really believe it. He’s no longer the gadfly reporter, bitter at being excluded from the bright lights; he’s in with the in crowd now, one of the people at the top. He doesn’t have to be the caustic resentful critic any longer. He has arrived.”\n\n“But he won’t stay there forever,” Emile said. “What’s your point?”\n\n“We’re the same person,” Emily said. “I know you were weak and helpless because I was weak and helpless. I know you were victimised because I was victimised. You complain about girls not paying attention to you; I nearly got raped! But those days are over. You have power now. How you use it is up to you.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emile said. “But it’s hard …”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. Emile had been beaten down so often it was hard for him to think it could possibly be otherwise. “But nothing worth doing is easy.”\n\nShe smiled, rather tiredly. How long had it been since she’d slept? Hours? Days? She was going to pay for using wakefulness spells, sooner rather than later, when it all caught up with her. But they were running out of time.\n\n“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1037, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch36-P1", "chapter": "ch36", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nWhitehall — capitalized.\nEmile — capitalized.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\nLord Whitehall — both words capitalized in historical reference.\nMordor — capitalized; Emily’s wry comparison.\n\n### STORY\nEmily freezes Master Wolfe into a doll-mimic inside the Inverse Shadow and sets out with Emile to steal access to Whitehall’s nexus point despite his standing with the Grandmaster.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nApproaching Whitehall with Emile and the captured mimic. Knows the wards from helping build and repair them; wry about walking into Mordor; focused on the nexus point under a thousand years of changed history.\n\nEmile\nMuttering that nothing changed; hating figures from his Whitehall years; lonely and braced to be caught.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nEmily once helped Lord Whitehall with the school’s wards and nexus workings; Emile’s timeline diverged enough that he never shared that history and remains a despised failure in his own Whitehall’s eyes.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“If we’re caught, we’ll plead our case to the Grandmaster,” Emily said. Her Grandmaster would have helped, but he knew her. Emile had been a contemptible little prat who had never even tried to stand up for himself, by contrast, and it was a minor surprise he’d managed to last the full six years at Whitehall. “He’ll listen to us.”\n\nEmile made a rude noise. “I doubt it,” he said. “He never listened to me.”\n\nEmily countered to ten under her breath. His attitude would have been bad enough at the best of times, but coming from an alternate version of herself … it was galling to know he could have been her, if things were different. If she’d been like him …\n\n“You recall that movie we watched” – she wondered, suddenly, if he had watched it – “about the tabloid reporter who hit the big time, but managed to lose friends and alienate people through being himself?”\n\n“I always loathed his fucking confidence,” Emile said. “He could be a right asshole and everyone still loved him.”\n\n“The movie argued otherwise,” Emily pointed out. “Thing is, halfway through the movie the boss points out that he’s hit the big time, even though he doesn’t really believe it. He’s no longer the gadfly reporter, bitter at being excluded from the bright lights; he’s in with the in crowd now, one of the people at the top. He doesn’t have to be the caustic resentful critic any longer. He has arrived.”\n\n“But he won’t stay there forever,” Emile said. “What’s your point?”\n\n“We’re the same person,” Emily said. “I know you were weak and helpless because I was weak and helpless. I know you were victimised because I was victimised. You complain about girls not paying attention to you; I nearly got raped! But those days are over. You have power now. How you use it is up to you.”\n\n“I hope you’re right,” Emile said. “But it’s hard …”\n\n“Yes,” Emily said. Emile had been beaten down so often it was hard for him to think it could possibly be otherwise. “But nothing worth doing is easy.”\n\nShe smiled, rather tiredly. How long had it been since she’d slept? Hours? Days? She was going to pay for using wakefulness spells, sooner rather than later, when it all caught up with her. But they were running out of time.\n\n“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”\n\n### NOTES\nWhitehall fortress with an absurdly low boundary wall.\nWards report intruders to the Grandmaster unless recognized.\nNexus point accessible within; pocket dimensions nearby.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nEmile mutters that Whitehall has not changed; she eyes the low wall that is only a boundary marker and jokes they can walk into Mordor. She alters charms as she moves, trusting ward-work she helped build, while he curses old bastards under his breath. At the nexus she touches wards woven into a death stretched unto infinity; her head spins as pocket dimensions shift — and the scene lands on that vertigo.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Infiltration calm before the nexus hit; keep Emile’s bitterness sidelong. Land on nexus vertigo.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“It hasn’t changed a bit,” Emile muttered.\n\nEmily nodded as Whitehall rose in front of them, the towering fortress surrounded by an absurdly low wall. A child could clamber into the grounds, but … the wall was intended to serve as nothing more than a boundary marker, the true defences resting in the wards surrounding the school. She took a moment to study the grounds thoughtfully, noticing how many students were kicking balls around or practicing spells even as the sun started dropping towards the distant mountains. It was an eerie sight, although it took her a moment to realise why. It was Whitehall as she’d seen it the first time, when Void had sent her to school after rescuing her; there was no trace of the New Learning, let alone anything else she recalled from her own world. There were no familiar faces amongst the crowd either, no one she remembered from her last visit to the school. It shouldn’t have surprised her and yet it did.\n\n“No,” she agreed. “It hasn’t.”\n\nAnd yet it was wrong. There was a faint sense of something in the air, a nervous shimmer that bothered her at a very primal level. Here and there, a student would look up, eyes flickering from side to side as if they expected to be attacked at any moment, then look back down again as if nothing had happened at all. A couple of girls were crying, sobbing helplessly with no apparent cause. A fight broke out between two boys, a brief exchange of blows that ended with both lads staring at each other in confusion, as if they’d forgotten just why the fight had started in the first place. Emily feared it had something to do with the nightmare engulfing the multiverse, the students picking up on the nightmare even though they didn’t have the slightest idea what was happening. There was just no way to be sure.\n\n“This way,” she said, silently relieved the Grandmaster knew nothing of her here. The wards would be harder to hack if this Grandmaster had altered them, in the wake of successive invasions and occupations. “Don’t get too far from me.”\n\nEmile glanced at her. “You intend to just walk in?”\n\n“Pretty much.” Emily grinned, although there was little humour in it. “We can walk into Mordor.”\n\n“Hah.” Emile snorted. “And if we get caught …?”\n\nEmily walked forward, altering the charm around her as she moved. The wards were designed to recognise intruders and report them to the Grandmaster, or immobilise them if the intruders tried something dangerous, but she’d helped build and repair the wards. There was no way any of the staff could have predicted her, they certainly wouldn’t lock her out if they didn’t know she even existed … let alone that she had a key. The wards hummed in welcome, letting her pass without impediment. She breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the nearest door and stepped inside. No one paid any attention to them. Why should they? Anyone who was walking into the building was allowed to be there, or the wards would have kicked them out.\n\n“I hated him,” Emile muttered. “Bastard.”\n\nEmily followed his gaze and froze. Sergeant Harkin was supervising a team of younger students as they carried out an endless series of push-ups, somehow managing to watch them while doing push-ups himself. He was the same person she recalled, muscles clearly visible and an attitude that made it hard, almost impossible, for a magic student to realise his drill sergeant lacked magic himself. She’d liked him, trusted him … guilt roared through her, a grim reminder that she’d killed him. She’d had no choice, but …\n\nShe didn’t dare speak to him, not when he was far more perceptive than he looked. Instead, she led the way to a hidden passageway, then down into the nexus chamber. The wards were tighter here, odd to her eyes … it took her a moment to realise they’d been altered in a manner that surprised her. Shadye had posed a very different threat in this world. She would have had trouble if she hadn’t had her link to the wards, she noted coldly. The magician who’d altered them was a stranger.\n\n“I got caned for trying to get in here without permission,” Emile said. “And you just walk in.”\n\nEmily barely heard him. The nexus point was throbbing oddly, the white luminance that normally filled the chamber darkening to a reddish glow that was disturbingly reminiscent of blood. She couldn’t believe the Grandmaster hadn’t noticed something was wrong … he was native to this world, of course, which might make it harder to notice something from outside the established order. The wolf had seemed invisible to the natives of the timelines it had destroyed, even as it tore their worlds apart. It was so far outside their context they simply couldn’t see it.\n\nThe multiverse is dying, she thought. She wondered how long it took bacteria or a threadworm to die after the host body died. For all she knew, the multiverse was already dead and they were just amongst the last to die. The nexus points are affected too.\n\n“Get the mirror set up,” she ordered. “Let me organise the spells.”\n\n“Got it,” Emile said.\n\nEmily cursed under her breath as she reached out with her mind, touching the wards woven into the nexus point. A thousand years had passed since she’d helped Lord Whitehall … Emile hadn’t gone back in time himself, according to his memories, which raised a somewhat paradoxical question. Had the timeline split to allow for all the alternate versions of her, even if only one had gone back in time? It was the only answer that made sense and yet there was something about it that nagged at her. The timeline couldn’t be that malleable, could it?\n\nThe nexus point thrummed against her, a dull sense of a death stretched out unto infinity pressing against her mind. Her head spun, the pocket dimensions shifting oddly … for a moment, she thought she was trapped in a stone tunnel, unable to crawl forwards or back. People had died like that … she could feel it, a potential reality on the verge of becoming reality. A trap, aimed at her? Or a random flicker that would be utterly disastrous if it swept over her? She didn’t know.\n", "completion": "“It hasn’t changed a bit,” Emile muttered.\n\nEmily nodded as Whitehall rose in front of them, the towering fortress surrounded by an absurdly low wall. A child could clamber into the grounds, but … the wall was intended to serve as nothing more than a boundary marker, the true defences resting in the wards surrounding the school. She took a moment to study the grounds thoughtfully, noticing how many students were kicking balls around or practicing spells even as the sun started dropping towards the distant mountains. It was an eerie sight, although it took her a moment to realise why. It was Whitehall as she’d seen it the first time, when Void had sent her to school after rescuing her; there was no trace of the New Learning, let alone anything else she recalled from her own world. There were no familiar faces amongst the crowd either, no one she remembered from her last visit to the school. It shouldn’t have surprised her and yet it did.\n\n“No,” she agreed. “It hasn’t.”\n\nAnd yet it was wrong. There was a faint sense of something in the air, a nervous shimmer that bothered her at a very primal level. Here and there, a student would look up, eyes flickering from side to side as if they expected to be attacked at any moment, then look back down again as if nothing had happened at all. A couple of girls were crying, sobbing helplessly with no apparent cause. A fight broke out between two boys, a brief exchange of blows that ended with both lads staring at each other in confusion, as if they’d forgotten just why the fight had started in the first place. Emily feared it had something to do with the nightmare engulfing the multiverse, the students picking up on the nightmare even though they didn’t have the slightest idea what was happening. There was just no way to be sure.\n\n“This way,” she said, silently relieved the Grandmaster knew nothing of her here. The wards would be harder to hack if this Grandmaster had altered them, in the wake of successive invasions and occupations. “Don’t get too far from me.”\n\nEmile glanced at her. “You intend to just walk in?”\n\n“Pretty much.” Emily grinned, although there was little humour in it. “We can walk into Mordor.”\n\n“Hah.” Emile snorted. “And if we get caught …?”\n\nEmily walked forward, altering the charm around her as she moved. The wards were designed to recognise intruders and report them to the Grandmaster, or immobilise them if the intruders tried something dangerous, but she’d helped build and repair the wards. There was no way any of the staff could have predicted her, they certainly wouldn’t lock her out if they didn’t know she even existed … let alone that she had a key. The wards hummed in welcome, letting her pass without impediment. She breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the nearest door and stepped inside. No one paid any attention to them. Why should they? Anyone who was walking into the building was allowed to be there, or the wards would have kicked them out.\n\n“I hated him,” Emile muttered. “Bastard.”\n\nEmily followed his gaze and froze. Sergeant Harkin was supervising a team of younger students as they carried out an endless series of push-ups, somehow managing to watch them while doing push-ups himself. He was the same person she recalled, muscles clearly visible and an attitude that made it hard, almost impossible, for a magic student to realise his drill sergeant lacked magic himself. She’d liked him, trusted him … guilt roared through her, a grim reminder that she’d killed him. She’d had no choice, but …\n\nShe didn’t dare speak to him, not when he was far more perceptive than he looked. Instead, she led the way to a hidden passageway, then down into the nexus chamber. The wards were tighter here, odd to her eyes … it took her a moment to realise they’d been altered in a manner that surprised her. Shadye had posed a very different threat in this world. She would have had trouble if she hadn’t had her link to the wards, she noted coldly. The magician who’d altered them was a stranger.\n\n“I got caned for trying to get in here without permission,” Emile said. “And you just walk in.”\n\nEmily barely heard him. The nexus point was throbbing oddly, the white luminance that normally filled the chamber darkening to a reddish glow that was disturbingly reminiscent of blood. She couldn’t believe the Grandmaster hadn’t noticed something was wrong … he was native to this world, of course, which might make it harder to notice something from outside the established order. The wolf had seemed invisible to the natives of the timelines it had destroyed, even as it tore their worlds apart. It was so far outside their context they simply couldn’t see it.\n\nThe multiverse is dying, she thought. She wondered how long it took bacteria or a threadworm to die after the host body died. For all she knew, the multiverse was already dead and they were just amongst the last to die. The nexus points are affected too.\n\n“Get the mirror set up,” she ordered. “Let me organise the spells.”\n\n“Got it,” Emile said.\n\nEmily cursed under her breath as she reached out with her mind, touching the wards woven into the nexus point. A thousand years had passed since she’d helped Lord Whitehall … Emile hadn’t gone back in time himself, according to his memories, which raised a somewhat paradoxical question. Had the timeline split to allow for all the alternate versions of her, even if only one had gone back in time? It was the only answer that made sense and yet there was something about it that nagged at her. The timeline couldn’t be that malleable, could it?\n\nThe nexus point thrummed against her, a dull sense of a death stretched out unto infinity pressing against her mind. Her head spun, the pocket dimensions shifting oddly … for a moment, she thought she was trapped in a stone tunnel, unable to crawl forwards or back. People had died like that … she could feel it, a potential reality on the verge of becoming reality. A trap, aimed at her? Or a random flicker that would be utterly disastrous if it swept over her? She didn’t know.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1088, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch36-P2", "chapter": "ch36", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nEmile — capitalized.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\nGrandmaster — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily and Emile infiltrate Whitehall; she works charms the old wards still recognize, reaches the nexus point, and nearly loses her footing as pocket dimensions spin her mind.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nAt the nexus with Emile and a summoned Necromancer Emily. Trying talk before violence; naming the dying multiverse; refusing to let the necromancer dismiss trillion-scale erasure.\n\nEmile\nStaring at Necromancer Emily with awe and fear.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nManifested through the mirror-work; screaming she never asked to be this; arguing the universe does not deserve to live.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe didn’t dare speak to him, not when he was far more perceptive than he looked. Instead, she led the way to a hidden passageway, then down into the nexus chamber. The wards were tighter here, odd to her eyes … it took her a moment to realise they’d been altered in a manner that surprised her. Shadye had posed a very different threat in this world. She would have had trouble if she hadn’t had her link to the wards, she noted coldly. The magician who’d altered them was a stranger.\n\n“I got caned for trying to get in here without permission,” Emile said. “And you just walk in.”\n\nEmily barely heard him. The nexus point was throbbing oddly, the white luminance that normally filled the chamber darkening to a reddish glow that was disturbingly reminiscent of blood. She couldn’t believe the Grandmaster hadn’t noticed something was wrong … he was native to this world, of course, which might make it harder to notice something from outside the established order. The wolf had seemed invisible to the natives of the timelines it had destroyed, even as it tore their worlds apart. It was so far outside their context they simply couldn’t see it.\n\nThe multiverse is dying, she thought. She wondered how long it took bacteria or a threadworm to die after the host body died. For all she knew, the multiverse was already dead and they were just amongst the last to die. The nexus points are affected too.\n\n“Get the mirror set up,” she ordered. “Let me organise the spells.”\n\n“Got it,” Emile said.\n\nEmily cursed under her breath as she reached out with her mind, touching the wards woven into the nexus point. A thousand years had passed since she’d helped Lord Whitehall … Emile hadn’t gone back in time himself, according to his memories, which raised a somewhat paradoxical question. Had the timeline split to allow for all the alternate versions of her, even if only one had gone back in time? It was the only answer that made sense and yet there was something about it that nagged at her. The timeline couldn’t be that malleable, could it?\n\nThe nexus point thrummed against her, a dull sense of a death stretched out unto infinity pressing against her mind. Her head spun, the pocket dimensions shifting oddly … for a moment, she thought she was trapped in a stone tunnel, unable to crawl forwards or back. People had died like that … she could feel it, a potential reality on the verge of becoming reality. A trap, aimed at her? Or a random flicker that would be utterly disastrous if it swept over her? She didn’t know.\n\n### NOTES\nMirror by the nexus entrance glowing with multidimensional magic.\nGrandmaster and others elsewhere in Whitehall; they do not hear the necromancer’s voice as Emily does.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe pulls back from the nexus, draws power, and the mirror work brings Necromancer Emily into reach. Emile feels special and lonely; Emily offers talk first. She names reality dying and timelines tearing; the necromancer would rather destroy the universe than be destroyed by it; Emily sharpens the stake — you die too, everything goes — until Necromancer Emily screams she never asked to be this. The scene lands on that scream.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Confrontation dialogue at the nexus; keep cosmic stakes concrete. Land on the necromancer’s scream.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She pulled back her mind and looked around. The mirror looked oddly out of place as it stood by the entrance, a simple frame glowing with multidimensional magic. Emily reached out and started to draw on the nexus point, feeding power into the spells surrounding the mirror. The glow grew brighter, her reflection shifting … she blinked as she saw a dozen different Emilys, all female. Emile appeared to be unique.\n\n“I guess that means I’m special,” Emile said. “Is that why I feel so lonely?”\n\nEmily shrugged. A slightly different conception would result in a very different person. If her parents had had sex an hour later, or earlier, would her mother have given birth to her? She would be different, perhaps too different to be the same person … Emile had beaten the odds to come into existence, she decided, when there was a strong preponderance towards a female birth. She kept that thought to herself. It wouldn’t make him feel any better.\n\n“Guess so,” she said. Nurse Emily was replaced by Doctor Emily, then Captain Emily and Lawyer Emily. A rotting corpse appeared in front of them and then vanished again … Dead Emily. “I always felt lonely too.”\n\n“You had friends,” Emile pointed out. “I …”\n\nHe broke off. Necromancer Emily was standing right in front of them. Emily sucked in her breath. Her dark counterpart had traded her normal outfit for black leather, cut to reveal far too much of her breasts for Emily’s peace of mind. Her hair seemed reddish now, as red as her eyes … they held Emily’s gaze, taunting her. Emily sucked in her breath. It was …\n\nThe mirror shattered as Necromancer Emily stepped into the chamber. Emily swore.\n\n“I am here to kill you,” Necromancer Emily said. Her words echoed with magic … and something beyond, something so powerful that merely speaking the words threatened to make them reality. Emily could feel the future narrowing down to a single outcome, all other options foreclosing themselves one by one. “This is the end.”\n\n“Jesus,” Emile said. “You’re real?”\n\nEmily held up her hands. “Can we talk first?”\n\n“You are wasting your time,” Necromancer Emily said, reality thudding with each word. “I know no mercy. I cannot be stopped.”\n\n“Then you have nothing to lose by talking,” Emily said. She glanced at Emile, who was staring at their counterpart with a mixture of awe and fear. “Why not talk first?”\n\nNecromancer Emily glared at her. “You think you can distract me …?”\n\n“Reality is dying,” Emily said, quietly. She could feel the pressure growing stronger, reality bending and bending until it finally tore. Things were scratching at the edges, threatening to break through and destroy everything. “This is the end of the multiverse.”\n\n“So?”\n\n“Countless billions, trillions …whatever comes after trillions … they’ll all die,” Emily pointed out. “They won’t even have existed at all. Doesn’t that bother you?”\n\n“Why should it?” Necromancer Emily leaned forward slightly, exposing her breasts. Emily heard Emile gulp beside her. “What did they ever care about me?”\n\n“So you’ll die too,” Emily said, sharply. There was no point in trying to convince a necromancer that mass murder on an impossible scale was wrong. Necromancer Emily might be saner than most, but she was still a necromancer. “Everything will go.”\n\n“I will go on,” Necromancer Emily said. “He promised me …”\n\n“Whatever he promised you is a lie,” Emily said. “He’s damaging reality itself. Entire timelines are being wiped out, dying in utter agony. There’s no guarantee he can reshape the universe and keep his word, even if he wants to. He could have condemned everything, including himself, to death!”\n\n“Who cares?” Necromancer Emily’s tone was light, but there was a wealth of pain hidden behind it. “What has the universe ever done for me?”\n\n“You’re alive,” Emile said.\n\n“And for what?” Necromancer Emily rounded on him. “A life of quiet desperation, then a taste of power … and utter madness. I can feel the red mist at the back of my mind, my thoughts burning with red fire … I can see myself doing evil things, from raping Jade’s mind to destroying whole cities to feed my power, and yet I cannot stop myself. I can’t even kill myself. If this is the end, then let it all end!”\n\nEmily frowned. Was this a different Necromancer Emily or … or what? There had to be hundreds of such alternates; was Master Wolfe summoning them one by one? Or was contact with her other selves doing more damage to the necromancer’s mind? Or …\n\n“I can help you,” she said. “We can deal with the madness. We can make you better.”\n\nHer counterpart laughed, harshly. “Do you know how many people I’ve killed? Do you think I want to be better? To come to terms with what I did?”\n\n“You could try,” Emily said, stubbornly.\n\n“I’m trying,” Emile said. “I …”\n\n“You pathetic little incel,” Necromancer Emily snarled. “Do you think she can keep her promises to you?”\n\nEmile flinched. “You …”\n\n“Look at you,” Necromancer Emily said. “Weak. Feeble. Unable to raise a hand to defend yourself … all the power in the universe at your fingertips, enough to enact revenge and rape fantasies that would shock Shadye and yet too terrified to carry them out. You fantasise about things you will never do, because you can’t bring yourself to do them.”\n\n“And you want to die,” Emily said, quickly.\n\n“I never asked to be this,” Necromancer Emily screamed. “I never asked …!”\n", "completion": "She pulled back her mind and looked around. The mirror looked oddly out of place as it stood by the entrance, a simple frame glowing with multidimensional magic. Emily reached out and started to draw on the nexus point, feeding power into the spells surrounding the mirror. The glow grew brighter, her reflection shifting … she blinked as she saw a dozen different Emilys, all female. Emile appeared to be unique.\n\n“I guess that means I’m special,” Emile said. “Is that why I feel so lonely?”\n\nEmily shrugged. A slightly different conception would result in a very different person. If her parents had had sex an hour later, or earlier, would her mother have given birth to her? She would be different, perhaps too different to be the same person … Emile had beaten the odds to come into existence, she decided, when there was a strong preponderance towards a female birth. She kept that thought to herself. It wouldn’t make him feel any better.\n\n“Guess so,” she said. Nurse Emily was replaced by Doctor Emily, then Captain Emily and Lawyer Emily. A rotting corpse appeared in front of them and then vanished again … Dead Emily. “I always felt lonely too.”\n\n“You had friends,” Emile pointed out. “I …”\n\nHe broke off. Necromancer Emily was standing right in front of them. Emily sucked in her breath. Her dark counterpart had traded her normal outfit for black leather, cut to reveal far too much of her breasts for Emily’s peace of mind. Her hair seemed reddish now, as red as her eyes … they held Emily’s gaze, taunting her. Emily sucked in her breath. It was …\n\nThe mirror shattered as Necromancer Emily stepped into the chamber. Emily swore.\n\n“I am here to kill you,” Necromancer Emily said. Her words echoed with magic … and something beyond, something so powerful that merely speaking the words threatened to make them reality. Emily could feel the future narrowing down to a single outcome, all other options foreclosing themselves one by one. “This is the end.”\n\n“Jesus,” Emile said. “You’re real?”\n\nEmily held up her hands. “Can we talk first?”\n\n“You are wasting your time,” Necromancer Emily said, reality thudding with each word. “I know no mercy. I cannot be stopped.”\n\n“Then you have nothing to lose by talking,” Emily said. She glanced at Emile, who was staring at their counterpart with a mixture of awe and fear. “Why not talk first?”\n\nNecromancer Emily glared at her. “You think you can distract me …?”\n\n“Reality is dying,” Emily said, quietly. She could feel the pressure growing stronger, reality bending and bending until it finally tore. Things were scratching at the edges, threatening to break through and destroy everything. “This is the end of the multiverse.”\n\n“So?”\n\n“Countless billions, trillions …whatever comes after trillions … they’ll all die,” Emily pointed out. “They won’t even have existed at all. Doesn’t that bother you?”\n\n“Why should it?” Necromancer Emily leaned forward slightly, exposing her breasts. Emily heard Emile gulp beside her. “What did they ever care about me?”\n\n“So you’ll die too,” Emily said, sharply. There was no point in trying to convince a necromancer that mass murder on an impossible scale was wrong. Necromancer Emily might be saner than most, but she was still a necromancer. “Everything will go.”\n\n“I will go on,” Necromancer Emily said. “He promised me …”\n\n“Whatever he promised you is a lie,” Emily said. “He’s damaging reality itself. Entire timelines are being wiped out, dying in utter agony. There’s no guarantee he can reshape the universe and keep his word, even if he wants to. He could have condemned everything, including himself, to death!”\n\n“Who cares?” Necromancer Emily’s tone was light, but there was a wealth of pain hidden behind it. “What has the universe ever done for me?”\n\n“You’re alive,” Emile said.\n\n“And for what?” Necromancer Emily rounded on him. “A life of quiet desperation, then a taste of power … and utter madness. I can feel the red mist at the back of my mind, my thoughts burning with red fire … I can see myself doing evil things, from raping Jade’s mind to destroying whole cities to feed my power, and yet I cannot stop myself. I can’t even kill myself. If this is the end, then let it all end!”\n\nEmily frowned. Was this a different Necromancer Emily or … or what? There had to be hundreds of such alternates; was Master Wolfe summoning them one by one? Or was contact with her other selves doing more damage to the necromancer’s mind? Or …\n\n“I can help you,” she said. “We can deal with the madness. We can make you better.”\n\nHer counterpart laughed, harshly. “Do you know how many people I’ve killed? Do you think I want to be better? To come to terms with what I did?”\n\n“You could try,” Emily said, stubbornly.\n\n“I’m trying,” Emile said. “I …”\n\n“You pathetic little incel,” Necromancer Emily snarled. “Do you think she can keep her promises to you?”\n\nEmile flinched. “You …”\n\n“Look at you,” Necromancer Emily said. “Weak. Feeble. Unable to raise a hand to defend yourself … all the power in the universe at your fingertips, enough to enact revenge and rape fantasies that would shock Shadye and yet too terrified to carry them out. You fantasise about things you will never do, because you can’t bring yourself to do them.”\n\n“And you want to die,” Emily said, quickly.\n\n“I never asked to be this,” Necromancer Emily screamed. “I never asked …!”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 929, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch36-P3", "chapter": "ch36", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nEmile — capitalized.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nAt Whitehall’s nexus Emily confronts Necromancer Emily about the dying multiverse and the cost of survival; the necromancer screams that she never asked to become the monster she is.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFighting Necromancer Emily with nexus power after Emile’s clever spells fail. Mourning Emile when he is reduced to ash; unable to keep her promise to him; stepping into the mirror anyway.\n\nEmile\nCasting too-complex battlefield spells; mocked; dies as ash after one brave act.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nShredding Emile’s spells, lecturing mid-fight, blasting Emily backward; voice screaming through reality.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“So you’ll die too,” Emily said, sharply. There was no point in trying to convince a necromancer that mass murder on an impossible scale was wrong. Necromancer Emily might be saner than most, but she was still a necromancer. “Everything will go.”\n\n“I will go on,” Necromancer Emily said. “He promised me …”\n\n“Whatever he promised you is a lie,” Emily said. “He’s damaging reality itself. Entire timelines are being wiped out, dying in utter agony. There’s no guarantee he can reshape the universe and keep his word, even if he wants to. He could have condemned everything, including himself, to death!”\n\n“Who cares?” Necromancer Emily’s tone was light, but there was a wealth of pain hidden behind it. “What has the universe ever done for me?”\n\n“You’re alive,” Emile said.\n\n“And for what?” Necromancer Emily rounded on him. “A life of quiet desperation, then a taste of power … and utter madness. I can feel the red mist at the back of my mind, my thoughts burning with red fire … I can see myself doing evil things, from raping Jade’s mind to destroying whole cities to feed my power, and yet I cannot stop myself. I can’t even kill myself. If this is the end, then let it all end!”\n\nEmily frowned. Was this a different Necromancer Emily or … or what? There had to be hundreds of such alternates; was Master Wolfe summoning them one by one? Or was contact with her other selves doing more damage to the necromancer’s mind? Or …\n\n“I can help you,” she said. “We can deal with the madness. We can make you better.”\n\nHer counterpart laughed, harshly. “Do you know how many people I’ve killed? Do you think I want to be better? To come to terms with what I did?”\n\n“You could try,” Emily said, stubbornly.\n\n“I’m trying,” Emile said. “I …”\n\n“You pathetic little incel,” Necromancer Emily snarled. “Do you think she can keep her promises to you?”\n\nEmile flinched. “You …”\n\n“Look at you,” Necromancer Emily said. “Weak. Feeble. Unable to raise a hand to defend yourself … all the power in the universe at your fingertips, enough to enact revenge and rape fantasies that would shock Shadye and yet too terrified to carry them out. You fantasise about things you will never do, because you can’t bring yourself to do them.”\n\n“And you want to die,” Emily said, quickly.\n\n“I never asked to be this,” Necromancer Emily screamed. “I never asked …!”\n\n### NOTES\nNexus-point battlefield inside Whitehall.\nDeparture mirror still active for Emily’s exit.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nNecromancer Emily’s blast throws her back; she catches herself on nexus power while the necromancer declares the universe unfit to live. Emile’s complex spells die to a look and a dismissive gesture; she mocks his lack of battlefield practice and even an undressing hex. His last brave act costs everything — ash — and Emily apologizes to a promise she can no longer keep.\n\nShe braces and steps up into the mirror. The scene lands on that crossing.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Brutal duel; let Emile’s death be quick and costly. Land on Emily entering the mirror.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Her power surged. Emily was blown backwards, her wards barely stopping the blast in time to save her life. The nexus point shimmered around her … Emily caught herself, barely, and drew on the near-unlimited power to halt her fall. There was a sense the power was suddenly very limited … Master Wolfe already knew how to punch his way into the nexus point source, so was he draining it to power himself? She didn’t know. Necromancer Emily screamed, her magic spiralling around her, as she slapped Emile across the chamber. Emily had to fight to deflect enough power to catch him. The nexus point was dying.\n\n“The universe doesn’t deserve to live,” Necromancer Emily said. Her voice screamed through reality. Emily couldn’t understand how the Grandmaster and the others couldn’t hear it. “I’ll destroy it myself to keep myself from existing!”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth and threw back an overpowered force punch, a spell too close to a necromancer tactic for her peace of mind. Necromancer Emily was blown back and slammed into the wall, unbreakable stone cracking under the sheer force of the impact, but she remained alive and seemingly unharmed. Her body was solid magic, kept alive by sheer force of personality … Emily knew, now, that Necromancer Emily was too far gone to be saved. She couldn’t kill herself because she was just too determined to live.\n\n“Pathetic,” Necromancer Emily said. “This is the end.”\n\n“Only for you,” Emily said. She tried to draw on the wards, to shape a pocket dimension around her enemy and crush her as she’d done to Shadye, but there just wasn’t enough power left. The universe was dying and … “You have to listen to me. Please.”\n\n“No.” Necromancer Emily strode forward, her body flickering between dimensions. Emily could see the magic – it was too rough and ready to be called spellware – surrounding her. If she were harmed, she could heal herself instantly. “This is the end.”\n\nEmile cast a complex spell. It was powerful and cunning and … too complex for a battlefield. Necromancer Emily shredded it with a look, her power snapping out to tear it to pieces, then made a dismissive gesture. Emile cast a second spell, just as complex; Necromancer Emily pointed one finger at him and launched a bolt of sizzling energy that plunged deep into his protections. Emily gathered herself and blasted the necromancer with all the force she could muster. Necromancer Emily staggered, then stood upright. She was unharmed.\n\n“Not enough practice in fighting, clearly,” she mocked. She was looking at Emily, but her words were aimed at Emile. “Don’t try to be clever on the battlefield. Go for the simple tricks instead. They work better.”\n\n“You’re lecturing me on the battlefield?” Emile glowered at her back. “Really?”\n\n“You’re not capable of learning from me,” Necromancer Emily said. “From anyone with breasts really. Or anyone at all.” She sniggered, then deflected Emile’s third spell without looking. “An undressing hex? Really?”\n\nEmily braced herself, then shoved her mind forward. The necromancer’s mind might be on fire, and touching it was agony, but there was no other way to win. Memories bombarded her once again, images of horror unleashed by a maddened soul lost to fire and self-pity; she ignored them as she tried to tear through her counterpart’s mind, ripping her to shreds. The necromancer howled in pain, then fought back with bursts of fire and fury. The emotions tore at Emily’s mind, driving her back. It was all she could do to remain standing as she was shoved out of her counterpart’s mind.\n\n“I told you,” Necromancer Emily said. Her voice was very flat. “It ends here.”\n\n“Yes.” Emile came up behind Necromancer Emily’s back and wrapped his arms around her. “It does.”\n\nHe muttered a spell. Emily barely had a second to realise what he was doing before the world exploded into white fire. Emile was using his own soul to power the spell, risking his life … no, sacrificing his life, to take out the maddened necromancer. Emily hadn’t thought it would work and yet … she swallowed, hard, as she realised what Emile had done. He was the same person as his enemy, and he’d set fire to her soul as well as his own. The fire burned brighter, the stench of burning flesh assailing her nose, before dying away. The bodies crumbled into ash …\n\nEmily felt sick, but there was no time. The nexus point was fading fast and that meant she had to hurry. She dared not assume the other nexus points were in any better state, even if she could get to them. She had to trust to luck … she muttered a spell to reassemble the mirror and breathed a sigh of relief as it worked, the mirror glowing with white light as it reformed itself. There were plenty of other mirrors in the school, but none prepared for interdimensional travel. She wasn’t sure she had time to find one and make it work.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment, scanning with the wards. The school was in chaos, fights breaking out everywhere and ending as quickly and inexplicably as they’d come. The Grandmaster and his staff were trying to restore order, but … half seemed to be affected themselves and the remainder were just sitting still, as if they could no longer summon the motivation to care. She feared it was just the same outside the school, the madness spreading further than she could imagine. It was just a matter of time until the entire universe collapsed into nothingness.\n\n“I’m sorry,” she muttered. Emile was just ash now. He'd done one brave thing in his entire life and it had cost him everything. She wouldn’t be able to keep her promise now. He’d deserved a chance and … he’d died. What else mattered? He was dead. “I won’t forget you.”\n\nBracing herself, she stepped up and into the mirror.\n", "completion": "Her power surged. Emily was blown backwards, her wards barely stopping the blast in time to save her life. The nexus point shimmered around her … Emily caught herself, barely, and drew on the near-unlimited power to halt her fall. There was a sense the power was suddenly very limited … Master Wolfe already knew how to punch his way into the nexus point source, so was he draining it to power himself? She didn’t know. Necromancer Emily screamed, her magic spiralling around her, as she slapped Emile across the chamber. Emily had to fight to deflect enough power to catch him. The nexus point was dying.\n\n“The universe doesn’t deserve to live,” Necromancer Emily said. Her voice screamed through reality. Emily couldn’t understand how the Grandmaster and the others couldn’t hear it. “I’ll destroy it myself to keep myself from existing!”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth and threw back an overpowered force punch, a spell too close to a necromancer tactic for her peace of mind. Necromancer Emily was blown back and slammed into the wall, unbreakable stone cracking under the sheer force of the impact, but she remained alive and seemingly unharmed. Her body was solid magic, kept alive by sheer force of personality … Emily knew, now, that Necromancer Emily was too far gone to be saved. She couldn’t kill herself because she was just too determined to live.\n\n“Pathetic,” Necromancer Emily said. “This is the end.”\n\n“Only for you,” Emily said. She tried to draw on the wards, to shape a pocket dimension around her enemy and crush her as she’d done to Shadye, but there just wasn’t enough power left. The universe was dying and … “You have to listen to me. Please.”\n\n“No.” Necromancer Emily strode forward, her body flickering between dimensions. Emily could see the magic – it was too rough and ready to be called spellware – surrounding her. If she were harmed, she could heal herself instantly. “This is the end.”\n\nEmile cast a complex spell. It was powerful and cunning and … too complex for a battlefield. Necromancer Emily shredded it with a look, her power snapping out to tear it to pieces, then made a dismissive gesture. Emile cast a second spell, just as complex; Necromancer Emily pointed one finger at him and launched a bolt of sizzling energy that plunged deep into his protections. Emily gathered herself and blasted the necromancer with all the force she could muster. Necromancer Emily staggered, then stood upright. She was unharmed.\n\n“Not enough practice in fighting, clearly,” she mocked. She was looking at Emily, but her words were aimed at Emile. “Don’t try to be clever on the battlefield. Go for the simple tricks instead. They work better.”\n\n“You’re lecturing me on the battlefield?” Emile glowered at her back. “Really?”\n\n“You’re not capable of learning from me,” Necromancer Emily said. “From anyone with breasts really. Or anyone at all.” She sniggered, then deflected Emile’s third spell without looking. “An undressing hex? Really?”\n\nEmily braced herself, then shoved her mind forward. The necromancer’s mind might be on fire, and touching it was agony, but there was no other way to win. Memories bombarded her once again, images of horror unleashed by a maddened soul lost to fire and self-pity; she ignored them as she tried to tear through her counterpart’s mind, ripping her to shreds. The necromancer howled in pain, then fought back with bursts of fire and fury. The emotions tore at Emily’s mind, driving her back. It was all she could do to remain standing as she was shoved out of her counterpart’s mind.\n\n“I told you,” Necromancer Emily said. Her voice was very flat. “It ends here.”\n\n“Yes.” Emile came up behind Necromancer Emily’s back and wrapped his arms around her. “It does.”\n\nHe muttered a spell. Emily barely had a second to realise what he was doing before the world exploded into white fire. Emile was using his own soul to power the spell, risking his life … no, sacrificing his life, to take out the maddened necromancer. Emily hadn’t thought it would work and yet … she swallowed, hard, as she realised what Emile had done. He was the same person as his enemy, and he’d set fire to her soul as well as his own. The fire burned brighter, the stench of burning flesh assailing her nose, before dying away. The bodies crumbled into ash …\n\nEmily felt sick, but there was no time. The nexus point was fading fast and that meant she had to hurry. She dared not assume the other nexus points were in any better state, even if she could get to them. She had to trust to luck … she muttered a spell to reassemble the mirror and breathed a sigh of relief as it worked, the mirror glowing with white light as it reformed itself. There were plenty of other mirrors in the school, but none prepared for interdimensional travel. She wasn’t sure she had time to find one and make it work.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment, scanning with the wards. The school was in chaos, fights breaking out everywhere and ending as quickly and inexplicably as they’d come. The Grandmaster and his staff were trying to restore order, but … half seemed to be affected themselves and the remainder were just sitting still, as if they could no longer summon the motivation to care. She feared it was just the same outside the school, the madness spreading further than she could imagine. It was just a matter of time until the entire universe collapsed into nothingness.\n\n“I’m sorry,” she muttered. Emile was just ash now. He'd done one brave thing in his entire life and it had cost him everything. She wouldn’t be able to keep her promise now. He’d deserved a chance and … he’d died. What else mattered? He was dead. “I won’t forget you.”\n\nBracing herself, she stepped up and into the mirror.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1015, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch37-P1", "chapter": "ch37", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\ngodform — one word, lowercase.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\nEmile — capitalized; referenced as dead.\n\n### STORY\nAt Whitehall’s nexus Emily’s fight with Necromancer Emily kills Emile to ash; mourning him and the broken promise, she braces and steps through the mirror onto the roads between worlds.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nHurt inside the nexus point, bound to her other self’s timeline by eye contact. Exhausted; Emile’s death weighing on both selves; marking a path to the godform’s edge for her counterpart to run alone.\n\nOther Emily\nTired and broken; believes she has the key from the mimic work; will take the marked path alone once she leaves the nexus bubble.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nEmile died as ash buying Emily seconds against Necromancer Emily; the captured mimic essence and dual-Emily plan are the remaining keys against Master Wolfe’s godform.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nEmily braced herself, then shoved her mind forward. The necromancer’s mind might be on fire, and touching it was agony, but there was no other way to win. Memories bombarded her once again, images of horror unleashed by a maddened soul lost to fire and self-pity; she ignored them as she tried to tear through her counterpart’s mind, ripping her to shreds. The necromancer howled in pain, then fought back with bursts of fire and fury. The emotions tore at Emily’s mind, driving her back. It was all she could do to remain standing as she was shoved out of her counterpart’s mind.\n\n“I told you,” Necromancer Emily said. Her voice was very flat. “It ends here.”\n\n“Yes.” Emile came up behind Necromancer Emily’s back and wrapped his arms around her. “It does.”\n\nHe muttered a spell. Emily barely had a second to realise what he was doing before the world exploded into white fire. Emile was using his own soul to power the spell, risking his life … no, sacrificing his life, to take out the maddened necromancer. Emily hadn’t thought it would work and yet … she swallowed, hard, as she realised what Emile had done. He was the same person as his enemy, and he’d set fire to her soul as well as his own. The fire burned brighter, the stench of burning flesh assailing her nose, before dying away. The bodies crumbled into ash …\n\nEmily felt sick, but there was no time. The nexus point was fading fast and that meant she had to hurry. She dared not assume the other nexus points were in any better state, even if she could get to them. She had to trust to luck … she muttered a spell to reassemble the mirror and breathed a sigh of relief as it worked, the mirror glowing with white light as it reformed itself. There were plenty of other mirrors in the school, but none prepared for interdimensional travel. She wasn’t sure she had time to find one and make it work.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment, scanning with the wards. The school was in chaos, fights breaking out everywhere and ending as quickly and inexplicably as they’d come. The Grandmaster and his staff were trying to restore order, but … half seemed to be affected themselves and the remainder were just sitting still, as if they could no longer summon the motivation to care. She feared it was just the same outside the school, the madness spreading further than she could imagine. It was just a matter of time until the entire universe collapsed into nothingness.\n\n“I’m sorry,” she muttered. Emile was just ash now. He'd done one brave thing in his entire life and it had cost him everything. She wouldn’t be able to keep her promise now. He’d deserved a chance and … he’d died. What else mattered? He was dead. “I won’t forget you.”\n\nBracing herself, she stepped up and into the mirror.\n\n### NOTES\nInterior of a nexus-point bubble Emily holds in raw power.\nPath marked toward the edge of the godform; beyond that her other self goes alone.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe hurts inside timeless nexus light, forcing focus through her other self’s timeline while Master Wolfe presses the bubble. Walls between universes thin; they confirm the key is ready and that there will be no second chance and no time to summon more Emilys. She marks the path and warns that solitude begins at the godform’s edge; her other self smiles tiredly and says let’s go. The scene lands on that handoff.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Quiet dual-self planning under pressure; keep exhaustion palpable. Land on the path handoff.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily hurt.\n\nThere was no time in the nexus point, save for what she brought with her, but keeping her eyes on her other self bound her to her other self’s timeline. It was difficult to remain focused, difficult to keep Master Wolfe from noticing the disruption caused by her other self and send his agent to deal with her; harder still to keep herself awake and aware, without even a moment’s break from her vigil. The stress of using the nexus point to keep herself going, manipulating time itself to ensure she didn’t fall asleep, was incredibly draining. She was exhausted on a level she’d never felt before, a tiredness that pervaded her bones and mind and left her feeling as if it was time to let everything go. It was galling beyond words to know that Master Wolfe didn’t have the same problem, but he wasn’t human any longer. He’d become something more.\n\nShe shuddered as she felt the ravening shadow sweeping over the multiverse, timelines dying in screaming agony as the nightmare fell over them. She could see cracks in the interdimensional walls, some large enough to swallow galaxies and others so tiny they could barely be seen at all; she could see things shifting through the multiverse, displaced from timeline to timeline or hurled into the universes that had birthed terrible and incomprehensible nightmares. A version of Earth left a solar system very much akin to the one that had given her birth and fell right into a very different universe, where it met a hostile reception; the Earth it had displaced, meanwhile, was quietly relieved to have been saved, even if they didn’t understand how or why. An immense disaster, a disaster so huge in scale it was hard to comprehend … yet also tiny, on the scale of the nightmare destroying the Cosmic All. Emily couldn’t even tell if Master Wolfe was doing it deliberately, as his cancer spread through the multiverse. She had a nasty feeling it was all part of his plan.\n\nA twinge of awareness shot through her. Her other self was back in the threadlines.\n\nShe reached out, relieved she no longer needed to keep an eye on the last timeline. It was hard not to affect the timeline on some level – she’d heard the observer affected the observed, but watching from a nexus point was interference on an impossible scale – and she’d had to grit her teeth and let Emile die, rather than risk doing anything that might draw Master Wolfe’s attention. To her, at least. She wasn’t sure how closely he was watching Necromancer Emily and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. If he broke into the nexus point and killed her, all was lost.\n\n“You found what you need?” It felt odd talking to her other self, their beings threatening to blur into one even though they were separated by interdimensional walls. The barriers were breaking down, the walls between universes growing thin … she wondered, again, if the disaster could possibly be fixed. The cancer was spreading unchecked. “You have access?”\n\n“Yeah.” Her other self sounded tired and broken. Emile’s death had affected her too. “I think I have the key.”\n\nEmily nodded, wiping her forehead. “Be very sure,” she said. “There won’t be another chance.”\n\n“No time to summon more of us either,” her other self said. Her tiredness was infectious … or was it the other way around? Perhaps both. They were the same person, after all. “It’s just us now.”\n\n“I have the spellware ready,” Emily said. “But you need to distract him long enough for me to get everything in place.”\n\nShe shuddered as she heard the universe cry out in pain, a hundred thousand million timelines falling to the cancer. She saw fragments of nightmare spiralling towards a central core … she sucked in her breath, sharply, as she realised what Master Wolfe was trying to do. He intended to recreate the big bang, by feeding countless timelines into a singularity until it exploded and recreated the multiverse in his image. She could see his madness enveloping the timelines, laying down guidelines for the next multiverse … it was a piece of stellar engineering on a scale beyond imagination, a feat that made building a Dyson Sphere or igniting Jupiter and turning it into a small sun seem puny by comparison. There was just no contest. It was … impossible. But it was happening.\n\nAs long as he can see the newborn universe, he can steer its growth, she thought. The observer wouldn’t just affect the observed, he would serve as the defining point for all reality. Master Wolfe would be woven so deeply into the new multiverse that it would be impossible to isolate and extract him. And if that happens there’ll be no going back.\n\n“We need to move now,” she said. “Are you ready …?”\n\nTheir minds touched again, memories blurring into one. The plan took form, a dozen fragmented ideas collapsing into one; each testing and checking the other’s fragments before melding them together into a single united plan of attack. Her mind flickered with dark amusement – it was the first group project she’d done with little dispute between the two parties, let alone disagreement – an emotion that faded as the stakes seemed to grow higher. There wasn’t supposed to be any time in the nexus point, but … it didn’t matter. Master Wolfe had started the countdown and they were about to run out of time.\n\n“We can’t afford to rest, not now,” Emily said. It would have been easy, if she’d been prepared to take the risk of yanking her other self into the nexus point. They could have slept for days, then returned to the threadlines an instant after they left them. “We have to move.”\n\nHer other self smiled, rather tiredly. “Let’s go.”\n\n“I’ve marked out the path,” Emily said. “You’ll be on your own once you reach the edge of the godform.”\n", "completion": "Emily hurt.\n\nThere was no time in the nexus point, save for what she brought with her, but keeping her eyes on her other self bound her to her other self’s timeline. It was difficult to remain focused, difficult to keep Master Wolfe from noticing the disruption caused by her other self and send his agent to deal with her; harder still to keep herself awake and aware, without even a moment’s break from her vigil. The stress of using the nexus point to keep herself going, manipulating time itself to ensure she didn’t fall asleep, was incredibly draining. She was exhausted on a level she’d never felt before, a tiredness that pervaded her bones and mind and left her feeling as if it was time to let everything go. It was galling beyond words to know that Master Wolfe didn’t have the same problem, but he wasn’t human any longer. He’d become something more.\n\nShe shuddered as she felt the ravening shadow sweeping over the multiverse, timelines dying in screaming agony as the nightmare fell over them. She could see cracks in the interdimensional walls, some large enough to swallow galaxies and others so tiny they could barely be seen at all; she could see things shifting through the multiverse, displaced from timeline to timeline or hurled into the universes that had birthed terrible and incomprehensible nightmares. A version of Earth left a solar system very much akin to the one that had given her birth and fell right into a very different universe, where it met a hostile reception; the Earth it had displaced, meanwhile, was quietly relieved to have been saved, even if they didn’t understand how or why. An immense disaster, a disaster so huge in scale it was hard to comprehend … yet also tiny, on the scale of the nightmare destroying the Cosmic All. Emily couldn’t even tell if Master Wolfe was doing it deliberately, as his cancer spread through the multiverse. She had a nasty feeling it was all part of his plan.\n\nA twinge of awareness shot through her. Her other self was back in the threadlines.\n\nShe reached out, relieved she no longer needed to keep an eye on the last timeline. It was hard not to affect the timeline on some level – she’d heard the observer affected the observed, but watching from a nexus point was interference on an impossible scale – and she’d had to grit her teeth and let Emile die, rather than risk doing anything that might draw Master Wolfe’s attention. To her, at least. She wasn’t sure how closely he was watching Necromancer Emily and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. If he broke into the nexus point and killed her, all was lost.\n\n“You found what you need?” It felt odd talking to her other self, their beings threatening to blur into one even though they were separated by interdimensional walls. The barriers were breaking down, the walls between universes growing thin … she wondered, again, if the disaster could possibly be fixed. The cancer was spreading unchecked. “You have access?”\n\n“Yeah.” Her other self sounded tired and broken. Emile’s death had affected her too. “I think I have the key.”\n\nEmily nodded, wiping her forehead. “Be very sure,” she said. “There won’t be another chance.”\n\n“No time to summon more of us either,” her other self said. Her tiredness was infectious … or was it the other way around? Perhaps both. They were the same person, after all. “It’s just us now.”\n\n“I have the spellware ready,” Emily said. “But you need to distract him long enough for me to get everything in place.”\n\nShe shuddered as she heard the universe cry out in pain, a hundred thousand million timelines falling to the cancer. She saw fragments of nightmare spiralling towards a central core … she sucked in her breath, sharply, as she realised what Master Wolfe was trying to do. He intended to recreate the big bang, by feeding countless timelines into a singularity until it exploded and recreated the multiverse in his image. She could see his madness enveloping the timelines, laying down guidelines for the next multiverse … it was a piece of stellar engineering on a scale beyond imagination, a feat that made building a Dyson Sphere or igniting Jupiter and turning it into a small sun seem puny by comparison. There was just no contest. It was … impossible. But it was happening.\n\nAs long as he can see the newborn universe, he can steer its growth, she thought. The observer wouldn’t just affect the observed, he would serve as the defining point for all reality. Master Wolfe would be woven so deeply into the new multiverse that it would be impossible to isolate and extract him. And if that happens there’ll be no going back.\n\n“We need to move now,” she said. “Are you ready …?”\n\nTheir minds touched again, memories blurring into one. The plan took form, a dozen fragmented ideas collapsing into one; each testing and checking the other’s fragments before melding them together into a single united plan of attack. Her mind flickered with dark amusement – it was the first group project she’d done with little dispute between the two parties, let alone disagreement – an emotion that faded as the stakes seemed to grow higher. There wasn’t supposed to be any time in the nexus point, but … it didn’t matter. Master Wolfe had started the countdown and they were about to run out of time.\n\n“We can’t afford to rest, not now,” Emily said. It would have been easy, if she’d been prepared to take the risk of yanking her other self into the nexus point. They could have slept for days, then returned to the threadlines an instant after they left them. “We have to move.”\n\nHer other self smiled, rather tiredly. “Let’s go.”\n\n“I’ve marked out the path,” Emily said. “You’ll be on your own once you reach the edge of the godform.”\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1023, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch37-P2", "chapter": "ch37", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngodform — one word, lowercase.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\nwolf — lowercase for the multiversal predator.\n\n### STORY\nInside the nexus Emily and her other self confirm the key, mark a path to the godform’s edge, and split — the counterpart going alone.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nHolding the nexus bubble while her other self runs the spaghetti of threadlines. Crafting spellware devices from raw nexus power and collected intelligence; watching timelines die into the maelstrom; shuddering as the ghostly wolf looms both huge and tiny.\n\nOther Emily\nRunning the marked network toward the godform; soon to be one again.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nPunching at the nexus bubble while ascending.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“I have the spellware ready,” Emily said. “But you need to distract him long enough for me to get everything in place.”\n\nShe shuddered as she heard the universe cry out in pain, a hundred thousand million timelines falling to the cancer. She saw fragments of nightmare spiralling towards a central core … she sucked in her breath, sharply, as she realised what Master Wolfe was trying to do. He intended to recreate the big bang, by feeding countless timelines into a singularity until it exploded and recreated the multiverse in his image. She could see his madness enveloping the timelines, laying down guidelines for the next multiverse … it was a piece of stellar engineering on a scale beyond imagination, a feat that made building a Dyson Sphere or igniting Jupiter and turning it into a small sun seem puny by comparison. There was just no contest. It was … impossible. But it was happening.\n\nAs long as he can see the newborn universe, he can steer its growth, she thought. The observer wouldn’t just affect the observed, he would serve as the defining point for all reality. Master Wolfe would be woven so deeply into the new multiverse that it would be impossible to isolate and extract him. And if that happens there’ll be no going back.\n\n“We need to move now,” she said. “Are you ready …?”\n\nTheir minds touched again, memories blurring into one. The plan took form, a dozen fragmented ideas collapsing into one; each testing and checking the other’s fragments before melding them together into a single united plan of attack. Her mind flickered with dark amusement – it was the first group project she’d done with little dispute between the two parties, let alone disagreement – an emotion that faded as the stakes seemed to grow higher. There wasn’t supposed to be any time in the nexus point, but … it didn’t matter. Master Wolfe had started the countdown and they were about to run out of time.\n\n“We can’t afford to rest, not now,” Emily said. It would have been easy, if she’d been prepared to take the risk of yanking her other self into the nexus point. They could have slept for days, then returned to the threadlines an instant after they left them. “We have to move.”\n\nHer other self smiled, rather tiredly. “Let’s go.”\n\n“I’ve marked out the path,” Emily said. “You’ll be on your own once you reach the edge of the godform.”\n\n### NOTES\nNexus bubble under battering; devices conjured from raw power.\nWolf visible as a façade hard to look at directly.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nHer other self understands they will be one again and runs the condensed threadline maze. Emily watches advanced timelines die screaming into the maelstrom, admits the multiverse is doomed, and pulls back just enough to craft the spellware devices from nexus power and stolen intelligence. Something batters the bubble; she channels more power — and the ghostly wolf looms impossibly big and small at once. The scene lands on that hard-to-behold presence.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Cosmic dread while building tools; keep the wolf uncanny. Land on the wolf’s façade.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I understand,” her other self said. “We’ll be one again shortly.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth, watching as her other self started to run through a complex network of threadlines that were both infinitely short and yet condensed into a ball of spaghetti-like complexity. Distance meant nothing in the threadlines, once you learnt to think outside the box; it was possible to cover a million miles in a single step, if you knew what you were doing, or find yourself walking for hours and yet barely covering a single yard. Master Wolfe, perversely, was making it a great deal easier as he pulled the timelines and threadlines towards him, although that raised the spectre of her other self being swallowed by the madness instead of finding her way into his core. And it was hard, even impossible, to steer the way.\n\nThe observer affects the observed, Emily reminded herself, once again. Her gaze wasn’t harmless, no matter how counterintuitive it seemed. There were faint disruptions in the quantum foam, too tiny for a human to see and yet blindingly obvious to anyone looking from outside reality itself. The closer she looked, the greater the chance of drawing Master Wolfe’s attention and then … did he know what she’d done? She feared so. There could be no other explanation for her other self’s survival, against a god who could simply blink her out of existence with a thought. And if he knows where I am …\n\nThe universe howled, again. Emily saw a timeline so advanced it rivalled the Culture fed into the maelstrom and destroyed, the last inhabitants trying – too late – to escape into the interdimensional threads only to discover their technology was worse than useless outside their home universe. Another timeline, dominated by creatures that were dangerously akin to dread Cthulhu, was swallowed a moment later, the interdimensional creatures traced back to their home universe and consumed too. Emily felt sick just looking at them. It wasn’t clear if they were trying to harm the inhabitants of the first universe– they were so alien that any sort of contact was devastating, intentional or not – but it hardly mattered. They were doomed.\n\nThe entire multiverse was doomed.\n\nShe pulled back as much as she dared, drawing on her plans – and the information her other self had collected – to craft out the spellware she needed. The nexus point was a near-unlimited source of raw power, despite the steady drain as Master Wolfe punched his way into the nexus point source time and time again, but using it effectively was hellishly difficult. She had to rely on the magiwriter, pushing it to the limits, just to make magitech to make even more magitech to level up on a scale she’d previously thought impossible. She wished she’d been able to save Technomage Emily and her Adam, as much as the thought of being in a relationship with Adam bothered her. She’d known far more about magitech than any of the other counterparts.\n\nWe work with what we have, she told herself, as the devices took shape in front of her. There was enough raw power to conjure them into existence, something that gave her a thrill even as she knew she shouldn’t get used to it. There was no way she could match the feat anywhere outside the nexus point, not unless … she cut that line of thought short before it could convince her to do something incredibly dangerous. We certainly can’t alter the gradient of time outside a nexus point, not and conjure devices at the same time.\n\nHer mind ached as she kept working, altering the flow of time within the pocket dimension to allow the devices to practically blink into existence. A year inside the bubble was a second outside … she hoped, prayed, that messing with time wouldn’t draw Master Wolfe’s attention too. He shouldn’t be able to see her, but who knew? If he’d spotted the quantum flickers, he could trace them back to their source. And that would mean disaster.\n\nThe shadow passed overhead. Emily forced herself to ignore it, even as she felt ghostly breath on the back of her neck. Her mind was trying to comprehend what she was feeling, trying to present it to her in a way she could understand … she kept her eyes down, telling herself that she could avoid its attention as long as she didn’t look at it. She couldn’t even tell if he was looking for her or if he were …\n\nReality shifted. Something battered the nexus point, the bubble of reality she’d created within the endless sea of raw power shuddering under the blow. Emily cursed under her breath and hastily channelled more power into the bubble, directing some of her spellware to take up the struggle and hopefully buy some time for her to collect herself and push back. She had the sudden sense of a needle threatening to pop the bubble like … a soap bubble … and hardened the bubble as much as she could, telling herself it couldn’t possibly break. Reality shifted a second time, then a third … something tore above her, something more real than herself tearing through the bubble, imposing itself on the reality inside the bubble. Sheer terror shot through her as the wolf manifested, red eyes picking her out and holding her. It had found her.\n\nEmily shuddered. The ghostly wolf was impossibly big and yet impossibly small, looming over her and yet also tiny in front of her. It was hard to look at it directly, harder still to look beyond the façade and assess its true nature. She could see threads of raw power reaching out in directions she couldn’t comprehend, linking it to Master Wolfe in a manner she couldn’t bring herself to understand. It was part of him, in a way, as if he’d bilocated himself into the body of a wolf … no, something that chose to represent itself as a wolf. It was astonishing and terrifying and … she had to fight to keep herself from backing away, as if it were possible to run. There was no escape.\n", "completion": "“I understand,” her other self said. “We’ll be one again shortly.”\n\nEmily gritted her teeth, watching as her other self started to run through a complex network of threadlines that were both infinitely short and yet condensed into a ball of spaghetti-like complexity. Distance meant nothing in the threadlines, once you learnt to think outside the box; it was possible to cover a million miles in a single step, if you knew what you were doing, or find yourself walking for hours and yet barely covering a single yard. Master Wolfe, perversely, was making it a great deal easier as he pulled the timelines and threadlines towards him, although that raised the spectre of her other self being swallowed by the madness instead of finding her way into his core. And it was hard, even impossible, to steer the way.\n\nThe observer affects the observed, Emily reminded herself, once again. Her gaze wasn’t harmless, no matter how counterintuitive it seemed. There were faint disruptions in the quantum foam, too tiny for a human to see and yet blindingly obvious to anyone looking from outside reality itself. The closer she looked, the greater the chance of drawing Master Wolfe’s attention and then … did he know what she’d done? She feared so. There could be no other explanation for her other self’s survival, against a god who could simply blink her out of existence with a thought. And if he knows where I am …\n\nThe universe howled, again. Emily saw a timeline so advanced it rivalled the Culture fed into the maelstrom and destroyed, the last inhabitants trying – too late – to escape into the interdimensional threads only to discover their technology was worse than useless outside their home universe. Another timeline, dominated by creatures that were dangerously akin to dread Cthulhu, was swallowed a moment later, the interdimensional creatures traced back to their home universe and consumed too. Emily felt sick just looking at them. It wasn’t clear if they were trying to harm the inhabitants of the first universe– they were so alien that any sort of contact was devastating, intentional or not – but it hardly mattered. They were doomed.\n\nThe entire multiverse was doomed.\n\nShe pulled back as much as she dared, drawing on her plans – and the information her other self had collected – to craft out the spellware she needed. The nexus point was a near-unlimited source of raw power, despite the steady drain as Master Wolfe punched his way into the nexus point source time and time again, but using it effectively was hellishly difficult. She had to rely on the magiwriter, pushing it to the limits, just to make magitech to make even more magitech to level up on a scale she’d previously thought impossible. She wished she’d been able to save Technomage Emily and her Adam, as much as the thought of being in a relationship with Adam bothered her. She’d known far more about magitech than any of the other counterparts.\n\nWe work with what we have, she told herself, as the devices took shape in front of her. There was enough raw power to conjure them into existence, something that gave her a thrill even as she knew she shouldn’t get used to it. There was no way she could match the feat anywhere outside the nexus point, not unless … she cut that line of thought short before it could convince her to do something incredibly dangerous. We certainly can’t alter the gradient of time outside a nexus point, not and conjure devices at the same time.\n\nHer mind ached as she kept working, altering the flow of time within the pocket dimension to allow the devices to practically blink into existence. A year inside the bubble was a second outside … she hoped, prayed, that messing with time wouldn’t draw Master Wolfe’s attention too. He shouldn’t be able to see her, but who knew? If he’d spotted the quantum flickers, he could trace them back to their source. And that would mean disaster.\n\nThe shadow passed overhead. Emily forced herself to ignore it, even as she felt ghostly breath on the back of her neck. Her mind was trying to comprehend what she was feeling, trying to present it to her in a way she could understand … she kept her eyes down, telling herself that she could avoid its attention as long as she didn’t look at it. She couldn’t even tell if he was looking for her or if he were …\n\nReality shifted. Something battered the nexus point, the bubble of reality she’d created within the endless sea of raw power shuddering under the blow. Emily cursed under her breath and hastily channelled more power into the bubble, directing some of her spellware to take up the struggle and hopefully buy some time for her to collect herself and push back. She had the sudden sense of a needle threatening to pop the bubble like … a soap bubble … and hardened the bubble as much as she could, telling herself it couldn’t possibly break. Reality shifted a second time, then a third … something tore above her, something more real than herself tearing through the bubble, imposing itself on the reality inside the bubble. Sheer terror shot through her as the wolf manifested, red eyes picking her out and holding her. It had found her.\n\nEmily shuddered. The ghostly wolf was impossibly big and yet impossibly small, looming over her and yet also tiny in front of her. It was hard to look at it directly, harder still to look beyond the façade and assess its true nature. She could see threads of raw power reaching out in directions she couldn’t comprehend, linking it to Master Wolfe in a manner she couldn’t bring herself to understand. It was part of him, in a way, as if he’d bilocated himself into the body of a wolf … no, something that chose to represent itself as a wolf. It was astonishing and terrifying and … she had to fight to keep herself from backing away, as if it were possible to run. There was no escape.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1041, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch37-P3", "chapter": "ch37", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nwolf — lowercase for the multiversal predator.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily holds the nexus and builds anti-godform devices while her other self runs the threadlines; the ghostly wolf looms as timelines die into the maelstrom.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nFacing the wolf inside/near the nexus. Unable to damage it by force; improvising a reality-law change that banishes it briefly; exhausted afterward; finding her other self gone; gripping one threadline to wait.\n\nOther Emily\nGone from Emily’s sight by the end; the plan now depends on her alone.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer mind ached as she kept working, altering the flow of time within the pocket dimension to allow the devices to practically blink into existence. A year inside the bubble was a second outside … she hoped, prayed, that messing with time wouldn’t draw Master Wolfe’s attention too. He shouldn’t be able to see her, but who knew? If he’d spotted the quantum flickers, he could trace them back to their source. And that would mean disaster.\n\nThe shadow passed overhead. Emily forced herself to ignore it, even as she felt ghostly breath on the back of her neck. Her mind was trying to comprehend what she was feeling, trying to present it to her in a way she could understand … she kept her eyes down, telling herself that she could avoid its attention as long as she didn’t look at it. She couldn’t even tell if he was looking for her or if he were …\n\nReality shifted. Something battered the nexus point, the bubble of reality she’d created within the endless sea of raw power shuddering under the blow. Emily cursed under her breath and hastily channelled more power into the bubble, directing some of her spellware to take up the struggle and hopefully buy some time for her to collect herself and push back. She had the sudden sense of a needle threatening to pop the bubble like … a soap bubble … and hardened the bubble as much as she could, telling herself it couldn’t possibly break. Reality shifted a second time, then a third … something tore above her, something more real than herself tearing through the bubble, imposing itself on the reality inside the bubble. Sheer terror shot through her as the wolf manifested, red eyes picking her out and holding her. It had found her.\n\nEmily shuddered. The ghostly wolf was impossibly big and yet impossibly small, looming over her and yet also tiny in front of her. It was hard to look at it directly, harder still to look beyond the façade and assess its true nature. She could see threads of raw power reaching out in directions she couldn’t comprehend, linking it to Master Wolfe in a manner she couldn’t bring herself to understand. It was part of him, in a way, as if he’d bilocated himself into the body of a wolf … no, something that chose to represent itself as a wolf. It was astonishing and terrifying and … she had to fight to keep herself from backing away, as if it were possible to run. There was no escape.\n\n### NOTES\nWolf with impossible jaws and endless teeth.\nLaws of reality temporarily flexible inside the nexus working.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThe wolf seems to smile with endless rows of teeth; she says no. She cannot harm it even with all nexus power, so she alters the local laws of reality before she can think better of it; the wolf is gone, the spell collapses, and exhaustion nearly takes her until she draws more nexus force. Her other self is missing. She braces, seizes a single threadline, and waits — it all depends on her other self now. The scene lands on that wait.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Desperate improvisation; keep the wait tense, not triumphant. Land on dependence on the other self.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "The wolf seemed to smile, its jaws bending in impossible directions. Emily saw endless rows of teeth … hundreds, thousands, millions … she’d never thought to look up how many teeth the average wolf had, but she was fairly sure it was a great deal less than the thing in front of her. It was imposing itself on the nexus point, its sheer presence warping the multiverse around it … she cursed as she realised it was damaging the spellware itself. It was a very hostile takeover.\n\n“No,” she said.\n\nShe threw her mind back into the spellware, forcing her own reality on the nexus point. The wolf was suddenly laid bare, a protuberance of something much greater extended into the nexus point … she shuddered and tried to cut the thread leading back to Master Wolfe, only to discover it didn’t seem to affect the wolf at all. It snarled at her and paced forward with a cool deliberateness that bothered her, until she realised it was limited by the warped space-time within the nexus point. Master Wolfe was operating at something of a disadvantage, she thought; there was a slight time delay between the time he sent orders to the wolf and the time they were carried out. And that meant …\n\nThe wolf kept advancing, inching towards her. It wasn’t playing with its food, she realised dully. It was trying to convince her that defeat was inevitable, that there was no escape … that she might as well close her eyes and accept her fate. Her belief she was doomed would make it real … she gritted her teeth and reached out, altering the time gradient once again. The wolf seemed to slow, as if it were crawling through molasses, but it kept coming. Of course it did. It had a link to someone outside the nexus point and that meant she couldn’t freeze it in time. And it was still coming.\n\nShe tried to think, as she slowly backed away. There was no way to damage the wolf, even if she took all the energy from the nexus point and turned it into a weapon. The wolf existed on multiple levels at once, incoming threats absorbed or simply evaded … it could step over anything she threw at it, as easily as she might step over a line on the ground. She could see ghostly images of alternate wolves surrounding it, ready to replace the one in front of her if she did manage to damage it. And beyond, Master Wolfe was slowly worming his way into the nexus point. His spellware was trying to subvert hers, hacking her defences on a level she’d thought impossible. If he managed to take control …\n\nA madcap idea crossed her mind. She put it into action before she could think better of it, altering the laws of reality itself. They were more flexible than she’d thought – she’d seen universes with magic very different from the magic she knew, others where it was simply impossible to develop anything more advanced than a steam engine – and yet, altering them in such a small space was a terrible risk. Her magic faded, the link to the spellware nearly collapsing … she kicked herself, a moment later, for not having thought to create a more technological or psionic link to the spellware before it was too late. The wolf stared at her, red eyes going wide in utter shock, before simply blinking out of existence. The laws of physics could no longer support its existence.\n\nEmily stared at where it had been for a long moment, then allowed herself a sigh of relief as the spell collapsed and her powers returned. Her body staggered, exhaustion finally threatening to catch up with her … she bit her lip, hard, and drew on the nexus point to keep herself awake. It nearly killed her. The wolf might be gone, and Master Wolfe seemed disinclined to risk sending another one into the nexus point, but she could still feel him scratching at the edges of the bubble. He might have won, she reflected sourly. He couldn’t get to her, not now, but she couldn’t get out either. She wasn’t even sure she could get back in touch with her other self.\n\nAnd when she looked for her other self, she was gone.\n\nShe’ll have found the way into the godform, Emily told herself. There was no way to be sure, not now, but she hoped and prayed that was the case. She needed it to be true. She’ll be on her way now.\n\nShe shuddered as she felt something pressing against the bubble, slowly inching through the outer edge of her spellware. Master Wolfe was devoting more and more of his intellect to breaking through … she was perversely disappointed that he was trying the brute force approach, trying every possible combination of spellcasting rather than figuring out how to crack her defences, but most of his attention was required elsewhere. The multiverse was collapsing into a singularity now. There would be no second chance. He would know true omnipotence or he would die.\n\nNo, she thought numbly. He won’t exist. He won’t have existed. None of us will.\n\nShe braced herself, even as another probe reached through her bubble. It felt awful, worse than being touched against her will or having her thoughts invaded by an outside force. She felt as if someone was stuffing something into her brain, something so alien her mind recoiled … something so unpleasant she feared the worst. The cancer was spreading beyond her worst nightmares, the entire multiverse on the brink of total annihilation.\n\nBracing herself, she located a single threadline and held it firmly. And waited.\n\nIt all depended on her other self now.\n", "completion": "The wolf seemed to smile, its jaws bending in impossible directions. Emily saw endless rows of teeth … hundreds, thousands, millions … she’d never thought to look up how many teeth the average wolf had, but she was fairly sure it was a great deal less than the thing in front of her. It was imposing itself on the nexus point, its sheer presence warping the multiverse around it … she cursed as she realised it was damaging the spellware itself. It was a very hostile takeover.\n\n“No,” she said.\n\nShe threw her mind back into the spellware, forcing her own reality on the nexus point. The wolf was suddenly laid bare, a protuberance of something much greater extended into the nexus point … she shuddered and tried to cut the thread leading back to Master Wolfe, only to discover it didn’t seem to affect the wolf at all. It snarled at her and paced forward with a cool deliberateness that bothered her, until she realised it was limited by the warped space-time within the nexus point. Master Wolfe was operating at something of a disadvantage, she thought; there was a slight time delay between the time he sent orders to the wolf and the time they were carried out. And that meant …\n\nThe wolf kept advancing, inching towards her. It wasn’t playing with its food, she realised dully. It was trying to convince her that defeat was inevitable, that there was no escape … that she might as well close her eyes and accept her fate. Her belief she was doomed would make it real … she gritted her teeth and reached out, altering the time gradient once again. The wolf seemed to slow, as if it were crawling through molasses, but it kept coming. Of course it did. It had a link to someone outside the nexus point and that meant she couldn’t freeze it in time. And it was still coming.\n\nShe tried to think, as she slowly backed away. There was no way to damage the wolf, even if she took all the energy from the nexus point and turned it into a weapon. The wolf existed on multiple levels at once, incoming threats absorbed or simply evaded … it could step over anything she threw at it, as easily as she might step over a line on the ground. She could see ghostly images of alternate wolves surrounding it, ready to replace the one in front of her if she did manage to damage it. And beyond, Master Wolfe was slowly worming his way into the nexus point. His spellware was trying to subvert hers, hacking her defences on a level she’d thought impossible. If he managed to take control …\n\nA madcap idea crossed her mind. She put it into action before she could think better of it, altering the laws of reality itself. They were more flexible than she’d thought – she’d seen universes with magic very different from the magic she knew, others where it was simply impossible to develop anything more advanced than a steam engine – and yet, altering them in such a small space was a terrible risk. Her magic faded, the link to the spellware nearly collapsing … she kicked herself, a moment later, for not having thought to create a more technological or psionic link to the spellware before it was too late. The wolf stared at her, red eyes going wide in utter shock, before simply blinking out of existence. The laws of physics could no longer support its existence.\n\nEmily stared at where it had been for a long moment, then allowed herself a sigh of relief as the spell collapsed and her powers returned. Her body staggered, exhaustion finally threatening to catch up with her … she bit her lip, hard, and drew on the nexus point to keep herself awake. It nearly killed her. The wolf might be gone, and Master Wolfe seemed disinclined to risk sending another one into the nexus point, but she could still feel him scratching at the edges of the bubble. He might have won, she reflected sourly. He couldn’t get to her, not now, but she couldn’t get out either. She wasn’t even sure she could get back in touch with her other self.\n\nAnd when she looked for her other self, she was gone.\n\nShe’ll have found the way into the godform, Emily told herself. There was no way to be sure, not now, but she hoped and prayed that was the case. She needed it to be true. She’ll be on her way now.\n\nShe shuddered as she felt something pressing against the bubble, slowly inching through the outer edge of her spellware. Master Wolfe was devoting more and more of his intellect to breaking through … she was perversely disappointed that he was trying the brute force approach, trying every possible combination of spellcasting rather than figuring out how to crack her defences, but most of his attention was required elsewhere. The multiverse was collapsing into a singularity now. There would be no second chance. He would know true omnipotence or he would die.\n\nNo, she thought numbly. He won’t exist. He won’t have existed. None of us will.\n\nShe braced herself, even as another probe reached through her bubble. It felt awful, worse than being touched against her will or having her thoughts invaded by an outside force. She felt as if someone was stuffing something into her brain, something so alien her mind recoiled … something so unpleasant she feared the worst. The cancer was spreading beyond her worst nightmares, the entire multiverse on the brink of total annihilation.\n\nBracing herself, she located a single threadline and held it firmly. And waited.\n\nIt all depended on her other self now.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 969, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch38-P1", "chapter": "ch38", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngodform — one word, lowercase.\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\nmimic — lowercase.\nmagitech — one word, lowercase.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily banishes the wolf briefly by rewriting local reality, finds her other self gone, and waits on a single threadline while the counterpart approaches the godform alone.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nInside the godform, more scared than she has ever been. Carrying a stasis-locked mimic in her pocket to spoof Magical signature access; noting Master Wolfe has blocked magitech without consent; pushing toward the heartbeat core past flickering monsters and spare-part machines.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nAscending within the godform; rewriting the universe by will; apparently unguarded at the core — or confident he is invincible.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nEmily carries a compressed, stasis-locked Master Wolfe mimic whose shared magical signature can open the godform’s spellware without immediate detection; a prior invasion attempt taught her the core is watched.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nA madcap idea crossed her mind. She put it into action before she could think better of it, altering the laws of reality itself. They were more flexible than she’d thought – she’d seen universes with magic very different from the magic she knew, others where it was simply impossible to develop anything more advanced than a steam engine – and yet, altering them in such a small space was a terrible risk. Her magic faded, the link to the spellware nearly collapsing … she kicked herself, a moment later, for not having thought to create a more technological or psionic link to the spellware before it was too late. The wolf stared at her, red eyes going wide in utter shock, before simply blinking out of existence. The laws of physics could no longer support its existence.\n\nEmily stared at where it had been for a long moment, then allowed herself a sigh of relief as the spell collapsed and her powers returned. Her body staggered, exhaustion finally threatening to catch up with her … she bit her lip, hard, and drew on the nexus point to keep herself awake. It nearly killed her. The wolf might be gone, and Master Wolfe seemed disinclined to risk sending another one into the nexus point, but she could still feel him scratching at the edges of the bubble. He might have won, she reflected sourly. He couldn’t get to her, not now, but she couldn’t get out either. She wasn’t even sure she could get back in touch with her other self.\n\nAnd when she looked for her other self, she was gone.\n\nShe’ll have found the way into the godform, Emily told herself. There was no way to be sure, not now, but she hoped and prayed that was the case. She needed it to be true. She’ll be on her way now.\n\nShe shuddered as she felt something pressing against the bubble, slowly inching through the outer edge of her spellware. Master Wolfe was devoting more and more of his intellect to breaking through … she was perversely disappointed that he was trying the brute force approach, trying every possible combination of spellcasting rather than figuring out how to crack her defences, but most of his attention was required elsewhere. The multiverse was collapsing into a singularity now. There would be no second chance. He would know true omnipotence or he would die.\n\nNo, she thought numbly. He won’t exist. He won’t have existed. None of us will.\n\nShe braced herself, even as another probe reached through her bubble. It felt awful, worse than being touched against her will or having her thoughts invaded by an outside force. She felt as if someone was stuffing something into her brain, something so alien her mind recoiled … something so unpleasant she feared the worst. The cancer was spreading beyond her worst nightmares, the entire multiverse on the brink of total annihilation.\n\nBracing herself, she located a single threadline and held it firmly. And waited.\n\nIt all depended on her other self now.\n\n### NOTES\nInterior of the godform: shifting machine/body/catacomb landscapes; smell more than physical; million hearts beating as one.\nMagitech will not work inside without Master Wolfe’s consent.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nFear rides her into the living wrongness of the godform — spellware and threadlines under a million heartbeats, landscapes that reconfigure toward true godhood, eyes she hopes cannot see her. She threads past flickering monsters and jury-rigged machines toward the pounding core where timelines spin into a singularity. No guard meets her; she realizes magitech is locked out by rewritten reality. She unlocks the pocketed mimic’s signature and slips her mind toward the spellware — and the scene lands on that gentle intrusion.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Sensate dread exploration; keep the mimic unlock careful. Land on entering the spellware.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily had never felt so scared in her life.\n\nThe godform rose up around her, a living breathing thing that felt impossibly wrong. It was a complex network of spellware and threadlines, dominated by the sound of a million hearts beating as one. It wasn’t dark – the air glowed with an eerie light that was as wrong as the rest of the godform – but it felt as if there were monsters lurking in the shadows, monsters lurking under the bed just waiting for the child to get out before they pounced. She knew she was tiny on such a scale, so tiny she could literally walk between the atoms making up the body, yet it was still incredibly daunting to make her way into the godform. It felt as if she would never return.\n\nShe forced herself to keep going, trying to make her way towards the heart. The landscape around her changed constantly, as if the godform was reconfiguring itself to prepare for true godhood. She could feel eyes on her, although she knew the godform shouldn’t be able to see her, any more than she could see pieces of bacteria in her stomach. Humans had taken centuries to deduce the existence of germs, she reminded herself, and make the connection between them and illness … she wondered, sourly, if Master Wolfe knew what she’d done. He knew she’d invaded his soul earlier, didn’t he? Had he set more watchdogs within himself? Or was he reluctant to risk exposing himself to Necromancer Emily? A necromancer couldn’t be trusted and he knew it all too well.\n\nThe landscape changed again and again, a giant machine – so big she felt like a fly crawling across a stained glass window, unable to even begin to comprehend what she was seeing – followed by a ghostly body, as if she were exploring a human interior through VR. It was a catacomb, the tomb of some long-dead sorcerer, and then a plain so wide she felt horrifyingly exposed. The only constant was the heartbeat, a dull sound that drew her onwards. She forced herself to keep walking, even as she felt things gathering around her. Flashes of light – memories – darted through the air, fragments of the magicians who had been swept up and absorbed into the mimic, and then the godform. They were screaming in agony, watching helplessly as reality itself died around them. Emily felt pity, despite knowing what they’d done for power. They’d been tricked into thinking they could climb to the top, only to discover – too late – that they were nothing more than a tasty snack to the mimic. They’d worked hard and all they’d achieved, in the end, was to make Master Wolfe all the more powerful. And dangerous.\n\nThings scuttled at the back of her mind, lurking within the shadows. The air blew hot and cold, switching so rapidly from one to the other it was hard to keep her mind straight. A howling light flickered behind her, a will-o'-the-wisp that chased her through a maze of passageways and then vanished as quickly as it had come; she heard something scratching, as if it were trying to find weak points in reality, the sound chilling her to the bone. The air smelled foul, vile enough to make her gag in disgust, and then switched to a perfumed scent that was so overpowering it was almost as bad. She covered her nose, to no avail. The smell was more than physical. It was something that pervaded reality itself.\n\nIt didn’t improve as she neared the heartbeat. There were things moving around, strange flickering monsters that defied description and machines that looked to have been thrown together from spare parts; she stayed as far as she could from them, even as they seemed to move closer to her without quite moving at all. The internal dimensions were an utter nightmare … she saw something practically teleport halfway across the section, then vanish into nothingness the moment she looked at it directly. Her mind ached as the pounding sound grew louder, the noise of a thousand heartbeats taking on the tone of a man speaking … rewriting the universe through sheer force of will. She looked up and saw countless timelines spinning into the singularity. It was just a matter of time, now, before the next Big Bang birthed a new universe, one made in Master Wolfe’s image. It was going to be a nightmare.\n\nShe looked around, half-expecting a guard after she’d tried to invade the core of the godform once before, but saw nothing. She had no idea why. Did Master Wolfe think he was invincible? Or … she frowned as she realised he’d reshaped reality itself, ensuring magitech couldn’t work within the godform without his consent. Clever, she acknowledged. If she’d found a second Technomage Emily and set out to try the same trick twice, he’d probably let her get on with it secure in the knowledge she was wasting her time. He certainly wouldn’t want her looking for something more effective …\n\nHer heart raced as she reached for the compressed mass in her pocket and held it gingerly. The mimic wasn’t dead, merely locked in stasis, and yet … she unlocked it gently, calling upon its magical signature and using it to reach out for the godform. She’d had flickering impressions from the other Emilys – memories and emotions that weren’t hers, yet felt real in a way that defied logic and reason – and Master Wolfe should have the same issue. The mimic shared the same magical signature as the godform, allowing her to slip her mind into the spellware without being detected. It should be impossible to isolate it from the rest of the spellform and yet … it was hard to be sure. The godform was so vast it should be difficult for any sort of internal monitoring to notice the intrusion, but Master Wolfe’s mind had expanded along with his powers. His true capabilities were beyond her imagination.\n", "completion": "Emily had never felt so scared in her life.\n\nThe godform rose up around her, a living breathing thing that felt impossibly wrong. It was a complex network of spellware and threadlines, dominated by the sound of a million hearts beating as one. It wasn’t dark – the air glowed with an eerie light that was as wrong as the rest of the godform – but it felt as if there were monsters lurking in the shadows, monsters lurking under the bed just waiting for the child to get out before they pounced. She knew she was tiny on such a scale, so tiny she could literally walk between the atoms making up the body, yet it was still incredibly daunting to make her way into the godform. It felt as if she would never return.\n\nShe forced herself to keep going, trying to make her way towards the heart. The landscape around her changed constantly, as if the godform was reconfiguring itself to prepare for true godhood. She could feel eyes on her, although she knew the godform shouldn’t be able to see her, any more than she could see pieces of bacteria in her stomach. Humans had taken centuries to deduce the existence of germs, she reminded herself, and make the connection between them and illness … she wondered, sourly, if Master Wolfe knew what she’d done. He knew she’d invaded his soul earlier, didn’t he? Had he set more watchdogs within himself? Or was he reluctant to risk exposing himself to Necromancer Emily? A necromancer couldn’t be trusted and he knew it all too well.\n\nThe landscape changed again and again, a giant machine – so big she felt like a fly crawling across a stained glass window, unable to even begin to comprehend what she was seeing – followed by a ghostly body, as if she were exploring a human interior through VR. It was a catacomb, the tomb of some long-dead sorcerer, and then a plain so wide she felt horrifyingly exposed. The only constant was the heartbeat, a dull sound that drew her onwards. She forced herself to keep walking, even as she felt things gathering around her. Flashes of light – memories – darted through the air, fragments of the magicians who had been swept up and absorbed into the mimic, and then the godform. They were screaming in agony, watching helplessly as reality itself died around them. Emily felt pity, despite knowing what they’d done for power. They’d been tricked into thinking they could climb to the top, only to discover – too late – that they were nothing more than a tasty snack to the mimic. They’d worked hard and all they’d achieved, in the end, was to make Master Wolfe all the more powerful. And dangerous.\n\nThings scuttled at the back of her mind, lurking within the shadows. The air blew hot and cold, switching so rapidly from one to the other it was hard to keep her mind straight. A howling light flickered behind her, a will-o'-the-wisp that chased her through a maze of passageways and then vanished as quickly as it had come; she heard something scratching, as if it were trying to find weak points in reality, the sound chilling her to the bone. The air smelled foul, vile enough to make her gag in disgust, and then switched to a perfumed scent that was so overpowering it was almost as bad. She covered her nose, to no avail. The smell was more than physical. It was something that pervaded reality itself.\n\nIt didn’t improve as she neared the heartbeat. There were things moving around, strange flickering monsters that defied description and machines that looked to have been thrown together from spare parts; she stayed as far as she could from them, even as they seemed to move closer to her without quite moving at all. The internal dimensions were an utter nightmare … she saw something practically teleport halfway across the section, then vanish into nothingness the moment she looked at it directly. Her mind ached as the pounding sound grew louder, the noise of a thousand heartbeats taking on the tone of a man speaking … rewriting the universe through sheer force of will. She looked up and saw countless timelines spinning into the singularity. It was just a matter of time, now, before the next Big Bang birthed a new universe, one made in Master Wolfe’s image. It was going to be a nightmare.\n\nShe looked around, half-expecting a guard after she’d tried to invade the core of the godform once before, but saw nothing. She had no idea why. Did Master Wolfe think he was invincible? Or … she frowned as she realised he’d reshaped reality itself, ensuring magitech couldn’t work within the godform without his consent. Clever, she acknowledged. If she’d found a second Technomage Emily and set out to try the same trick twice, he’d probably let her get on with it secure in the knowledge she was wasting her time. He certainly wouldn’t want her looking for something more effective …\n\nHer heart raced as she reached for the compressed mass in her pocket and held it gingerly. The mimic wasn’t dead, merely locked in stasis, and yet … she unlocked it gently, calling upon its magical signature and using it to reach out for the godform. She’d had flickering impressions from the other Emilys – memories and emotions that weren’t hers, yet felt real in a way that defied logic and reason – and Master Wolfe should have the same issue. The mimic shared the same magical signature as the godform, allowing her to slip her mind into the spellware without being detected. It should be impossible to isolate it from the rest of the spellform and yet … it was hard to be sure. The godform was so vast it should be difficult for any sort of internal monitoring to notice the intrusion, but Master Wolfe’s mind had expanded along with his powers. His true capabilities were beyond her imagination.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1022, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch38-P2", "chapter": "ch38", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngodform — one word, lowercase.\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily enters the godform alone, pushes through reconfiguring nightmare landscapes to the heartbeat core, and unlocks her stasis-locked mimic to slip into Master Wolfe’s spellware.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nMind inside the godform’s spellware. Awed by scale beyond comprehension; reading Master Wolfe’s slow vast thoughts; striking his core while he splits attention between nexus assault and ascension; holding against a wave of pure madness.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nSlow-thinking within the system that keeps him intact; distracted; counterattacking by pouring poison-images into her mind.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nIt didn’t improve as she neared the heartbeat. There were things moving around, strange flickering monsters that defied description and machines that looked to have been thrown together from spare parts; she stayed as far as she could from them, even as they seemed to move closer to her without quite moving at all. The internal dimensions were an utter nightmare … she saw something practically teleport halfway across the section, then vanish into nothingness the moment she looked at it directly. Her mind ached as the pounding sound grew louder, the noise of a thousand heartbeats taking on the tone of a man speaking … rewriting the universe through sheer force of will. She looked up and saw countless timelines spinning into the singularity. It was just a matter of time, now, before the next Big Bang birthed a new universe, one made in Master Wolfe’s image. It was going to be a nightmare.\n\nShe looked around, half-expecting a guard after she’d tried to invade the core of the godform once before, but saw nothing. She had no idea why. Did Master Wolfe think he was invincible? Or … she frowned as she realised he’d reshaped reality itself, ensuring magitech couldn’t work within the godform without his consent. Clever, she acknowledged. If she’d found a second Technomage Emily and set out to try the same trick twice, he’d probably let her get on with it secure in the knowledge she was wasting her time. He certainly wouldn’t want her looking for something more effective …\n\nHer heart raced as she reached for the compressed mass in her pocket and held it gingerly. The mimic wasn’t dead, merely locked in stasis, and yet … she unlocked it gently, calling upon its magical signature and using it to reach out for the godform. She’d had flickering impressions from the other Emilys – memories and emotions that weren’t hers, yet felt real in a way that defied logic and reason – and Master Wolfe should have the same issue. The mimic shared the same magical signature as the godform, allowing her to slip her mind into the spellware without being detected. It should be impossible to isolate it from the rest of the spellform and yet … it was hard to be sure. The godform was so vast it should be difficult for any sort of internal monitoring to notice the intrusion, but Master Wolfe’s mind had expanded along with his powers. His true capabilities were beyond her imagination.\n\n### NOTES\nSpellware interior: perpetual-motion scale, power filtered through incomprehensible networks.\nSpeed gradient can trap attackers while he pauses time to think.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nThe godform opens around her in staggering complexity; she feels tiny and possibly wrong about every theory. Master Wolfe’s thoughts crawl; half his mind batters the nexus while the rest climbs toward godhood. She strikes the core with everything she has; pain shocks through universes; she tells herself to keep the hack down before he routes around it — and a tidal wave of deranged images cracks her head open. The scene lands on that madness crash.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Abstract interior combat; keep scale oppressive. Land on the madness wave.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "She closed her eyes for a long moment as the godform opened up around her. It was staggeringly intricate, the spellware on a level so complex it made the mimics seem incredibly – impossibly – simple. Even grasping a small part of the whole was almost impossible … the sheer scale of the power flowing through the spellware was almost worse, the raw power broken up by the godform and filtered into the spellware through a network of spells beyond the comprehension of any mortal mind. She suspected the godform had become a form of perpetual motion machine, the power spinning in and out of reality … it would be so deeply embedded in the new multiverse, she thought, that it would have an infinite source of power.\n\nOr perhaps I’m completely wrong, she thought. She was tiny and the godform was so big. The scale of this … thing … is beyond my comprehension.\n\nShe reached out further, examining the great slow thoughts moving through the godform. It was odd to see Master Wolfe’s thoughts crawling, instead of darting from place to place, but she suspected that was part of the system keeping him alive and intact. He would have an infinity of time to plan a response to any threat, while the attacker would have bare seconds to mount the offensive before it was too late … if it wasn’t already too late. He could hit the pause button to buy himself time to think easily. Anyone attacking him from the outside would have no chance to stop him, before he plotted his counterattack and struck with all the power he could muster.\n\nAnd he was distracted … she cursed under her breath as she saw the threads of raw power reaching out towards the nexus point. His mind was split, half of his attention trying to break through the bubble even as the other half concentrated on his rise to true godhood. Emily couldn’t tell what he was thinking, why he was even bothering to waste his time popping the bubble when supreme power awaited, but it hardly mattered. She had just run out of time.\n\nShe braced herself, again. Master Wolfe looked slow, but she knew better. Even trapped within the same speed gradient as herself, time flowing at the same rate for both of them, he was still terrifyingly smart. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend his true power, or the immensity of the spellform holding him together, which limited what she could do to him. She might be capable of hurting him, but taking him out wouldn’t be as easy as taking out his mimic. He was on a whole other level of raw power. She certainly didn’t have a near-perfect idea of his internal structure.\n\nEmily sent her thoughts forward, into the very core of his being, and struck with all the force she could muster. A wave of pain and shock ran through the godform, the nightmare sweeping into thousands upon thousands of universes and sending billions of intelligent life forms into a panic with no discernible cause; it had to feel, she reflected grimly, as though the godform had punched itself in the face. Her presence was almost impossible to isolate from the rest of the entity – she was using the same magical essence – and even if he worked out what had happened he’d still have real trouble finding her. Unless he decided to start punching himself in hopes of striking her …\n\nShe pushed the thought aside, trying to force her reality on the godform. It felt as if she were wrestling Jade or Cat, two young men too strong to be given a moment to breathe. They would throw her off if she gave them a second … hell, they were strong enough to best her even if she didn’t make a mistake. Learning your limits had been something the sergeants had drilled into her … she pushed the thought aside as she pressed harder, trying to pin the godform before it was too late. It was so powerful it could do anything to her, from killing her with a thought to transforming her or raping her or … something so awful it was beyond her imagination, something impossible to even the most powerful magician and unthinkable even to the vilest necromancer. She didn’t dare give it any time. She could feel its shock, feel the launch of a thousand searchers to find her … she covered herself as best she could as the shadow fell over the godform, concealing itself within its essence. The gaze swept over her … and passed on. She’d escaped.\n\nKeep it down, she told herself. The godform was recovering, trying to find ways to route around her hacking and counterattack. It was too smart to be given any chance to escape, not when it would easily take a mile if she gave it an inch, and it was unlikely she could hold it down indefinitely. She felt as if she were standing in front of a tank and daring the driver to drive over her, all too aware that if he did the tank would crush her into a paste effortlessly and take no damage itself. Just keep it down long enough to give her a chance to materialise the spellware …\n\nA wave of pure madness crashed against her mind, a sickening series of images too deranged for any mere human. She felt as if she were caught up in a tidal wave, her head cracked open to allow the godform to pour poison directly into her skull. She felt like a cockroach being sprayed with pesticide, the spray harmless to the human wielding it and yet … she shuddered helplessly at the sheer overkill, throwing up within her mind … she told herself it wasn’t real, not in any true sense. And yet it was. Master Wolfe was so desperate to stop her he was literally covering himself in poison.\n", "completion": "She closed her eyes for a long moment as the godform opened up around her. It was staggeringly intricate, the spellware on a level so complex it made the mimics seem incredibly – impossibly – simple. Even grasping a small part of the whole was almost impossible … the sheer scale of the power flowing through the spellware was almost worse, the raw power broken up by the godform and filtered into the spellware through a network of spells beyond the comprehension of any mortal mind. She suspected the godform had become a form of perpetual motion machine, the power spinning in and out of reality … it would be so deeply embedded in the new multiverse, she thought, that it would have an infinite source of power.\n\nOr perhaps I’m completely wrong, she thought. She was tiny and the godform was so big. The scale of this … thing … is beyond my comprehension.\n\nShe reached out further, examining the great slow thoughts moving through the godform. It was odd to see Master Wolfe’s thoughts crawling, instead of darting from place to place, but she suspected that was part of the system keeping him alive and intact. He would have an infinity of time to plan a response to any threat, while the attacker would have bare seconds to mount the offensive before it was too late … if it wasn’t already too late. He could hit the pause button to buy himself time to think easily. Anyone attacking him from the outside would have no chance to stop him, before he plotted his counterattack and struck with all the power he could muster.\n\nAnd he was distracted … she cursed under her breath as she saw the threads of raw power reaching out towards the nexus point. His mind was split, half of his attention trying to break through the bubble even as the other half concentrated on his rise to true godhood. Emily couldn’t tell what he was thinking, why he was even bothering to waste his time popping the bubble when supreme power awaited, but it hardly mattered. She had just run out of time.\n\nShe braced herself, again. Master Wolfe looked slow, but she knew better. Even trapped within the same speed gradient as herself, time flowing at the same rate for both of them, he was still terrifyingly smart. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend his true power, or the immensity of the spellform holding him together, which limited what she could do to him. She might be capable of hurting him, but taking him out wouldn’t be as easy as taking out his mimic. He was on a whole other level of raw power. She certainly didn’t have a near-perfect idea of his internal structure.\n\nEmily sent her thoughts forward, into the very core of his being, and struck with all the force she could muster. A wave of pain and shock ran through the godform, the nightmare sweeping into thousands upon thousands of universes and sending billions of intelligent life forms into a panic with no discernible cause; it had to feel, she reflected grimly, as though the godform had punched itself in the face. Her presence was almost impossible to isolate from the rest of the entity – she was using the same magical essence – and even if he worked out what had happened he’d still have real trouble finding her. Unless he decided to start punching himself in hopes of striking her …\n\nShe pushed the thought aside, trying to force her reality on the godform. It felt as if she were wrestling Jade or Cat, two young men too strong to be given a moment to breathe. They would throw her off if she gave them a second … hell, they were strong enough to best her even if she didn’t make a mistake. Learning your limits had been something the sergeants had drilled into her … she pushed the thought aside as she pressed harder, trying to pin the godform before it was too late. It was so powerful it could do anything to her, from killing her with a thought to transforming her or raping her or … something so awful it was beyond her imagination, something impossible to even the most powerful magician and unthinkable even to the vilest necromancer. She didn’t dare give it any time. She could feel its shock, feel the launch of a thousand searchers to find her … she covered herself as best she could as the shadow fell over the godform, concealing itself within its essence. The gaze swept over her … and passed on. She’d escaped.\n\nKeep it down, she told herself. The godform was recovering, trying to find ways to route around her hacking and counterattack. It was too smart to be given any chance to escape, not when it would easily take a mile if she gave it an inch, and it was unlikely she could hold it down indefinitely. She felt as if she were standing in front of a tank and daring the driver to drive over her, all too aware that if he did the tank would crush her into a paste effortlessly and take no damage itself. Just keep it down long enough to give her a chance to materialise the spellware …\n\nA wave of pure madness crashed against her mind, a sickening series of images too deranged for any mere human. She felt as if she were caught up in a tidal wave, her head cracked open to allow the godform to pour poison directly into her skull. She felt like a cockroach being sprayed with pesticide, the spray harmless to the human wielding it and yet … she shuddered helplessly at the sheer overkill, throwing up within her mind … she told herself it wasn’t real, not in any true sense. And yet it was. Master Wolfe was so desperate to stop her he was literally covering himself in poison.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 995, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch38-P3", "chapter": "ch38", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nMaster Wolfe — both words; capitalize Master as part of the name.\ngodform — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nInside the godform’s spellware Emily strikes Master Wolfe’s core and holds the hack open until a tidal wave of pure madness crashes into her mind.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nStill inside/near the godform fight after the madness wave. Taunting to keep him off-balance; planting post-hypnotic commands; ripped back into her body when Necromancer Emily chokes her; facing slack-faced necromantic selves Master Wolfe marches forward.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nScrutinizing his own thoughts; grabbing her with pure power; timelines spiraling into a singularity egg.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nChoking Emily from behind; nose broken when Emily headbutts; one of several dull-eyed necromantic selves under Master Wolfe’s control.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe pushed the thought aside, trying to force her reality on the godform. It felt as if she were wrestling Jade or Cat, two young men too strong to be given a moment to breathe. They would throw her off if she gave them a second … hell, they were strong enough to best her even if she didn’t make a mistake. Learning your limits had been something the sergeants had drilled into her … she pushed the thought aside as she pressed harder, trying to pin the godform before it was too late. It was so powerful it could do anything to her, from killing her with a thought to transforming her or raping her or … something so awful it was beyond her imagination, something impossible to even the most powerful magician and unthinkable even to the vilest necromancer. She didn’t dare give it any time. She could feel its shock, feel the launch of a thousand searchers to find her … she covered herself as best she could as the shadow fell over the godform, concealing itself within its essence. The gaze swept over her … and passed on. She’d escaped.\n\nKeep it down, she told herself. The godform was recovering, trying to find ways to route around her hacking and counterattack. It was too smart to be given any chance to escape, not when it would easily take a mile if she gave it an inch, and it was unlikely she could hold it down indefinitely. She felt as if she were standing in front of a tank and daring the driver to drive over her, all too aware that if he did the tank would crush her into a paste effortlessly and take no damage itself. Just keep it down long enough to give her a chance to materialise the spellware …\n\nA wave of pure madness crashed against her mind, a sickening series of images too deranged for any mere human. She felt as if she were caught up in a tidal wave, her head cracked open to allow the godform to pour poison directly into her skull. She felt like a cockroach being sprayed with pesticide, the spray harmless to the human wielding it and yet … she shuddered helplessly at the sheer overkill, throwing up within her mind … she told herself it wasn’t real, not in any true sense. And yet it was. Master Wolfe was so desperate to stop her he was literally covering himself in poison.\n\n### NOTES\nPhysical body still present for the choke attack amid the mental war.\nMultiple Necromancer Emily bodies can be fielded.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe taunts that she is still here while he peels his own mind looking for her; she shoots post-hypnotic fear through him, then someone chokes her from behind — Necromancer Emily — and Emily headbutts, stamps, elbows free only to find herself knocked out of his mind. Necromantic selves march forward slack as Slave Emily ever was. Master Wolfe seizes her with pure power as the last timelines spiral into the cosmic egg — and her counterpart opens her eyes. The scene lands on that opening.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Mind-war into bodily brawl; keep the necromancer selves uncanny. Land on the counterpart’s eyes opening.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "I'm still here, she taunted. Another shudder ran through the godform. She felt a multitude of eyes peering down, scrutinising every last atom of his body. He’d thrown caution to the winds, she noted; he was searching his own body despite the risk of damaging himself in the process. She buried herself under the essence, hacking her way further and further into the heart of his being. It was growing less effective with every passing second, she noted coldly, but it didn’t have to hold much longer. His attention was focused on her now. Listen to this …\n\nShe shot a series of post-hypnotic commands into his mind. They wouldn’t have gone unnoticed in any case, now he was scrutinising his own thoughts, but … a wave of naked fear ran through his mind, the same fear she’d felt herself when she’d discovered it was possible to turn someone into an unwitting traitor with magic, or simply program them to play the hypno fool. It was hard enough to catch commands someone had inserted into your mind from the outside, harder still if they were using your own essence against you. Master Wolfe would have to be very careful not to damage himself in his panic …,\n\nI’m you, she sent. Let him think she was an alternate version of himself. If there was an Emily who could be a necromancer, why not a Master Wolfe who was one of the good guys? It only had to happen once. You can’t catch me because I'm you.\n\nSomeone wrapped an arm around her neck and squeezed. Emily fell back into her own body, throwing her head back automatically and slamming the back of her skull into Necromancer Emily’s nose. She felt it break, even as her grip tightened … Emily stamped on her foot, drove her elbow back as hard as she could, breaking free an instant before her counterpart could strangle her. Dark magic surrounded her, poisoning the air … Emily recoiled. Necromancer Emily was dead! Emily had seen her die. And yet … she cursed as she saw more and more necromantic counterparts appearing from nowhere, materialising around her. Master Wolfe was either plucking counterparts from a hundred alternate timelines or somehow duplicating the one the wolf had eaten, copying and pasting them into reality. It should have been impossible, but the normal laws meant nothing to him. He’d found a way to find her without damaging himself.\n\nShit, Emily thought. She still had the essence of Master Wolfe, but she’d been knocked out of his mind … could she get back in? She didn’t know. His thoughts were spinning above her as he examined his own mentality, a sanity check … no, an insanity check. The thought would have made her smile if things weren’t so dire. He might have just won without ever knowing what he’d done. What now …?\n\nHer necromantic selves marched forward, their power beating on the air. Their faces were dull and slack, dead to the world in a way that reminded her – chillingly – of Slave Emily. Master Wolfe wasn’t taking any chances, she realised numbly. They were not going to get any sort of freedom, not in the heart of the godform. It would limit their effectiveness if he treated them as puppets and operated them on remote control, but there were so many of them it probably wouldn’t matter. More were popping into existence with every passing second, adding their power to the growing haze surrounding her. She was trapped, unable to escape … unable, even, to fight back effectively. She thought about splitting atoms as a final desperate gamble, killing herself in the process, but the godform would likely absorb the blast without taking any real damage. It would be …\n\nA thought crossed her mind and she threw out a handful of spellforms of her own, trying to duplicate – and reverse – the spells she’d seen Necromancer Emily use. If the power could be captured … her counterparts acted a second later, hurling a sheet of raw and very tainted magic towards her, a nightmarish power she couldn’t hope to match. Her spells flared around her, absorbing and redirecting the power … she sensed, more than heard, Master Wolfe’s rage as the magic spiralled out of control. Emily didn’t give him any time to react. She reached out through her own blood, bypassing the mental wards protecting her counterparts and directing the remains of their magic into the spells binding them. Some staggered and collapsed as the spells snapped, their minds burnt by the raw power she’d unleashed; others tried to fight, directing what remained of their power into the godform. The sheer scale of the power they unleashed was terrifying and yet it was nothing to the godform. Emily took advantage of the chaos to insert herself back into its mind and attack again, striking at his very core. This time, the attack was ineffective. Emily swore as he shoved her back out of his mind. It was over.\n\nNot quite, she told herself. She had won time, hadn’t she? She reached out to the sole surviving necromancer and slashed into her mind, telling herself she had no choice. The link to Master Wolfe was damaged, but it wasn’t broken. If I can pull this off …\n\nMaster Wolfe reached out and grabbed her with his magic. No. It wasn’t magic. It was power. Pure unadulterated power. She could see the last of the timelines spiralling towards the singularity, a cosmic egg slowly coming into existence and waiting to be born … time was moving slowly, so slowly, and yet so impossibly fast there was no time to save even a tiny fragment of the old reality. His grip was tight, holding every last atom of her body in an unbreakable hold; she could feel his madness brushing against her, threatening to drive her insane too. It felt like the end of everything …\n\nAnd then her counterpart opened her eyes.\n", "completion": "I'm still here, she taunted. Another shudder ran through the godform. She felt a multitude of eyes peering down, scrutinising every last atom of his body. He’d thrown caution to the winds, she noted; he was searching his own body despite the risk of damaging himself in the process. She buried herself under the essence, hacking her way further and further into the heart of his being. It was growing less effective with every passing second, she noted coldly, but it didn’t have to hold much longer. His attention was focused on her now. Listen to this …\n\nShe shot a series of post-hypnotic commands into his mind. They wouldn’t have gone unnoticed in any case, now he was scrutinising his own thoughts, but … a wave of naked fear ran through his mind, the same fear she’d felt herself when she’d discovered it was possible to turn someone into an unwitting traitor with magic, or simply program them to play the hypno fool. It was hard enough to catch commands someone had inserted into your mind from the outside, harder still if they were using your own essence against you. Master Wolfe would have to be very careful not to damage himself in his panic …,\n\nI’m you, she sent. Let him think she was an alternate version of himself. If there was an Emily who could be a necromancer, why not a Master Wolfe who was one of the good guys? It only had to happen once. You can’t catch me because I'm you.\n\nSomeone wrapped an arm around her neck and squeezed. Emily fell back into her own body, throwing her head back automatically and slamming the back of her skull into Necromancer Emily’s nose. She felt it break, even as her grip tightened … Emily stamped on her foot, drove her elbow back as hard as she could, breaking free an instant before her counterpart could strangle her. Dark magic surrounded her, poisoning the air … Emily recoiled. Necromancer Emily was dead! Emily had seen her die. And yet … she cursed as she saw more and more necromantic counterparts appearing from nowhere, materialising around her. Master Wolfe was either plucking counterparts from a hundred alternate timelines or somehow duplicating the one the wolf had eaten, copying and pasting them into reality. It should have been impossible, but the normal laws meant nothing to him. He’d found a way to find her without damaging himself.\n\nShit, Emily thought. She still had the essence of Master Wolfe, but she’d been knocked out of his mind … could she get back in? She didn’t know. His thoughts were spinning above her as he examined his own mentality, a sanity check … no, an insanity check. The thought would have made her smile if things weren’t so dire. He might have just won without ever knowing what he’d done. What now …?\n\nHer necromantic selves marched forward, their power beating on the air. Their faces were dull and slack, dead to the world in a way that reminded her – chillingly – of Slave Emily. Master Wolfe wasn’t taking any chances, she realised numbly. They were not going to get any sort of freedom, not in the heart of the godform. It would limit their effectiveness if he treated them as puppets and operated them on remote control, but there were so many of them it probably wouldn’t matter. More were popping into existence with every passing second, adding their power to the growing haze surrounding her. She was trapped, unable to escape … unable, even, to fight back effectively. She thought about splitting atoms as a final desperate gamble, killing herself in the process, but the godform would likely absorb the blast without taking any real damage. It would be …\n\nA thought crossed her mind and she threw out a handful of spellforms of her own, trying to duplicate – and reverse – the spells she’d seen Necromancer Emily use. If the power could be captured … her counterparts acted a second later, hurling a sheet of raw and very tainted magic towards her, a nightmarish power she couldn’t hope to match. Her spells flared around her, absorbing and redirecting the power … she sensed, more than heard, Master Wolfe’s rage as the magic spiralled out of control. Emily didn’t give him any time to react. She reached out through her own blood, bypassing the mental wards protecting her counterparts and directing the remains of their magic into the spells binding them. Some staggered and collapsed as the spells snapped, their minds burnt by the raw power she’d unleashed; others tried to fight, directing what remained of their power into the godform. The sheer scale of the power they unleashed was terrifying and yet it was nothing to the godform. Emily took advantage of the chaos to insert herself back into its mind and attack again, striking at his very core. This time, the attack was ineffective. Emily swore as he shoved her back out of his mind. It was over.\n\nNot quite, she told herself. She had won time, hadn’t she? She reached out to the sole surviving necromancer and slashed into her mind, telling herself she had no choice. The link to Master Wolfe was damaged, but it wasn’t broken. If I can pull this off …\n\nMaster Wolfe reached out and grabbed her with his magic. No. It wasn’t magic. It was power. Pure unadulterated power. She could see the last of the timelines spiralling towards the singularity, a cosmic egg slowly coming into existence and waiting to be born … time was moving slowly, so slowly, and yet so impossibly fast there was no time to save even a tiny fragment of the old reality. His grip was tight, holding every last atom of her body in an unbreakable hold; she could feel his madness brushing against her, threatening to drive her insane too. It felt like the end of everything …\n\nAnd then her counterpart opened her eyes.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1012, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch39-P1", "chapter": "ch39", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\ngodform — one word, lowercase.\nbloodlink — one word, lowercase.\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized as designation.\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized as designation.\nEmile — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nIn the godform fight Emily is choked by Necromancer Emily, knocked from Master Wolfe’s mind, and seized in pure power as timelines fall into the singularity — until her counterpart opens her eyes.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nReaching from the nexus into Necromancer Emily’s shattered mind to channel spellware into the godform’s heart. Fighting red-mist madness and godhood temptation while devices drink Master Wolfe’s power; tying the final threadline as he locks a tendril of attention inside.\n\nNecromancer Emily\nStunned under dual mind control; bloodlinked so Master Wolfe cannot cut the sane Emilys away; conduit for the nexus strike.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nRecoiling as spellware materializes in his heart; forced to feed the devices by defending himself; locking awareness into the godform at a cost to the wider multiverse.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nDevices conceived from Technomage and Necromancer ideas, guided by essence taken with Empress Emily’s and Emile’s help, are meant to drink godform power from inside the one place Master Wolfe cannot effortlessly control — his own heart.\n\n### PREVIOUS\nA thought crossed her mind and she threw out a handful of spellforms of her own, trying to duplicate – and reverse – the spells she’d seen Necromancer Emily use. If the power could be captured … her counterparts acted a second later, hurling a sheet of raw and very tainted magic towards her, a nightmarish power she couldn’t hope to match. Her spells flared around her, absorbing and redirecting the power … she sensed, more than heard, Master Wolfe’s rage as the magic spiralled out of control. Emily didn’t give him any time to react. She reached out through her own blood, bypassing the mental wards protecting her counterparts and directing the remains of their magic into the spells binding them. Some staggered and collapsed as the spells snapped, their minds burnt by the raw power she’d unleashed; others tried to fight, directing what remained of their power into the godform. The sheer scale of the power they unleashed was terrifying and yet it was nothing to the godform. Emily took advantage of the chaos to insert herself back into its mind and attack again, striking at his very core. This time, the attack was ineffective. Emily swore as he shoved her back out of his mind. It was over.\n\nNot quite, she told herself. She had won time, hadn’t she? She reached out to the sole surviving necromancer and slashed into her mind, telling herself she had no choice. The link to Master Wolfe was damaged, but it wasn’t broken. If I can pull this off …\n\nMaster Wolfe reached out and grabbed her with his magic. No. It wasn’t magic. It was power. Pure unadulterated power. She could see the last of the timelines spiralling towards the singularity, a cosmic egg slowly coming into existence and waiting to be born … time was moving slowly, so slowly, and yet so impossibly fast there was no time to save even a tiny fragment of the old reality. His grip was tight, holding every last atom of her body in an unbreakable hold; she could feel his madness brushing against her, threatening to drive her insane too. It felt like the end of everything …\n\nAnd then her counterpart opened her eyes.\n\n### NOTES\nAll times are one inside the nexus; hours of casting can snap into instant effect.\nRed mist of necromantic amorality leaks across the bloodlink.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe plunges from the nexus into the necromancer’s breaking mind and shoves spellware into the godform’s heart; Master Wolfe recoils too late as the bloodlink blocks him from cutting the sane Emilys free. Instant devices drink his defending power; red mist tempts her toward godhood and perfect policing justice; she refuses Big Sister and smiles when he locks attention inside — then boosts through her other self and the final threadline. The scene lands on that surge.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Climactic dual-mind strike; keep the madness temptation brief and refused. Land on the power surge.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "Emily reached out of the nexus point and into her counterpart’s mind.\n\nThe necromancer was stunned, her mentality shattering under the dual mind control. There was no time for guilt, no time to question the morality of what she was about to do … no time, even, to consider the risks of touching someone so insane. She channelled the power of the nexus point through the necromancer, shaping the spellware as it burst into the heart of the godform. Master Wolfe recoiled, the entire multiverse shaking because of his burst of horror, as the first piece of spellware materialised. He tried to crack down, only to discover – too late – that the bloodlink between the sane Emilys and necromancer Emily made it impossible to cut the sane Emilys away from him. Other versions of Emily appeared out of nowhere, cursing the maddened necromancer …\n\nEmily focused, then rammed the second set of spellware into being. All times were one in the nexus point, so a spell that took hours to cast and days to take effect within the pocket dimension seemingly snapped into existence instantly as she triggered the spells. The devices – devised by ideas from Technomage Emily and Necromancer Emily, guided by the essence stolen with the aid of Empress Emily and Emile – were conjured out of raw magic, slipping into the altered reality before their target had a chance to realise what was happening. Time itself was being altered, the gradient of passing time warped and twisted to ensure there was no hope of erasing the spellware from existence. Emily reached for the final threadline and held it firmly in place as the spellware took effect, sucking up the godform’s power and channelling it into a final spell. It didn’t matter how many versions of Necromancer Emily he summoned now. They couldn’t do anything to stop her. Only Master Wolfe himself could do it.\n\nInsanity sat at the edge of  her mind, a red mist that threatened to overwhelm her. It was a permanent headache, a persistent sound at the back of her head … a lack, she realised numbly, of the morality she held so dear. She hadn’t expected to feel sorry for her counterpart, but she did so now. The red mist made it hard to think, harder still to realise she really shouldn’t lash out in anger or give way to the temptation to do something abhorrent. Every little desire, no matter how vile, was suddenly legitimate; do what thou wilt will suddenly the whole of the law. Except every urge was burning up, leaving nothing but an endless thirst for power and a willingness to do whatever it took to get it. She gritted her teeth, suddenly aware of just why her counterpart had gone mad. The constant pressure wasn’t heavy, but if threatened to grind down her mind just the same.\n\nThe devices shimmered with power, sucking in more and more magic and using it to reshape the interior of the godform. Master Wolfe could only defend himself by channelling huge amounts of power into himself, but the more power he channelled the more power he funnelled straight into the devices. It was like trying to put out a fire by using gas instead of water, only worse; it was like trying to perform heart surgery on yourself, without anaesthetic. The one place in all the multiverse the godform couldn’t see, let alone control effortlessly, was the heart of the godform itself. And that was where she’d planted the device.\n\nHer awareness expanded, but the madness threatened to expand too. The multiverse was dying, more and more timelines and threadlines falling into the singularity … the singularity that was now being swallowed by her device. She gritted her teeth as she felt him try to lash back at the nexus point, try to rewrite her spellware once again … too late. He might as well have tried to kill someone while they were both falling from a great height. The device was up and running now, reshaping reality and draining the power that fuelled the godform. Emily felt a flicker of dark amusement, the madness taking its toll. The entire multiverse might die, if her final plan failed, but at least it wouldn’t become the plaything of a mad god.\n\nFocus, she told herself. The madness was harming her, all the little resentments and hatreds bubbling up inside her, given weight by the red mist weighing down her mind. Don’t let it overwhelm you.\n\nWhy not? The question hung in her mind. Why not use it?\n\nA series of images shot through her mind. She could claim godhood for herself … why not? She could recreate a universe of perfect justice, in which her stepfather was punished for his crimes … in which everyone was punished for their crimes. She could supervise every last second of the life of every last person, watching over their shoulder and steering them away from sin and crime and everything else … she could hand out instant justice to sinners, policing their every thought and punishing them for thoughtcrime … a nightmarish thought that was suddenly hellishly attractive. Why shouldn’t she? Why not?\n\nBig Sister is watching you, she thought, numbly. She’d read a book, once, in which a god had done just that. It had been a nightmarish world, not just because the god’s religion had made The Handmaid’s Tale look sweet and kindly. And once you pick it up, you will never be able to put it down again.\n\nMaster Wolfe acted, extruding a tendril of thought into the godform and locking it in place through his awareness. Emily allowed herself a tight smile as she focused her mind. Master Wolfe could make something happen by observing it, but in order to do it inside the godform he had to divert his attention from the rest of the multiverse. Her awareness snapped out, locking onto her other self and tying her to the threadline … the final threadline. A surge of power ran through her, a boost that wouldn’t last long … hopefully just long enough.\n", "completion": "Emily reached out of the nexus point and into her counterpart’s mind.\n\nThe necromancer was stunned, her mentality shattering under the dual mind control. There was no time for guilt, no time to question the morality of what she was about to do … no time, even, to consider the risks of touching someone so insane. She channelled the power of the nexus point through the necromancer, shaping the spellware as it burst into the heart of the godform. Master Wolfe recoiled, the entire multiverse shaking because of his burst of horror, as the first piece of spellware materialised. He tried to crack down, only to discover – too late – that the bloodlink between the sane Emilys and necromancer Emily made it impossible to cut the sane Emilys away from him. Other versions of Emily appeared out of nowhere, cursing the maddened necromancer …\n\nEmily focused, then rammed the second set of spellware into being. All times were one in the nexus point, so a spell that took hours to cast and days to take effect within the pocket dimension seemingly snapped into existence instantly as she triggered the spells. The devices – devised by ideas from Technomage Emily and Necromancer Emily, guided by the essence stolen with the aid of Empress Emily and Emile – were conjured out of raw magic, slipping into the altered reality before their target had a chance to realise what was happening. Time itself was being altered, the gradient of passing time warped and twisted to ensure there was no hope of erasing the spellware from existence. Emily reached for the final threadline and held it firmly in place as the spellware took effect, sucking up the godform’s power and channelling it into a final spell. It didn’t matter how many versions of Necromancer Emily he summoned now. They couldn’t do anything to stop her. Only Master Wolfe himself could do it.\n\nInsanity sat at the edge of  her mind, a red mist that threatened to overwhelm her. It was a permanent headache, a persistent sound at the back of her head … a lack, she realised numbly, of the morality she held so dear. She hadn’t expected to feel sorry for her counterpart, but she did so now. The red mist made it hard to think, harder still to realise she really shouldn’t lash out in anger or give way to the temptation to do something abhorrent. Every little desire, no matter how vile, was suddenly legitimate; do what thou wilt will suddenly the whole of the law. Except every urge was burning up, leaving nothing but an endless thirst for power and a willingness to do whatever it took to get it. She gritted her teeth, suddenly aware of just why her counterpart had gone mad. The constant pressure wasn’t heavy, but if threatened to grind down her mind just the same.\n\nThe devices shimmered with power, sucking in more and more magic and using it to reshape the interior of the godform. Master Wolfe could only defend himself by channelling huge amounts of power into himself, but the more power he channelled the more power he funnelled straight into the devices. It was like trying to put out a fire by using gas instead of water, only worse; it was like trying to perform heart surgery on yourself, without anaesthetic. The one place in all the multiverse the godform couldn’t see, let alone control effortlessly, was the heart of the godform itself. And that was where she’d planted the device.\n\nHer awareness expanded, but the madness threatened to expand too. The multiverse was dying, more and more timelines and threadlines falling into the singularity … the singularity that was now being swallowed by her device. She gritted her teeth as she felt him try to lash back at the nexus point, try to rewrite her spellware once again … too late. He might as well have tried to kill someone while they were both falling from a great height. The device was up and running now, reshaping reality and draining the power that fuelled the godform. Emily felt a flicker of dark amusement, the madness taking its toll. The entire multiverse might die, if her final plan failed, but at least it wouldn’t become the plaything of a mad god.\n\nFocus, she told herself. The madness was harming her, all the little resentments and hatreds bubbling up inside her, given weight by the red mist weighing down her mind. Don’t let it overwhelm you.\n\nWhy not? The question hung in her mind. Why not use it?\n\nA series of images shot through her mind. She could claim godhood for herself … why not? She could recreate a universe of perfect justice, in which her stepfather was punished for his crimes … in which everyone was punished for their crimes. She could supervise every last second of the life of every last person, watching over their shoulder and steering them away from sin and crime and everything else … she could hand out instant justice to sinners, policing their every thought and punishing them for thoughtcrime … a nightmarish thought that was suddenly hellishly attractive. Why shouldn’t she? Why not?\n\nBig Sister is watching you, she thought, numbly. She’d read a book, once, in which a god had done just that. It had been a nightmarish world, not just because the god’s religion had made The Handmaid’s Tale look sweet and kindly. And once you pick it up, you will never be able to put it down again.\n\nMaster Wolfe acted, extruding a tendril of thought into the godform and locking it in place through his awareness. Emily allowed herself a tight smile as she focused her mind. Master Wolfe could make something happen by observing it, but in order to do it inside the godform he had to divert his attention from the rest of the multiverse. Her awareness snapped out, locking onto her other self and tying her to the threadline … the final threadline. A surge of power ran through her, a boost that wouldn’t last long … hopefully just long enough.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1025, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch39-P2", "chapter": "ch39", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\ngodform — one word, lowercase.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\nFrieda — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nEmily channels nexus power through Necromancer Emily into devices at the godform’s heart, refuses the red-mist temptation of godhood, and surges through the final threadline as Master Wolfe locks his awareness inside.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nRiding the critical devices as the world goes white, then falling back down the threadline through a rewinding multiverse. Tears for Frieda alive again; watching Void’s Tower’s pocket dimensions knot and threaten to destroy local space.\n\nFrieda\nAlive again in the restored timeline; Emily’s certainty is emotional more than proven.\n\nMaster Wolfe\nNo longer undermining reality the same way after the critical white-out.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nHer awareness expanded, but the madness threatened to expand too. The multiverse was dying, more and more timelines and threadlines falling into the singularity … the singularity that was now being swallowed by her device. She gritted her teeth as she felt him try to lash back at the nexus point, try to rewrite her spellware once again … too late. He might as well have tried to kill someone while they were both falling from a great height. The device was up and running now, reshaping reality and draining the power that fuelled the godform. Emily felt a flicker of dark amusement, the madness taking its toll. The entire multiverse might die, if her final plan failed, but at least it wouldn’t become the plaything of a mad god.\n\nFocus, she told herself. The madness was harming her, all the little resentments and hatreds bubbling up inside her, given weight by the red mist weighing down her mind. Don’t let it overwhelm you.\n\nWhy not? The question hung in her mind. Why not use it?\n\nA series of images shot through her mind. She could claim godhood for herself … why not? She could recreate a universe of perfect justice, in which her stepfather was punished for his crimes … in which everyone was punished for their crimes. She could supervise every last second of the life of every last person, watching over their shoulder and steering them away from sin and crime and everything else … she could hand out instant justice to sinners, policing their every thought and punishing them for thoughtcrime … a nightmarish thought that was suddenly hellishly attractive. Why shouldn’t she? Why not?\n\nBig Sister is watching you, she thought, numbly. She’d read a book, once, in which a god had done just that. It had been a nightmarish world, not just because the god’s religion had made The Handmaid’s Tale look sweet and kindly. And once you pick it up, you will never be able to put it down again.\n\nMaster Wolfe acted, extruding a tendril of thought into the godform and locking it in place through his awareness. Emily allowed herself a tight smile as she focused her mind. Master Wolfe could make something happen by observing it, but in order to do it inside the godform he had to divert his attention from the rest of the multiverse. Her awareness snapped out, locking onto her other self and tying her to the threadline … the final threadline. A surge of power ran through her, a boost that wouldn’t last long … hopefully just long enough.\n\n### NOTES\nWhite-out as devices go critical; subjective rewind of timelines knitting back.\nVoid’s Tower shaking as pocket dimensions unfold and compress.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nAll times are one; she drives the nexus bubble into the godform through counterpart and stolen essence until the devices go critical and the world goes white. She falls back down the threadline as timelines reassemble and lives renew; Master Wolfe’s undoing reverses. Frieda is alive — of course she is — and tears come. The tower shakes as pocket dimensions knot toward destruction, and the scene lands on that structural crisis.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. White-out catharsis into fragile restoration; keep Frieda’s return felt, not explained. Land on the tower shaking.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "All times were one in the nexus points. It was time to see how true that really was.\n\nEmily reached out, through her counterpart and through the essence of the alternate Master Wolfe. The nexus point shifted with her, bringing her bubble into direct contact with the godform for the first time. Her head swam under the sudden impact. It would have killed her if she hadn’t already primed the spellware, but it was still difficult to maintain her focus as the final set of spellware went active. Master Wolfe saw what she was doing … too late. It didn’t matter which set of spellware he tackled now, the other would get him. If he struggled, he’d fuel the devices destroying him; if he refused to fight, the devices would draw power from the nexus point and destroy him anyway. His only hope was maintaining the balance, stretching out the inevitable as long as possible, and even that …\n\nHer world exploded into white light. She found herself standing in the middle of a white void, Master Wolfe – looking like the man she recalled from their first meeting – standing in front of her. His form looked intact, yet she could see things crawling under his cloak … things her mind refused to look at too closely. He seemed calm, almost placid, yet there was something in his eyes that argued otherwise. He knew he was facing his end.\n\nTrapped forever in a single moment of time, Emily thought, with a flicker of vindictiveness. She was staring at the greatest murderer the multiverse had ever known, a man who had sacrificed so many lives that even God Himself would be hard pressed to count, let alone comprehend, the dead. And all in the name of power and understanding. And you know you’re trapped too.\n\nMaster Wolfe met her eyes. They had been brown once, she thought. There was nothing there now but pools of shadow. She couldn’t bring herself to look into them. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, Master Wolfe had lost his long ago. He’d been human once. Not any longer.\n\n“If you do this,” he said with a terrible evenness, “you will die.”\n\nEmily closed her eyes. “I know.”\n\nThe devices went critical. The world went white.\n\n***\n\nEmily fell back down the threadline, back in time itself. The multiverse seemed to rewind around her, great shattering images of entire timelines putting themselves back together, lives being renewed as reality tried to restore itself. Master Wolfe was no longer undermining reality, let alone sucking entire timelines into the singularity … his omnipresent gaze was no longer pinning the changes in place, ensuring nothing could be done to undo the nightmare he’d unleashed on the universe. Her other self had given her life to give the multiverse a chance to survive …\n\nThere was no time to mourn. Her body was blazing with a great and terrible power, a reservoir of raw magic – no, far more than mere magic – on a scale she’d never imagined, let alone experienced. She was imbued with the power of creation itself, a force beyond her comprehension … a force being leached from her as she fell back along the threadline, passing hundreds of others as she neared her destination. Her other selves were there, hanging in her mind … she reached out, ensuring the alternate Alassa remained in Slave Emily’s world and Slave Emily herself remained in Empress Emily’s world …she wasn’t sure how much they would remember, and the fact they remembered something, if they did, might actually threaten reality itself. She hoped they'd be fine … it was harder to find Technomage Emily and Emile, to erase the events that led to their deaths without erasing the timeline completely, but … it was hard to tell if she’d succeeded. Technomage Emily should be fine, along with her version of Adam. Emile …\n\nSomething snatched him, just as she tried to steer him into her timeline. She lost him. And there was no time to figure out who or why.\n\nThe world exploded around her as the threadline came to an end, depositing her right back where she’d started. Her body seemed to gasp for breath as her mind slipped into her past self, a brief moment of panic and confusion ending as her past and future minds merged into one. The godform was right in front of her, its presence poisoning the air and stamping its existence into reality as surely as the laws of physics themselves. But Emily had seen enough to know the laws could be bent, if not broken …\n\nShe took the last of the stolen essence and used it to ram her mind into the godform. Master Wolfe screamed as the raw power of creation tore him apart … no, erased him so completely he’d never existed at all. There would be no endless series of Master Wolfe godforms making their bid for omnipotence, no endless cycle of creation being destroyed, recreated, and then destroyed again. The godform was gone, she told herself firmly. It had never existed. It would never exist. Never.\n\n“Emily!”\n\nEmily looked up. Caleb was there. She threw herself forward, heedless of the danger as the tower shuddered violently, and clutched him tightly. Their lips met … she could feel his confusion as he kissed her back, his puzzlement … from his point of view, nothing had happened. There had been no long separation, no cancer destroying the multiverse … she heard someone call out behind her and broke the kiss, turning to see Frieda. She was alive!\n\nOf course she’s alive, Emily told herself. Tears prickled in her eyes. She never died.\n\nThe tower shook. She glanced around and saw countless pocket dimensions unfolding one by one, compressing local space into a knot and then threatening to destroy it. The tower had been anchored in place by the nexus point and it had been snuffed out, creating a paradox the universe was trying to resolve by erasing everyone involved. She could sense local reality shifting …\n", "completion": "All times were one in the nexus points. It was time to see how true that really was.\n\nEmily reached out, through her counterpart and through the essence of the alternate Master Wolfe. The nexus point shifted with her, bringing her bubble into direct contact with the godform for the first time. Her head swam under the sudden impact. It would have killed her if she hadn’t already primed the spellware, but it was still difficult to maintain her focus as the final set of spellware went active. Master Wolfe saw what she was doing … too late. It didn’t matter which set of spellware he tackled now, the other would get him. If he struggled, he’d fuel the devices destroying him; if he refused to fight, the devices would draw power from the nexus point and destroy him anyway. His only hope was maintaining the balance, stretching out the inevitable as long as possible, and even that …\n\nHer world exploded into white light. She found herself standing in the middle of a white void, Master Wolfe – looking like the man she recalled from their first meeting – standing in front of her. His form looked intact, yet she could see things crawling under his cloak … things her mind refused to look at too closely. He seemed calm, almost placid, yet there was something in his eyes that argued otherwise. He knew he was facing his end.\n\nTrapped forever in a single moment of time, Emily thought, with a flicker of vindictiveness. She was staring at the greatest murderer the multiverse had ever known, a man who had sacrificed so many lives that even God Himself would be hard pressed to count, let alone comprehend, the dead. And all in the name of power and understanding. And you know you’re trapped too.\n\nMaster Wolfe met her eyes. They had been brown once, she thought. There was nothing there now but pools of shadow. She couldn’t bring herself to look into them. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, Master Wolfe had lost his long ago. He’d been human once. Not any longer.\n\n“If you do this,” he said with a terrible evenness, “you will die.”\n\nEmily closed her eyes. “I know.”\n\nThe devices went critical. The world went white.\n\n***\n\nEmily fell back down the threadline, back in time itself. The multiverse seemed to rewind around her, great shattering images of entire timelines putting themselves back together, lives being renewed as reality tried to restore itself. Master Wolfe was no longer undermining reality, let alone sucking entire timelines into the singularity … his omnipresent gaze was no longer pinning the changes in place, ensuring nothing could be done to undo the nightmare he’d unleashed on the universe. Her other self had given her life to give the multiverse a chance to survive …\n\nThere was no time to mourn. Her body was blazing with a great and terrible power, a reservoir of raw magic – no, far more than mere magic – on a scale she’d never imagined, let alone experienced. She was imbued with the power of creation itself, a force beyond her comprehension … a force being leached from her as she fell back along the threadline, passing hundreds of others as she neared her destination. Her other selves were there, hanging in her mind … she reached out, ensuring the alternate Alassa remained in Slave Emily’s world and Slave Emily herself remained in Empress Emily’s world …she wasn’t sure how much they would remember, and the fact they remembered something, if they did, might actually threaten reality itself. She hoped they'd be fine … it was harder to find Technomage Emily and Emile, to erase the events that led to their deaths without erasing the timeline completely, but … it was hard to tell if she’d succeeded. Technomage Emily should be fine, along with her version of Adam. Emile …\n\nSomething snatched him, just as she tried to steer him into her timeline. She lost him. And there was no time to figure out who or why.\n\nThe world exploded around her as the threadline came to an end, depositing her right back where she’d started. Her body seemed to gasp for breath as her mind slipped into her past self, a brief moment of panic and confusion ending as her past and future minds merged into one. The godform was right in front of her, its presence poisoning the air and stamping its existence into reality as surely as the laws of physics themselves. But Emily had seen enough to know the laws could be bent, if not broken …\n\nShe took the last of the stolen essence and used it to ram her mind into the godform. Master Wolfe screamed as the raw power of creation tore him apart … no, erased him so completely he’d never existed at all. There would be no endless series of Master Wolfe godforms making their bid for omnipotence, no endless cycle of creation being destroyed, recreated, and then destroyed again. The godform was gone, she told herself firmly. It had never existed. It would never exist. Never.\n\n“Emily!”\n\nEmily looked up. Caleb was there. She threw herself forward, heedless of the danger as the tower shuddered violently, and clutched him tightly. Their lips met … she could feel his confusion as he kissed her back, his puzzlement … from his point of view, nothing had happened. There had been no long separation, no cancer destroying the multiverse … she heard someone call out behind her and broke the kiss, turning to see Frieda. She was alive!\n\nOf course she’s alive, Emily told herself. Tears prickled in her eyes. She never died.\n\nThe tower shook. She glanced around and saw countless pocket dimensions unfolding one by one, compressing local space into a knot and then threatening to destroy it. The tower had been anchored in place by the nexus point and it had been snuffed out, creating a paradox the universe was trying to resolve by erasing everyone involved. She could sense local reality shifting …\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1017, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch39-P3", "chapter": "ch39", "packet": "P3", "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nKuching — capitalized; place name.\nCat — capitalized; person, not animal.\nPenny — capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\nFrieda — capitalized.\nnexus point — two words, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nEmily’s devices destroy the godform in a white-out; she falls back through a reknitting multiverse to find Frieda alive and Void’s Tower coming apart around pocket dimensions.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nRunning survivors out of the dying tower. Certain the nexus is gone; hugging Frieda; aiming for Kuching to find the real Cat; unsure what timeline paradoxes remain.\n\nCaleb\nWith her; remembering enough to ask about the nexus; heading for the horses.\n\nPenny\nConfused; needs to find Master Cat; Cat-Mimic gone.\n\nFrieda\nAlive; hugged hard.\n\nCat\nReferenced; real Cat to be recovered later; mimic gone.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nSomething snatched him, just as she tried to steer him into her timeline. She lost him. And there was no time to figure out who or why.\n\nThe world exploded around her as the threadline came to an end, depositing her right back where she’d started. Her body seemed to gasp for breath as her mind slipped into her past self, a brief moment of panic and confusion ending as her past and future minds merged into one. The godform was right in front of her, its presence poisoning the air and stamping its existence into reality as surely as the laws of physics themselves. But Emily had seen enough to know the laws could be bent, if not broken …\n\nShe took the last of the stolen essence and used it to ram her mind into the godform. Master Wolfe screamed as the raw power of creation tore him apart … no, erased him so completely he’d never existed at all. There would be no endless series of Master Wolfe godforms making their bid for omnipotence, no endless cycle of creation being destroyed, recreated, and then destroyed again. The godform was gone, she told herself firmly. It had never existed. It would never exist. Never.\n\n“Emily!”\n\nEmily looked up. Caleb was there. She threw herself forward, heedless of the danger as the tower shuddered violently, and clutched him tightly. Their lips met … she could feel his confusion as he kissed her back, his puzzlement … from his point of view, nothing had happened. There had been no long separation, no cancer destroying the multiverse … she heard someone call out behind her and broke the kiss, turning to see Frieda. She was alive!\n\nOf course she’s alive, Emily told herself. Tears prickled in her eyes. She never died.\n\nThe tower shook. She glanced around and saw countless pocket dimensions unfolding one by one, compressing local space into a knot and then threatening to destroy it. The tower had been anchored in place by the nexus point and it had been snuffed out, creating a paradox the universe was trying to resolve by erasing everyone involved. She could sense local reality shifting …\n\n### NOTES\nRuined city haze; tower reduced to rubble by the end.\nHorses outside for the Kuching run.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe yells run, hauls Caleb toward the door, finds Penny confused and the Cat-Mimic gone, and hopes the real Cat waits in Kuching. She hugs Frieda — dead, no, never died — and will not test the mirrors now. Caleb asks what happened to the nexus; she says gone, even as paradox nags. They look back over a haze-stilled ruined city and a tower of rubble; she almost imagines something waiting in the dust, then shakes her head. The scene lands on that refusal of the fear.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1000 words. Aftermath evacuation; keep wonder and grief mixed. Land on dismissing the dust-fear.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“Run,” she yelled.\n\nShe caught Caleb’s hand and yanked him towards the door. Penny was there, looking confused … the Cat-Mimic was gone … Emily hoped they’d be able to find the real Cat, when they got back to Kuching. Master Wolfe had hinted he’d left Cat alive … she gritted her teeth and kept running, cursing under her breath as she saw pieces of machinery simply go translucent, then blink out of existence as their private timelines were erased. She kept her eyes firmly on the ground, throwing her awareness as far ahead of herself as she dared. The moment she took her eyes off her surroundings, they would change …\n\nPieces of debris crashed down around them, as parts of the ceiling simply vanished. Her head hurt as she sensed a handful of local paradoxes, saw a near-cartoon burst of logic end in tears as reality caught up and realised a lone device could not hover in the air because it simply hadn’t realised it was no longer supported. Everything was fraying around her, her mind nearly breaking as the last of creation’s power drained away … the door appeared in front of her, a gateway into the city outside, and she led the way through it. The tower shuddered as they left, the wards outside cracking uselessly … she kept running, not daring to look back until they were well clear of the building. The entire tower was collapsing, losing its grip on the pocket dimensions that had once held it firmly in place; she sucked in her breath as she saw the giant eye, a device intended to bind reality to a single quantum form through observation, close one final time and then collapse into nothingness. The rest of the tower followed, crumbling in on itself and toppling to the ground. Emily felt the ground shake one final time, the last of the poisoned magic flickering and dying, then …\n\nNothing. It was over.\n\nShe looked around, shaking her head in disbelief. The warped city looked tawdry now that the pocket dimensions were gone, some buildings collapsing as the local laws of physics reasserted themselves and others seemingly unchanged, just looking as if they’d been abandoned for centuries. The mountains beyond looked black and burnt, the sky overhead eerily clear for the Blighted Lands, as if the storm she remembered had cleared the air …\n\n“Emily,” Frieda said. She looked reassuringly normal, no trace of anything wrong. She was alive! “Are you …?”\n\nEmily hugged her, tightly. Frieda was dead … no, she’d never died at all. She wondered, numbly, what would happen if she tried to use the mirrors now. Would she be able to step back onto the threadlines? Or would she find the path barred? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. It would be much harder, perhaps impossible, to navigate without her other self’s help. She was dead too.\n\n“We need to get back to Kuching,” Penny said. “I have to find Master Cat.”\n\n“We’ll go recover the horses,” Caleb said. “Emily, what happened to the nexus point?”\n\n“Gone,” Emily said. If it had never existed at all, how come Caleb remembered it? He’d been in an alternate reality himself … did that give him a certain immunity to changes in the timeline? It was yet another paradox … did Master Wolfe have an existence independent of the godform, one that remained in existence even as the godform itself was destroyed? She suspected she’d never know. “It’s something of a long story.”\n\nCaleb gave her an encouraging smile as they started to walk out of the city and back to the campsite. “We have time.”\n\nEmily hesitated. Should she tell them? She trusted them and yet … she didn’t want other sorcerers experimenting with mimics and godforms themselves. Or trying to access other timelines. God alone knew what they might bring back, from a timeline where the necromancers had conquered the world or had never existed at all. Or what sort of invasions might follow in their wake. Or …\n\nShe squeezed his hand. They were going to be married. She couldn’t keep secrets from him.\n\n“He nearly destroyed everything,” she said, quietly. “I had to stop him.”\n\nShe ran through the whole story as they reached the campsite, leaving out only a handful of minor details. Caleb knew her well enough to tell when she wasn’t sharing something, but he respected her enough to wait for privacy before he asked her what she’d left out. She didn’t really want to talk about how the other version of Caleb had betrayed her, even though she knew an alternate of her had tortured him. It hadn’t been her and he knew it and yet he’d found it hard to look her in the eye for quite some time afterwards. But the gulf between her Caleb and the other was so wide it was easier to accept they were two different people. They just happened to share the same face.\n\n“I’ll get the kit,” Penny said, when they reached the campsite. “Do you want me to tell Master Cat?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. Penny had a duty to be honest to her master, and Emily couldn’t ask her to hide something from him, but … Emily shook her head. “Just make sure he knows not to spread the story any further.”\n\nShe turned back to stare over the ruined city. Nothing moved in the haze. The tower was nothing more than a pile of rubble. The nightmare was over and yet … was there something there, hidden in the dust, waiting to be born? She thought she saw something lingering at the corner of her eye, a splinter embedded in reality that would warp and twist the world around it …\n\nShe shook her head. It was probably just her imagination.\n", "completion": "“Run,” she yelled.\n\nShe caught Caleb’s hand and yanked him towards the door. Penny was there, looking confused … the Cat-Mimic was gone … Emily hoped they’d be able to find the real Cat, when they got back to Kuching. Master Wolfe had hinted he’d left Cat alive … she gritted her teeth and kept running, cursing under her breath as she saw pieces of machinery simply go translucent, then blink out of existence as their private timelines were erased. She kept her eyes firmly on the ground, throwing her awareness as far ahead of herself as she dared. The moment she took her eyes off her surroundings, they would change …\n\nPieces of debris crashed down around them, as parts of the ceiling simply vanished. Her head hurt as she sensed a handful of local paradoxes, saw a near-cartoon burst of logic end in tears as reality caught up and realised a lone device could not hover in the air because it simply hadn’t realised it was no longer supported. Everything was fraying around her, her mind nearly breaking as the last of creation’s power drained away … the door appeared in front of her, a gateway into the city outside, and she led the way through it. The tower shuddered as they left, the wards outside cracking uselessly … she kept running, not daring to look back until they were well clear of the building. The entire tower was collapsing, losing its grip on the pocket dimensions that had once held it firmly in place; she sucked in her breath as she saw the giant eye, a device intended to bind reality to a single quantum form through observation, close one final time and then collapse into nothingness. The rest of the tower followed, crumbling in on itself and toppling to the ground. Emily felt the ground shake one final time, the last of the poisoned magic flickering and dying, then …\n\nNothing. It was over.\n\nShe looked around, shaking her head in disbelief. The warped city looked tawdry now that the pocket dimensions were gone, some buildings collapsing as the local laws of physics reasserted themselves and others seemingly unchanged, just looking as if they’d been abandoned for centuries. The mountains beyond looked black and burnt, the sky overhead eerily clear for the Blighted Lands, as if the storm she remembered had cleared the air …\n\n“Emily,” Frieda said. She looked reassuringly normal, no trace of anything wrong. She was alive! “Are you …?”\n\nEmily hugged her, tightly. Frieda was dead … no, she’d never died at all. She wondered, numbly, what would happen if she tried to use the mirrors now. Would she be able to step back onto the threadlines? Or would she find the path barred? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. It would be much harder, perhaps impossible, to navigate without her other self’s help. She was dead too.\n\n“We need to get back to Kuching,” Penny said. “I have to find Master Cat.”\n\n“We’ll go recover the horses,” Caleb said. “Emily, what happened to the nexus point?”\n\n“Gone,” Emily said. If it had never existed at all, how come Caleb remembered it? He’d been in an alternate reality himself … did that give him a certain immunity to changes in the timeline? It was yet another paradox … did Master Wolfe have an existence independent of the godform, one that remained in existence even as the godform itself was destroyed? She suspected she’d never know. “It’s something of a long story.”\n\nCaleb gave her an encouraging smile as they started to walk out of the city and back to the campsite. “We have time.”\n\nEmily hesitated. Should she tell them? She trusted them and yet … she didn’t want other sorcerers experimenting with mimics and godforms themselves. Or trying to access other timelines. God alone knew what they might bring back, from a timeline where the necromancers had conquered the world or had never existed at all. Or what sort of invasions might follow in their wake. Or …\n\nShe squeezed his hand. They were going to be married. She couldn’t keep secrets from him.\n\n“He nearly destroyed everything,” she said, quietly. “I had to stop him.”\n\nShe ran through the whole story as they reached the campsite, leaving out only a handful of minor details. Caleb knew her well enough to tell when she wasn’t sharing something, but he respected her enough to wait for privacy before he asked her what she’d left out. She didn’t really want to talk about how the other version of Caleb had betrayed her, even though she knew an alternate of her had tortured him. It hadn’t been her and he knew it and yet he’d found it hard to look her in the eye for quite some time afterwards. But the gulf between her Caleb and the other was so wide it was easier to accept they were two different people. They just happened to share the same face.\n\n“I’ll get the kit,” Penny said, when they reached the campsite. “Do you want me to tell Master Cat?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. Penny had a duty to be honest to her master, and Emily couldn’t ask her to hide something from him, but … Emily shook her head. “Just make sure he knows not to spread the story any further.”\n\nShe turned back to stare over the ruined city. Nothing moved in the haze. The tower was nothing more than a pile of rubble. The nightmare was over and yet … was there something there, hidden in the dust, waiting to be born? She thought she saw something lingering at the corner of her eye, a splinter embedded in reality that would warp and twist the world around it …\n\nShe shook her head. It was probably just her imagination.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 983, "split": "holdout", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch40-P1", "chapter": "ch40", "packet": "P1", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nCat — capitalized; person name; do not expand.\nPenny — capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\nKuching — capitalized.\nmimic — lowercase.\nTechnomage Emily — both words capitalized as designation.\nthreadlines — one word, lowercase.\n\n### STORY\nAfter the godform’s fall Emily runs Frieda, Caleb, and Penny out of the collapsing tower toward Kuching, refuses to fear shapes in the dust, and leaves the ruined city behind.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nAt Cat’s dinner table in the aftermath, then alone with Caleb. Amused and weary at Cat’s cup-humiliation; warning against writing the mimic affair down; glad to be with her Caleb again; haunted by alternate selves when she touches the bedroom mirror.\n\nCat\nDeeply shamed at being turned into a cup; embarrassed rather than angry; teasing Penny; wanting a verbal report only.\n\nPenny\nTeasing Cat about how easy his mimic was to live with; will give the report.\n\nCaleb\nWith Emily afterward in their locked bedroom; loving; not the shadowy other Caleb.\n\n### RECALL\n(earlier in this book — summary)\nMaster Wolfe’s mimic replaced Cat by trapping the real Cat as dishware so the disguise would not decay; the affair ended with the godform’s destruction and the survivors’ return.\n\n### PREVIOUS\n“Gone,” Emily said. If it had never existed at all, how come Caleb remembered it? He’d been in an alternate reality himself … did that give him a certain immunity to changes in the timeline? It was yet another paradox … did Master Wolfe have an existence independent of the godform, one that remained in existence even as the godform itself was destroyed? She suspected she’d never know. “It’s something of a long story.”\n\nCaleb gave her an encouraging smile as they started to walk out of the city and back to the campsite. “We have time.”\n\nEmily hesitated. Should she tell them? She trusted them and yet … she didn’t want other sorcerers experimenting with mimics and godforms themselves. Or trying to access other timelines. God alone knew what they might bring back, from a timeline where the necromancers had conquered the world or had never existed at all. Or what sort of invasions might follow in their wake. Or …\n\nShe squeezed his hand. They were going to be married. She couldn’t keep secrets from him.\n\n“He nearly destroyed everything,” she said, quietly. “I had to stop him.”\n\nShe ran through the whole story as they reached the campsite, leaving out only a handful of minor details. Caleb knew her well enough to tell when she wasn’t sharing something, but he respected her enough to wait for privacy before he asked her what she’d left out. She didn’t really want to talk about how the other version of Caleb had betrayed her, even though she knew an alternate of her had tortured him. It hadn’t been her and he knew it and yet he’d found it hard to look her in the eye for quite some time afterwards. But the gulf between her Caleb and the other was so wide it was easier to accept they were two different people. They just happened to share the same face.\n\n“I’ll get the kit,” Penny said, when they reached the campsite. “Do you want me to tell Master Cat?”\n\n“No,” Emily said. Penny had a duty to be honest to her master, and Emily couldn’t ask her to hide something from him, but … Emily shook her head. “Just make sure he knows not to spread the story any further.”\n\nShe turned back to stare over the ruined city. Nothing moved in the haze. The tower was nothing more than a pile of rubble. The nightmare was over and yet … was there something there, hidden in the dust, waiting to be born? She thought she saw something lingering at the corner of her eye, a splinter embedded in reality that would warp and twist the world around it …\n\nShe shook her head. It was probably just her imagination.\n\n### NOTES\nCat’s dinner table; later Emily and Caleb’s bedroom with a wall mirror.\nSpells to open threadline passages still known to Emily but refused.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nCat is deeply shamed; Penny needles him about being cupped; Emily shrugs that Master Wolfe wanted him alive and trapped as dishware, and privately vows to check for other forgotten transformations. They joke about fists and reports; she tells Penny to give it verbally and write nothing, especially the replacement. Later she and Caleb make love behind a locked door, grateful he is her Caleb.\n\nAt the bedroom mirror she feels threadline spells invite her out and refuses — then cannot stop seeing Technomage Emily and the other alternates hovering in memory. The scene lands on that unfinished haunt.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1200 words. Warm aftermath banter into private unease; keep the mirror temptation quiet. Land on the alternate selves hovering.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I am deeply shamed,” Cat said.\n\n“So you should be,” Penny said. “How did he manage to get the drop on you?”\n\nCat looked embarrassed rather than angry, as they sat together at his dinner table. “He could have turned me into a cat,” he said, “and it would have been appropriate. Turning me into a cup, of all things! What was he thinking?”\n\nEmily shrugged. Most mimics consumed their prey completely and assumed their form, a disguise so perfect they forgot who they were until the magic started to run out and the mimic’s natural form started to reassert itself. Master Wolfe had clearly wanted to keep Cat alive, probably to ensure his mimic didn’t start to lose cohesion until it was far too late to stop his mad plan. Trapping him as a cup … perhaps it had been sadism or simple cold-blooded practicality. The spell could only be broken from the outside and who was going to go around casting cancelation spells on random pieces of dishware?\n\nPerhaps I should, she told herself. There were horror stories about people being turned into things and the spell only being reversed centuries later, well after their friends and families had passed on. Who knew who might be trapped in her house, or Void’s Tower, or … she gritted her teeth. It was something she’d have to check. And what’ll I do if I find someone?\n\n“I’m sorry that happened,” she said, to Cat. “And …”\n\n“Think nothing of it,” Cat said. Beside him, Penny snorted. He waved a hand at her. “See what I have to put up with?”\n\n“Your mimic was surprisingly easy to get along with,” Penny teased. “I really should have smelled a rat.”\n\n“I wonder if it is too late to rule by fists,” Cat said, rolling his eyes heavenward. “You’ll be giving me a full report on the whole affair, after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”\n\n“Give it to him verbally,” Emily added. “And don’t write anything down.”\n\n“Particularly the bit about me being replaced,” Cat said. “That doesn’t need to be shared.”\n\n“You’ll never live it down,” Penny said.\n\nEmily shrugged. Mimics had killed and replaced far more powerful and deadly magicians than Cat. The one she’d used to kill necromancers had ended their lives as quickly and brutally as the mimic that had killed its way through Whitehall, the mimic that had given her the clue to unlocking their true nature. Cat might be embarrassed, but hardly anyone would point and laugh at him. Being killed and replaced could easily have happened to them too.\n\n“Cheek,” Cat said, without heat.\n\nEmily smiled, looking around the chamber. It felt reassuringly solid, the table and chairs firmly embedded in reality … her experiences over the last few weeks, weeks that had never happened in a sense, already felt like a dream. She’d always hated the idea of a novel that ended with the main character waking up and discovering it had all been a dream, but in this case it might not be a bad idea. It was strange realising that her body lacked the scars she’d earned during the crazy adventure, that in some ways the whole experience had never happened at all. Better to have the whole idea dismissed as a dream than have other sorcerers experimenting with interdimensional travel.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she and Caleb returned to their bedroom, locked the door and made love. It felt wonderful to be in his arms again, to be back with him … the shadowy other Caleb might be real, in a sense, but he hadn’t been her Caleb. She tried not to wince as Caleb ran his hands down her back, slipping his hand into her underwear and cupping her buttocks. It hadn’t been him. And yet …\n\n“You left something out,” Caleb said, afterwards. “Should I be asking why?”\n\n“I saw an alternate version of you,” Emily admitted. “He wasn’t … he wasn’t a very nice guy.”\n\n“I’m sorry to hear that,” Caleb said. “Did he have a goatee?”\n\nEmily had to laugh. “No,” she said. “But …”\n\nShe shook her head. “He wasn’t you,” he said. “And I should not be blaming you for him.”\n\nCaleb sat up. “Emily, when your counterpart hurt me” – he stared down at his bare skin for a long moment – “it wasn’t you, but it was still tricky to deal with you afterwards. If … if you want to delay the wedding, or call it off, I will understand.”\n\nEmily felt a rush of pure love and affection. “I don’t,” she said, sitting up to kiss him. “I love you.”\n\nHe smiled, widely. Had she said that before? She couldn’t remember.\n\n“I love you too,” he said. His arm snaked around her shoulder, holding her close. “I … I’m sorry. On behalf of my counterpart. Whatever he did …”\n\n“Wasn’t your fault,” Emily finished. “All of them … Alassa, Jade, Alexis … they’re not us, never were and never will be. They just wore our faces.”\n\nShe stood, feeling the cool air brushing against her naked body, and walked to the mirror hanging on the wall. Her face stared back at her, her eyes drifting lower and lower … her body should be scarred, and she could feel phantom pains where she’d been hurt over the last few weeks, but there were no marks on her skin. She made a move to wave her hand in front of her face, half-expecting the mirror image to do something different. It didn’t. It felt as though the door to alternate dimensions was permanently closed.\n\nEmily hesitated, then rested her hand against the mirror. It was cool, reassuringly solid to the touch. The spells to open the passageway onto the threadlines glinted in her mind, inviting her to step out of the timeline and onto the roads between universes … she told herself, firmly, not to even think about it. There would be no way to get home afterwards, if she tried … no way to be sure she’d ever return. Better to let it go, to pretend it never happened …\n\nAnd yet, she couldn’t. Her alternates hovered in her mind, memories of the person she could have been. A Technomage, studying magic and creating devices that allowed mundanes to use magic … Technomage Emily had practically been a Spark, imagining and inventing magitech beyond the dreams of any other Emily. Her relationship with Adam, of all people … Emily hoped they were happy, if their timeline remained intact. She deserved to be happy.\n", "completion": "“I am deeply shamed,” Cat said.\n\n“So you should be,” Penny said. “How did he manage to get the drop on you?”\n\nCat looked embarrassed rather than angry, as they sat together at his dinner table. “He could have turned me into a cat,” he said, “and it would have been appropriate. Turning me into a cup, of all things! What was he thinking?”\n\nEmily shrugged. Most mimics consumed their prey completely and assumed their form, a disguise so perfect they forgot who they were until the magic started to run out and the mimic’s natural form started to reassert itself. Master Wolfe had clearly wanted to keep Cat alive, probably to ensure his mimic didn’t start to lose cohesion until it was far too late to stop his mad plan. Trapping him as a cup … perhaps it had been sadism or simple cold-blooded practicality. The spell could only be broken from the outside and who was going to go around casting cancelation spells on random pieces of dishware?\n\nPerhaps I should, she told herself. There were horror stories about people being turned into things and the spell only being reversed centuries later, well after their friends and families had passed on. Who knew who might be trapped in her house, or Void’s Tower, or … she gritted her teeth. It was something she’d have to check. And what’ll I do if I find someone?\n\n“I’m sorry that happened,” she said, to Cat. “And …”\n\n“Think nothing of it,” Cat said. Beside him, Penny snorted. He waved a hand at her. “See what I have to put up with?”\n\n“Your mimic was surprisingly easy to get along with,” Penny teased. “I really should have smelled a rat.”\n\n“I wonder if it is too late to rule by fists,” Cat said, rolling his eyes heavenward. “You’ll be giving me a full report on the whole affair, after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”\n\n“Give it to him verbally,” Emily added. “And don’t write anything down.”\n\n“Particularly the bit about me being replaced,” Cat said. “That doesn’t need to be shared.”\n\n“You’ll never live it down,” Penny said.\n\nEmily shrugged. Mimics had killed and replaced far more powerful and deadly magicians than Cat. The one she’d used to kill necromancers had ended their lives as quickly and brutally as the mimic that had killed its way through Whitehall, the mimic that had given her the clue to unlocking their true nature. Cat might be embarrassed, but hardly anyone would point and laugh at him. Being killed and replaced could easily have happened to them too.\n\n“Cheek,” Cat said, without heat.\n\nEmily smiled, looking around the chamber. It felt reassuringly solid, the table and chairs firmly embedded in reality … her experiences over the last few weeks, weeks that had never happened in a sense, already felt like a dream. She’d always hated the idea of a novel that ended with the main character waking up and discovering it had all been a dream, but in this case it might not be a bad idea. It was strange realising that her body lacked the scars she’d earned during the crazy adventure, that in some ways the whole experience had never happened at all. Better to have the whole idea dismissed as a dream than have other sorcerers experimenting with interdimensional travel.\n\nThe thought mocked her as she and Caleb returned to their bedroom, locked the door and made love. It felt wonderful to be in his arms again, to be back with him … the shadowy other Caleb might be real, in a sense, but he hadn’t been her Caleb. She tried not to wince as Caleb ran his hands down her back, slipping his hand into her underwear and cupping her buttocks. It hadn’t been him. And yet …\n\n“You left something out,” Caleb said, afterwards. “Should I be asking why?”\n\n“I saw an alternate version of you,” Emily admitted. “He wasn’t … he wasn’t a very nice guy.”\n\n“I’m sorry to hear that,” Caleb said. “Did he have a goatee?”\n\nEmily had to laugh. “No,” she said. “But …”\n\nShe shook her head. “He wasn’t you,” he said. “And I should not be blaming you for him.”\n\nCaleb sat up. “Emily, when your counterpart hurt me” – he stared down at his bare skin for a long moment – “it wasn’t you, but it was still tricky to deal with you afterwards. If … if you want to delay the wedding, or call it off, I will understand.”\n\nEmily felt a rush of pure love and affection. “I don’t,” she said, sitting up to kiss him. “I love you.”\n\nHe smiled, widely. Had she said that before? She couldn’t remember.\n\n“I love you too,” he said. His arm snaked around her shoulder, holding her close. “I … I’m sorry. On behalf of my counterpart. Whatever he did …”\n\n“Wasn’t your fault,” Emily finished. “All of them … Alassa, Jade, Alexis … they’re not us, never were and never will be. They just wore our faces.”\n\nShe stood, feeling the cool air brushing against her naked body, and walked to the mirror hanging on the wall. Her face stared back at her, her eyes drifting lower and lower … her body should be scarred, and she could feel phantom pains where she’d been hurt over the last few weeks, but there were no marks on her skin. She made a move to wave her hand in front of her face, half-expecting the mirror image to do something different. It didn’t. It felt as though the door to alternate dimensions was permanently closed.\n\nEmily hesitated, then rested her hand against the mirror. It was cool, reassuringly solid to the touch. The spells to open the passageway onto the threadlines glinted in her mind, inviting her to step out of the timeline and onto the roads between universes … she told herself, firmly, not to even think about it. There would be no way to get home afterwards, if she tried … no way to be sure she’d ever return. Better to let it go, to pretend it never happened …\n\nAnd yet, she couldn’t. Her alternates hovered in her mind, memories of the person she could have been. A Technomage, studying magic and creating devices that allowed mundanes to use magic … Technomage Emily had practically been a Spark, imagining and inventing magitech beyond the dreams of any other Emily. Her relationship with Adam, of all people … Emily hoped they were happy, if their timeline remained intact. She deserved to be happy.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1113, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
{"packet_id": "ch40-P2", "chapter": "ch40", "packet": "P2", "split": "train", "region": "end", "prompt": "### STYLE\nChristopher Nuttall. Close third person, one viewpoint per scene (named in the brief). Contemporary fantasy adventure prose; clear action and dialogue; invented names and magic terms spelled exactly.\n\n### LEXICON\nSlave Emily — both words capitalized as designation.\nEmpress Emily — both words capitalized as designation.\nEmile — capitalized.\nNecromancer Emily — both words capitalized.\nCaleb — capitalized.\nAlassa — capitalized.\nImaiqah — capitalized.\n\n### STORY\nBack home Emily laughs off Cat’s cup-shame with Penny, makes love with Caleb, and at the bedroom mirror refuses the threadlines even as Technomage Emily and other alternates haunt her memory.\n\n### CHARACTERS\nEmily\nBefore the mirror with Caleb behind her. Cataloguing Slave, Empress, Emile, and Necromancer selves; admitting they could have been her; choosing the big wedding over elopement; turning from a maybe-movement in the glass to kiss him.\n\nCaleb\nHolding her; sorry for his counterpart’s sins; urging her not to dwell; joking about eloping then about making families pay for the ceremony.\n\n### RECALL\n(none)\n\n### PREVIOUS\nShe shook her head. “He wasn’t you,” he said. “And I should not be blaming you for him.”\n\nCaleb sat up. “Emily, when your counterpart hurt me” – he stared down at his bare skin for a long moment – “it wasn’t you, but it was still tricky to deal with you afterwards. If … if you want to delay the wedding, or call it off, I will understand.”\n\nEmily felt a rush of pure love and affection. “I don’t,” she said, sitting up to kiss him. “I love you.”\n\nHe smiled, widely. Had she said that before? She couldn’t remember.\n\n“I love you too,” he said. His arm snaked around her shoulder, holding her close. “I … I’m sorry. On behalf of my counterpart. Whatever he did …”\n\n“Wasn’t your fault,” Emily finished. “All of them … Alassa, Jade, Alexis … they’re not us, never were and never will be. They just wore our faces.”\n\nShe stood, feeling the cool air brushing against her naked body, and walked to the mirror hanging on the wall. Her face stared back at her, her eyes drifting lower and lower … her body should be scarred, and she could feel phantom pains where she’d been hurt over the last few weeks, but there were no marks on her skin. She made a move to wave her hand in front of her face, half-expecting the mirror image to do something different. It didn’t. It felt as though the door to alternate dimensions was permanently closed.\n\nEmily hesitated, then rested her hand against the mirror. It was cool, reassuringly solid to the touch. The spells to open the passageway onto the threadlines glinted in her mind, inviting her to step out of the timeline and onto the roads between universes … she told herself, firmly, not to even think about it. There would be no way to get home afterwards, if she tried … no way to be sure she’d ever return. Better to let it go, to pretend it never happened …\n\nAnd yet, she couldn’t. Her alternates hovered in her mind, memories of the person she could have been. A Technomage, studying magic and creating devices that allowed mundanes to use magic … Technomage Emily had practically been a Spark, imagining and inventing magitech beyond the dreams of any other Emily. Her relationship with Adam, of all people … Emily hoped they were happy, if their timeline remained intact. She deserved to be happy.\n\n### NOTES\nBedroom wall mirror; cool and solid; no lasting alternate reflection.\nWedding already claimed by Alassa, Imaiqah, and Caleb’s family in planning.\n\n### BRIEF\nThis scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Emily.\n\nShe tells the glass she tried to save them — Slave Emily, Empress Emily — and walks the memories of power, slavery, Emile’s kicked-dog helplessness, and Necromancer Emily’s there-but-for-grace horror. She admits quietly they could have been her; Caleb holds her and says she is not them. They joke about eloping versus the huge ceremony everyone else owns; something moves in the mirror and is gone. She will probably never know. She turns away to kiss him, leaving the mirror behind — and the scene lands on that turn.\n\n### DIRECTIVE\nMaximum 1100 words. Reflective close; keep the kiss the true landing, mirror-doubt unresolved. Land on turning away to kiss him.\n\n### SCENE\n", "response": "“I tried to save them,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure if she were talking to him or to her reflection. Was Slave Emily safe in Empress Emily’s universe? Or was she still trapped with Shadye? “I …”\n\nThe memory of Empress Emily mocked her, a powerful confident woman with a strong right arm, a loving father-figure and a determination to eradicate the necromancers and unite the entire world under her banner. Emily knew she could never be that woman, never take the lead … never boss hundreds of people around, in the certain knowledge they’d obey, or lead armies into battle confident in total victory. She almost envied her counterpart, even though she knew that the price of supreme power was often being unable to put it down afterwards. Sulla had been mocked relentlessly by a youth, after he’d laid down his dictatorship, and he’d noted the idiot brat had made it impossible for anyone else to do the same. He’d been right too.\n\nAnd Slave Emily … Emily shivered at the memory of the beaten-down look on her counterpart’s face, her willingness to obey orders even after the collar had been removed, her complete lack of agency and utter helplessness … God! How could Slave Emily be her? Emily had been compelled before, and she admitted it had never been easy to fight, but she had fought. She had! And yet … she’d never had to wear a slave collar for eight years. Perhaps her counterpart had simply been ground down over the years, until she was just … a slave.\n\nAnd Emile … in many ways, he was both the hardest and yet the easiest to understand. He was a man … tossed into a universe where being male brought both advantages and disadvantages. No one had ever looked at his chest and decreed he was fit only to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, or determined that being female made him an emotionally unstable fool – and then used the entirely understandable anger at such a statement as proof she was too emotional to be allowed any real freedom – who needed a man’s strong hand to keep her in line, but they’d expected him to live up to the local masculine ideal and, of course, he hadn’t. The strongest young men she'd known from her old high school would be helpless wimps at Whitehall and there would be none of the allowances made for young women. She found it hard to believe that Sergeant Harkin or Sergeant Miles, or the Grandmaster, had just let it happen, but you couldn’t help someone who refused to be helped. His lack of self-belief, his lack of control over his own life … maybe they’d just given up. Or maybe he’d refused to take the helping hand when it was offered.\n\nA dog that gets kicked, time and time again, will expect more kicks and recoil from a pleasant touch, she reminded herself. And a human is no different.\n\nEmily stared into the mirror, wondering what had happened to Emile. Was he in a new timeline? Or back in his own? Or … who knew? She had tried to keep her promise, tried to give him a second chance, but … she shook her head. She might never know what had happened to him. Or why.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment as the final face drifted across her mind. Necromancer Emily – all the Necromancer Emilys – had been nightmares, the worst fears about her given shape and form. She knew how many magicians had worried she might be a necromancer, after she’d defeated Shadye without explaining exactly how, and in Necromancer Emily’s timeline she had become one. The sheer enormity of her counterpart’s crimes was difficult to comprehend, a war waged on an impossible scale … a terrorist group somehow able to mount a full-scale invasion of a major country, difficult to imagine in the real world and yet a staple of comic books and movies. And yet, she’d felt the madness slowly leeching into her counterpart’s mind, her quiet desperation to survive driving her to cross the line time and time again …\n\nThere, but for the grace of God, go I, she reflected. The thought haunted her. She couldn’t be that monster and yet she could. Necromancer Emily had been her. She had to acknowledge it even if her counterpart refused to believe, on some level, that they were the same person. If things had been different, would I have made the same choices?\n\nShe wanted to say no. But she wasn’t sure that was true.\n\n“They could have been me,” she said, quietly. “Or I them.”\n\nCaleb stood and came up behind her. “You don’t need to dwell on it,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re not them. And that is all that matters.”\n\n“Thanks,” Emily said. She leaned into his arms, feeling his manhood pressing into her rear. “I guess there’s only one thing left to do.”\n\n“Get married?” Caleb kissed the back of her head. “We could always just elope.”\n\n“No one would forgive us,” Emily said. It was funny how their wedding seemed to belong to everyone but them. Alassa and Imaiqah were already planning a huge celebration, Caleb’s family would want some input too … they’d hate the idea of Emily overshadowing Caleb, simply because she was his social and magical superior, even though she had no intention of doing anything of the sort. “I guess we’ll just have to put up with a really big ceremony.”\n\n“Get them to pay for it,” Caleb advised. “That’ll convince them to change their minds.”\n\nEmily grinned, tilting her head for a kiss. Something moved within the mirror …\n\nShe looked back. The movement was gone.\n\n“Emily?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. She thought she was imagining it, but she’d never be sure. “I will probably never know.”\n\nAnd she turned away to kiss him again, leaving the mirror behind.\n", "completion": "“I tried to save them,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure if she were talking to him or to her reflection. Was Slave Emily safe in Empress Emily’s universe? Or was she still trapped with Shadye? “I …”\n\nThe memory of Empress Emily mocked her, a powerful confident woman with a strong right arm, a loving father-figure and a determination to eradicate the necromancers and unite the entire world under her banner. Emily knew she could never be that woman, never take the lead … never boss hundreds of people around, in the certain knowledge they’d obey, or lead armies into battle confident in total victory. She almost envied her counterpart, even though she knew that the price of supreme power was often being unable to put it down afterwards. Sulla had been mocked relentlessly by a youth, after he’d laid down his dictatorship, and he’d noted the idiot brat had made it impossible for anyone else to do the same. He’d been right too.\n\nAnd Slave Emily … Emily shivered at the memory of the beaten-down look on her counterpart’s face, her willingness to obey orders even after the collar had been removed, her complete lack of agency and utter helplessness … God! How could Slave Emily be her? Emily had been compelled before, and she admitted it had never been easy to fight, but she had fought. She had! And yet … she’d never had to wear a slave collar for eight years. Perhaps her counterpart had simply been ground down over the years, until she was just … a slave.\n\nAnd Emile … in many ways, he was both the hardest and yet the easiest to understand. He was a man … tossed into a universe where being male brought both advantages and disadvantages. No one had ever looked at his chest and decreed he was fit only to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, or determined that being female made him an emotionally unstable fool – and then used the entirely understandable anger at such a statement as proof she was too emotional to be allowed any real freedom – who needed a man’s strong hand to keep her in line, but they’d expected him to live up to the local masculine ideal and, of course, he hadn’t. The strongest young men she'd known from her old high school would be helpless wimps at Whitehall and there would be none of the allowances made for young women. She found it hard to believe that Sergeant Harkin or Sergeant Miles, or the Grandmaster, had just let it happen, but you couldn’t help someone who refused to be helped. His lack of self-belief, his lack of control over his own life … maybe they’d just given up. Or maybe he’d refused to take the helping hand when it was offered.\n\nA dog that gets kicked, time and time again, will expect more kicks and recoil from a pleasant touch, she reminded herself. And a human is no different.\n\nEmily stared into the mirror, wondering what had happened to Emile. Was he in a new timeline? Or back in his own? Or … who knew? She had tried to keep her promise, tried to give him a second chance, but … she shook her head. She might never know what had happened to him. Or why.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a long moment as the final face drifted across her mind. Necromancer Emily – all the Necromancer Emilys – had been nightmares, the worst fears about her given shape and form. She knew how many magicians had worried she might be a necromancer, after she’d defeated Shadye without explaining exactly how, and in Necromancer Emily’s timeline she had become one. The sheer enormity of her counterpart’s crimes was difficult to comprehend, a war waged on an impossible scale … a terrorist group somehow able to mount a full-scale invasion of a major country, difficult to imagine in the real world and yet a staple of comic books and movies. And yet, she’d felt the madness slowly leeching into her counterpart’s mind, her quiet desperation to survive driving her to cross the line time and time again …\n\nThere, but for the grace of God, go I, she reflected. The thought haunted her. She couldn’t be that monster and yet she could. Necromancer Emily had been her. She had to acknowledge it even if her counterpart refused to believe, on some level, that they were the same person. If things had been different, would I have made the same choices?\n\nShe wanted to say no. But she wasn’t sure that was true.\n\n“They could have been me,” she said, quietly. “Or I them.”\n\nCaleb stood and came up behind her. “You don’t need to dwell on it,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re not them. And that is all that matters.”\n\n“Thanks,” Emily said. She leaned into his arms, feeling his manhood pressing into her rear. “I guess there’s only one thing left to do.”\n\n“Get married?” Caleb kissed the back of her head. “We could always just elope.”\n\n“No one would forgive us,” Emily said. It was funny how their wedding seemed to belong to everyone but them. Alassa and Imaiqah were already planning a huge celebration, Caleb’s family would want some input too … they’d hate the idea of Emily overshadowing Caleb, simply because she was his social and magical superior, even though she had no intention of doing anything of the sort. “I guess we’ll just have to put up with a really big ceremony.”\n\n“Get them to pay for it,” Caleb advised. “That’ll convince them to change their minds.”\n\nEmily grinned, tilting her head for a kiss. Something moved within the mirror …\n\nShe looked back. The movement was gone.\n\n“Emily?”\n\n“I don’t know,” Emily said. She thought she was imagining it, but she’d never be sure. “I will probably never know.”\n\nAnd she turned away to kiss him again, leaving the mirror behind.\n", "meta": {"words_response": 1017, "split": "train", "region": "end", "spec": "0.5.6-windowed-brief", "author": "Christopher Nuttall", "book": "Hour of the Wolf"}}
</script>
<script>
/* ---------- data loading ---------- */
const AUTHOR_KEYS = ["vox_day", "nuttall"];
const AUTHOR_SCRIPT_IDS = { vox_day: "data-vox-day", nuttall: "data-nuttall" };
function loadRecords(authorKey){
const raw = document.getElementById(AUTHOR_SCRIPT_IDS[authorKey]).textContent;
return raw.split("\n").filter(l => l.trim()).map(line => {
const rec = JSON.parse(line);
rec._authorKey = authorKey;
return rec;
});
}
const RECORDS = { vox_day: loadRecords("vox_day"), nuttall: loadRecords("nuttall") };
const RECORDS_BY_ID = {};
for (const key of AUTHOR_KEYS) for (const r of RECORDS[key]) RECORDS_BY_ID[r.packet_id] = r;
/* ---------- SPEC-v0.5.6 section parsing (### HEADER blocks, loss only on SCENE) ---------- */
const SECTION_RE = /^### (.+)$/gm;
function parseSections(promptText){
const matches = [...promptText.matchAll(SECTION_RE)];
const sections = [];
for (let i = 0; i < matches.length; i++){
const header = matches[i][1];
const start = matches[i].index + matches[i][0].length;
const end = i + 1 < matches.length ? matches[i + 1].index : promptText.length;
sections.push([header, promptText.slice(start, end).trim()]);
}
return sections;
}
// SPEC Sec 5: DIRECTIVE always states an integer word ceiling ("Maximum N words"
// or "Expand to a maximum of N words"); n_predict = ceiling_words * 1.6.
const CEILING_RE = /(?:Maximum|Expand to a maximum of) (\d+) words/i;
function wordCount(text){
const m = (text || "").trim().match(/\S+/g);
return m ? m.length : 0;
}
// Canonical STYLE text + book title per author, read from the corpus itself
// (guaranteed byte-identical to what's embedded in every prompt for that
// author) rather than hardcoded, so the style-swap string-replace below is
// always exact.
const AUTHOR_META = {};
for (const key of AUTHOR_KEYS){
const first = RECORDS[key][0];
const sections = parseSections(first.prompt);
AUTHOR_META[key] = {
label: first.meta.author,
book: first.meta.book,
style: sections.find(s => s[0] === "STYLE")[1],
};
}
document.getElementById("voxdayLabel").textContent = AUTHOR_META.vox_day.label;
document.getElementById("voxdayBook").textContent = AUTHOR_META.vox_day.book;
document.getElementById("nuttallLabel").textContent = AUTHOR_META.nuttall.label;
document.getElementById("nuttallBook").textContent = AUTHOR_META.nuttall.book;
/* ---------- 8-gram memorization check (matches this project's established
methodology: overlap against the full training-completion corpus, and
against the packet's own held-out gold) ---------- */
function ngramSet(text, n){
const words = (text || "").toLowerCase().split(/\s+/).filter(Boolean);
const set = new Set();
for (let i = 0; i + n <= words.length; i++) set.add(words.slice(i, i + n).join(" "));
return set;
}
function ngramOverlapPct(text, ngramsRef){
const mine = ngramSet(text, 8);
if (mine.size === 0) return 0;
let hits = 0;
for (const g of mine) if (ngramsRef.has(g)) hits++;
return Math.round((100 * hits / mine.size) * 10) / 10;
}
let TRAIN_NGRAMS = null;
function trainNgrams(){
if (TRAIN_NGRAMS) return TRAIN_NGRAMS;
const all = [];
for (const key of AUTHOR_KEYS) for (const r of RECORDS[key]) if (r.split === "train") all.push(r.completion);
TRAIN_NGRAMS = ngramSet(all.join(" "), 8);
return TRAIN_NGRAMS;
}
/* ---------- browse tree ---------- */
function chapterSortKey(ch){
const m = ch.match(/^ch0*(\d+)/);
return m ? parseInt(m[1], 10) : -1; // un-prefixed chapters (e.g. "prologue") sort first
}
function packetSortKey(p){
const m = p.match(/(\d+)/);
return m ? parseInt(m[1], 10) : 0;
}
function chaptersFor(authorKey){
const chapters = {};
for (const r of RECORDS[authorKey]){
(chapters[r.chapter] = chapters[r.chapter] || []).push(r);
}
return Object.keys(chapters).sort((a, b) => chapterSortKey(a) - chapterSortKey(b))
.map(ch => ({ chapter: ch, packets: chapters[ch].sort((a, b) => packetSortKey(a.packet) - packetSortKey(b.packet)) }));
}
let currentAuthor = "vox_day";
function selectAuthor(author){
currentAuthor = author;
document.querySelectorAll(".author-btn").forEach(b => b.setAttribute("aria-pressed", b.dataset.author === author ? "true" : "false"));
populateChapters();
onStyleOverrideChange();
}
function populateChapters(){
const chSel = document.getElementById("chapterSelect");
chSel.innerHTML = "";
for (const { chapter } of chaptersFor(currentAuthor)){
const opt = document.createElement("option");
opt.value = chapter; opt.textContent = chapter;
chSel.appendChild(opt);
}
onChapterChange();
}
function onChapterChange(){
const ch = document.getElementById("chapterSelect").value;
const group = chaptersFor(currentAuthor).find(g => g.chapter === ch);
const pkSel = document.getElementById("packetSelect");
pkSel.innerHTML = "";
for (const rec of group.packets){
const opt = document.createElement("option");
opt.value = rec.packet_id;
opt.textContent = `${rec.packet} (${rec.split})`;
pkSel.appendChild(opt);
}
renderPackage();
}
/* ---------- manuscript rendering ---------- */
// CHARACTERS blocks are "Name\nDescription paragraph(s)" separated by blank
// lines; LEXICON lines are "term — usage" or "(none)". Render generically so
// any package the corpus contains renders correctly, not just spot-checked ones.
function renderCharacters(body){
if (!body || body === "(none)") return '<p class="none">(none)</p>';
return body.split(/\n\s*\n/).map(block => {
const lines = block.split("\n");
const first = lines[0].trim();
const looksLikeName = lines.length > 1 && first.length <= 40 && !/[.!?]$/.test(first);
if (looksLikeName){
return `<p><span class="char-name">${escapeHtml(first)}</span>${escapeHtml(lines.slice(1).join(" ").trim())}</p>`;
}
return `<p>${escapeHtml(block.trim())}</p>`;
}).join("");
}
function renderLexicon(body){
if (!body || body === "(none)") return '<p class="none">(none)</p>';
return body.split("\n").filter(l => l.trim()).map(line => {
const m = line.match(/^(.+?)\s*[—-]\s*(.+)$/);
if (m) return `<p><span class="lex-name">${escapeHtml(m[1].trim())}</span>${escapeHtml(m[2].trim())}</p>`;
return `<p>${escapeHtml(line.trim())}</p>`;
}).join("");
}
function renderParagraphs(body){
if (!body || body === "(none)") return '<p class="none">(none)</p>';
return body.split(/\n\s*\n/).map(p => `<p>${escapeHtml(p.trim())}</p>`).join("");
}
function escapeHtml(s){
return (s || "").replace(/&/g, "&amp;").replace(/</g, "&lt;").replace(/>/g, "&gt;");
}
const OPEN_BY_DEFAULT = new Set(["STYLE", "STORY", "CHARACTERS", "BRIEF", "DIRECTIVE"]);
const RENDERERS = { LEXICON: renderLexicon, CHARACTERS: renderCharacters };
let currentPacketId = null;
function renderPackage(){
currentPacketId = document.getElementById("packetSelect").value;
const rec = RECORDS_BY_ID[currentPacketId];
const sections = parseSections(rec.prompt).filter(([h]) => h !== "SCENE");
const directive = sections.find(([h]) => h === "DIRECTIVE")[1];
const ceilingMatch = directive.match(CEILING_RE);
const ceilingWords = ceilingMatch ? parseInt(ceilingMatch[1], 10) : null;
const isHoldout = rec.split === "holdout";
const sectionsHtml = sections.map(([header, body]) => {
const render = RENDERERS[header] || renderParagraphs;
const open = OPEN_BY_DEFAULT.has(header) ? " open" : "";
let extra = "";
if (header === "DIRECTIVE" && ceilingWords){
extra = `<span class="directive-ceiling">n_predict &asymp; ${Math.round(ceilingWords * 1.6)} tok</span>`;
}
return `
<details class="section"${open}>
<summary>${header}</summary>
<div class="section-body serif">${render(body)}${extra}</div>
</details>`;
}).join("");
document.getElementById("manuscript").innerHTML = `
<div class="manuscript-head">
<span class="packet-id mono">${rec.packet_id}</span>
<span class="badge ${isHoldout ? 'holdout' : ''}">${rec.split}</span>
<span class="badge">region: ${rec.region}</span>
${ceilingWords ? `<span class="badge">ceiling ${ceilingWords}w</span>` : ""}
<span class="badge">gold ${wordCount(rec.completion)}w</span>
</div>
${sectionsHtml}
`;
document.getElementById("trayContent").innerHTML = `<div class="empty-state">Select a packet and run a generation to see model output here.</div>`;
}
/* ---------- style override ---------- */
function onStyleOverrideChange(){
const val = document.getElementById("styleOverride").value;
const notice = document.getElementById("styleNotice");
if (val === "match" || val === currentAuthor){
notice.classList.remove("active");
notice.textContent = "";
return;
}
notice.textContent = `STYLE swapped: ${AUTHOR_META[val].label} voice on a ${AUTHOR_META[currentAuthor].label} packet.`;
notice.classList.add("active");
}
/* ---------- generation ---------- */
function setStatus(state, label){
document.getElementById("statusPill").dataset.state = state;
document.getElementById("statusLabel").textContent = label;
}
async function checkHealth(){
const url = document.getElementById("serverUrl").value.replace(/\/$/, "");
setStatus("busy", "CHECKING…");
try{
const res = await fetch(url + "/health", { signal: AbortSignal.timeout(4000) });
if (!res.ok) throw new Error("HTTP " + res.status);
setStatus("ready", "MODEL READY");
} catch (err){
setStatus("error", "SERVER UNREACHABLE");
}
}
function buildResultCardHtml(seed, result){
if (result.error){
return `<div class="result-card"><div class="result-meta"><span class="chip">seed ${seed}</span><span class="chip bad">error</span></div><p class="result-text">${escapeHtml(result.error)}</p></div>`;
}
const pctCeiling = result.ceilingWords ? Math.round((result.generatedWords / result.ceilingWords) * 100) : null;
const short = pctCeiling !== null && pctCeiling < 80;
const goldBlock = result.gold ? `
<div class="gold-divider">Gold (held-out)</div>
<p class="gold-text serif">${escapeHtml(result.gold)}</p>
<div class="overlap-row">
<span class="chip">8-gram overlap, train ${result.overlapTrain}%</span>
<span class="chip">8-gram overlap, own gold ${result.overlapGold}%</span>
</div>` : `
<div class="gold-divider">Gold</div>
<p class="gold-text">No held-out gold &mdash; this packet is in the training split.</p>
<div class="overlap-row"><span class="chip">8-gram overlap, train ${result.overlapTrain}%</span></div>`;
return `
<div class="result-card">
<div class="result-meta">
<span class="chip">seed ${seed}</span>
<span class="chip ${result.stopType === 'eos' ? 'good' : 'warn'}">${result.stopType}</span>
<span class="chip">${result.tokensPredicted} tok</span>
<span class="chip">${result.wallClockS}s</span>
</div>
<p class="result-text serif">${escapeHtml(result.generated)}</p>
<div class="word-stat ${short ? 'short' : ''}">${result.generatedWords}${result.ceilingWords ? ' / ' + result.ceilingWords : ''} words${pctCeiling !== null ? ' (' + pctCeiling + '% of ceiling)' : ''}</div>
${goldBlock}
</div>`;
}
async function generateOne(rec, seed, styleOverrideKey, ceilingWords){
const url = document.getElementById("serverUrl").value.replace(/\/$/, "");
let prompt = rec.prompt;
if (styleOverrideKey && styleOverrideKey !== rec._authorKey){
// The STYLE body is reused byte-identical across every packet for an
// author (confirmed at load time), so a single string replace swaps
// voice without touching STORY/CHARACTERS/BRIEF/DIRECTIVE.
prompt = prompt.replace(AUTHOR_META[rec._authorKey].style, AUTHOR_META[styleOverrideKey].style);
}
const n_predict = ceilingWords ? Math.round(ceilingWords * 1.6) : 1200;
const payload = {
prompt, n_predict, seed, stream: false, cache_prompt: false,
temperature: 0.8, top_p: 0.9, repeat_penalty: 1.1, repeat_last_n: 64,
stop: ["\n### "],
};
const t0 = performance.now();
const res = await fetch(url + "/completion", {
method: "POST", headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" }, body: JSON.stringify(payload),
});
if (!res.ok) throw new Error("HTTP " + res.status);
const data = await res.json();
const wallClockS = ((performance.now() - t0) / 1000).toFixed(1);
const generated = (data.content || "").trim();
const gold = rec.split === "holdout" ? rec.completion : null;
return {
generated,
generatedWords: wordCount(generated),
ceilingWords,
stopType: data.stop_type || "unknown",
tokensPredicted: data.tokens_predicted,
wallClockS,
gold,
overlapTrain: ngramOverlapPct(generated, trainNgrams()),
overlapGold: gold ? ngramOverlapPct(generated, ngramSet(gold, 8)) : null,
};
}
async function runGenerate(){
const rec = RECORDS_BY_ID[currentPacketId];
if (!rec) return;
const btn = document.getElementById("generateBtn");
const styleVal = document.getElementById("styleOverride").value;
const styleOverrideKey = styleVal === "match" ? null : styleVal;
const multi = document.getElementById("multiSeedToggle").checked;
const seedField = parseInt(document.getElementById("seedInput").value, 10) || 11;
const seeds = multi ? [11, 22, 33] : [seedField];
const sections = parseSections(rec.prompt);
const directive = sections.find(([h]) => h === "DIRECTIVE")[1];
const ceilingMatch = directive.match(CEILING_RE);
const ceilingWords = ceilingMatch ? parseInt(ceilingMatch[1], 10) : null;
btn.disabled = true;
btn.textContent = "Generating…";
setStatus("busy", "GENERATING");
const tray = document.getElementById("trayContent");
tray.innerHTML = seeds.map(s => `<div class="result-card" id="card-${s}"><div class="empty-state" style="border:none; padding:10px 0;">Waiting on seed ${s}…</div></div>`).join("");
for (const seed of seeds){
try{
const result = await generateOne(rec, seed, styleOverrideKey, ceilingWords);
document.getElementById(`card-${seed}`).outerHTML = buildResultCardHtml(seed, result);
} catch (err){
document.getElementById(`card-${seed}`).outerHTML = buildResultCardHtml(seed, { error: err.message });
}
}
btn.disabled = false;
btn.textContent = "Generate scene";
await checkHealth();
}
document.getElementById("serverUrl").addEventListener("change", checkHealth);
selectAuthor("vox_day");
document.getElementById("styleOverride").value = "match";
checkHealth();
</script>
</body>
</html>
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