Short Story – SJ Shoemaker

Short Story January 24, 2024 0

How To Be God For Dummies

I wish you weren’t here. I wish you, whoever you are, didn’t just find yourself in a strange place and click the first button you saw. Despite this audio being recorded expressly for this purpose–congratulations on completing your first mission by the way–but I don’t want there to be a you. But there might be. You might be standing in my kitchen right now listening to the first of quite literally countless hours of my work to build some sort of semblance of a training guide but… god damn (that was a quality joke you won’t get just yet). Just don’t be here. Don’t hear this–I mean, if you’re here, listen PLEASE, but I don’t know… I wish you weren’t here.

Detective walking away from frame down an empty street

Short Story January 22, 2024 0

Lying Low (Working Title) – Chapter 1

Word of advice: If the gods ever decide to knock on your door, make sure you’re not home.

I dragged myself back into the cramped office after the worst case in recent memory. File folders and books were strewn wherever they had been the night before. No time to tidy after a three-day research session into ancient magic and enchanted artifacts. I was paid to bring a woman home and that’s exactly what I did. As consequence, pain in every movement and no empty chairs to throw myself into.

Short Story March 12, 2023 0

Inner Monologue (Unfinished)

I open my eyes. That’s the first thing I remember. Questions of who and what and where I am take turns filling my mind… but the answers don’t come. What was I before? Before the moment I opened my eyes? I must have been something, been someone. I must have existed before this… I must have… because I understand! I understand enough to know what these questions mean… enough to know I was not just asleep…

Short Story February 14, 2023 0

The Warrior Queen

She ground her teeth together again, her eyes staring daggers at anything and everything. The time had come; she could delay no further. But still. Thoughts waged war in her mind as she weighed the few options available. None were satisfactory.

The feast continued all around her. Soldiers out of uniform, drinking wine that was not theirs, eating stolen scraps of meat on borrowed plates. None fit to serve, let alone rule. But try telling them that.

Short Story January 8, 2023 0

In-Universe Tale 3 – Novel World Building

The list of exploits from Gudtlieb’s time as a knight derives almost exclusively from the west. According to the area of Waldbach and its surrounding villages, he stopped an invasion of sirens from stealing away the men of Rheicona with their songs. He seduced their leader and threatened to hang her on a drying rack until her hoard relented. In Charmont, there is a tale of him spending a week tracking a unicorn and another solid day hanging from its back as it ran about the kingdom. Eventually, once it had calmed, he presented it as a gift to the king.

Short Story December 24, 2022 0

In-Universe Tale 2 – Novel World Building

Dietlinde was as ordinary as a commonplace fox. Her fur as dull of a red as the rest of her family. Her home, a hole in the ground near the edge of town. She was nothing and came from less than nothing. And she would have died nothing had she not caught the eye of a fox with fur of platinum. He came from a long line of magicians and sorcerers and trained at the best schools available to Silirich. By all means, this story ought to have been his. But he settled for mere adequacy. Opened a small elixir shop near the city’s edge. Held no sway with the Ealdorman, or renown even with the locals. And then, a few short years later, he died of the ancient sickness. The incurable plague. So devastating neither magic nor medicine could halt its progress. The same that ravages the southern Wastelands to this day.

Short Story December 17, 2022 0

In-Universe Tale 1 – Novel World Building

Farvald was a simple man, ordinary in every way but one: he was gifted with an attunement to the world. Or cursed with it, so he would say. Neither deceit nor disguise could hope to fool him. Magical illusions, because magic was common in those days, could not trick his eyes. He saw only reality in its full unruly glory.

Short Story December 10, 2022 0

Dual Creation Myths – Novel World-Building

Before the world, there was only Gadall. No one knows where this god came from. Many say he always was. Others question: Who created the god of creation?
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When time was naught, Gadall was. He is the shapeless void whence we all came. The storm of relentless fury that castes out entire universes in a timeless age formed into a moment.

Short Story July 10, 2022 0

Precious Visions

Ivory smoke plumed and billowed through the room. An elaborate revolution of Ebania’s arms effortlessly masked the movement of her left foot as she pressed a secret switch. The crimson flame turned a deep violet with the addition of salts through a hidden mechanism beneath a floorboard. The effect was impressive and convincing. As if summoned fiery spirits recoiled fearfully from her oversized robes.

Short Story January 9, 2022 0

Title Withheld

I shiver ceaselessly. When did the heat dissipate? What drove it from the mountain and forbade its return? There, the air itself was enough to blister the skin. I remember the waves of heat which warned against my approach with every step. Warnings I pushed aside with every fiber of fortitude I possessed. Until my departure home. The flames licked at the back of my neck, and my lungs rejoiced at the ease with which they filled with cool, unrestrictive air. But now, in this nowhere between origin and destination.