This interview appears in Black Gate (9/9/2021):
SUBLIME, CRUEL BEAUTY: AN INTERVIEW WITH JASON RAY CARNEY
Jason Ray Carney (aka Ayolo)
Queen of the Martian Catacombs by Leigh Brackett
But Berild had gone a few steps farther. With a hoarse cry, she bent over what had seemed merely a slab of stone fallen from the cliff, and Stark saw that it was a carven pillar, half buried. Now he was able to make out the mounded shape of a ruin, of which only the foundations and a few broken columns were left.
For a long while Berild stood by the pillar, her eyes closed. Stark got the uncanny feeling that she was visualizing the place as it had been, though the wall must have been dust a thousand years ago. Presently she moved. He followed her, and it was strange to see her, on the naked sand, treading the arbitrary patterns of vanished corridors.
Stark saw it rising against the morning sky--a city of gold and marble, high on an island of rose-red coral laid bare by the vanished sea. Sinharat, the Ever-Living.
Yet it had died. As he came closer to it, plodding slowly through the sand, he saw that the place was no more than a beautiful corpse, the lovely towers broken, the roofless palaces open to the sky. Whatever life Kynon and his armies might have foisted upon Sinharat was no more than the fleeting passage of ants across the perfect bones of the dead.
“Seriously, Mr. Shirley is the recipient of multiple Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. He has won the International Horror Guild Award twice (along with 6 nominations). He has written two albums for Blue Oyster Cult, the original draft for The Crow, and been nominated for an Emmy for his work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. Oh! And he’s also scripted for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine!” – Douglass Draa Intro to WeirdBook #42
And there, in an old palace [in Atlantis], awaits the beauteous Cleito, a princess who has offered ten bushels of gold to any ten men who will become the Swords of her Heart: the champions who will destroy a minor demon.” - Chapter 1
1) Kerrin looked over his shoulder at the palace... The gardens encircling the palace were varicolored, with enormous purple blossoms and vines with butter yellow blooms; then came a stand of trees with jade-like foliage. Along the edges of the avenue were nodding, diaphanous growths, some fifty feet high; translucent and drooping, their branches subtly moved of their own volition like the arms of sleepy Hawaiian dancers, slowly shifting gigantic translucent leaves. Light from the sparkling moon refracted by the broad lens-like leaves shattered into primary colors that fluxed with secretive dynamism. It made Kerrin think of an effect from light striking an inclusion deep within a polished diamond. As the phaeton trundled along, the light from the growths served as streetlamps, illuminating the road and an exquisitely serene pond of orange night-blooming waterlilies and golden lotuses, coming up on their left. The bordering lilies were artfully counterbalanced by swans, now easing toward their nests in the reeds. A small herd of deer cropped grass along the farther shore of the pond. Kerrin felt called, summoned by the light softly pulsing in the limpid water; by the living serenity of the place. He wanted to leave the phaeton and go to the pond, to sit in contemplation of it.
2) Illuminated by shafts of red light coming through the translucent stone at the peak of Bald Mountain was a squirming aggregation of ghosts. Specters in various stages of incarnation struggled like hundreds of white moths caught in transparent glue. They were fixed in a kind aspic of decaying caro spiritus—the source of the rancid odor underlying the smell of dead bats. Nearly three hundred spirits seemed entombed at Kerrin’s feet, in a putrefied melding of souls. Their faces were contorted with anguish, lined with misery, pinched by fear; their mouths were open in endless outcry. There were spirit countenances that had been Caucasian, African, Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern, all united by a cruel compression, a crushing constraint within their bonds. Kerrin could make out rag-ends of arms and legs, but not a complete body in the lot. Most of the fragmented ghosts were groaning, wailing, calling out in various languages for assistance.
The Swords & Sorcery Group on Goodreads
This announces our next two month group reads. All are welcome to join us:
Sept-Oct Groupreads
This is a portal page to a variety of other posts, all regarding my immersion into the Depp Madness universe. Phil Blake, an (the?) uber fan of Deep Madness (Diemension Games), painter of miniatures, and game addict had a vision: make playable scenarios for all the epic monsters" from the Kickstarter Campaign who did not get a proper one.
For those not familiar, Kickstarter enables Diemension Games to crowdfund a cosmic-horror dungeon crawler; extra monsters (i.e. bosses) were designed as miniatures as stretch goals (bonuses). However, so many Epic Monsters were funded, they were birthed without scenarios to play them. Of course, the bosses could be inserted into existing scenarios, but they did get specific scenarios designed for them!
Phil Blake championed the fan community to get a team together, and I played a small part: writing intro stories for two Epic Monsters scenarios to fill the gap. Many others helped Phil Blake, and he has been gracious in communicating thanks to all. This post reveals how to access the entire expansion. My stories can be read in the other two posts revealed today:
Just want to print a PDF yourself at home? Grab the PDF here:
This is the Interior content of Exalted Blasphemies, designed for use for professional printing in hardback. You will also require the separate cover file that can be found here:
)
Another introductory story for the Exalted Blasphemies - Fan-Made Expansion for Diemension Game's Deep Madness board game; designed for the Epic Monster: Dimension Rift. Phil Blake championed the Expansion set, and there will be another post for how to access/download/print that. For now, enjoy a short dose of horror by S.E..... get lured into Deep Madness.
Overview: Exalted Blasphemies Fan-Made Expansion for Deep Madness
Hunger Pains (for Omega Ravenous Epic Monster) Story
Dimension Sickness (for Dimension Rift Epic Monster) Story <-- You are here
Pressure fluctuations
triggered alarms from the Lower Mining deck. You go to inspect for fissures
inside Shaft-1, the tube designed for transporting fluidized minerals from the
ocean floor to Kadath Facility’s underbelly. With the tube evacuated, the pressure
readings should have equilibrated, but they vary erratically. Perhaps sensors
needed replacing. Having donned protective gear, you open the inspection hatch.
Corrupt dampness wafts out, somehow infiltrating your suit. Frost spawns on your
eyebrows and noise hairs. The threshold sparkles, coated with angular crystals.
Inserting your head, you see the interior appear like a split geode.
Despite all this beauty,
you feel nauseous. Nor do you trust what you see. Kadath’s lead engineer, Edgar
Kayce, had warned you about Dimension Sickness that spawned from Dimension Rifts. All those working
the Lower Levels succumbed to hallucinations eventually. Unearthing strange minerals
from nature’s hidden depths threatened to uncover sentient earth. Edgar claimed
to have repaired invasive rifts before and created traps to ensnare the octopian
creatures responsible. You have yet to employ those. The cyclopean hoarfrost
coating this umbilical tube has you considering Edgar’s words and traps. In any
event, inspecting this channel would be treacherous. The sharp crystals
may pierce your gear. The scents toxic. Perhaps you should retrieve a trap out
of precaution.
Yet
you are pulled inside before you do so, lured into the darkness by a mysterious
attractor. You stumble into the tube. Crushing the crystals emits dissipating vapours.
Your eyes dilate as the doses of gas snake through your sinuses. By design,
this mine shaft should be linear and clear of fouling. It was twisted now,
curled like an intestine, and the crystals seemed to grow before your eyes.
Dizzy, but drawn downward, you begin crawling. Your light dims as your lighting
frosts over. Your face-shield blurs with glistening fog. You struggle to
discern the chaos in front of you.
Suddenly,
the crisp vision of a tentacled mass jolts your senses. Adrenaline races
through your veins. Your heart races. Frantically back-pedaling, constantly
relying on the walls for support, you arrive back at the hatch. Someone extends
a hand into Shaft-1 to tug you out. Curses, Edgar was right!
Slapping
sounds compel you to look back. A whipping tentacle breaching the hatch gropes
the chamber. Wherever it contacts, crystals nucleate. Some part of you wants to
help it, to pull it into the chamber as someone helped you. You crave the
comforting embrace of mystery. You long to be bejewelled in cosmic crystals.
Then, your partner grabs your shoulder and drags you to safety, and shoves one
of Edgar’s traps into your hands. Time to act.
A Dimension Rift has
occurred, threatening to engulf the whole facility, as reality itself is torn
asunder. Can you disrupt the rift long enough to slay the creature behind it or
will you all be dragged into an eternal darkness of twisted worlds? Combat the
mental sickness and utilize Edgar Kayce’s traps to repel the horror of the
deep, combat and seal the Dimension Rift.
