Fantasy
Beginner's Luck: 34
After many back-and-forth trips to the village, Fisk finally gathered the final branch with crabs and walked away. Fluke watched him go with a small amount of envy towards the fisherman. Ignorance really was bliss. From the corner of his eye Fluke saw some movement in the sand. Standing up and donning his mask again, he went to investigate. As he got closer, he watched a small mound of sand that began to bulge up and wiggle. Then a skull popped out of the sand, and with it a hermit crab. This hermit skull had not found any Cobalt shards, so it was not yet a threat to anyone. Fluke suddenly was struck with an idea; reaching into his pocket he found the remnants of the Emerald shard and sprinkled them in front of the wandering crab.
By Everett Scaife7 months ago in Fiction
Beginner's Luck: 33
"Oh, this can't be good." Fluke muttered as they watched in horror, not knowing how to act. The hermit crabs slowly moved about the beach, only stopping when they found the remnants of the resonant shard. The tiny fragments were glittering all over the sand. When they found the shards, they quickly spun them in their littler arms and consumed them. Within moments, new resonant crystals began growing out of the eye sockets and nasal cavity of the human skulls. When the shards had grown a sufficient size, the hermit skulls half turned to face the chaotic mass of spider crabs, only to begin launching their Cobalt shards into the fray. Small explosions of brilliant blue began popping all over the horde.
By Everett Scaife7 months ago in Fiction
Beginner's Luck: 32
"Crabs?" The Librarian put a disgusted and disappointed face. Fluke, Q, the Librarian were standing at the mouth of the river that divided the islands. This location was directly underneath the symbol that was indicated in Fluke's mask. Both sides of the river were still the sandy beaches that had existed prior to the migration. From their position they could see evidence of one of the now empty villages. Suddenly, a slight audible pop rang out.
By Everett Scaife7 months ago in Fiction
Why Our Pursuit of AGI is Actually a Search for Our Lost Selves. AI-Generated.
The Ghost in the Code: Why Our Pursuit of AGI is Actually a Search for Our Lost Selves I remember a cold Tuesday evening, sitting alone in the blue-grey glare of my monitor, watching a cursor pulse like a shallow breath. I was interacting with a large language model—nothing out of the ordinary for our current era—but as the text scrolled across the screen, answering a deeply personal query about grief with an unsettlingly poetic precision, I felt a shiver that wasn't born of the room's temperature. It wasn't the "uncanny valley" of aesthetics that bothered me; it was the "uncanny valley" of the soul. In that moment, the machine didn't feel like a calculator or a database. It felt like a mirror. Not a mirror that reflects the skin and bone, but one that reflects the frantic, beautiful, and often incoherent architecture of human thought.
By Mo. Khalid 7 months ago in Fiction
Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts
Someone was hunting me. I sighed in exasperation. This was the third time this week, and the week still had three days to go. Persistent little bleep. All the tag-probes had the same flavor, but all I could get is “young, and a pest who doesn’t give a crap about rules.”
By Meredith Harmon7 months ago in Fiction
Facets
The rotunda had no need for torches, such was the power of the light reflected off the crystal atop the Plinth at the rotunda’s center. Even Vistruvian’s shadow as he passed between the crystal and the bands of light coming down from the lantern windows did nothing to diminish the crystal’s aura.
By Matthew J. Fromm7 months ago in Fiction
