The Purple Muds swayed like an ocean of obsidian honey. A phantom reflection mirrored my footsteps, pushing up as I pushed down. The subterranean passenger moved at it’s own pace, allowing no rest, taking steps at weird angles. Haste, hesitation, or daydreaming could lead to an easy end, and the fallen slept beneath the surface, frozen in place as they had drowned. Mud-swimming fiends would feed on the bodies of the careless or unlucky, and starving creatures would reach up to snatch the unaware. I was interrupted from my walking slumber by my companion, the elder of the Lorei-Kab nomads. He sat cross-legged atop a saddled throne carried aloft by a mud-buffalo, surrounded by servants. Some sat while others clung to ropes hanging from the throne. His followers trailed behind leading their own pack-beasts stacked high with bags and ornate boxes, carefully balanced and held in place by thick, colored ropes. Bells adorned everything, and shook with each step. The nomads wore colo...
There's a secret island in the Gulf of Mexico that people in-the-know call the Shithouse. To get there you need to find the one barbecue place in Galveston that sells chili with beans, and attack the waitstaff. You'll be thrown in jail, and the next morning they'll put you into a barrel with some cornbread and a plastic bottle of purple drink. Or you can take a boat. Sandra just wanted to know where her son was going on the weekends, and now she found herself stuffed into a barrel. It reminded her of her sorority's hazing tradition of nailing pledges into coffins and stacking them up like dominoes. She never let her sisters know how much she hated it. The year she found herself in charge of nailing the coffins, she left a little gap so the pledges could breathe. She caught some suspicious glances when it was discovered that not a single person died, but nobody had the courage to outright accuse Sandra Anderson, wrestling champ. There was a knock on the lid of t...