Derin Edala

015: FRIEND

Picking someone to revive shouldn’t be too difficult a task, really. There are three main requirements – they need a decent chance of surviving revival with little help (because I’m no doctor), they need to be better than me at doing this (not hard), and they need to be someone I won’t ha...

Ask Me Anything 1 -- The Spellthing

Do you have a name?

Do I have a name? In my experience, my deer, names are most often held by humans, who breed and cultivate them and then tag them onto everything they see until the skies and the seas and the mountains are positively drowning in mundane labels. I’ve nev...

4.38: Like Twilight

I let Kylie and Max deal with explaining our future absence to most people. I’d already talked down one exhaustively proactive legacy mage today and had no desire to repeat the experience with the Americans. And the coven would have to be told about the geas; there was simply no way it wasn’t...

014: COURSE

I can’t get back up to block the pipes until I’m in better physical shape, but I can change all the air filters again so I’m not breathing mould and coolant while I wait to heal. I trudge (as well as one can trudge while favouring a sprained ankle) to Storage Ring 3 to retrieve some new fil...

You're the Voice, try and understand it

You’re the Voice, try and understand it

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Malas said gently. “We can bring in one of the others.”

Alania fidgeted, but she shook her head. “No. It’s my duty. I’m the newest member of the Council, so…” she gave...

4.37: The Path

We went straight to Duniyasar. Max wanted to talk to Fionnrath’s Destiny, and seemed determined not to waste any time. My presence wasn’t strictly required, but after certain events involving certain now-dead prophecy mentors, I was reluctant to leave Kylie channelling magic there. Duniyasar ...

013: FALL

If I do need to go to the front of the ship, I can’t do it yet. Turning off the gravity while the thermal cycler is running shouldn’t affect anything (all the liquids in there are sealed), but I’d rather not risk it. The AI seems to think that identifying the mould will help with sterilisat...

4.36: Disposeable

Max’s facial journey during Kylie’s explanation was pretty interesting. He almost immediately put on his sociable, unruffled mask, which I’d expected; I’d seen him put that on under stress many times. But I’d never seen his face slowly get redder and redder through an explanation before...

012: INFESTATION

I stare at the screen for several minutes.

I’m not actually going to do it, of course. I dismiss that possibility immediately. For one thing, the AI made the decision to wake a single person instead of a whole crew, and I trust its assessment of what the ship is currently capable of handl...

4.35: The Device

Fiore watched me, patient, smiling, waiting for an answer. I quickly assessed my options.

One: I could tell him. I could just explain as much of our adventure under the school as the geas would let me, and let him figure out the rest. This was a promising idea; the whole reason I’d picked...

Patreon bonus -- Aspen's javelin ID card

ID chips were implanted into colonists shortly before stasis for recognition aboard the ship and new colony, but during the training, accommodation and boarding process, it was more convenient to use these paper ID cards.

2022-07-14 15:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post

011: POPULATION

The greenhouse doesn’t take that long to get in order. In a couple of weeks, the ground is prepared, the seeds are planted, the honey is harvested, and there are still no critical ship problems to solve. There’s nothing to do but wait.

I decide to find out a little something about the p...

Introducing... character AMAs!

As a new monthly bonus, patrons at the Apprentice level (that's $10 and up) have the option of asking questions of Curse Words and Time to Orbit characters. Each character will answer up to twenty total questions, and if we have too many submissions, I'll do my best to ensure that each person get...

4.34: The Voice

He was about my age, maybe a bit younger. His red hair clashed horribly with his pink robes, and even more horribly with the bright blue stripe of Malas’ healing magic across his neck. It looked like somebody had cut his throat recently.

He looked very small compared to the two guards tha...

010: ALONE

Okay, so in terms of making this place livable for the next half decade, one task takes obvious priority. Captain Kinoshita died alone. Meaning there was no one to dispose of her body. It is, presumably, still in Storage Ring 6.

Technically, I can ignore this. SR6 is right down the back of ...

Behind the Keyboard -- Kayden

Welcome to our new Patreon reward series, Behind the Keyboard! From now on, $5 and up patrons will have access to these monthly "director's commentary" releases, talking in detail about the development of specific characters, events or settings in Curse Words and Time to Orbit. We are starting, o...

4.33: The Council

The room was just large enough to be intimidating without being impractical. The walls were perfectly smooth despite being the natural stone of the cavern, and apart from the door we’d entered through, the only other exits were several doors along the back wall, all guarded. The floor was tiled...

Bonus snippet -- children

Kylie

“What did you do?!”

“Ow! Auntie, I was just reading, I – ”

“Look at him! Look at Nick! He’s broken his arm!”

“I wasn’t even outside!”

“You hurt him with that thing in your face, didn’t you? You spoke this into the worl...

009: ASCEND

The journey down is very, very slow, and gives me plenty of time to get flat and spread my weight out as much as possible. I hit the wall on my hands and feet and immediately spread flat; it buckles dangerously under my weight, but doesn’t collapse. I lay still and breathe for a minute.

T...

4.32: The Cursebinder

I don’t know where they went, but Max and Kylie weren’t in our room when I got back. I really should wait for them, rather than go off on my own, but… but I was all jazzed up now, and I wanted to make some progress, so I wrote a note explaining where I was going and that if I wasn’t visib...

008: OVERRIDE

I poke around the system for a full day and a half before I finally find the airlock controls buried in an atmospheric control submenu. The interface isn’t at all intuitive (this is what the AI is for), but I eventually identify the airlocks around Chronostasis Ring 1, bring up their status, an...

4.31: Future

When Kylie and I got back to our room, Max wasn’t there. That wasn’t unusual, but the absence of his magic-absorbing wooden model was. I checked the school map for his location and was completely unsurprised to find that he was in the hospital ward.

One of Malas’ apprentices was organ...

007: PREDECESSOR

Reluctant to head back to the habitation ring, I pace around the storage ring, puzzling out the issue. It’s a little odd to be pacing in an environment where I can just walk in a straight line and eventually end up where I started, but I suppose I’ll get used to it over the next five years. T...

4.30: The Initiates

I tried not to be nervous as I walked out onto the shore of Agreabla Insulo, and into biggest group of witches I’d ever seen in my life.

Everyone else was already there. Kylie and Talbot and Hua, of course, and Cheryl had managed to arrange to come, which was great. And three new kids dre...

006: RECOVERY

I’m still reluctant to go opening more doors than I absolutely have to. I’m almost certain that there’s at least one corpse on this ship, and possibly as many as twenty one. I look through the two bedrooms with open doors but don’t find any scissors, or anything, really. The rooms clearly...

4.29: Answers

I’d never had much use for many of the actual physical books in the library. I did most of my reading electronically, or from textbooks purchased from the store. The huge, towering shelves full of dusty tomes looked cool, but didn’t promise a great reading experience.

Fortunately. Despi...

Bonus snippet -- Tarada and the Eye

On a moonless night, as was tradition, the Tarada gathered.

They were not an official Inquisition, sanctioned by any government. They were merely people who had looked upon the curses inside themselves, and made the decision to do what needed to be done. The world needed to be kept safe fro...

005: GHOSTS

As the airlock finishespressurising, I tell myself not to expect too much. The computer can’t assess the condition of this part of the ship; it might be in terrible shape.

The pumps stop. I open the hatch. I climb up into Pod Launch Ring 1.

It looks… fine.

It looks identical...

004: TRAVEL

The CourageousAI doesn’t have a voice or any voice recognition capabilities. I have no idea why. It’s common technology, available in every home and most public places, and I’d have thought that it would be a really useful feature for the crew, rather than them having to use a comp...

003: ASSESSMENT

The Courageouswas designed for a twenty year trip into deep space, with no chance of resupply or any external human contact, and expected to get to its destination with enough systems and supplies to colonise a planet. Settling 65lightyears away from Earth, it was understood that future ...