Stories I Found
December 8th, 2025
Dreams and Nightmares
Dear Readers,
Happy belated Thanksgiving! Aubri and I got to spend the holiday in Maine with her parents. Spending this time with family is extremely restful and so it was great to take a deep breath before plunging into the Christmas season. I have eaten a lot of turkey over the past two weeks and am looking forward to eating more at Christmas! It is a busy time of year, but it is one of my favorite times of year. I have also started tutoring adult learners with Beverly Bootstraps. Turns out they really need volunteer tutors, especially for math. So, if you are interested and in the Beverly area, think about volunteering!
Writing has been pretty good over the past two weeks. I did not get a ton of writing done while we were in Maine. However, once we got back to Massachusetts, I have been pretty efficient writing Chapter 19. Part of the challenge of writing this chapter (as well as Chapter 18) is that it is narrated from a different perspective than prior chapters. It is one character telling their story to two other characters. This is a different style of writing than most of the rest of the work and it has taken some effort to work out all the kinks.
This Week’s Chapter
Chapter 7 marks the culmination of Ulrich’s arc as well as the high point of Acretia’s. We see Acretia at her most devious in this chapter as she deploys a new and vicious weapon.
Biological weapons are often thought of as a rather modern concept. Indeed, great effort was expended by a verity of military powers to weaponize various pathogens in the 20th century. However, humans have been finding ways to use disease in war for a very long time. The Romans and Scythians weaponized tetanus by coating weapons in fecal matter. The Assyrians used ergot fungus to poison water supplies. The Mongols used the Black Plague as a siege weapon (a pretty direct inspiration for Chapter 7) and smallpox was deployed in multiple colonial conflicts in the Americas. But what does it mean to mythologize this idea?
There is some degree to which the language of magic or divine intervention is unavoidable when taking on a topic that we now use scientific language to describe. This by itself feels insufficient to have a disease feel mythical. For me, to find the proper tone for a mythological disease it is necessary to have the symptoms of the disease in some way be wonderous or fantastical. It should have symptoms that feels realistic but have been distorted or amplified in some way. People have fever dreams all the time. But a fever whose presence is characterized by the presence of deeply personal nightmares that slowly begin to degrade one’s very body? This is a disease fit for mythology.
Please feel free to share these newsletters with other people you think may be interested, and leave comments on the chapters!
“Chapter 7: The Dreaming Fever
Over the course of the remaining ten days before the day of the cavalry charge, the mages of Irrkengrond subtly built up slopes leading towards the Acretia’s line at the head of Thinker’s Gorge. When the day finally came, the cavalry of Irrkengrond smashed through the line of Kilkretha, opening a gash through which Ulrich and his force moved quickly through, setting out on the road to find the weapon. The plan went smoothly, as the cavalry of Irrkengrond was able to herd the forces of Kilkretha away from Ulrich. As Ulrich intended, his force marched for a day and met the great engine on the road on the morning of the second day.
Great was Ulrich’s wrath when his warriors fell upon the engine. Swiftly they drove the guards away from the machine and slaughtered the great….”
Another song for this week’s something extra. The Dogs of War is a fitting piece of music for this weeks chapter. I tend to imagine this playing over a montage Acretia’s army marching across the great plateau towards the city of Irrkengrond. The armies of Irrkengrond mount a desperate defense but the Dreaming Fever makes that defense more and more difficult. Eventually, they are hemmed into the walls of the city itself, desperately holding out for something or someone to save them…
