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[ { "from": "system", "value": "CONTINUE STORY SEGMENT. PARAMETERS: seven sentences sentences, David Brin style, Science Fiction, Space Opera genre. NOTE: PART OF LARGER NARRATIVE." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'about'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom Orley\n\nWhere did they all come from?\n\nTom Orley hid behind a low weed mound and looked about at the various alien parties on the horizon. He counted at least three groups, all converging from different directions on the floating eggshell-shaped wreck.\n\nAbout a mile behind him, the volcano still rumbled. He had left the crashed Thennanin scoutship at dawn, leaving a pan of precious fresh water under the dying pilot's mouth, within reach if he should ever awaken.\n\nHe had set out soon after sighting the party of Tandu, testing his newly woven \"weed-shoes\" on the uneven slimy surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The splayed, snowshoe-like devices helped him walk cautiously across the slick carpet of vines." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At first he moved much faster than the others. But soon the Tandu developed a new technique. They stopped floundering in the mire, and came on at a brisk walk. Tom kept low and worried about what would happen if they caught sight of him.\n\nAnd now there were other parties as well, one approaching from the southwest and one from the west. He couldn't make them out clearly yet, just dots bobbing slowly and with difficulty on a low, serrated horizon. But where the hell had they all come from?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Tandu were closest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were at least eight or nine of them, approaching in a column. Each creature splayed its six spindly legs wide apart to spread its weight. In their arms they cradled long, glistening instruments that could only be weapons. They marched forward rapidly.\n\nTom wondered what their new tactic was. Then he noticed that the lead Tandu did not carry a weapon. Instead, it held the leash of a shaggy, shambling creature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The keeper leaned forward over its charge, as if coaxing it to keep at a given task." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom risked raising his head a couple of feet above the mound.\n\n\"Well, I'll be damned.\"\n\nThe hairy creature was creating land or at least solidity in a narrow causeway in front of the party! Just before and on both sides of the trail, there was a faint shimmering where reality seemed to struggle against a noxious intrusion.\n\nAn Episiarch! Momentarily, Tom forgot his predicament, grateful for this rare sight.\n\nAs he watched, the causeway failed in one spot. The luminous band around the edges of the trail snapped together with a loud bang." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'tandu' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Tandu warrior standing there flailed and thrashed as it fell into the weeds. By fighting it merely tore the carpet and opened the hole wider until, finally, it sank like a stone into the sea.\n\nNone of the other Tandu seemed to take notice. The two behind the gap leaped across to the temporarily solid \"ground\" beyond. The party, diminished by one, continued to advance.\n\nTom shook his head. He had to reach the wreck first!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't afford to let the Tandu pass him. Yet if he did anything, even resumed his own march, they'd certainly spot him. He didn't doubt their efficiency with those weapons they carried. No human warrior ever underestimated the Tandu for long.\n\nReluctantly, he knelt and untied the fastenings on his weed-shoes. Discarding them, he crawled carefully to the edge of an open pool.\n\nHe counted slowly, waiting until he could hear the column of Galactics approaching, rehearsing his moves in his mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taking several deep breaths, he pulled his diving mask over his face, making certain it was snug and the collecting fins were clear. Then he pulled his needler from its holster, holding it in two hands.\n\nTom set his feet on two firm roots and checked his balance. The pool was just in front of him.\n\nHe closed his eyes.\n\nListen—\n\nFor the swishing tail" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of the tiger shark—" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His empathy sense pinpointed the powerful psi emissions of the mad ET adept, now only some eighty meters away.\n\n\"Gillian...,\" he sighed. Then, in one sudden fluid motion, he stood up and extended his weapon. His eyes opened and he fired." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n4 sentences sentences\nStyle: David Brin\nGenre: Science Fiction, Space Opera\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sunset and evening star,\n\nAnd one clear call for me!\n\nAnd may there be no moaning of the bar\n\nWhen I put out to sea.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "—A. TENNYSON\n\n[ Dennie & Sah'ot ]\n\n\"It'sss the longer way, Dennie. Are you sure we shouldn't just cut southwest?\"\n\nSah'ot swam alongside the sled, keeping pace fairly easily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every few strokes he glided smoothly to the surface to blow, then rejoined his companion without breaking stride." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know it would be faster, Sah'ot.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dennie answered without looking up from her sonar display. She was careful to skirt far from any metal-mounds. It was in this area that the killer-weed grew. Toshio's story about his encounter with the deadly plant had terrified her, and she was determined to give the unfamiliar mounds a wide berth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why are we returning to Streaker's old site before heading sssouth?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For several reasons,\" Dennie answered. \"First of all, we know this part of the route, having been over it before. And the path from the old site to the Seahorse is straight south, so there's less chance of getting lost.\"\n\nSah ot snickered, unconvinced. \"And?\"\n\n\"And this way we'll stand a chance of finding Hikahi. My guess is she may be nosing around the old site about now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did Gillian ask you to look for her?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Dennie lied. Actually, she had her own reasons for wanting to find Hikahi.\n\nDennie was afraid of what Toshio intended to do. It was possible that he meant to delay leaving the island until Streaker's preparations were finished and it was too late for Takkata-Jim to interfere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course, by then it would be too late for him to rejoin the ship via sled." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In that case the skiff would be Toshio's only chance. she had to find Hikahi before Gillian did. Gillian might decide to send the skiff after Tom Orley instead of Toshio.\n\nShe knew she wasn't thinking things out, and felt a little guilty about her decision. But if she could lie to one dolphin, she could lie to another." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help with this chapter? 12 sentences more sentences, David Brin-style, Science Fiction, Space Opera genre. some context might be from earlier" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cornered, Toshio couldn't even climb a tree. They were too close, and would be on him the instant they heard him move.\n\nHe could hear them as they spiraled closer, tightening the noose. Toshio clutched his needler and decided he had better attack first, before they were close enough to support each other It would be a small handgun against armored machines and high-powered lasers, and he was no marksman like Tom Orley. In fact, he had never fired at a sentient being before. But it beat waiting here.\n\nHe crouched and began to crawl to his right, toward the shoreline. He tried not to snap any twigs, but a minute after leaving his hiding place he flushed some small animal, which fled noisily through the bushes.\n\nImmediately he heard the noise of approaching mechanicals. Toshio slithered quickly under a thick bush, only to emerge facing the broad footpad of a spider.\n\nGotcha! Gotcha!\n\nThere was a squeal of triumph." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked up to meet the mad eye of Sreekah-pol." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fin leered as he commanded the spider to lift its leg.\n\nToshio rolled aside as the foot crashed down where his head had been. He reversed direction, avoiding a kick. The mechanical reared back, bringing both front legs into play. Toshio saw no place to turn. He fired his small pistol against the armored belly of the machine, and tiny needles ricocheted harmlessly into the forest.\n\nThe triumphant whistle was pure Primal.\n\nGotcha!\n\nThen the island began to shake.\n\nThe ground heaved up and down. Toshio was jounced right and left and his head hit the loam rhythmically. The spider teetered, then crashed backward into the forest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shaking accelerated. Toshio somehow rolled over onto his stomach. He fought the oscillations to rise to his knees.\n\nThere was a crunching sound as two spider-riders stumbled into the clearing. One crashed past Toshio in panic. The other, though, saw him and squawked in wrath.\n\nToshio tried to hold out his needler, but the island's trembling began to turn into a list. It became a race between him and the mad dolphin to see who could aim and fire first.\n\nThen both of them were staggered by a scream that echoed within their heads.\n\n→ BAD!\n\nBAD ONES!\n\n→ LEAVE\n\nUS" }, { "from": "human", "value": "→ ALONE!" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'toshio' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a roar of rejection that made Toshio moan and grab at his temples. The needler slipped out of his grasp and fell to the rapidly tilting ground.\n\nThe dolphin whistled shrilly as its spider collapsed in convulsions. It wailed in a foxhole lamentation.\n\nSorry! Sorry!\n\nPatron forgive!\n\nForgive!\n\nToshio stumbled forward. \"Forgiven,\" he managed to say as he hurried past. He couldn't deal with the fin's schizoid conversion. \"Come this way if you can!\" he called back, as he tried to make it to the shore. The noise in his head was like an earthquake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somehow Toshio managed to stay on his feet and stumble through the forest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he reached the edge of the mound the sea was a froth below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toshio looked right and left and saw no place that looked any better.\n\nAt that moment, a scream of engines pealed forth. He looked back to see a tornado of broken vegetation fly up from a spot only a hundred meters away. The gun-metal gray longboat rose above the rapidly tilting forest. It was surrounded by a glowing nimbus of ionization. Toshio's hackles rose as the island was swept by a throbbing antigravity field. The boat turned slowly and seemed to hesitate. Then, with a thunderclap, it speared into the eastern sky.\n\nToshio crouched as the boom whipped at him, tugging at his clothes.\n\nThere was no time to delay. Either Charles Dart had got away or he hadn't. Toshio pulled his mask up over his face, held it with one hand, and leapt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ifni's boss...\" he prayed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he fell into the stormy waters." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help with this chapter? 12 sentences more sentences, David Brin-style, Science Fiction, Space Opera genre. some context might be from earlier" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now!\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pilot needed no urging. He had already been adding momentum. Now he applied full power. Streaker's engines roared and she left the atmosphere on a crackling trail of ionization. The acceleration could be felt even through stasis, even inside the fluid-filled bridge.\n\nThe gray sea disappeared under a white blanket of clouds. The horizon became a curve, then an arc. Streaker fell outward into an ocean of stars.\n\n\"They're following us. The skirmishers from up north.\"\n\n\"How many?\"\n\n\"About twenty.\" Tsh't listened to her neural link for a moment. \"They're strung out. Except for a fairly big group at the rear, hardly any two of them seem to be of the same race. I hear shooting. They're fighting each other even as they chase us.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: system, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How many in that final bunch?\"\n\n\"Um... ssssix, I think.\"\n\n\"Well, let's see what we can do when we stretch our legs.\"\n\nThe planet fell behind them as Lucky Kaa sent Streaker accelerating in the direction Gillian had chosen.\n\nBeyond Kithrup's horizon, a great battle had begun. Her path kept her hidden by the planet's bulk for several minutes. Then they came into view of the conflagration.\n\nA million kilometers away, space was filled with bright explosions and hackle-raising shrieks that feebly penetrated the psi-screens.\n\nTsh't commented. \"The big boys are fighting over Takkata-Jim. We might even make it out of the system before the major fleets could catch up with usss.\"\n\nGillian nodded. Toshio's sacrifice had not been in vain.\n\n\"Then our problem is these little guys on our tail. Somehow we've got to shake them off. Maybe we can do a dodge behind the gas giant planet. How long until we can get to it?\"\n\n\"Hard to judge, Gillian. Maybe an hour. We can't use overdrive in system, and we're carrying a lot of excess mass.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tsh't listened to her link, concentrating. \"The ones on our tail have mostly stopped beating on each other. They may be damaged, but I think at least two of the lead ships will catch up with us about the time we reach the gasss giant.\"\n\nGillian looked at the holo tank. Kithrup had shrunk to a tiny ball in one comer, a sparkle of battle beyond it. On this side a chain of small dots showed Streaker's pursuers.\n\nIn the forward tank a shining pastel-striped globe began to grow. A huge world of frigid gas, looking much like Jupiter, swelled slowly but perceptibly.\n\nGillian pursed her lips and whistled softly. \"Well, if we can't outrun them I guess we'll have to try an ambush.\"\n\nTsh't stared at her. \"Gillian, those are battleships! We're only an overweight Snark-class survey ship!\"\n\nGillian grinned. \"This snark has become a boojum, girl. The Thennanin shell will do more than just slow us down. And we may be able to try something they'll never expect.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't mention that, given a chance, she wanted to hang around this system a while, in case of a miracle.\n\n\"Have all loose objects been secured?\"\n\n\"Sstandard procedure. It's been done.\"\n\n\"Good. Please order all crew out of the central bay. They're to strap themselves in wherever they can.\"\n\nTsh't gave the order, then turned back with a questioning look.\n\nGillian explained. \"We're slow because we're overweight, right? They'll be shooting at us before we reach the cover of the gas giant, let alone overdrive range. Tell me, Tsh't, what's making us overweight?\"\n\n\"The Thennanin shell!\"\n\n\"And? What else?\"\n\nTsh't looked puzzled.\n\nGillian hinted with a riddle.\n\nLiving touch\n\nThe substance of motion—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like air, forgotten" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until it's gone!\n\nTsh't stared blankly. Then she got it. Her eyes widened.\n\n\"Pretty tricky, yesss. It just might work, at that. Still, I'm glad you told me. The crew are going to want to wear the right apparel.\"\n\nGillian tried to snap her fingers in the water, and failed. \"Spacesuits! You're right! Tsh't, what would I do without you!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "2 sentences sentences. same character feel. Science Fiction, Space Opera stuff." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ambush at the gas giant was unexpected. The enemy came in close, using the great planet's gravity to swing about in a tight hyperbolic tum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were unprepared for an attack on their flanks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Compared with their breakneck dive, Streaker was almost motionless. She fell upon the pair of cruisers as they passed, lacing a web-like tracery of antimatter in their paths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the battleships blossomed into a fireball before Streaker's computers could even identify it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its screens were probably already damaged after weeks of battle.\n\nThe other cruiser was in better shape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its screens flashed an ominous violet, and thin lines of exploding metal brightened its hull." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it passed through the trap and began decelerating furiously.\n\n\"It'll misss our mines, worse luck,\" Tsh't announced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There wasn't time to lay a perfect pattern.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can't have everything,\" Gillian replied. \"You handled that brilliantly. He'll be some time getting back to us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tsh't peered at the screen and listened to her neural link. \"He may be very tardy, if his engines keep missssing. He's on a collision spiral with the planet!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Goody. Let's leave him and see about the others.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Streaker's motion was taking her away from the giant planet, toward another group of five onrushing cruisers. Having witnessed part of the ambush, these were all adjusting course furiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now we see how well the Trojan Seahorse works,\" Gillian said. \"The first bunch was close enough to read our engines and know we're Earth-made. But these guys were too far back. Has Suessi altered our power output along Thennanin lines, as planned?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wattaceti whistled confirmation. \"It's done. Suesssi says it'll cut efficiency, though. He reminds you that our engines aren't Thennanin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank him for me. Now, for all our lives, what happens next depends on whether they're an unimaginative lot, as Tom guessed they'd be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Full power to the psi shields!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, sssir!\"\n\nEnergy detectors lit up as the oncoming ships swept them with probe-beams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The motley assortment of approaching ET vessels seemed to hesitate, then diverged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Numbers one, four, and five are accelerating to pass us by!\" Tsh't announced. The bridge was filled with chattering dolphin applause." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about the others?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tsh't's manipulator arm pointed to two dots in the holotank. \"Decelerating and preparing for battle! We're picking up a beam-cast in Galactic Ten! It's a ritual challenge!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tsh't shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They do think we're Thennanin! But they want to stop and finish us off!\"\n\n\"Who are they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Brothers of the Night!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The magnification screens showed the two approaching battlewagons, dark and deadly and growing nearer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What to do? Gillian kept her face impassive. She knew the fen were watching her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We can't outrun them, especially not while we're faking Thennanin engines or wearing this heavy Thennanin shell. But only a fool would try to take them in a straight battle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A fighting fool like Tom, she thought ironically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or Creideiki. If either of them were in command I'd be preparing condolence wreaths for the Brothers of the Night right now.\n\n\"Gillian?\" Tsh't asked nervously." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gillian shook herself Now. Decide now!\n\nShe looked at the approaching death machines.\n\n\"Down their throats,\" she said. \"Head toward Kithrup.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "StoryBot: Add 9 sentences to this segment. Style: David Brin. Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera. Note: Part of larger work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Tandu-Soro detachment was gaining on the strung-out fugitives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mistress, a crippled Thennanin is approaching the transfer point on an escape trajectory.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Krat squirmed on her cushion and snarled. \"So? Casualties have left the battle area before. All sides try to evacuate their wounded. Why do you bother me when we are even now closing in!\"\n\nThe little Pila detector officer scuttled back into its cubbyhole. Krat bent to watch her forward screens.\n\nA small squadron of Thennanin struggled to keep ahead.Further on, at the edge of detection, sparks of desultory battle showed that the leaders were still bickering, even as they closed on the quarry.\n\nWhat if they're mistaken, Krat wondered. We chase the Thennanin, who chase the remnants, who chase what? Those fools might even be chasing each other!\n\nIt didn't matter. Half the Tandu-Soro fleet orbited Kithrup, so the Earthlings were trapped, one way or another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We'll deal with the Tandu in good time, she thought, and meet the ancient ones alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mistress!\" the Pila shouted shrilly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is a transmission from the transfer point!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bother me one more time with inconsequentials...\" she rumbled, flexing her mating claw threateningly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the client interrupted her! The Pil dared to interrupt!\n\n\"Mistress. It is the Earth ship! They taunt us! They defy us! They...\"\n\n\"Show me!\" Krat hissed. \"It must be a trick! Show me at once!\"\n\nThe Pil ducked back into its section. On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins. From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader.\n\n\"...stupid creatures unworthy of the name 'sophonts.' Foolish, pre-sentient upspring of errant masters. We slip away from all your armed might, laughing at your clumsiness! We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures. And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us! What better proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us! What better proof...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The taunt went on. Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring the artistry of it. These men are better than I'd thought. Their insults are wordy and overblown, but they have talent. They deserve honorable, slow deaths.\n\n\"Mistress! The Tandu with us are changing course! Their other ships are leaving Kithrup for the transfer point!\"\n\nKrat hissed in despair. \"After them! After them at once! We followed them through space this far. The chase only goes on!\"\n\nThe crew bent to their tasks resignedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Earth ship was in a good position to escape." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At best this would be a long chase.\n\nKrat realized that she would never make it home in time for mating. She would die out here.\n\nOn her screen, the man continued to taunt them.\n\n\"Librarian!\" she called. \"I do not understand some of the man's words. Find out what that phrase 'Nyaahh nyaaah' means in their beastly wolfling tongue!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with M.N. Forgy's style, maintaining narrative continuity and character relationships." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Deputy Adams!\" is yelled from one of the offices down the hall, causing everyone in the squad room to turn their heads. I head into Lieutenant Oaks's office and find him grimacing over some papers.\n\n\"Yes, sir?\"\n\n\"Looks like you've completed your hours of field training.\" He sets the papers down and frowns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought I had one more shift.\"\n\n\"Apparently not. I just went over your hours and you're all set.\" His eyes slide from his desk to me. \"You think you're ready?\" His tone sounds as if he's not convinced, and I haven't even replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's the father in him; I can tell he's worried for my safety by all the zig-zag lines stretched across his forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir, I do.\" I give a strong nod.\n\n\"I want Chewie to ride with you.\" He looks down at his desk quickly.\n\n\"Why?\" My mouth hangs open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He can't be serious.\n\n\"Chewie just finished his hours as well, and I'm a little nervous for him to be out on his own. Just for a few days.\"\n\nHe's lying; he wants me to have a partner because he's scared of me being out there on my own. He doesn't think I'm ready. Exhaling slowly, I clasp my hands in front of me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I really didn't want a damn partner, but if it gets me out on the road then whatever." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'chewie' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anything else, sir?\"\n\n\"That'll be all.\"\n\nCursing under my breath, I head out the back of the building. I mean, if I had to have a partner I'm glad it was Chewie, but just the idea of having one is what makes me angry.\n\n\"Wait up!\" Looking over my shoulder, I spot Chewie, also known as Deputy Silver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He's of medium build, and his hair looks to be buzzed off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You wanna ride with me, you better keep up,\" I advise, rounding my cruiser.\n\n\"You're driving?\" he questions. His tone is unbelieving, his green eyes squinting.\n\n\"Yes, I'm driving,\" I respond, jerking the car door open.\n\nSliding into the car, I look at the MDT, the Mobile Data Terminal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's a computer in our car that relays messages from dispatch, and I can look into a person's background history with law enforcement. I can also have real-time messages with other deputies on duty. It does everything, a lifesaver.\n\n\"Looks like there's an alarm going off. Going to be a bit of a drive if we go around the strip. We should go right through it, we'll get there quicker.\"\n\n\"Let's do it,\" Chewie rasps, buckling his seat belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"5paul69, we'll take the alarm on Prairie Drive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"5paul69, copy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Putting the car in reverse, we back out of the station and head toward the main strip.\n\n\"So, you always wanted to be a sheriff?\" Chewie asks me.\n\nI give a small laugh. \"Yes. You?\"\n\n\"No, I never really knew what I wanted to do. Bounced from job to job, looking for the right one.\"\n\n\"You think this is the one?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tilts his head to the side and looks out the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I dunno, but I get a gun and that is definitely better than anything I've done before.\" He laughs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heading down the strip, the traffic comes to a stop, letting pedestrians walk.\n\n\"You sure this way is quicker?\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah. Going around would have added an hour.\"\n\n\"Damn,\" he whispers.\n\nTapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I skim the nearby businesses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I spot Sin Casino, and none other than Zeek himself is standing out front with some of his men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He laughs at one of his guys, his face giving off a youthful look that I doubt many would see under his tattoos and leather." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes catch mine before doing a double-take, his smile turning into a tight-lipped smirk as he squints. My stomach falls, and my hands grip the steering wheel. He lowers his head, his stare dropping from mine, but not for long. As if he can't help but look back, his eyes find mine again and I feel like my heart stops beating.\n\n\"Go!\" Shaking my head, I hit the accelerator a little too hard, making the tires screech as we're thrust forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jesus!\" Chewie curses, his hands clutching the dash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry,\" I whisper, my cheeks feeling warm.\n\n\"The Sin City Outlaws,\" Chewie whispers.\n\n\"What? What are you talking about? Who are you talking to?\" I ramble. After he doesn't answer me, I look over at him, finding him smiling big.\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please, I saw you. Hell, everyone saw you.\" He chuckles, shaking his head.\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about.\" I inhale sharply, trying to get ahold of my racing heart.\n\n\"Yeah, okay, let's play dumb,\" he mutters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You do know they're criminals, right? Blood-spilling animals?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I ignore him, looking at the GPS. \"Looks like we're about fifteen minutes away.\"\n\nHe sits back in his seat and drops it, and my fingers finally let up on the steering wheel.\n\nPulling up to the location, I spot a big three-story house with white pillars out front.\n\n\"5paul69, please move me to Prairie Drive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Affirmative.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stepping out of the car, I draw my weapon. Walking up to the front of the house, I look at the door and windows and see nothing.\n\n\"Let's head to the back,\" I whisper. Chewie gives a nod and we start in that direction. A loud crash sounds from inside the house and I grip my weapon tightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, fuck, someone's in there!\" Chewie whispers loudly.\n\n\"Shh!\"\n\nGetting in stance, I slowly make my way around the corner and find the back door busted in, as if someone kicked it.\n\nTaking a quick breath, I turn the corner and find someone dressed in black, complete with black ski mask, and bat in hand.\n\n\"Sheriff's department, get on the ground!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I shout, my weapon aimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The person slowly raises their arms, their back turned toward Chewie and me. Stepping forward, he gets his cuffs out but the person quickly turns, ramming the bat right into Chewie's gut. He grunts loudly and falls to the ground as the person takes off up the stairs.\n\n\"5paul69, send backup. Deputy down!\" I call in from the portable radio setting on my shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jumping over Chewie, I race up the stairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just as I reach the top step, a man growls and a bat swings my way. I quickly duck and grab the end of the bat, slamming the end into his chest. He falls on his back and I tackle him, fishing out his wrists.\n\nHe tries to pull from me, so I dig my knee into his back.\n\n\"Stop resisting!\" I order." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/insert_quote: \"Oh, good, you got him,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ouch, I have a bad back!\" he cries. Finally getting one of his wrists, I pull my cuffs out of my belt and cuff him.\n\n\"Oh, good, you got him,\" Chewie huffs, finally making it up the last few steps.\n\n\"How in the hell did you pass the academy?\" I question, out of breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Really? The man had a bat!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he hollers, gesturing toward the weapon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shaking my head, I reach for my radio. \"5paul69, situation stable.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seconds later, sirens blare up the driveway as I haul the man down the stairs and out the door.\n\nSlamming the guy against the hood of my car, I start patting him down.\n\n\"Fuck your car is hot!\" he cries, trying to move off the hood.\n\n\"You got any more weapons?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I question, finding his wallet.\n\n\"No.\" He shakes his head.\n\n\"Harold Whitney. Age thirty-four, six feet, one inch,\" I read off his driver's license.\n\nChewie takes the ID and grabs Harold, reading him his rights.\n\nAdrenaline is racing through me and I feel like I'm flying, like I can do anything. I just took down a criminal. Me!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like M.N. Forgy would. btw might have existing characters/lore" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like M.N. Forgy would. btw might have existing characters/lore" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two days go by, and I hear nothing from Zeek. It hurts, but not like you think it hurts. The fact that I was so naive to think Zeek wouldn't screw around haunts me. The fact that his smooth words and the way our bodies spoke to one another in bed made me forget who I was really dealing with.\n\nI pull into my driveway at the end of a long shift and spot Zeek sitting on my front porch. I'm surprised.\n\nOpening the garage door, I quickly pull in and click the button to close it, hoping it closes before he has a chance to get up and come inside.\n\nNo such luck.\n\nMy car door is ripped open, my arm gripped roughly.\n\n\"What the hell?\"\n\nHe shoves me against the car, his face right in mine.\n\n\"I tried to be nice. I tried to do it your way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nice? You call dry-humping a bunch of girls right before coming to see me nice?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I laugh in his face.\n\n\"Don't you get it? I fucking came here, Jillian. I didn't sleep with those girls. This...\" He pulls away, running his hands through his hair as if he's annoyed. Dark strands slip through his fingers like silk. I love it when he does that.\n\n\"It's fucked. Whatever we are doing is fucked. We're stupid, and the way you make me feel is—\" he shakes his head.\n\n\"I don't want to hear it,\" I spit out. Slamming the car door, I head inside. I try to close the door and lock it but he shoves it open, his face tight with irritation.\n\n\"You're going to let me talk.\"\n\n\"No, I'm not. I don't need to hear your lies. I was stupid once, I won't be again.\"\n\nI head into my room to change and he follows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stop walking away from me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He's getting angrier. Good, I want him angry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I want to hurt him.\n\nHe growls, and before I can turn around to look at him, I'm lifted into the air and thrown on the bed.\n\n\"What do you want to hear? What will make you shut your mouth and open your pretty little ears?\"\n\nI sit upright, pushing him off me.\n\n\"Yes, I wanted to fuck those girls. I wanted to fuck them both at the same time, and then come over here and fuck you.\"\n\nBiting my lip, I slap him across the face. His head whips to the side, his eyes closed.\n\n\"Get the fuck out,\" I breathe heavily.\n\nShoving him out of my way, I try to make my way off the bed but am stopped short, his hand gripping my upper arm.\n\nHe slams me back on the bed, grabs me by the ankle and pulls it to the bed post.\n\nReaching forward, he grabs the cuffs from my duty belt and hooks my ankle to the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Disbelief floods my face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I pull at the cuffs, and they bite into my flesh.\n\nQuickly, I open the pouch to my keys, but he grabs them before I can.\n\n\"Let me go, Zeek!\"\n\n\"I tried to be nice, but you had to fucking push me.\" He crawls on the bed, lowering me to the mattress, both of his fists on either side of me.\n\n\"You think you have everything figured out. That you and I being together is great and some fairytale with a happy ending. Well, wake the fuck up, princess. You and I are fucking stupid for even talking to each other, let alone screwing. Now you're in my goddamn head, which makes it even worse.\"\n\nI don't respond, just stare at the wall.\n\n\"None of this makes sense. It's driving me mad trying to figure out why I am so attracted to you. Why you, out of all the women I've been with, have me by the balls.\"\n\nHe grabs my chin, making me look at him.\n\n\"I like fucking women. That kind of control makes me feel...\" He stops, his eyes digging deep into mine. \"But when I was with you the other night, you unlocked something I didn't think I was capable of, and it scared the shit out of me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what was that?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'cuffs' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I breathe heavily, my nostrils flaring with every harsh breath.\n\n\"Feeling. I felt alive. I felt human.\"\n\nHe pushes himself off the bed and rubs at the back of his neck.\n\n\"You walk away from me again, you'll get worse than bit, Rookie,\" he threatens before walking out of the room.\n\n\"Let me out of these cuffs, Zeek.\"\n\nHe doesn't respond. The front door shuts, and moments later, I hear a motorcycle driving by.\n\nThat asshole cuffed me to my own bed, with my own cuffs, and left me." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand story by 9 sentences, respecting established elements. Focus: Sin City Outlaws, suspense, erotica, crime" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the hospital, I have to sit in the waiting room because I'm not family. I also don't want anyone to notice me waiting for her, so I don't force myself into her room either.\n\nAcross from me sits Alessandra. Every time I look at her, she quickly looks away. So far, she's the only one who notices it's me. Inhaling a sharp breath, I look down and rub my hands together anxiously.\n\nThe clock ticks above the coffee pot loudly, my foot tapping against the linoleum floor impatiently. Is there something wrong? Is she worse than I thought?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Standing up, I wring the back of my sweating neck.\n\n\"Fuck!\" My voice booms furiously.\n\nAlessandra jumps in her seat.\n\nThe doors open, and out steps a doctor and Jillian. She has a fresh bandage on her lip, and her ankle is in one of those boot things. I want to stand back and wait until the doctor leaves, but I can't. Just waiting here is killing me as it is.\n\n\"Is everything okay?\" I step up to them, my forehead sweating.\n\nTurning, she smiles at me, and my chest constricts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, she's fine. Little banged up, and she'll be sore for a few days. However, a bubble bath and those muscle relaxers will help with that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The doctor points to the paper in Jillian's hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks again, Dr. Mathews.\"\n\nHe nods and walks back into the ER.\n\nSilence fills the air. I'm trying to read her body language, her attitude, to see if she's still pissed at me for handcuffing her to the bed and leaving her, or that my club went after her, but I can't figure it out.\n\n\"Hey, are you okay? I came as soon as I found out. Your dad is blowing up my phone.\" Alessandra steps in front of me, and it pisses me off. It's taking everything I have not to pick her up and set her aside.\n\nJillian shifts her gaze from me to Alessandra. \"Yeah, I'm fine. I just want to go home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You want me to take you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll take her,\" I butt in, not asking but telling. Alessandra's eyes burn intensely as she gives Jillian a hesitant look.\n\n\"You sure?\" She tries once again, but before the words are out of her mouth, Jillian is nodding.\n\n\"I'll be fine,\" Jillian assures her. Alessandra gives me a death glare, and I give it right back.\n\n\"I'll call you later, Jill.\" Her eyes never leave mine as she walks away. Finally.\n\nAwkward silence sets in.\n\nI'm not sure what to say or do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do I bring up the fight, or do I let it go and focus on her?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must include the following in quotes somewhere in your response: I do. I was that insane jealous girl, and I went nuts assuming that because you slept with me, that we were together. If you can't tell, I'm kind of new to this, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looks up at me, her eyes a little glossy, and I realize she's not just upset with me, but hurt. I brought that pain, and I actually care. In fact, it pains me to know that I did it.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I state on an exhale, the apology catching me off-guard. Her sadness dims, and I can't contain it anymore; I grab both of her arms, pulling her close.\n\n\"I screwed up. I know that. But when it comes to you, I'm a goddamn mad man.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, too,\" she whispers.\n\n\"You don't need to be sorry for anything, Jillian,\" I mutter into her hair.\n\n\"I do. I was that insane jealous girl, and I went nuts assuming that because you slept with me, that we were together. If you can't tell, I'm kind of new to this, too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I smirk. Her innocence, and the way that bottom lip trembles, is going to be my demise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In your defense, all chicks are insane.\" Her body wracks with laughter, tears sliding down her face.\n\nI thumb the apple of her cheek, the tip of my finger soaking up the wetness. Slipping my thumb down, I rub it on her bottom lip. Her mouth parts, and teary eyes look at me with hunger.\n\nI want to taste her sadness, feel it against my skin. Sadness isn't something I feel; it was weeded out of my core when I was made president of the club.\n\nKissing her lips, the coldness of her tears presses against mine. Licking her bottom lip, salt and something sour fills my mouth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cold, wet, salty, and sour. It sounds depressing.\n\n\"I'm taking you home,\" I mumble against her damp lips.\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"I'm staying, and that's not up for debate.\" I'm not sure what my uncle is fishing up, but I apparently know nothing of it, and I'm not going to chance them coming after her again. If it means they see me here, then so be it. I'm starting to think my brother Lip was right when he told me my club was corrupted, refusing to be a part of it. In a club, there should be order, respect, loyalty, and most of all brotherhood. But out of all twenty of our members, I only trust three.\n\nThat's not a brotherhood." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes and character familiarity in the Western, People of Color genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You still goin' out, Keturah?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'keturah' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Essie asked even though Keturah was clearly wrapping her shawl around herself.\n\n\"Yes,\" Keturah said simply and reached for the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ain't you tired?\" This came from Essie's daughter, Tandy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thanks to that meeting out in the fields with Logan, they had picked cotton well past the setting of the sun. Keturah would not deny that she was tired." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she had never let exhaustion stop her from what she wanted before.\n\n\"Yes, Tandy, I'm tired. I left some marigold on the table for your blisters,\" Keturah said and left the small cabin, closing the door behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keturah shared her cabin with Essie and her four children. Essie's husband lived and worked on a different plantation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah did not understand the purpose of such a marriage, but she supposed it wasn't her place to judge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Either way, Keturah lived in the small cabin with his family and he did not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had lived her whole life sharing a small space with a lot of people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it had been different when that space was shared with her mama and papa and younger brothers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, she shared it with another family and despite their numbers, she was lonely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For seven years she had been lonely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So lonely, loneliness itself had become a strange kind of companion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It has been so long since she had truly connected with another person that she wasn't even sure she ever wanted or needed to do so again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And oddly enough, she never felt lonelier than when she was in the house with Essie's family. Nice as Essie and her children were, they had none of them taken to her too well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They thought her strange. She had done very little to change their opinion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a shake of her head, she shook off those thoughts. No sense in wasting her mind on folks she hoped to never see again in this life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If all went well tonight, she might be leaving Salis soon. Her feet took her several cabins down to Ophelia's cabin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door was opened by Kitch, Ophelia's oldest son, a boy of about thirteen. \"Hey, Keturah,\" the boy said, opening the door wider and letting her in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ophelia's cabin was always warm and welcoming, and that evening was no different. There was a small fire going in the fireplace and Ophelia's husband, Coffey, was sitting at the table whittling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her other children were on the floor, playing and talking and laughing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah could not remember the last time she had laughed, but even if she never laughed again, she loved the sound of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ophelia's home reminded Keturah the most of her own home.\n\n\"Shut the door, Kitch,\" Coffey said quietly, eyeing Keturah." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't like her much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the only downfall of her and Ophelia's tepid friendship. Keturah turned to Ophelia, but her friend wouldn't meet her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah knew what that meant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She reached into the small pocket of her dress anyway and set the mint leaves she had picked earlier in front of Ophelia. If her stomach was upset that would soothe the ache." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know why you're here, Keturah,\" Coffey continued. \"The answer is no.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yesterday, the answer had been maybe. Apparently, Logan's lesson had touched a nerve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, with Coffey, most times the answer was no. She had wanted to teach him and Ophelia and the children to read." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The answer had been no. Keturah had then waited for Coffey to leave the house and again asked Ophelia if she wanted to learn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ophelia's look had been one of longing, but she out and out refused to go against Coffey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Neither she nor the children needed to learn how to read." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was for the white man, she had told Keturah." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah wished a man she had married would tell her she couldn't learn to read." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she didn't take it from the white man, she wasn't going to take it from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The whole incident had put a slight damper on what could have been a true friendship. But they still tried and so here she was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah went and took the seat opposite of Coffey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only way to change Ophelia's mind was to change her husband's. This was why Keturah's husband, when she married, would be older and past the days where he felt the need to prove his manhood by being willfully ignorant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even Leo, her beloved, had had his moments. \"Coffey,\" she began gently, \"Logan is leavin' for South Carolina for a family gatherin' in two weeks' time. When we run, he won't even be here. I overheard McGovern say so the other day.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'logan'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McGovern had been mentioning it to one of the other overseers and had sounded like he couldn't wait for Logan to go. None of the overseers appeared to like Logan much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And that smelled of trouble to Keturah. It was only a matter of time before Logan replaced his father's workers with his friends." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And anyone who was a friend of Logan Feldan would not be a friend of theirs.\n\nBut Coffey was already shaking his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nope. Nuh uh. We not goin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, you're goin' to stay here? Knowin' that if Logan doesn't work you to death, William is liable to sell you to get out of his gamblin' debts? That's a risk you want to take for you and your family?\"\n\n\"What do you know about family?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coffey countered, his dark eyes glittering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was maybe ten years older than her and even Keturah could admit that he was handsome." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But what did looks really matter in the scheme of things?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What mattered was that he didn't like her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had asked Ophelia once if he had ever given her a reason. Ophelia had ducked her head in that way she did when she was embarrassed and admitted that Coffey thought Keturah was trouble. Her? Trouble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had never been trouble a day in her life. But she focused on his words now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I had a family. I am not impervious to your situation, Coffey.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coffey stared at her and then shook his head in disbelief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had used the wrong words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She always used the wrong words. What had Papa told her time and time again?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "You'll never be an orator, Keturah Mary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she kept going. \"It's why I'm insistin' that we run. Had my family run, my parents and my brothers and me, would not have been sold away from each other. I don't want that for you and Ophelia.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The answer is no. I am not goin' to be killed like Zeb was.\"\n\n\"We would be more careful than Zeb was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Zeb run off and it was just him. You cain't be more careful than that! Ophelia and I got four young'uns. Four! You ain't got no babies of your own that's why you don't understand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did not need to have children to know that their loss could and would be unbearable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That any loss of someone you loved could be unbearable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her parents had died shortly after their separation. That had been painful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Theophilus and Abigail Hollis had been her whole world and the earth seemed smaller without them in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then their deaths had been followed by her brothers: Lawrence, Hamilton, and Sylvester. That had been painful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she had thought her heart had been ripped out and stomped on, when Leo was sold so far south, they knew they would never see each other again. Seven years later, she still ached from all of the loss." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'coffey' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coffey was always so quick to fling her spinster state and lack of blood relatives in her face when he wanted to win an argument, but they were just shields he used to hide his own fears.\n\n\"I think every person on this plantation, married or not, mother or not, knows what you risk, Coffey.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You too much, Keturah. I done said what I said and I ain't gone say no more.\"\n\nToo much. It was how she had been described all of her life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too straightforward, too aggressive, too logical, too unfeeling. Sometimes you just too much, Keturah." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mama had told her that more times than she could count." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'sometimes' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes Mama had said it with a smile on her face, sometimes with exasperation. But in the end, Keturah understood, she was just a person who would always be out of place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keturah stood up. When Coffey got in this mood, there was no changing his mind. She stood behind the chair that she had been sitting in, placing her hands on the wooden headrest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, I understand your position and I will argue no longer, but I will not stay here. I have made up my mind,\" she told Coffey, though her words for Ophelia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One day you will look up, and I will be gone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You gone be on that whippin' post is where you gone be,\" Coffey muttered under his breath.\n\n\"As always, Coffey, it has been a pleasure,\" Keturah said, giving him a brittle smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He always had to have the last words, no matter how unkind they might be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's late, I'll see y'all in the mornin',\" Keturah said and didn't even look at Ophelia on her way out. What was the point?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah walked out of their cabin and kept walking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So long as she stayed within sight of the slave cabins, she was fine. McGovern wasn't a man too big on curfew, though that might change now that Logan was in charge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she wasn't ready to go back to her own cabin and Coffey's words danced in her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, not his insults, his refusal to let his family go. Because she believed it was time to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The urge to leave had started a month or so ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it hadn't gone away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If anything, it had gotten stronger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes she woke up in the morning, anxious, because she was still there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she didn't want to leave by herself. She didn't know where to go or what to do when she got wherever it was she needed to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And there was safety in having someone to rely on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A line from one of her favorite psalms entered her thoughts, It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah sighed. And wasn't that the story of her life?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone she had ever loved, through no fault of their own, had been unreliable. In this life, she only had herself and the Lord." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would be fine. At the end of the day, she was always just fine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So focused was she on her thoughts that she almost missed the whistle. But she had heard it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She came to an abrupt stop. Turned around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind her, a tall, lanky, slave looped his way towards her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The darkness of the night revealed no clue as to who he was. But that whistle..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Keturah Mary Hollis, I declare, you are a fast one.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah swallowed. Blinked, but the young man in front of her didn't disappear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words were her papa's. You know you're a fast one, Keturah Mary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He always said it after lessons. He also whistled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A lot. He had a whistle for leaving the house and a whistle for coming home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A whistle when he was content and a whistle for when he was sad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A whistle for danger and a whistle for safety. And a whistle for when he wanted to call his children home without yelling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was the one that had stopped her in her tracks.\n\nKeturah didn't move and soon the space between her and the slave was nary a foot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He placed his hands on his waist, looking down at her and eyeing her as much as she eyed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do I know you?\" she asked, finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I hope so, Tura. I've travelled a ways to come and get you.\"\n\n\"Let me rephrase my question. What is your name?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The boy—because Keturah could see now that tall as he was, he was still growing—cracked a smile. He looked away for a second. \"Sylvester, Keturah. My name is Sylvester. Hollis. I'm your brother.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene and character context, and you will continue with ten sentences, keeping within the Western, People of Color genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Day's Mercantile was one of the few two-story buildings in Arrow Creek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They used the first floor for the store and the second floor for nothing. It was a lot of work to stow their wares above them. They didn't order that much in bulk and they had gotten the hang of ordering the things that people needed so that stock rarely just sat on the shelves. For now, the second floor was a wide and empty space that only held a small bed that Manny sometimes used for an afternoon nap when it was Sam's turn to work behind the counter. Sam and Manny went back and forth about what to do with it, but with no real seriousness. There had been no question when Sam's house had been built as to where Manny would live. There was a large part of Manny that was pleased that his twin assumed they would stay together forever. But they had this extra space. Manny found himself thinking about it more and more often. He didn't want land." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include this dialogue snippet naturally: \"What if you got hurt? Who would know? How could they go get help?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those days of working under the hot sun were long past for him.\n\nManny brought the wagon around to the back of the store and saw that Sam already had the door open ready for him.\n\n\"You didn't take anybody with you,\" Sam said, accusation in his voice as Manny pulled the wagon to a stop. His brother was leaning against the doorway, hands folded across his chest, wearing a white apron to keep dirt and things from his clothes.\n\n\"What are you talkin' about? The Lord was with me, wasn't He?\" He said the words flippantly, as he always did when he talked about God with his brother.\n\n\"Manny, that's not funny,\" Sam muttered as he slowly made his way to the wagon. \"What if you got hurt? Who would know? How could they go get help?\"\n\nManny said nothing and just let Sam fuss. It wasn't often his brother rambled and apparently, he had a lot to get off his chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sam grabbed a big box, still talking, and went inside the store." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny looked to the back of the wagon where he had stored the dead man's papers and clothes and things and then eyed the store. There used to be a time that there wouldn't have even been a question, he would have told Sam everything right away, but things were different now. And Manny wasn't necessarily thinking about Laura. At least not in that way. His brother was settled, married, and a pa now. He had a home and a profession—more than one really. Sam didn't need the headache of dealing with a dead white man and his promises. And if this came back to haunt them in some way, it was better that only Manny deal with the fallout. There was canvas on the floor of the wagon and Manny tossed it over the dead man's things. He would think on what to do about that later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For now, he had a store to run.\n\nTogether, Manny and Sam unloaded the wagon though Manny was careful to gather the dead man's things and hide them in a corner of their storage room before Sam saw them.\n\n\"You go on home,\" Manny told Sam as he pulled out some paper and a pencil. \"I'll check and make sure we received everythin' we ordered.\"\n\n\"Manny—,\"\n\n\"You have to get ready for tomorrow, don't you?\" Tomorrow was Sunday. And as of right now, the only preacher in Arrow Creek was Sam. \"Unless it was a slow day?\" On slow days, Sam usually pulled his Bible out on the counter and studied for his sermon. But Manny doubted it was a slow day, Saturdays were their busiest days of the week." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sam shook his head. \"Not a slow day at all. Several families passin' through. White and Negro. Think we might make a tidy profit this month.\" There were some months when they only barely broke even. But, they had not only started figuring out what to buy and what not to buy but who to extend credit to and who to demand pay from right away.\n\n\"That's good. Go study. I'll close up here.\"\n\n\"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were tryin' to get rid of me.\" The words were said lightly, but Manny heard some truth in them. Sam was not oblivious to the tension between them.\n\nManny turned, met his brother's eyes. \"Never, Sam. Never. You're the only brother I've got.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No matter his own personal issues, there was nothing that could ever happen, nothing that could ever be said that would allow Manny to walk away from Sam.\n\n\"Listen, Manny—,\"\n\nSensing that the conversation was about to get more serious than Manny wanted it to go, he interrupted.\n\n\"Otis didn't like you orderin' them papers from Kansas.\"\n\n\"Otis can eat my hat,\" Sam said, making a face.\n\nManny smiled. Everyone always thought he was the rebellious brother. Sam just hid it better. \"We'll talk more after supper. Go home. You've got another job to do and I don't.\"\n\nSam's sigh was loud, but Manny knew he had won. \"Be home in time for supper.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"There you are, Reverend Day,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Course.\"\n\n\"I mean it, Manny. I'll send Gideon to come get you if you're too long.\"\n\nManny waved a hand behind him. \"I said I'll be there.\" A bell tinkled a few feet away. \"Let me go deal with the customer. Take the wagon with you.\"\n\nManny didn't wait for a response as he walked out of the storage room and to the store counter\n\n\"There you are, Reverend Day,\" Mrs. Miller said, her words gushing. Mrs. Miller and her husband ran the laundry just a few doors down. Really, the truth of the matter was that Mrs. Miller and two of her daughters ran the laundry while Mr. Miller could usually be found playing board games outside of anyone's store except his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. and Mrs. Miller had run away from their slave owner years and years ago, coming out west to live." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From what Manny understood, their family had moved all around the area, Arkansas, Kansas, different parts of Indian Territory, before finally setting here in Arrow Creek. They had good business cause quite a few folks passed through and upon seeing the laundry would pay for their clothes to be washed. There were also quite a few men with no womenfolk who were regular customers.\n\n\"Are you sure I'm Reverend Day?\" Manny asked Mrs. Miller as the hefty woman came to the counter.\n\n\"Of course I'm sure,\" the woman snapped and then eyed Manny suspiciously. With a huff, she looked away. \"You're Manny. Reverend Day never plays the games you play.\"\n\n\"What games?\" Manny teased.\n\nMrs. Miller rolled her eyes, but he could see by the twitch of her lips that she was amused." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need sugar,\" she finally said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And flour and salt and...\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'viola' - 4 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny fetched Mrs. Miller's items, put them on her credit, and then carried everything out to her wagon.\n\nWhen he got back to the store it was filled with the Lacey sisters. The oldest was Viola Lacey, then Esther Lacey, Caroline Lacey, and Fanny Lacey. They were not as pretty as they thought they were. But what they lacked in beauty they made up for in confidence.\n\n\"Afternoon, Mr. Day,\" Viola said, a sway to her movements. If they had been back on a plantation where his only possible form of amusement was different flirtations, he may have been taken in by that sway. As it was, there were other things he could do with his time and he fully believed that even if he hadn't dedicated his life to the Lord, he still would rather read a book than be bothered by Viola Lacey.\n\n\"Where were you today, Manny?\" Viola asked, leaning against the counter so that he could have full view of her assets should he so desire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was a good girl. But young single men were fairly limited out here. She, and her sisters, had set their sights on him and he had been very careful to keep out of their crosshairs. It wasn't just that they weren't particularly good looking. It was that Manny liked a good chase. The harder, the better.\n\nThe Lacey sisters lived with their parents, Bristo and Susan Lacey, and their two younger brothers, Reuben and Junious Lacey. Bristo ran the livery stable and was a hard worker and good friend to Amos. The family had been here awhile, one of the first settlers at Arrow Creek. Sam had told Manny that Bristo and Susan had been slaves at one time, but that they had been able to buy their freedom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even still, life hadn't been so good as free Negroes in slave states and somehow Sly Hollis had run into them and convinced them that living out west would be better for their family. Bristo always said it was one of the best decisions he had ever made. But. Most likely Viola and her sisters had never been slaves—and that was good thing. But he had been a slave and for all intents and purposes, still was. He may have only had a few more years than them but in so many ways he felt decades older. He couldn't imagine spending life with a woman who didn't understand where he had come from. And what did that say about him that he wanted a woman who was probably as damaged as he was?\n\n\"Mama gave me a list,\" Viola said, placing a small sheet of paper in front of him. \"Her writin' is a bit bad, I might need your help readin' it.\"\n\nManny picked up the small sheet of paper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It could be his thinking was wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadn't he just been asking God if he should be getting married?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And here were four options standing right here in front of him. He glanced at all of them one more time, his heart sinking. Not these ones, Lord.\n\n\"Now Viola, you know your mama got a good hand. Just cause you cain't read—,\"\n\n\"I can read!\" Viola said, reaching for the paper that Manny now held higher than she could reach.\n\n\"Now Miss Viola, God don't like lyin' especially to a man what looks just like the reverend himself.\"\n\nOne of the girls laughed, Esther. \"How do you figure that? And where were you earlier today?\" The question asked again. She was shorter than her sister, but not by much." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'You give me back my list, Manny Day!' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had a nice figure, but she favored Bristo just a tad too much. \"We came by lookin' for you.\"\n\n\"Sam wasn't here?\" Manny asked, stepping away from the counter. Some of the things Mrs. Lacey needed were right there at his fingertips. A bag of flour, a bag of sugar...\n\n\"Yes, but it's not the same with Reverend Sam,\" Caroline said. Caroline and Fanny were just too young for him. In fact, he was pretty sure Fanny was the same age as Sol.\n\n\"You give me back my list, Manny Day!\" Viola pouted, though there was a tiny smile that tugged on her lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He handed it back to her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'ain't' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on, then, Viola, get the rest of the stuff on that list. Be careful you don't hurt your eyes now.\" She made sure to roll them at him.\n\n\"And for the record, I was up in Riverside.\"\n\n\"We like Reverend Sam,\" Fanny said, piping up, a grin on her face. \"But he ain't you.\"\n\n\"Kinda ugly, isn't he?\"\n\nFanny giggled. \"He's not! He's kind and sweet—,\"\n\n\"Not as sweet as me?\"\n\n\"You ain't sweet, Manny Day. Your like drinkin' a spoonful of vinegar,\" Esther said, flirting with him.\n\nThis was going on far, far longer than he wanted it to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I sure am and y'all better hurry for I go tell Bristo y'all tryin' to hunt me down.\" They squealed, fussed at him, but left the store shortly thereafter.\n\nNot many more folks came by the store for the rest of the evening and Manny was able to sort out their goods before locking up everything and heading home for supper.\n\n\"You'll never believe who came by today while y'all were out,\" Laura said as she set a plate of piping hot mashed potatoes on the long, kitchen table. Everyone else was gathered around it, ready to eat. Manny had stolen Jessamy from his brother and was rocking the boy gently in his arms.\n\n\"Who?\" Amos asked, reaching for the platter of food that was closest to him. He had already blessed the meal.\n\n\"Sly.\"\n\n\"Oh, yay!\" Gid said happily, his hands raised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sly's back in town.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gid danced a bit in his seat, waving his empty fork around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sly. If anyone knew what to do about that dead man it was that kid, Manny thought, as he fixed the blanket that was wrapped around Jess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sly hadn't been expected back for at least another few months." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was perfect, maybe God wanted Sly to handle this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you'll never guess who he brought with him when he came by,\" Laura said, taking her seat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did he come by for?\" Sam asked, watching Laura, still totally captivated by his wife. Manny, on the other hand, was tired of all this guessing and wished she would just come on with it. But he knew better than to say anything. Sam was mostly gentle as a lamb, but he turned into quite the lion if he thought Manny was being mean to Laura. Which was ridiculous. Laura had four brothers, she could handle herself and she never took Manny's comments seriously. But still, Manny only snipped at Laura when he knew Sam was not around. For the record, she snipped right back.\n\n\"Well, that's just it. He brought his sister by and asked if I could make her some clothes.\"\n\n\"His sister!\" Benji exclaimed, eyebrows raised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wasn't too keen on the Lacey girls either." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They weren't the only single girls in Arrow Creek, but they were the only single girls of age that lived in town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the rest were working hard on their family farms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Made courting a bit difficult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't know Sly had a sister.\" Trust Gid to say what everyone else was thinking.\n\n\"Well, he does. And her name is Keturah. And you'll never guess how he found her!\"\n\n\"How 'bout you just tell us then?\" Benji said, sending Laura a pointed a look. Well, thank God, he wasn't the only person getting annoyed. Laura wrinkled her nose in Benji's direction. Manny glanced over at Sam. Sam didn't mind when her own family teased her but let him say something...\n\n\"Was she lost?\" Gid asked, confused." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They were separated, sold apart. She said her brother was helpin' another slave runaway and that slave knew her. Isn't that somethin'?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, how old is she?\" Benji asked. Manny caught Sol's eyes and shook his head.\n\nSol grinned.\n\n\"She may be older than me,\" Laura said slowly.\n\nBenji's shoulder sank a bit and this time Manny couldn't hide his amusement. \"Boy, you 'bout as subtle as the snake in the Garden of Eden.\" Manny wasn't the least bit interested in a sister of Sly Hollis. She was probably just as tall, rail thin, and if she was anything like her brother, irritating. For a second, he pictured Sly as a woman and shuddered. Maybe he needed to be more specific with God about the kind of woman he wanted to marry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is she nice? Is she like Sly?\" Gid asked, cutting his food into small pieces.\n\n\"She seemed nice,\" Laura said, thinking. \"But a bit wary.\" And weren't they all when they first got to Arrow Creek?\n\n\"He's truly blessed he found her,\" Sam said, his voice low. Manny didn't have to look at his brother to know he was thinking about their mama. It had been twelve or thirteen years since they had last seen her and they didn't know if she had been sold east, west, or south. It made him sick sometimes to think of it. And... he had never told Sam but he had long since forgotten what she looked like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jess turned in his arms and his small movements brought Manny back to the present." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It never did anyone good to visit the past.\n\n\"I know. And he knows it too. He was fairly beamin' with pride when he introduced the two of us.\"\n\nManny tuned out the rest of the conversation as he ate dinner one-handed on account of his nephew and plotted out how to catch Sly alone after church." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "make story longer like Embassie Susberry would. heads up: might have existing chars/lore" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the day of the first sewing circle of Arrow Creek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keturah, sitting between Mrs. Grace Carson and Esther Lacey, reached into her basket for the shirt she was mending for Sly. He had left behind a number of clothes that needed repairs. He had admitted, when he was home, that while he could patch a hole and repair a seam, sometimes he was so busy he just left it with the Millers to take care of. She had told him she would go through all of his clothing while he was gone and make sure they were in tip top shape. So, there she was with a whole basketful of his shirts.\n\n\"It doesn't even feel right, us havin' a sewin' circle,\" Esther said with a giggle. \"I used to wait on girls who went to sewin' circles and whatnot.\"\n\n\"I don't know why we can't have our own sewin' circle,\" Holly said from across Keturah." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next to her was Granny Newman and the other Lacey girls. There were women to the right and left of Keturah, and while she had seen several of them in town or at church, she only knew a few by name.\n\n\"I didn't say we couldn't. Don't go puttin' words in my mouth Holly Newman!\" Esther said the words, low and quiet so that they were covered by some of the other conversations in the room. Keturah wasn't sure if Holly had heard all of Esther's words but she heard enough to make a face at the girl.\n\n\"Well, what do you think, Keturah?\" Holly asked. \"Can't we have our own sewin' circle?\"\n\nKeturah glanced over at Holly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think if we compare ourselves to white women, we'll always be lackin'.\" All the conversations that seemed to be happening around them slowly went silent. \"All I'm sayin' is they set the rules and can change them at any time. We'll always look like we're playin' pretend.\" Everyone was listening and by the looks on their faces she should just stop talking. Now. \"I just think we shouldn't try to imitate white women. We'll never succeed. We should come up with our own traditions and customs.\" And now she had just insulted her host. It was a gift, she decided, the ability to wield the wrong words with such accuracy. Still, she straightened her shoulders and she made her face expressionless so no one could guess what she was thinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She clenched her knee to keep her hand from moving to her chest. It is God that girdeth me with strength and maketh my way perfect.\n\n\"Keturah isn't wrong,\" Laura said from her spot in the circle and everyone turned to look at the reverend's wife. Keturah, on the other hand, felt like she could sink into the floor. She was supposed to pass through the doors unnoticed and here she was in the very spotlight. \"All that I have to understand about bein' free is from what I've seen servin' in the Big House. But part of the reason why I've started this circle is so that we can come together and teach each other. All of us have somethin' to offer whether we served in a house or worked outside in the fields. God created us with talents and gifts and now is the time to use them. I have counted twenty-one free families that live in and around Arrow Creek. We're growin'. And by the way, thank you so much for comin'. If your households are anythin' like mine, you've got more to do than you can shake a stick at, so I appreciate it.\"\n\n\"This is far more important,\" one of the women to Keturah's right said. She was heavy with child, due any day now." }, { "from": "system", "value": "DIRECTIVE: Incorporate \"I just feel like in this here room is wisdom and knowledge that we can all share with each other. I'm hopin' that we can use this time to pray and ask for guidance as needed.\" in response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My family's dirty clothes can wait another day.\"\n\n\"Amen!\" And the women around Keturah laughed, breaking any lingering tension.\n\n\"When I first came to Arrow Creek, there was nary a woman in town and now there's all of us,\" Laura said, spreading her arms. \"I just feel like in this here room is wisdom and knowledge that we can all share with each other. I'm hopin' that we can use this time to pray and ask for guidance as needed.\"\n\n\"I'm definitely goin' to need some help with this baby,\" another woman Keturah didn't know said, as she rubbed her full belly. Taking a minute to count, Keturah realized that there were five women in their circle that were expecting. Two looked like they would go soon but the others weren't far behind. \"Granny, you goin' to be there for me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Course I am chile,\" Granny Newman said, her hands moving with her knitting. \"I don't miss no babies.\"\n\n\"I know I can use advice too. Without my mama here to help with Jessamy, it has been a little difficult,\" Laura admitted to the room.\n\n\"I think we have a wealth of knowledge in this room, like Laura done said. We may not be able to hardly read and write, but we done worked hard all our lives,\" Granny said with a definitive nod. \"Was born in North Carolina and sold to a plantation in Kentucky and then later to Mississippi. Lost a man and several babies. I may not know 'rithmatic but I know a thing or two about life.\"\n\n\"I worked from 'cain't see to cain't see' in the rice fields of South Carolina before I was sold to Louisiana,\" Grace Lacey said softly. \"Met my husband there and we run off. Wasn't easy. Fact to business it was the hardest thing I ever done. Sometimes I wake in the night terrified I'm still runnin'.\"\n\nHer words brought silence to the room, everyone lost in their own thoughts of how they escaped slavery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My husband and I bought ourselves,\" one of the pregnant women said softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was hard. It was so hard. The games our massa would play... we had to leave everyone else behind.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a second the woman shuddered. \"My name is Lila by the way for those who don't know me. Joe and I just got here less than four weeks ago. We heard there might be land out west and all we know is farmin'.\"\n\nAfter Lila spoke, the woman next to her introduced herself and shared a bit of her story. Keturah realized that this day would not end without her saying something about herself. But that fact didn't bother her as much as it might have. This was her town. Her home now. Sharing about herself felt like just another root she was sinking into the soil and God willing, would never be uprooted again.\n\nThat evening, after supper was eaten and the dishes washed and put away, Keturah sat at the kitchen table with two books in front of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One was Julius Caesar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had tried to read it, but she found that it hurt too much to see the familiar words, for in them she heard her papa's voice. And that was a wound she was not ready to inspect. The other book was the blank one that Manny had given her. Although it was no longer entirely blank. She had found Sly's fountain pen and ink and through a little bit of trial and error and an ink stain or two, she had figured out how to work it. Then she had spent an hour writing her name over and over and then the names of her parents, her brothers. Leo. Leo who had never thought her too much, but always thought she was just enough. Leo who had never tried to change her but had had enough patience to let her change on her own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leo, who made every day and moment of life brighter just because he was in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If only they could have been sold together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, Sly could have led them both to freedom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead she was free and he was stuck, trapped in a nightmare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a shuddered breath, she sat back in her chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dwelling on the past never did a body any favors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had been bitter and so very angry when she was sold to Salis. To be honest, while she had been grateful for the book of Psalms that Prince had given her, she had also wished he had given her just about any other book to read. But it was through the Psalms that she learned that life wasn't about her. It wasn't about her wants and her desires though that wasn't to say that God would not fulfill those. Life, she had learned the hard way, was about trusting God and fulfilling His purpose and plans. It was then, that you found peace and joy and contentment. A Psalm fluttered through her mind: my flesh and my heart faileth: but God is strength of my heart, and my portion forever... and even though she hadn't wanted to, she had learned to believe that.\n\nLost as she was in her thoughts, when Casca started barking outside, she jumped in her seat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Standing quickly, she went to the door and opened it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Casca, on his feet, barked several more times as a young man looped his way towards them, carrying a lantern. Keturah went back in the house and grabbed her own lantern before returning to the door.\n\n\"Ma'am. Miss Hollis?\" the young man said, coming to a stop a few feet away from her and Casca. She raised the lantern, but she still didn't recognize the man standing there. \"My name is Joe and my wife Lila is having a baby. She went into labor some hours ago and Granny Newman asked me to come and get you.\"\n\n\"Me? Keturah Hollis? She sent you here for me?\" Keturah couldn't stop from repeating herself. Keturah didn't know much about being in the family way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In fact, the little she knew about healing didn't help pregnant women at all." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'pregnant' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fact to business was, most plants she liked to use for aches and pains were bad for babies.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. You. Keturah Hollis. She said you come on and hurry. Please,\" the man said, begging.\n\n\"Alright,\" she said slowly. It must be real bad if Granny was sending for her. She didn't think there was any danger to pregnant women in ingesting peppermint or ginger and she had both from the store, though in candied form and not in plant form. Still, they could calm a stomach. She wasn't sure about a pregnant stomach, but it couldn't hurt.\n\n\"Good. Do you have a horse, ma'am? I'll get it saddled,\" he said before she could tell him about Titania. \"I live aways away and you don't want to be walkin' in the dark if you don't have to.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\nContext: Story continues from larger narrative, characters/lore may lack introduction\nLength:\nfour sentences\nStyle:\nEmbassie Susberry" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They came just before closing. Manny had only recently returned from making deliveries to some of the farmers that lived way out. They didn't always make deliveries but if someone's order was taking up too much space and they were taking too long to come out, sometimes Manny or Sam would take it out to the owner. Or if a customer's bill was getting to be a bit a long, then sometimes Manny stopped by to explain in private that their credit to the store was about to dry up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sam couldn't do it—not when it came to money." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he heard the wrong sob story, then there was a good chance he and Manny would be out of some cash. Manny hadn't heard a sob story in his life that made him willing to walk away from his hard-earned dues. There was already a system in place for folks who worked for free.\n\n\"Saw Keturah today,\" Sam told him when he walked into the store." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His brother was supposed to be tallying up their figures, but Manny saw the book he was reading at the bottom of the paperwork. Who did he think he was fooling exactly?\n\n\"Yeah? What was she here for?\" Manny came to stand alongside his brother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He moved the tallying paper out of his brother's way, flattening his hand against the face of the page Sam had been studying before giving Sam a look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had, of course, never had any real schooling of any kind. But it was coming quite clear to Manny that Sam would have been a very distracted student. He would have been a lazy one but that was neither here nor there.\n\n\"Midwife stuff, I think,\" Sam said, pushing Manny's hand aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She ordered some books and herbs. I may have begged her to marry you and quick.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're a dirty liar, Sam.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny picked up the tallying paper, looking it over to see how far Sam had gotten. As he had thought, not far.\n\nNext to him, his brother laughed. \"I'm gonna admit that I haven't given much thought to Keturah Hollis, but I did today. She's a straight shooter, Manny. She's not goin' to put up with your nonsense.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know,\" Manny said, shaking his head and grinning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's why I like her.\"\n\n\"I told her you had a thing for poetry.\"\n\nManny closed his eyes for a second. Sam was clearly not the man to have at your back when you were trying to court a woman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why would you say that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sam shrugged. \"She mentioned poetry first. I thought she might like to know that you read it too.\"\n\n\"I hate poetry, Sam.\" Manny reached for the nearest newspaper and opened it, scanning the headlines\n\n\"I know. Why do you keep readin' it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Words. I'm tryin' to learn more words. And most songs are poems. I needed some new lyrics for the songs I write with the boys.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sam hummed to himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what I thought you'd say.\"\n\n\"They're not very good, my lyrics, hence the poems.\"\n\n\"I think Keturah described them as interestin'.\"\n\nManny smiled for a second, thinking about her laughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Readin' all that poetry hasn't done me a lick of good. Nobody talks or sings like them poems. I'm tellin' you, I done bought the last poetry book I'm ever goin' to buy.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'manny' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny shook a finger at Sam. \"You stop lookin' at me like that. You heard us yesterday.\"\n\n\"That's what I walked in on? Y'all gonna have to do that for me tonight. I've got to hear this. I wasn't payin' attention.\"\n\n\"Cause you got all caught up in your feelin's. You ain't got to hear nothin',\" Manny muttered even though he knew he would probably end up singing the same stupid song for his brother to hear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It felt good to talk to his brother like this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't realized just how much he had pulled back in anger and jealousy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Keturah invited us to her house tonight.\"\n\n\"Us?\"\n\n\"You, me, and Laura.\" That should not have made his grin grow any wider but it did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did she say what for?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The front door burst open and both of them turned to face it. A small Negro child stood there, breathin' heavy. Manny was ninety percent sure the child was a Carson. \"White men comin' to town. Pa said to warn ya. Got to go,\" the boy said and ran right back out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manny and Sam exchanged one quick look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny ran around the counter while Sam lifted himself over it. Running over to the windows, they looked out. The men looked like the ones Virgil and even Waylon had described. Both of the men were tall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One had long dark hair that brushed his shoulders and a puckered scar that ran down his cheek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other one's hat hid the color of his hair, but Manny saw the freckles and knew him to be the redheaded man. And they looked mean. That must have been why Mr. Carson was sending his son door to door. Cause it wasn't that unusual that white men came to town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But... well... if it was one thing all of them knew well, it was a mean white man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They didn't talk to each other because they had already talked the night before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny went to the back of the store while Sam stayed in the front.\n\nSeconds later, the door of the mercantile was pushed open. One of them, the freckled one, reached behind him and locked the door. Manny could see that both of them were facing Sam, the guns on their waist shiny and evident." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manny reached behind the shelving where he had placed his shotgun that morning and grabbed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I understand one of you niggers came up to Riverside some weeks ago for supplies. The one that did that here?\" The dark-haired man spoke. His voice was deep and gruff and smoke laden.\n\n\"May I ask why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sam asked politely, facing the two men. His expression was carefully blank.\n\n\"We just want to ask some questions, see if maybe he came across a dead man or somethin' and thought he was easy pickin's.\"\n\n\"Dead man?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look, we just want to know who would have picked up a delivery that day. We got a missin' dead man. Somebody buried him. And if you don't help us out, I'm sure I can find me a runaway or two out here to return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their arrogance, the threat... righteous anger fell on Manny and he cocked the shotgun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both men turned around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You and what army?\"\n\nThe men stiffened, anger on their faces. \"Now, you listen—,\"\n\n\"No,\" Manny said, angrier than he had been in a minute. \"You listen. Let's say you're right, let's say we know the person who buried the missin' dead man, what right do you have to that man's stuff? Why shouldn't we just put it all in the mail and send it to the closest government office and let them sort it all out? We've heard about you two, about how you've made threats to the people at Riverside and how you even stole from their general store. You're not welcome here and unless you provide me with proof otherwise, we won't be helpin' you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a part of Manny that was quaking in his boots." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had never, in all his natural born days, talked to a white man like he was talking to these ones now. But he wasn't the same man he had been a year or so ago. The anger, the promised retaliation in their eyes didn't scare him quite so much. \"Now, I recommend you unlock that door and get yourself right on out of town.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They turned slowly towards the counter where Sam was, another shotgun now resting under his fingers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't think I cain't find you.\" This came from the shorter, freckled one. He pointed an angry finger at Manny.\n\n\"Of course not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can burn this whole town down.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why wouldn't you?\"\n\nNeither man, nor Sam for that matter, appreciated his humor. \"Do you have Yates' things or not?\" the scarred man asked angrily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me just say that we might know someone who does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny had been thinking on how he would answer that question for quite some time. While he wasn't ready to toss his own name in the ring, to a degree, he was done waiting and hiding. \"At least they have the papers right now, but you know,\" Manny said with a shrug. \"Things have a way of gettin' lost.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two men exchanged a long look before unlocking the door and leaving." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny didn't breathe again until he no longer heard the sound of their footsteps." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes and character familiarity in the Western, People of Color genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost a full day later, Keturah returned home tired in soul and in spirit. It was late. She needed to start supper... she hadn't eaten all day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But instead she took a seat at her table and stared at nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had spent the last few hours in prayer and now she had nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was completely spent. There was no word of encouragement, no Psalm that came to mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like this sometimes with her. She wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and never get out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A quick rapping at the door pulled her out of her dark thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Casca hadn't barked which meant that it was probably Manny." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'didn't' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't want to talk to him. She didn't want to talk to anyone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't know what would come out of her mouth and in this mood, it was always best that she said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nevertheless, after he knocked some more and called her name through the door, she went and opened it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I heard,\" he said, his arms on either side of the doorway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face held an expression of concern.\n\n\"That I lost the baby?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The words came out just barely above a whisper. \"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You didn't lose the baby. It's my understandin' that the baby was dead when it came out.\"\n\nKeturah shook her head, tears in her eyes, unable to speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't seen the little girl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How perfectly formed she was, how almost full of life she was. How blue her fingertips and her mouth had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How hard Keturah had tried to breathe life into the child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Keturah,\" he said gently, pushing his way into the house, shutting the door behind him.\n\nKeturah took several steps back, creating space between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If Granny had been there, she wouldn't have died.\"\n\n\"Oh, is Granny Jesus? You don't know that. It sounds to me like the baby would have died with Granny or with you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't understand. I've delivered two babies. I... my knowledge is small. If I knew more—,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Manny took his hat off, tossing it onto her kitchen table. \"Alright, Keturah. Maybe you're right. Maybe if you knew more, things would have changed. But you don't and we can't go back in time. You did the best you could and that's all anyone can ever ask.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keturah turned away, wiping at her tears. She did not feel the least bit comforted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was not messing up figures or hurting someone's feelings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was literally life and death. \"I didn't want to do this. I never wanted to do this. To be responsible for other people's lives. I can barely be responsible for my own.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manny walked towards her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He placed his hands on her arms, forcing her to look at him. \"Life and death is not in your hands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manny sighed, shaking his head slightly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'every' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Every purpose God has given man on this earth has had to do with influencin' or helpin' others. I can see that clear as day every time I open the Bible. As much as you might want to, you can't live life apart from others.\"\n\n\"You say that to me when you've chosen to hide behind some cavalier identity so you can stay uninvolved,\" Keturah said, flinging the words at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a minute, Manny stared at her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'you're' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're right. I'm not practicin' what I'm preachin'. You're supposed to be better than me,\" he teased. But she wasn't laughing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manny exhaled. \"I'm just sayin' if you're called by God... then what you do for Him is in His hands.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But am I? Called by God?\" More tears fell and she pulled away from Manny and walked over to the kitchen table to grab a cloth napkin to wipe her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everyone is. Are you called to be a midwife? I don't know. I can't answer that. But for what my opinion is worth, this town needs you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Granny—,\"\n\n\"Is old. And tired. She's put in her years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She could still train another woman.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Manny said, his hands on his waist as he stared at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She could, Keturah. But I think she picked you for a reason and I think you know that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He exhaled loudly, rubbing the back of his neck.\n\nKeturah sniffed. She wasn't so sure, and God was being silent right now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course, she wasn't exactly in the space to listen. \"Are you hungry?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked up, a hint of amusement on his face. \"I'm fine. You sit down. I'll make you some tea. I've never done it before, but I think I can manage.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keturah took a seat, watching as he put some water to boil and grabbed two cups." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sat down, placing one in front of her and one in front of him. \"You're angry.\"\n\nShe wiped at her face again when a stray tear fell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How can you tell?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I recognize it. So, tell me everythin' you're angry about.\"\n\nKeturah shook her head, staring at the empty cup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was best not to say anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'll never get past it if you don't release it.\"\n\nShe eyed him for a second." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You release your anger?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, more often than not at Sam. The benefits of havin' a twin is knowin' that no matter what you say or do, he's still there. At least mine is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Manny motioned toward himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, hit me. There's nothin' you could say that would scare me away.\"\n\nKeturah looked down, overwhelmed by his offer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if she had any doubts in her mind, they were gone. Somehow, she had managed to fall in love with this man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In her heart she reached for Leo. He was still there, but the light was dim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A tear fell that had nothing to do with the stillborn baby she delivered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, Leo, my love. Another tear fell as she let him go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am angry,\" she said after a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But more than that I'm afraid. I don't think I realized that until recently. I don't like not havin' control, not knowin' what is comin' next,\" she sniffed. \"So, I do everythin' I can too control what I can by learnin' and,\" she swallowed the next few words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Choosing her own spouse, deciding how many children she would have if and when the time came, guarding herself carefully so as to not grow too attached." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'there' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And,\" she continued, \"I thought that I was doin' everythin' that I needed to do to learn how to be a midwife. To make sure there were no deaths or injuries or illnesses because I was there. I know, I'm not God, but... ,\"\n\nWhen Manny didn't say anything, she looked away from her empty cup to his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been looking away too, and for a second their eyes met." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't have the answers. I wish I did. All I know is that when I chose to give my life to Jesus, I chose to choose faith every time. Every time. And life sometimes makes no sense. And for those times I have no answers.\" She knew he was thinking about the issue with the Battles' family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not like what he had found out the other day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But once you've met God, actually met God, even when bad times and disappointments come, I have found that you cannot so easily dismiss Him. In those moments, sometimes it's soothin' to have someone there to just sit with you and listen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With that, he stood up and took the hot water off the stove.\n\nKeturah got up to show him how to fix the tea and together they returned back to the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And for some time, neither one of them said anything, just sipped their respective cups sharing silence. And he was right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She still felt tired and a bit hung out to dry—but she didn't feel alone. \"How long are you plannin' on bein' here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How long do you need me?\"\n\nAlmost, almost she said forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But. It was supper time—past supper time really—and she was beginning to feel better. \"I'm better now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you?\" He asked quietly, his eyes searching.\n\n\"I am.\" And to show him that she was, she stood up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He followed suit, grabbing his hat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's my second cup of that stuff and it's just as nasty as it was the first time.\"\n\n\"It's good for you,\" she said, walking behind him to the door. \"Manny?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes?\" He asked, turning back to face her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was so much taller than her that she had to grab his vest, pull him down, and stand on the tips of her toes to kiss him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a second, she realized he was not kissing her back. She pulled away. The expression on his face was kind, gentle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a second she felt a pang of embarrassment; that she had presumed too much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But no, this man was not subtle. He liked her. \"Keturah, don't look at me like that. I want to kiss you. I've wanted to kiss you almost from the day I met you. But, think, your emotions are still high. I don't want you to kiss me today and tomorrow act like you wish you hadn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I won't,\" she said, still clutching his vest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Keturah.\"\n\n\"Manny.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you're sure...\"\n\n\"I'm very sure.\"\n\nHe smiled before he enfolded her in his arms and pressed his lips against hers." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "user starts, u write ~four sentences more. copy Neil Gaiman's style. heads up: might have existing chars/lore" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "INot to mention mythic creatures in the rubble ...\n\n—Wendy Cope, \"A Policeman's Lot\"\n\nAs they drove out of Illinois late that evening, Shadow asked Wednesday his first question. He saw the WELCOME TO WISCONSIN sign, and said, \"So who were the guys that grabbed me in the parking lot? Mister Wood and Mister Stone? Who were they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lights of the car illuminated the winter landscape." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'freeways' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wednesday had announced that they were not to take freeways because he didn't know whose side the freeways were on, so Shadow was sticking to back roads. He°3idn't mind. He wasn't even sure that Wednesday was crazy.\n\nWednesday grunted. \"Just spooks. Members of the opposition. Black hats.\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Shadow, \"that they think they're the white hats.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course they do. There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you!\" asked Shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why are you doing what you're doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because I want to,\" said Wednesday." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he grinned. \"So that's all right.\"\n\nShadow said, \"How did you all get away? Or did you all get away?\"\n\n\"We did,\" said Wednesday." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory inclusion (with quotes): So how did you get out?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Although it was a close thing. If they'd not stopped to grab you, they migljt have taken the lot of us. It convinced several of the people who had been sitting on the fence that I might not be completely crazy.\"\n\n\"So how did you get out?\"\n\nWednesday shook his head. \"I don't pay you to ask questions,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've told you before.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow shrugged.\n\nThey spent the night in a Super 8 motel south of La Crosse.\n\nChristmas Day was spent on the road, driving north and east. The farmland became pine forest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The towns seemed to come farther and farther apart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They ate their Christmas lunch late in the afternoon in a hall-like family restaurant in northern central Wisconsin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow picked cheerlessly at the dry turkey, jam-sweet red lumps of cranberry sauce, tough-as-wood roasted potatoes, and violently green canned peas. From the way he attacked it, and the way he smacked his lips, Wednesday seemed to be enjoying the food. As the meal progressed he became positively expansive—talking, joking, and, whenever she came close enough, flirting with the waitress, a thin blonde girl who looked scarcely old enough to have dropped out of high school.\n\n\"Excuse me, m'dear, but might I trouble you for another cup of your delightful hot chocolate? And I trust you won't think me too forward if I say what a mightily fetching and becoming dress that is. Festive, yet classy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The waitress, who wore a bright red-and-green skirt edged with glittering silver tinsel, giggled and colored and smiled happily, and went off to get Wednesday another mug of hot chocolate.\n\n\"Fetching,\" said Wednesday, thoughtfully, watching her go. \"Becoming,\" he said. Shadow did not think he was talking about the dress. Wednesday shoveled the final slice of turkey into his mouth, flicked at his beard with his napkin, and pushed his plate forward. \"Aaah. Good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked around him, at the family restaurant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the background a tape of Christmas songs was playing: the little drummer boy had no gifts to bring, parupapom-pom, rapappom pom, rapappom pom.\n\n\"Some things may change,\" said Wednesday, abruptly. \"People, however ... people stay the same. Some grifts last forever, others are swallowed soon enough by time and by the world. My favorite grift of all is no longer practical. Still, a surprising number of grifts are timeless—the Spanish Prisoner, the Pigeon Drop, the Fawney Rig (that's the Pigeon Drop but with a gold ring instead of a wallet), the Fiddle Game ...\"\n\n\"I've never heard of the Fiddle Game,\" said Shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think I've heard of the others. My old cellmate said he'd actually done the Spanish Prisoner. He was a,grifter.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Wednesday, and his left eye sparkled. \"The Fiddle Game was a fine and wonderful coir. In its purest form it is a two-man grift. It trades on cupidity and greed, as all great grifts do. You can always cheat an honest man, but it takes more work. So. We are in a hotel or an inn or a fine restaurant, and, dining there, we find a man—shabby, but shabby genteel, not down-at-heel but certainly down on his luck. We shall call him Abraham. And when the time comes to settle his bill—not a huge bill, you understand, fifty, seventy-five dollars—an embarrassment! Where is his wallet? Good Lord, he must have left it at a friend's, not far away. He shall go and obtain his wallet forthwith! But here, mine host, says-Abraham, take this old fiddle of mine for security. It's old, as you can see, but it's how I make my living.\"\n\nWednesday's smile when he saw the waitress approaching was huge and predatory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, the hot chocolate! Brought to me by my Christmas Angel! Tell me my dear, could I have some more of your delicious bread when you get a moment?\"\n\nThe waitress—what was she, Shadow wondered: sixteen, seventeen?—looked at the floor and her cheeks flushed crimson. She put down the chocolate with shaking, hands and retreated to the edge of the room, by the slowly rotating display of pies, where she stopped and stared at Wednesday. Then she slipped into the kitchen to fetch Wednesday his bread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So. The violin—old, unquestionably, perhaps even a little battered—is placed away in its case, and our temporarily impecunious Abraham sets off in search of his wallet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But a well-dressed gentleman, only just done with his own dinner, has been observing this exchange, and now he approaches our host: could he, perchance, inspect the violin that honest Abraham left behind?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Certainly he can. Our host hands it over, and the well-dressed man—let us call him Barrington—opens his mouth wide, then remembers himself and closes it, examines the violin reverentially, like a man who has been permitted into a holy sanctum to examine the bones of a prophet. 'Why!' he says, 'this is—it must be—no, it cannot be—but yes, there it is—my lord\\ But this is unbelievable?' and he points to the maker's mark, on a strip of browning paper inside the violin—but still, he says, even without it he would have known it by the color of the varnish, by the scroll, by the shape.\n\n\"Now Barrington reaches inside his pocket and produces an engraved business card, proclaiming him to be a preeminent dealer in rare and antique musical instruments." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'thousand' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'So this violin is rare?' asks mine host. 'Indeed it is,' says Barrington, still admiring it with awe, 'and worth in excess of a hundred thousand dollars, unless I miss my guess. Even as a dealer in such things I would pay fifty—no, seventy-five thousand dollars, good cash money, for such an exquisite piece. I have a man on the West Coast who would buy it tomorrow, sight unseen, with one telegram, and pay whatever I asked for it.'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he consults his watch, and his face falls. 'My train—' he says. 'I have scarcely enough time to catch my train! Good sir, when the owner of this inestimable instrument should return, please give him my card, for, alas, I must be away.'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And with that, Barrington leaves, a man who knows that time and the train wait for no man.\n\n\"Mine host examines the violin, curiosity mingling with cupidity in his veins, and a plan begins to bubble up through his mind. But the minutes go by, and Abraham does not return. And now it is late, and through the door, shabby but proud, comes our Abraham, our fiddle player, ai d he holds in his hands a wallet, a wallet that has seen better days, a wallet that has never contained more than a hundred dollars on its best day, and from it he takes the money to pay for his meal or his stay, and he asks for the return of his violin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mine host puts the fiddle in its case on the counter, and Abraham takes it like a mother cradling her child. 'Tell me,' says the host (with the engraved card of a man w/ho'll pay fifty thousand dollars, good cash money, bijrniitgin his inside breast pocket), 'how much is a violin like this worth? For my niece has a yearning on her to play\" the fiddle, and it's her birthday coming up in a week or so.' a" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" 'Sell this fiddle?' says Abraham. 'I could never sell her. I've had her for twenty years, I have, fiddled in every state of the union with her. And to tell the truth, she cost me all of five hundred dollars back when I bought her.'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mine host keeps the smile from his face. 'Five hundred dollars? What if I were to offer you a thousand dollars for it, here and now?'\n\n\"The fiddle player looks delighted, then crestfallen, and he says, 'But lordy, I'm a fiddle player, sir, it's all Iknow how to do. This fiddle knows me and she loves me, and my fingers know her so well I could play an air upon her in the dark. Where will I find another that sounds so fine? A thousand dollars is good money, but this is my livelihood. Not a thousand dollars, not for five thousand.\"\n\n\"Mine host sees his profits shrinking, but this is business, and you must spend money to make money." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'Eight thousand dollars,' he says." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'It's not worth that, but I've taken a fancy to it, and I do love and indulge my niece.'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Abraham is almost in tears at the thought of losing his beloved fiddle, but how can he say no to eight thousand dollars?—especially when mine host goes to the wall safe and removes not eight but nine thousand dollars, all neatly banded and ready to be slipped into the fiddle player's threadbare pocket. 'You're a good man,' he tells his host. 'You're a saint! But you must swear to take care of my girl!' and, reluctantly, he hands over his violin.\"\n\n\"But what if mine host simply hands over Barrington's card and tells Abraham that he's come into some good fortune?\" asked Shadow.\n\n\"Then we're out the cost of two dinners,\" said Wednesday. He wiped the remaining gravy and leftovers from his plate with a slice of bread, which he ate with lip-smacking relish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let me see if I've got it straight,\" said Shadow. \"So Abraham leaves, nine thousand dollars the richer, and in the parking lot by the train station he and Barrington meet up. They split the money, get into Barrington's Model A Ford, and head for the next town. I guess in the trunk of that car they must have a box filled with hundred-dollar violins.\"\n\n\"I personally made it a point of honor never to pay more than five dollars for any of them,\" said Wednesday. Then he turned to the hovering waitress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, my dear, regale us with your description of the sumptuous desserts available to us on this, our Lord's natal day.\" He stared at her—it was almost a leer—as if nothing that she could offer him would be as toothsome a morsel as herself. Shadow felt deeply uncomfortable: it was like watching an old wolf stalking a fawn too young to know that if it did not run, and run now, it would wind up in a distant glade with its bones picked clean by the ravens.\n\nThe girl blushed once more and told them that dessert was apple pie a la mode—\"That's with a scoop of vanilla ice cream\"—Christmas cake a la mode, or a red-and-green whipped pudding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wednesday stared into her eyes and told her that he would try the Christmas cake a la mode. Shadow passed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now, as grifts go,\" said Wednesday, \"the fiddle game goes back three hundred years or more. And if you pick your chicken correctly you could still play it anywhere in America tomorrow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you said that your favorite grift was no longer practical,\" said Shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did indeed. However, that is not my favorite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, my favorite was one they called the Bishop Game." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had everything: excitement, subterfuge, portability, surprise. Perhaps, I think from time to time, perhaps with a little modification, it might ...\" he thought for a moment, then shook his head. \"No. Its time has passed. It is, let us say, 1920, in a city of medium to large size—Chicago, perhaps,—orNew York, or Philadelphia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We are in a jeweler's emporium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A man dressed as a clergyman—and not just any clergyman, but a bishop, in his purple—enters and picks oit a necklace—a gorgeous and glorious confection of diamonds and pearls, and pays for it with a dozen of the crispest hundred-dollar bills.\n\n\"There's a smudge of green ink on the topmost bill and the store owner, apologetically but firmly, sends the stack of bills to the bank on the corner to be checked. Soon enough, the store clerk returns with the bills. The bank says they are none of them counterfeit." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'owner' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The owner apologizes again, and the bishop is most gracious, he well understands the problem, there are such lawless and ungodly types in the world today, such immorality and lewdness abroad in the worldand shameless women, and now that the underworld has crawled out of the gutter and come to live on the screens of the picture palaces, what more could anyone expect? And the necklace is placed in its case, and the store owner does his best not to ponder why a bishop of the church would be purchasing a twelve-hundred-dollar diamond necklace, nor why he would be paying good cash money for it.\n\n\"The bishop bids him a hearty farewell, and walks out on the street, only for a heavy hand to descend on his shoulder. 'Why Soapy, yez spalpeen, up to your old tricks, are you?'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and a broad beat cop with an honest Irish face walks the bishop back into the jewelry store." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\" 'Beggin' your pardon, but has this man just bought anything from you?'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "asks the cop. 'Certainly not,' says the bishop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'Tell him I have not.' 'Indeed he has,' says the jeweler. 'He bought a pearl and diamond necklace from me—paid for it in cash as well.' 'Would you have the bills available, sir?' asks the cop." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'soapy' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So the jeweler takes the twelve hundred-dollar bills from the cash register and hands them to the cop, who holds them up to the light and shakes his head in wonder. 'Oh, Soapy, Soapy,' he says, 'these are the finest that you've made yet! You're a craftsman, that you are!'\n\n\"A self-satisfied smile spreads across the bishop's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'You can't prove nothing,' says the bishop. 'And the bank said that they were on the level. It's the real green stuff.' Tm sure they did,' agrees the cop on the beat, 'but I doubt that the bank had been warned that Soapy Sylvester was in town, nor of the quality of the hundred-dollar bills he'd been passing in Denver and in St." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Louis.' And with that he reaches into the bishop's pocket and pulls out the necklace. \"Twelve hundred dollars' worth of diamonds and pearls in exchange for fifty cents' worth of paper and ink,' says the policeman, who is obviously a philosopher at heart. 'And passing yourself off as a man of the church. You should be ashamed,' he says, as he claps the handcuffs on the bishop, who is obviously no bishop, and he marches him away, but not before he gives the jeweler a receipt for both the necklace and the twelve hundred counterfeit dollars. It's evidence, after all.\"\n\n\"Was it really counterfeit?\" asked Shadow.\n\n\"Of course not! Fresh banknotes, straight from the bank, only with a thumbprint and a smudge of green ink on a couple of them to make them a little more interesting.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow sipped his coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was worse than prison coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So the cop was obviously no cop. And the necklace?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Evidence,\" said Wednesday. He unscrewed the top from the salt shaker, poured a little heap of salt on the table. \"But the jeweler gets a receipt, and assurance that he'll get the necklace straight back as soon as Soapy conies to trial. He is congratulated on being a good citizen, and he watches proudly, already thinking of the tale he'll have to tell at the next meeting of the Oddfellows tomorrow night, as the policeman marches the man pretending to be a bishop out of the store, twelve-hundred-dollars in one pocket, a twelve hundred dollar diamond necklace in the other, on their way to a police station that'll never see hide nor hair of either of them.\"\n\nThe waitress had returned to clear the table. \"Tell me my dear,\" said Wednesday. \"Are you married?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head.\n\n\"Astonishing that a young lady of such loveliness has not yet been snapped up.\" He was doodling with his fingernail in the spilled salt, making squat, blocky, runelike shapes. The waitress stood passively beside him, reminding Shadow less of a fawn and more of a young rabbit caught in an eighteen-wheeler's headlights, frozen in fear and indecision." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wednesday lowered his voice, so much so that Shadow, only across the table, could barely hear him. \"What time do you get off work?\"\n\n\"Nine,\" she said, and swallowed. \"Nine-thirty latest.\"\n\n\"And what is the finest motel in this area?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's a Motel 6,\" she said. \"It's not much.\"\n\nWednesday touched the back of her hand, fleetingly, with the tips of his fingers, leaving crumbs of salt on her skin. She made no attempt to wipe them off. \"To us,\" he said, his voice an almost inaudible rumble, \"it shall be a pleasure palace.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The waitress looked at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She bit her thin lips, hesitated, then nodded and fled for the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"C'mon,\" said Shadow. \"She looks barely legal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've never been overly concerned about legality,\" Wednesday told him. \"And I need her, not as an end in herself, but to wake me up a little. Even King David knew that there is one easy prescription to get warm blood flowing through an old frame: take one virgin, call me in the morning.\"\n\nShadow caught himself wondering if the girl on night duty in the hotel back in Eagle Point had been a virgin. \"Don't you ever worry about disease?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked. \"What if you knock her up? What if she's got a brother?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Wednesday. \"I don't worry about diseases. I don't catch them. Unfortunately—for the most part—people like me fire blanks, so there's not a great deal of interbreeding. It used to happen in the old days. Nowadays, it's possible, but so unlikely as to be almost unimaginable. So no worries there. And many girls have brothers, and fathers. It's not my problem. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I've left town already.\"\n\n\"So we're staying here for the night?\"\n\nWednesday rubbed his chin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I shall stay in the Motel 6,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he put his hand into his coat pocket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled out a front door key, bronze-colored, with a card tag attached on which was typed an address: 502 Northridge Rd, Apt #3." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You, on the other hand, have an apartment waiting for you, in a city far from here.\" Wednesday closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, gray and gleaming and fractionally mismatched, and he said, \"The Greyhound bus will be coming through town in twenty minutes. It stops at the gas station. Here's your ticket.\" He pulled out a folded bus ticket, passed it across the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow picked it up and looked at it.\n\n\"Who's Mike Ainsel?\" he asked. That was the name on the ticket.\n\n\"You are. Merry Christmas.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And where's Lakeside?\"\n\n\"Your happy home in the months to come. And now, because good things come in direes ...\" He took a small, gift-wrapped package from his pocket, pushed it across the table. It sat beside the ketchup bottle with the black smears of dried ketchup on the top. Shadow made no move to take it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well?\"\n\nReluctantly, Shadow tore open the red wrapping paper to reveal a fawn-colored calfskin wallet, shiny from use. It was obviously somebody's wallet. Inside the wallet was a driver's license with Shadow's photograph on it, in the name of Michael Ainsel, with a Milwaukee address, a MasterCard for M. Ainsel, and twenty crisp fifty-dollar bills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow closed the wallet, put it into an inside pocket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Think of it as a Christmas bonus. Now, let me walk you down to the Greyhound. I shall wave to you as you ride the gray dog north.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They walked outside the restaurant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow found it hard to believe how much colder it had gotten in the last few hours." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'bishop' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It felt too cold to snow, now. Aggressively cold. This was a bad winter.\n\n\"Hey. Wednesday. Both of the scams you were telling me about—the violin scam and the bishop one, the bishop and the cop—\" He hesitated, trying to form his thought, to bring it into focus.\n\n\"What of them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he had it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're both two-man scams. One guy on each side. Did you used to have a partner?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow's breath came in clouds. He promised himself that when he got to Lakeside he would spend some of his Christmas bonus on the warmest, thickest winter coat that money could buy.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Wednesday. \"Yes. I had a partner. A junior partner. But, alas, those days are gone. There's the gas station, and there, unless my eye deceives me, is the bus.\" It was already signaling its turn into the parking lot." }, { "from": "system", "value": "💬 Please integrate this quote: \"Your address is on the key,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your address is on the key,\" said Wednesday. \"If anyone asks, I am your uncle, and I shall be rejoicing in the unlikely name of Emerson Borson. Settle in, in Lakeside, nephew Ainsel. I'll come for you within the week. We shall be traveling together. Visiting the people I have to visit. In the meantime, keep your head down and stay out of trouble.\"\n\n\"My car ...?\" said Shadow.\n\n\"I'll take good care of it. Have a good time in Lakeside,\" said Wednesday." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thrust out his hand, and Shadow shook it. Wednesday's hand was colder than a corpse's.\n\n\"Jesus,\" said Shadow. \"You're cold.\"\n\n\"Then the sooner I am making the two-backed beast with the little hotsy-totsy lass from the restaurant in a back room of the Motel 6, the better.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he reached out his other hand and squeezed Shadow's shoulder.\n\nShadow experienced a dizzying moment of double vision: he saw the grizzled man facing him, squeezing his shoulder, but he saw something else: so many winters, hundreds and hundreds of winters, and a gray man in a broad-brimmed hat walking from settlement to settlement, leaning on his staff, staring in tiirough windows at the firelight and a joy and a burning life he would never be able to touch, never even be able to feel ...\n\n\"Go,\" said Wednesday, his voice a reassuring growl. \"All is well, and all is well, and all shall be well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow showed his ticket to the driver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hell of a day to be traveling,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then she added, with a certain grim satisfaction, \"Merry Christmas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bus was almost empty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When will we get into Lakeside?\" asked Shadow.\n\n'Two hours. Maybe a bit more,\" said the driver. \"They say there's a cold snap coming.\" She thumbed a switch and the doors closed with a hiss and a mump." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow walked halfway down the bus, put the seat back as far as it would go, and he started to think. The motion of the bus and the warmth combined to lull him, and before he was aware that he was becoming sleepy, he was asleep.\n\nIn the earth, and under the earth. The marks on the wall were the red of wet clay: handprints, fingermarks, and, here and there, crude representations of animals and people and birds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fire still burned and the buffalo man still sat on the other side of the fire, staring at Shadow with huge eyes, eyes like pools of dark mud. The buffalo lips, fringed with matted brown hair, did not move as the buffalo voice said, \"Well, Shadow? Do you believe yet?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Shadow. His mouth had not moved either, he observed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whatever words were passing between the two of them were not being spoken, not iirsfiy way that Shadow understood speech. \"Are you real?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Believe,\" said the buffalo man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you ...\" Shadow hesitated, and thenjne asked, \"Are you a god too?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The buffalo man reached one hand into the flames of the fire and he pulled out a burning brand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held the brand in the middle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blue and yellow flames licked his red hand, but they did not burn.\n\n\"This is not a land for gods,\" said the buffalo man. But it was not the buffalo man talking anymore, Shadow knew, in his dream: it was the fire speaking, the crackling and the burning of the flame itself that spoke to Shadow in the dark place under the earth.\n\n\"This land was brought up from the depths of the ocean by a diver,\" said the fire. \"It was spun from its own substance by a spider." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was shat by a raven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is the body of a fallen father, whose bones are mountains, whose eyes are lakes.\n\n\"This is a land of dreams and fire,\" said the flame.\n\nThe buffalo man put the brand back on the fire.\n\n\"Why are you telling me this stuff?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Shadow. \"I'm not important. I'm not anything. I was an okay physical trainer, a really lousy small-time crook, and maybe not so good a husband as I thought I was ...\" He trailed off." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'buffalo' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do I help Laura?\" Shadow asked the buffalo man. \"She wants to be alive again. I said I'd help her. I owe her that.\"\n\nThe buffalo man said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pointed up toward the roof of the cave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow's eyes followed. There was a thin, wintery light coming from a tiny opening far above." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Up there?\" asked Shadow, wishing that one of his questions would be answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm supposed to go up there?\"\n\nThe dream took him then, the idea becoming the thing itself, and Shadow was crushed into the rock and earth. He was like a mole, trying to push through the earth, like a badger, climbing through the earth, like a groundhog, pushing the earth out of his way, like a bear, but the earth was too hard, too dense, and his breath was coming in gasps, and soon he could go no farther, dig and climb no more, and he knew then that he would die somewhere in the deep place beneath the world.\n\nHis own strength was not enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His efforts became weaker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew that though his body was riding in a hot bus through cold woods if he stopped breathing here, beneath the world, he would stop breathing there as well, that even now his breath was coming in shallow panting gasps.\n\nHe struggled and he pushed, ever more weakly, each movement using precious air. He was trapped: could go no farther, and could not return the way that he had come.\n\n\"Now bargain,\" said a voice in his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do I have to bargain with?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow asked. \"I have nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could taste the clay now, thick and mud-gritty in his mouth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'myself' must be used 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then Shadow said, \"Except myself. I have myself, don't I?\"\n\nIt seemed as if everything was holding its breath.\n\n\"I offer myself,\" he said.\n\nThe response was immediate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rocks and the earth that had surrounded him began to push down on Shadow, squeezed him so hard that the last ounce of air in his lungs was crushed out of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pressure became pain, pushing him on every side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached the zenith of pain and hung there, cresting, knowing that he could take no more, at that moment the spasm eased and Shadow could breathe again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The light above him had grown larger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was being pushed toward the surface.\n\nAs the next earth-spasm hit, Shadow tried to ride with it. This time he felt himself being pushed upward.\n\nThe pain, on that last awful contraction, was impossible to believe, as he felt himself being squeezed, crushed, and pushed through an unyielding rock gap, his bones shattering, his flesh becoming something shapeless!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ftsfhis mouth and ruined head cleared the hole he began to scream, in fear and pain.\n\nHe wondered, as he screamed, whether, back in the waking world, he was also screaming—if he was screaming in his sleep back on the darkened bus.\n\nAnd as that final spasm ended Shadow was on the ground, his fingers clutching the red earth.\n\nHe pulled himself into a sitting position, wiped the earth from his face with his hand and looked up at the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was twilight, a long, purple twilight, and the stars were coming out, one by one, stars so much brighter and more vivid than any stars he had ever seen or imagined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Soon,\" said the crackling voice of the flame, coming from behind him, \"they will fall. Soon they will fall and the star people will meet the earth people. There will be heroes among them, and men who will slay monsters and bring knowledge, but none of them will be gods. This is a poor place for gods.\"\n\nA blast of air, shocking in its coldness, touched his face. It was like being doused in ice water. He could hear thg driver's voice saying that they were in Pinewood, \"anyone who needs a cigarette or wants to stretch their legs, we'll be stopping here for ten minutes, then we'll be back on the road.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow stumbled off the bus. They were parked outside another rural gas station, almost identical to the one they had left. The driver was helping a couple of teenage girls onto the bus, putting their suitcases away in the luggage compartment.\n\n\"Hey,\" the driver said, when she saw Shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're getting off at Lakeside, right?\"\n\nShadow agreed, sleepily, that he was.\n\n\"Heck, that's a good town,\" said the bus driver. \"I think sometimes that if I were just going to pack it all in, I'd move to Lakeside. Prettiest town I've ever seen. You've lived there long?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My first visit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have a pasty at Mabel's for me, you hear?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow decided not to ask for clarification. \"Tell me,\" said Shadow, \"was I talking in my sleep?\"\n\n\"If you were, I didn't hear you.\" She looked at her watch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Back on the bus. I'll call you when we get to Lakeside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two girls—he doubted that either of them was much more than fourteen years old—who had got on in Pinewood were now in the seat in front of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were friends, Shadow decided, eavesdropping without meaning to, not sisters. One of them knew almost nothing about sex, but knew a lot about animals, helped out or spent a lot of time at some kind of animal shelter, while the other was not interested in animals, but, armed with a hundred tidbits gleaned from the Internet and from daytime television, thought she knew a great deal about human sexuality. Shadow listened with a horrified and amused fascination to the one who thought she was wise in the ways of the world detail the precise mechanics of using Alka-Seltzer tablets to enhance oral sex.\n\nShadow started to tune them out, blanked everything except the noise of the road, and now only fragments of conversation would come back every now and again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Goldie is, like, such a good dog,, and he was a purebred retriever, if only my dad would say okay, he wags his tail whenever he sees me.\n\nIt's Christmas, he has to let me use the snowmobile.\n\nYou can write your name with your tongue on the side of his thing.\n\nI miss Sandy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yeah, I miss Sandy too.\n\nSix inches tonight they said, but they just make it up, they make up the weather and nobody ever calls them on it ....\n\nAnd then the brakes of the bus were hissing and the driver was shouting \"Lakeside!\" and the doors ducked open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadow followed the girls out into the floodlit parking lot of a video store and tanning salon that functioned, Shadow guessed, as Lakeside's Greyhound station. The air was dreadfully cold, but it was a fresh cold. It vJpke him up. He stared at the lights of the town to the south and the west, and pale expanse of a frozen lake to the east." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girls were standing in the lot, stamping and blowing on their hands dramatically. One of them, the younger one, snuck a look at Shadow, smiled awkwardly when she realized that he had seen her do so.\n\n\"Merry Christmas,\" said Shadow.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said the other girl, perhaps a year or so older than the first, \"Merry Christmas to you too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had carroty red hair and a snub nose covered with a hundred thousand freckles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nice town you got here,\" said Shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We like it,\" said the younger one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was the one who liked animals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gave Shadow a shy grin, revealing blue rubber-band braces stretching across her front teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You look like somebody,\" she told him, gravely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you somebody's brother or somebody's son or something?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are such a spaz, Alison,\" said her friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everybody's somebody's son or brother or something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That wasn't what I meant,\" said Alison." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Headlights framed them all for one brilliant white moment. Behind the headlights was a station wagon with a mother in it, and in moments it took the girls and their bags away, leaving Shadow standing alone in the parking lot.\n\n\"Young man? Anything I can do for you?\" The old man was locking up the video store." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pocketed his keys. \"Store ain't open Christmas,\" he told Shadow cheerfully. \"But I come down to meet the bus. Make sure everything was okay. Couldn't live with myself if some poor soul'd found 'emselves stranded on Christmas Day.\" He was close enough that Shadow could see his face: old but contented, the face of a man who had sipped life's vinegar and found it, by and large, to be mostly whiskey, and good whiskey at that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, you could give me the number of the local taxi company,\" said Shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could,\" said the old man, doubtfully, \"but Tom'11 be in his bed this time of night, and even if you could rouse him you'll get no satisfaction—I saw him down at the Buck Stops Here earlier this evening, and he was very merry. Very merry indeed. Where is it you're aiming to go?\"\n\nShadow showed him the address tag on the door key.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"that's a ten-, mebbe a twenty-minute walk over the bridge and around. But it's no fun when it's this cold, and when you don't know where you're going it always seems longer—you ever notice that? First time takes forever, and then ever after it's over in a flash?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Shadow. \"I've never thought of it like that. But I guess it's true.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face cracked into a grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the heck, it's Christmas. I'll run you over there in Tessie.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow followed the old man to the road, where a huge old roadster was parked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It looked like something that gangsters might have been proud to drive in the Roaring Twenties, running boards and all." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'might' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a deep dark color under the sodium lights that might have been red and might have been green. \"This is Tessie,\" the old man said. \"Ain't she a beaut?\" He patted her proprietorially, where the hood curved up and arched over the front nearside wheel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What make is she?\" asked Shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's a Wendt Phoenix. Wendt went under in '31, name was bought by Chrysler, but they never made any more Wendts. Harvey Wendt, who founded the company, was a local boy. Went out to California, killed himself in, oh, 1941, '42. Great tragedy.\"\n\nThe car smelled of leather and old cigarette smoke—not a fresh smell, but as if enough people had Smoked enough cigarettes and cigars in the car over the years thauthe smell of burning tobacco had become part of the fabric of the car. The old man turned the key in the ignition and Tessie started first time.\n\n'Tomorrow,\" he told Shadow, \"she goes irao the garage. I'll cover her with a dust sheet, and that's where she'll stay until spring. Truth of the matter is I shouldn't be driving her right now, with the snow on the ground.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Doesn't she ride well in snow?\"\n\n\"Rides just fine. It's the salt they put on the roads. Rusts these old beauties faster than you could believe. You want to go door to door, or would you like the moonlight grand tour of the town?\"\n\n\"I don't want to trouble you—\"\n\n\"It's no trouble. You get to be my age, you're grateful for the least wink of sleep. I'm lucky if I get five hours a night nowadays—wake up and my mind is just turning and turning. Where are my manners? My name's Hinzelmann. I'd say, call me Richie, but around here folks who know me just call me plain Hinzelmann. I'd shake your hand, but I need two hands to drive Tessie. She knows when I'm not paying attention.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'street' exactly 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mike Ainsel,\" said Shadow. \"Pleased to meet you, Hinzelmann.\"\n\n\"So we'll go around the lake. Grand tour,\" said Hinzelmann.\n\nMain Street, which they were on, was a pretty street, even at night, and it looked old-fashioned in the best sense of the word—as if, for a hundred years, people had been caring for that street and they had not been in a hurry to lose anything they liked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hinzelmann pointed out the town's two restaurants as they passed them (a German restaurant and what he described as \"part Greek, part Norwegian, and a popover at every plate\"); he pointed out the bakery and the bookstore (\"What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not fooling a soul\"). He slowed Tessie as they passed the library so Shadow could get a good look at it. Antique gaslights flickered over the doorway—Hinzelmann proudly called Shadow's attention to them. \"Built in the 1870s by John Henning, local lumber baron. He wanted it called the Henning Memorial Library, but when he died they started calling it the Lakeside Library, and I guess it'll be the Lakeside Library now until the end of time. Isn't it a dream?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't have been prouder of it if he had built it himself. The building reminded Shadow of a castle, and he said so. \"That's right,\" agreed Hinzelmann. \"Turrets and all. Henning wanted it to look like that on the outside. Inside they still have all the original pine shelving. Miriam Shultz wants to tear the insides out and modernize, but it's on some register of historic places, and there's not a damn thing she can do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They drove around the south side of the lake. The town circled the lake, which was a thirty-foot drop below the level of the road. Shadow could see the patches of white ice dulling the surface of the lake with, here and there, a shiny patch of water reflecting the lights of the town.\n\n\"Looks like it's freezing over,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's been frozen over for a month now,\" said Hinzelmann. \"The dull spots are snowdrifts and the shiny spots are ice. It froze just after Thanksgiving in one cold night, froze smooth as glass. You do much ice-fishing, Mr. Ainsel?\"\n\n\"Never.\" .\n\n\"Best thing a man can do. It's not the fish you catch, it's the peace of mind that you take home at the end of the day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll remember that.\" Shadow peered down at the lake through Tessie's window. \"Can you actually walk on it already?\"\n\n\"You can walk on it. Drive on it too, but I wouldn't want to risk it yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's been cold up here for six weeks,\" said Hinzelmann. \"But you also got to allow tiiat things freeze harder and faster up here in northern Wisconsin than they do most anyplace else there is." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was outvhunting once—hunting for deer, and this was oh, thirty, forty years back, and I shot at a buck, missed him, and sent hjjm running off through the woods—this was over acrost the north end of the lake, up near where you'll be living, Mike. Now he was the finest buck I ever did see, twenty point, big as a small horse, no lie. Now, I'm younger and feistier back then dian I am now, and though it had started snowing before Hal-loween that year, now it was Thanksgiving and diere was clean snow on the ground, fresh as anything, and I could see the buck's footprints. It looked to me like the big fellow was heading for the lake in a panic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, only a damn fool tries to run down a buck, but there am I, a damn fool, running after him, and there he is, standing in the lake, in oh, eight, nine inches of water, and he's just looking at me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That very moment, the sun goes behind a cloud, and the freeze comes—temperature must have fallen thirty degrees in ten minutes, not a word of a lie. And that old stag, he gets ready to run, and he can't movet He's frozen into the ice.\n\n\"Me, I just walk over to him slowly. You can see he wants to run, but he's iced in and it just isn't going to happen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But there's no way I can bring myself to shoot a defenseless critter when he can't get away—what kind of man would I be if I done that, heh?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "So I takes my shotgun and I fires off one shell, straight up into the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, the noise and the shock is enough to make that buck just about jump out of his skin, and seein' that his legs are iced in, that's just what he proceeds to do. He leaves his hide and his antlers stuck to the ice, while he charges back into the woods, pink as a newborn mouse and shivering fit to bust.\n\n\"I felt bad enough for that old buck that I talked the Lakeside Ladies' Knitting Circle into making him something warm to wear all the winter, and they knitted him an all-over one-piece woolen suit, so he wouldn't freeze to death. 'Course, the joke was on us, because they knitted him a suit of bright orange wool, so no hunter ever shot at it. Hunters in these parts wear orange at hunting season,\" he added, helpfully. \"And if you think there's a word of a lie in that, I can prove it to you. I've got the antlers up on my rec room wall to this day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow laughed, and the old man smiled the satisfied smile of a master craftsman." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'hinzelmann' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They pulled up outside a brick building with a large wooden deck, from which golden holiday lights hung and twinkled invitingly.\n\n\"That's five-oh-two,\" said Hinzelmann. \"Apartment three would be on the top floor, around the other side, overlooking the lake. There you go, Mike.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Hinzelmann. Can I give you anything toward gas?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just Hinzelmann. And you don't owe me a penny. Merry Christmas from me and from Tessie.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you sure you won't accept anything?\"\n\nThe old man scratched his chin. \"Tell you what,\" he said. \"Sometime in the next week or so I'll come by and sell you some tickets. For our raffle. Charity. For now, young man, you can be getting onto bed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow smiled. \"Merry Christmas, Hinzelmann,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old man shook Shadow's hand with one red-knuckled hand. It felt as hard and as callused as an oak branch. \"Now, you watch the path as you go up there, it's going to be slippery. I can see your door from here, at the side there, see it? I'll just wait in the car down here until you're safely inside. You just give me the thumbs-up when you're in okay, and I'll drive off.\"\n\nHe kept the Wendt idling until Shadow was safely up the wooden steps on the side of the house and had opened the apartment door with his key." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door to the apartment swung open. Shadow made a thumbs-up sign, and the old man in the Wendt—Tessie, thought Shadow, and the thought of a car with a name made him smile one more time—Hinzelmann and Tessie swung around and made their way back across the bridge.\n\nShadow shut the front door. The room was freezing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It smelled of people who had gone away to live other lives, and of all they had eaten and dreamed. He found the thermostat and cranked it up to seventy degrees. He went into the tiny kitchen, checked the drawers, opened the avocado-colored refrigerator, but it was empty. No surprise there. At least the fridge smelled clean inside, not musty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a small bedroom with a bare mattress in it, beside the kitchen, next to an even tinier bathroom that was mostly shower stall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An aged cigarette butt sat in the toilet bowl, staining the water brown. Shadow flushed it away. He found sheets and blankets in a closet, and made the bed. Then he took off his shoes, his jacket, and his watch, and he climbed into the bed fully dressed, wondering how long it would take him to get warm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lights were off, and there was silence, mostly, nothing but the hum of the refrigerator, and, somewhere in the building, a radio playing. He lay there in the darkness, wondering if he had slept himself out on the Greyhound, if the hunger and the cold and the new bed and the craziness of the last few weeks would combine to keep him awake that night.\n\nIn the stillness he heard something snap like a shot. A branch, he thought, or the ice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was freezing out there.\n\nHe wondered how long he would have to wait until Wednesday came for him. A day? A week? However long he had, he knew he had to focus on something in the meantime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would start to work out again, he decided, and practice his coin sleights and palms until he was smooth as anything (practice all your tricks, somebody whispered inside his head, in a voice that was not his own, all of them but one, not the trick that poor dead Mad Sweeney showed you, dead of exposure and the cold and of being forgotten and surplus to requirements, not that trick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh, not that one)." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this was a good town. He could feel it.\n\nHe thought of his dream, if it had been a dream, that first night in Cairo. He thought of Zorya ... what the hell was her name? The midnight sister." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he thought of Laura ...\n\nIt was as if thinking of her opened a window in his mind. He could see her. He could, somehow, see her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was in Eagle Point, in the backyard outside her mother's big house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stood in the cold, which she did not feel anymore or which she felt all the time, she stood outside the house that her mother had bought in 1989 with the insurance money after Laura's father, Harvey McCabe, had passed on, a heart attack while straining on the can, and she was staring in, her cold hands pressed against the glass, her breath not fogging it, not at all, watching her mother, and her sister and her sister's children and husband in from Texas, home for Christmas. Out in the darkness, that was where Laura was, unable not to look.\n\nTears prickled in Shadow's eyes, and he rolled over in his bed.\n\nHe felt like a Peeping Tom, turned his thoughts away, willed them to come back to him: he could see the lake spread out below him as the wind blew down from the arctic, prying jack-frost fingers a hundred times colder than the fingers of any corpse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadow's breath came shallowly now." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'could'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could hear a wind rising, a bitter screaming around the house, and for a moment he thought he could hear words on the wind.\n\nIf he was going to be anywhere, he might as well be here, he thought, and then he slept." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce 12 sentences using the user's text as a seed. Follow the established character context if any exists. Stick to the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wizard Heald coupled with a poor woman once, in the king's city of Mondor, and she bore a son with one green eye and one black eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heald, who had two eyes black as the black marshes of Fyrbolg, came and went like a wind out of the woman's life, but the child Myk stayed in Mondor until he was fifteen. Big-shouldered and strong, he was apprenticed to a smith, and men who came to have their carts mended or horses shod were inclined to curse his slowness and his sullenness, until something would stir in him, sluggish as a marsh beast waking beneath murk. Then he would turn his head and look at them out of his black eye, and they would fall silent, shift away from him. There was a streak of wizardry in him, like the streak of fire in damp, smoldering wood. He spoke rarely to men with his brief, rough voice, but when he touched a horse, a hungry dog, or a dove in a cage on market days, the fire would surface in his black eye, and his voice would run sweet as a daydreaming voice of the Slinoon River.\n\nOne day he left Mondor and went to Eld Mountain. Eld was the highest mountain in Eldwold, rising behind Mondor and casting its black shadow over the city at twilight when the sun slipped, lost, into its mists. From the fringe of the mists, shepherds or young boys hunting could see beyond Mondor, west to the flat Plain of Terbrec, land of the Sirle Lords, north to Fallow Field, where the third King of Eldwold's ghost brooded still on his last battle, and where no living thing grew beneath his restless, silent steps. There, in the rich, dark forests of Eld Mountain, in the white silence, Myk began a collection of wondrous, legendary animals.\n\nFrom the wild lake country of North Eldwold, he called to him the Black Swan of Tirlith, the great-winged, golden-eyed bird that had carried the third daughter of King Merroc on its back away from the stone tower where she was held captive. He sent the powerful, silent thread of his call into the deep, thick forests on the other side of Eld, where no man had ever gone and returned, and caught like a salmon the red-eyed, white-tusked Boar Cyrin, who could sing ballads like a harpist, and who knew the answers to all riddles save one. From the dark, silent heart of the Mountain itself, Myk brought Gyld, the green-winged dragon, whose mind, dreaming for centuries over the cold fire of gold, woke sleepily, pleasurably, to the sound of its name in the half-forgotten song Myk sent crooning into the darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coaxing a handful of ancient jewels from the dragon, Myk built a house of white, polished stone among the tall pines, and a great garden for the animals enclosed within the ring of stone wall and iron-wrought gates." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Into that house he took eventually a mountain girl with few words and no fear either of animals or their keeper. She was of poor family, with tangled hair and muscled arms, and she saw in Myk's household things that others saw perhaps once in their lives in a line of old poetry or in a harpist's tale.\n\nShe bore Myk a son with two black eyes who learned to stand silent as a dead tree while Myk called. Myk taught him to read the ancient ballads and legends in the books he collected, taught him to send the call of a half-forgotten name across the whole of Eldwold and the lands beyond, taught him to wait in silence, in patience for weeks, months, or years until the moment when the shock of the call would flame in the strange, powerful, startled mind of the animal that owned the name. When Myk went out of himself forever, sitting silent in the moonlight, his son Ogam continued the collection.\n\nOgam coaxed out of the Southern Deserts behind Eld Mountain the Lyon Gules, who with a pelt the color of a king's treasury had seduced many an imprudent man into unwanted adventure. He stole from the hearth of a witch beyond Eldwold the huge black Cat Moriah, whose knowledge of spells and secret charms had once been legendary in Eldwold. The blue-eyed Falcon Ter, who had torn to pieces the seven murderers of the wizard Aer, shot like a thunderbolt out of the blue sky onto Ogam's shoulder. After a brief, furious struggle, blue eyes staring into black, the hot grip of talons loosened; the Falcon gave his name and yielded to Ogam's great power.\n\nWith the crook of an ungentle smile inherited from Myk, Ogam called also to him the oldest daughter of the Lord Horst of Hilt as she rode one day too close to the Mountain. She was a frail, beautiful child-woman, frightened of the silence and the strange, gorgeous animals that reminded her of things on the old tapestry in her father's house. She was afraid also of Ogam, with his sheathed, still power and his inscrutable eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She bore him one child, and died. The child, unaccountably, was a girl. Ogam recovered from his surprise eventually and named her Sybel.\n\nShe grew tall and strong in the Mountain wildness, with her mother's slender bones and ivory hair and her father's black, fearless eyes. She cared for the animals, tended the garden, and learned early how to hold a restless animal against its will, how to send an ancient name out of the silence of her mind, to probe into hidden, forgotten places. Ogam, proud of her quickness, built a room for her with a great dome of crystal, thin as glass, hard as stone, where she could sit beneath the colors of the night world and call in peace. He died when she was sixteen, leaving her alone with the beautiful white house, a vast library of heavy, iron-bound books, a collection of animals beyond all dreaming, and the power to hold them.\n\nShe read one night not long afterward, in one of his oldest books, of a great white bird with wings that glided like snowy pennants unfurled in the wind, a bird that had carried the only Queen of Eldwold on its back in days long before. She spoke its name softly to herself: Liralen; and, seated on the floor beneath the dome, with the book still open in her lap, she sent a first call forth into the vast Eldwold night for the bird whose name no one had spoken for centuries. The call was broken abruptly by someone shouting at her locked gates.\n\nShe woke the Lyon, asleep in the garden, with a touch of her mind, and sent it padding to the gates to cast a golden, warning eye at the intruder. But the shouting continued, urgent, incoherent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sighed, exasperated, and sent the Falcon Ter instructions to lift the intruder and drop him off the top of Eld Mountain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shouting ceased suddenly, a moment later, but a baby's thin, uncomforted voice wailed into the silence, startling her. She rose finally, walked through the marble hall in her bare feet, out into the garden, where the animals stirred restlessly in the darkness about her. She reached the gates, of thin iron bars and gold joints, and looked out.\n\nAn armed man stood with a baby in his arms and Ter Falcon on his shoulder. The man was silent, frozen motionless under the play of Ter's grip; the child in his mailed arms cried, oblivious. Sybel's eyes moved from the still, half-shadowed face to the Falcon's eyes.\n\nI told you, she said privately, to drop him off the top of Eld Mountain.\n\nThe blue, unwavering eyes looked down into hers. You are young, Ter said, but you are without doubt powerful, and I will obey you if you tell me a second time. But I will tell you first, having known men for countless years, that if you begin killing them, one day they will grow frightened, come in great numbers, tear down your house, and loose your animals. So the Master Ogam told us many times.\n\nSybel's bare foot tapped a moment on the earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She moved her eyes to the man's face and said, \"Who are you? Why are you shouting at my gates?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lady,\" the man said carefully, for the ruffled feathers of Ter's wing brushed his face, \"are you the daughter of Laran, daughter of Horst, Lord of Hilt?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Laran was my mother,\" Sybel said, shifting from one foot to another impatiently. \"Who are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Coren of Sirle. My brother had a child by your aunt—your mother's youngest sister.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'I have been at Terbrec.' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped with a sudden click of breath between his teeth, and Sybel waved a hand at the Falcon.\n\nLoose him, or I will be standing here all night. But stay close in case he is mad.\n\nThe Falcon rose, glided to a low tree branch above the man's head. The man closed his eyes a moment; tiny beads of blood welled like tears through his shirt of mail. He looked young in the moonlight, and his hair was the color of fire. Sybel looked at him curiously, for he gleamed like water at night with link upon link of metal.\n\n\"Why are you dressed like that?\" she said, and he opened his eyes.\n\n\"I have been at Terbrec.\" He glanced up at the dark outline of bird above him. \"Where did you get such a falcon? He cut through iron and leather and silk...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He killed seven men,\" Sybel said, \"who killed the wizard Aer for the jewels on his books of wisdom.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'mountain'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ter,\" the young man breathed, and her brows rose in surprise.\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"I told you. Coren of Sirle.\"\n\n\"But that means nothing to me. What are you doing at my gates with a baby?\"\n\nCoren of Sirle said very slowly and patiently, \"Your mother, Laran, had a sister named Rianna—she was your aunt. She married the King of Eldwold three years ago. My—\"\n\n\"Who is the King these days?\" Sybel asked curiously.\n\nThe young man caught a startled breath. \"Drede. Drede is the King of Eldwold, and he has been King for fifteen years.\"\n\n\"Oh. Go on—Drede married Rianna. That is very interesting, but I have a Liralen to call.\"\n\n\"Please!\" He glanced up at the Falcon and lowered his voice. \"Please. I have been fighting for three days. Then my uncle tossed a baby into my arms and told me to give it to the wizard woman on Eld Mountain. Suppose, I said, she will not take him? What will she want with a baby? And he looked at me and said, you will not come down from that mountain with the child—do you want your brother's son dead?\"\n\n\"But why does he want to give it to me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because it is the child of Rianna and Norrel, and they are both dead.\"\n\nSybel blinked. \"But you said Rianna was married to Drede.\"\n\n\"She was.\"\n\n\"Then why is the child Norrel's son? I do not understand.\"\n\nCoren's voice rose perilously. \"Because Norrel and Rianna were lovers. And Drede killed Norrel three days ago on the Plain of Terbrec. Now will you take the baby so I can go back and kill Drede?\"\n\nSybel looked at him out of her black, unwinking eyes. \"You will not shout at me,\" she said very softly. The mailed hands of Coren curled and uncurled in the moonlight. He took a step toward her, and the soft light shaped the long bones of his face, traced lines of exhaustion beneath his eyes.\n\n\"I am sorry,\" he whispered. \"Please. Try to understand. I have ridden the late day and half the night. My brother and half my kinsmen are dead. The Lord of Niccon joined forces with Drede, and Sirle cannot stand against them both. Rianna died of the child's birth. If Drede finds the child, he will kill it out of revenge. There is no safe place for it in Sirle. There is no safe place for it anywhere but here, where Drede will not think to come. Drede has killed Norrel, but I swear he will not take this child. Please. Take care of him. His mother was of your family.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sybel looked down at the child. It had stopped crying; the night was very still about them. It waved tiny fists aimlessly in the air and pushed at the soft blanket wrapped around it. She touched its pale, plump face, and its eyes turned toward her, winking like stars.\n\n\"My mother died of me,\" she said. \"What is its name?\"\n\n\"Tamlorn.\"\n\n\"Tamlorn. It is very pretty. I wish it had been a girl.\"\n\n\"If it had been, I would not have had to ride all this way to hide it. Drede is afraid the child might declare its legitimacy, when it is older, and fight Drede's own heir. Sirle would back it—my people have been playing for the kingship of Eldwold ever since King Harth died at Fallow Field and Tarn of Sirle held the throne for twelve years, then lost it again.\"\n\n\"But if everyone knows the child is not Drede's—\"\n\n\"Only Drede, Rianna, and Norrel know the truth of the matter, and Rianna and Norrel are dead. Kings' bastards can be very dangerous.\"\n\n\"He does not look dangerous.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her lean, pale fingers whispered over its cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A smile strayed absently across her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It will go nicely, I think, in the collection.\"\n\nCoren's arms tightened around the child. \"It is Norrel's son—it is not an animal.\"\n\nSybel's level eyes raised. \"Is it not less? It eats and sleeps and it does not think, and it requires special care. Only... I do not know what to do with a baby. It cannot tell me what it needs.\"\n\nCoren was silent a moment. When he spoke finally, she heard the weariness haunting his voice like an overtone. \"You are a girl. You should know such things.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because—because you will have children someday and you—will have to know how to care for them.\"\n\n\"I had no woman to care for me,\" Sybel said. \"My father fed me goat's milk and taught me to read his books. I suppose I will have a child that I can train to care for the animals when I am dead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coren gazed at her, his lips parted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If it were not for my uncle,\" he said softly, \"I would take the child back home rather than leave Norrel's son here with you, your ignorance, and your heart of ice.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sybel's face grew as still before him as the still full moon. \"It is you who are ignorant,\" she whispered. \"I could have Ter rip you into seven pieces and drop your bloodless head on the Plain of Terbrec, but I am controlling my temper. Look!\"\n\nShe unlocked the gates, her fingers shaking in an anger that roused through her like a clean mountain wind. She snapped private calls into the dream-drugged minds about her, and, like pieces of dreams themselves, the animals moved toward her. Coren stepped in beside her. He propped the child on one shoulder, his mailed arms protecting its back, one hand cupping its head, while his eyes slid, wide, over the moving, rustling darkness. The great Boar reached them first, fire-white in the darkness, his tusks like white marble that hunters dreamed of, and a sound came, inarticulate, from Coren's throat. Sybel rested one hand above the small red eyes. \"Do you think because I care for these animals, I cannot care for a child? They are ancient, powerful as princes, wise and restless and dangerous, and I give them whatever they require. So I will give this child what it requires. And if that is not what you want, then leave. I did not ask you to come with a child; I do not care if you go with it. I may be ignorant in your world, but here you are in my world and you are a fool.\"\n\nCoren stared down at the Boar, struggling for words. \"Cyrin,\" he whispered. \"Cyrin. You have him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped again, his breath jerking through his open mouth. His voice came slow, dredging memory. \"Rondar—Lord of Runrir captured—the Boar Cyrin that no man had captured before, the elusive Cyrin, Keeper of Riddles and—demanded either Cyrin's life or all the wisdom of the world. And Cyrin uprooted a stone at Rondar's feet, and Rondar said it was worthless and rode away, still searching...\"\n\n\"How do you know that tale?\" Sybel asked, astonished. \"It is not one of Eldwold.\"\n\n\"I know it. I know.\" He lifted his head, his arms tight around the child as a great shape swooped toward them, silent, a shadow upon the night. The Swan folded itself gently before them, its back broad as the Boar's, its eyes black as the night between two stars. \"The Swan of Tirlith—Is it the Swan? Sybel, is it?\"\n\n\"How do you know my name?\" she whispered.\n\n\"I know.\" He watched two cats ease through the night, coming from opposite sides of the house, and she heard him swallow. Tamlorn struggled in his arms, but Coren did not move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Cat Moriah reached them, nudged its black, flat head under Sybel's hand, then lay down on her feet and yawned at Coren, showing teeth like honed polished stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Moriah... Lady of the Night, who gave the wizard Tak the spell that opened the doorless tower where he was captured... I do not—I do not know the Lyon—\" Gules Lyon, his eyes liquid gold, traced a close circle about Coren's legs, then settled in front of him, muscle sliding leisurely into muscle beneath the glowing pelt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coren shook his head quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait—There was a Lyon of the Southern Deserts who lived in the courts of great lords, dispensing wisdom, fed on rich meats, wearing their collars and chains of iron and gold only so long as he chose... Gules.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you know these things?\"\n\nThe Lyon's great head turned toward Sybel. Where, Gules inquired curiously, did you find this one?\n\nHe brought me a baby, Sybel said distractedly. He knows my name, and I do not know how.\n\n\"Once he could speak,\" Coren said.\n\n\"Once they all could. They have been wild, away from men so long that they have forgotten how, except for Cyrin, just as men—most men—have forgotten their names. How do you—\"\n\nCoren started beside her, and she looked up. The span of unfurled wings blotted the moon, shadowed their faces, then dropped lower, each stroke sucking a heartbeat of wind. Tamlorn kicked restlessly against Coren's hold, wailed a complaint into his ear. The Dragon dropped sluggishly before them, holding Coren in its lucent green gaze. Its shadow welled huge to their feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its mind-voice was ancient, dry as parchment in Sybel's mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is a cave in the mountains where his bones will never be found.\n\nNo. I called you because I was angry, but I am not angry, now. He is not to be harmed.\n\nHe is a man, armed.\n\nNo. She turned to Coren, as he stood watching the Dragon, with Tamlorn wriggling, whimpering, ignored in his arms, and her eyes curved suddenly in a little smile. \"You know that one.\"\n\n\"His name is not so old that men have forgotten it. There was an Eldwold prince taking rich gifts over the Mountain to a southern lord to buy arms and men, whose bones and treasure have never been found... There are tales still told of fire blazing out of the summer sky over Mondor, and the crops burning, and the Slinoon River steaming in its bed.\"\n\n\"He is old and tired,\" Sybel said. \"Those days are behind him. I hold his name, and he cannot free himself from me to do such things again.\"\n\nCoren shifted Tamlorn finally, and the baby quieted. The dark prints of weariness had eased from his face, leaving it young for a moment, wondering. He looked down at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They are beautiful. So beautiful.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked down at her a moment longer, before he spoke again. \"I must go. There will be news of the battle at Mondor. I cannot bear the thought that my brothers may be dead and I do not know. Will you take Tamlorn? He will be safe here, with such a guard. Will you love him? That—that is what he requires most.\"\n\nSybel nodded wordlessly. She took the child, holding it awkwardly, and it tugged curiously at her long hair. \"But how do you know so many things? How do you know my name?\"\n\n\"Oh. I asked an old woman living down the road a ways. She gave your name to me.\"\n\n\"I do not know any old women.\"\n\nHe smiled at a memory. \"You should know that one. I think—I think if you need help with Tamlorn, she will give it to you.\" He paused, looking at Tamlorn. He touched the soft, round cheek, and the smile drained from his face, leaving it numb with a bewildered grief. \"Good-bye. Thank you,\" he whispered, and turned. Sybel followed him to the gate." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'little' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good-bye,\" she said through the bars as he mounted. \"I know nothing of wars, but I know something of sorrow. And that, I think, is what you pass from hand to hand at Terbrec.\"\n\nHe looked down at her, mounted. \"It is true,\" he said. \"I know.\"\n\nShe met, as she turned away from the gate, the little round, fiery eyes of the silver Boar in her path. She caught the minds around her, holding them all in their quietness with an effort. You may go now. I am sorry I woke you, but I lost my temper.\n\nThe Boar did not move. You cannot give love, he remarked, until you have first taken it.\n\nYou are not very helpful, Sybel said irritably, and the great Boar gave a little snort that was his private laughter.\n\nThat old woman climbed the wall once, looking for herbs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I snorted at her and she snorted back at me." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'wisdom' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could help you. What would you give me for all the wisdom of the world?\n\nNothing, because I do not want it now. Give it to Coren. He said I had a heart of ice.\n\nCyrin snorted again, gently. Indeed, he needs wisdom.\n\nI told him so, Sybel said.\n\nThe next morning, she went out of the house, down the mountain path that led to the city below. The great old pines swayed in the wind, creaking and moaning of the coming of winter. Their needles were soft and cold under her bare feet, stroked here and there with sunlight. She carried Tamlorn, sleeping, in the white wool blanket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was warm and heavy in her arms, soft and freshly washed. She watched his face, with its long, pale lashes and its heavy cheeks. Once she stopped to nuzzle her face against his soft, pale hair.\n\n\"Tamlorn,\" she whispered. \"Tamlorn. My Tam.\"\n\nShe saw a small house within the trees, its chimney smoking. A gray cat curled asleep on the roof, and a black raven perched on a pair of antlers hanging above the door. Doves, pecking in the yard, fluttered around her as she walked to the door. The raven looked down at her sideways out of one eye and gave a cry like a question: Who? She ignored it, opened the door. Then she stood motionless in the doorway, for across the threshold there was no floor but mist that moved uneasily, immeasurable at her feet. She looked around, puzzled, and saw the walls of the house looking back at her, with eyes and round dark mouths. The door slipped out of her hand, closed behind her, and the mists moved upward, coiling around the watching eyes, covering them, until it hid even the roof; and the raven flew toward her from some where beyond the mists and gave its question again: Who?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tamlorn wriggled in her arms, wailed a complaint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She kissed him absently. Then she said, standing in the strange, watching house, \"Whose heart am I in?\"\n\nThe mist vanished and the watching faces hardened into pine knot. A thin old woman in a leaf-colored robe, with white hair in a thousand untidy curls around her face, rose from a rocking chair, her ringed hands clasped.\n\n\"A baby!\" She took him from Sybel, made noises at him like cooing doves. Tamlorn stared at her and made a sudden catch at her long nose. He smiled toothlessly as she clucked at him. Then she looked at Sybel, her eyes iron-gray, sharper than a king's blade. \"You.\"\n\n\"Me,\" said Sybel. \"I need advice, if you would be pleased to give it to me.\"\n\n\"With Cyrin Boar and Gules Lyon to advise you, child, you come to me? Why, what lovely hair you have, so long and fine... Has any man told you that?\"\n\n\"Cyrin Boar and Gules Lyon have never had a baby dumped in their arms. I must give it what it requires, and it cannot tell me. Cyrin said you might help me, since you snorted at him. Cyrin at times makes no sense. But can you help me?\"\n\n\"Onions,\" said the old woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sybel blinked at her.\n\n\"Old woman, I have stood in the eye of your heart while you looked at me, and anyone with such an inner eye is no fool. Will you help me?\"\n\n\"Of course, child. I let you in. Onions—you grow them in your garden. I was trying to remember. Will you let me have a few, now and then?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"I love them in a good stew. Sit down—there, on the sheepskin by the hearth. That was given to me by a man from the city who hated his wife and wanted to be rid of her.\"\n\n\"Men are strange in the city. I do not understand loving and hating, only being and knowing. But now I must learn how to love this child.\" She paused a moment, her ivory brows crooked a little. \"I think I do love him. He is soft, and he fits so into my arms, and if Coren of Sirle came for him again, it would be hard to give him up.\"\n\n\"So.\"\n\n\"So, what?\"\n\n\"So it is Drede's child. I have been hearing about that from my birds.\"\n\n\"Coren said it is Norrel's child.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'silence' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thin lips smiled. \"I do not think so. I think he is the son of Drede the King. There is a raven at the King's palace whose eyes never close...\"\n\nSybel stared at her, lips parted. She drew a slow breath. \"I do not understand such things. But he is mine now to love. It is very strange. I have had my animals for sixteen years, and this child for one night; and if I had to choose one thing from all of them, I am not sure that I would not choose this thing, so helpless and stupid as he is. Perhaps because the animals could go and require nothing from anyone, but my Tam requires everything from me.\"\n\nThe woman watched her, rocking back and forth in her chair, rings flashing on her still hands, fire-flecked.\n\n\"You are a strange child... so fearless and so powerful to hold such great, lordly beasts. I wonder you are not lonely sometimes.\"\n\n\"Why should I be? I have many things to talk to. My father never spoke much—I learned silence from him, silence of the mind that is like clear, still water, in which nothing is hidden. That is the first thing he taught me, for if you cannot be so silent, you will not hear the answer when you call. I was trying to call the Liralen, last night when Coren came.\"\n\n\"Liralen...\" The old woman's face softened until it seemed dreaming and young beneath her curls. \"The pennant-winged, moon-colored Liralen... Oh, child, when you do capture it finally, you must let me see it.\"\n\n\"I will. But it is very hard to find, especially when people interrupt me with babies. My father fed me goat's milk, but Tam does not seem to like it.\"\n\nThe old woman sighed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wish I could feed him, but a cow would be more useful, unless I find some mountain woman to nurse him.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include this dialogue snippet naturally: \"I am not afraid of people. They are fools.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He is mine,\" Sybel said. \"I do not want some other woman to begin to love him.\"\n\n\"Of course, child, but—Will you let me love him, just a little? It has been so long since I have had children to love. I will steal a cow from someone, leave a jewel in its place.\"\n\n\"I can call a cow.\"\n\n\"No, child, if anyone is a thief it must be me. You must think of yourself, of what would happen if people suspected you of calling away their animals.\"\n\n\"I am not afraid of people. They are fools.\"\n\n\"Oh, child, but they can be so powerful in their loving and hating. Did your father, when he talked to you, give you a name?\"\n\n\"I am Sybel. But you did not have to ask me that.\"\n\nThe gray eyes curved faintly. \"Oh, yes, my birds are everywhere... But there is a difference in a name spoken of, and a name given at last by the bearer. You know that. My name is Maelga. And the child's name? Will you give me that as a gift?\"\n\nSybel smiled. \"Yes. I would like you to have his name. It is Tamlorn.\" She looked down at him, her ivory hair tickling the small, plump face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tamlorn. My Tam,\" she whispered, and Tamlorn laughed.\n\nSo Maelga stole a cow and left a jeweled ring in its place, and for months afterward people left their barn doors open hopefully. Tam grew strong, pale-haired, and gray-eyed, and he laughed and shouted through the still white halls, and teased the patient animals and fed them. Years passed, and he became lean and brown, and explored the Mountain with shepherd boys, climbing through the mists, searching deep caves, bringing home red foxes, birds, and strange herbs for Maelga. Sybel continued her long search for the Liralen, calling nights, disappearing for days at a time, and returning with old, jeweled books with iron locks that might hold its name. Maelga chided her for stealing, and she would reply absently, \"From little wizardlings, who do not know how to use them. I must have that Liralen. It is my obsession.\"\n\n\"One day,\" Maelga said, \"you will mistake a great wizard for a little wizardling.\"\n\n\"So? I am great, too. And I must have the Liralen.\"\n\nOne evening, twelve years after Coren had brought Tamlorn to her, Sybel went to the cold, deep cave Myk had built for Gyld the Dragon. It lay behind a ribbon of water, and trees about it grew huge and still as pillars vaulting a chamber of silence. She stepped over three rocks to the falls, then slipped behind it, the water running across her face like tears. Within, the cave was dark and wet as the heart of a mountain; Gyld's green eyes glowed in it like jewels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The great, folded bulk of him formed a shadow against the deeper shadow." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'sybel'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sybel stood still before him, like a slender pale flame in the dark. She looked into the unblinking eyes.\n\nYes?\n\nThoughts rose slow and formless as a dark bubble in the Dragon's mind, and opened to the dry, parchment rustle of his voice. It has been a thousand years since I fell asleep over the gold I gathered from Prince Sirkel, and fell asleep watching his open eyes and his blood trickle slowly over coin piece and coin piece and gather in the hollow neck of a cup. His voice whispered away. There was silence while another bubble formed and broke. I dream of that gold, and wake to see it, and it is not here... I wake to cold stone. Give me leave to gather it once more.\n\nSybel was silent as a stone rising from stone. She said, You will fly, and men will see you and remember your deeds with terror." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They will come to destroy my house and they will see gold burning in the sun, and nothing, nothing will turn them back from my house.\n\nNo, said Gyld. I will go by night and gather it in secret, and if any man watches, I will slay in secret.\n\nThen, said Sybel, they would come and kill us both.\n\nNo man can kill me.\n\nWhat of me? And Tam? No.\n\nThe great bulk stirred, amorphous, and she felt the warm sigh of his breath.\n\nI was old and forgotten when the Master woke me by name in the hollow veins of Eld and brought me out of my dreaming with his song of my deeds... It was pleasant to be sung of once more... It is pleasant to be named by you, but I must have my sweet gold...\n\nQuick and turning as a snake his thoughts fled away from her, slipping down, down through caverns of his mind to the dark maze of it. Swift as water draining into earth, stealthy as man burying man beneath moonlight, he carried his name down to the forgetting regions where he was nameless even to himself, but she was there before him, waiting behind the last door of his mind. She stood among the half fragments of his memories of slayings, lustings, and half-eaten meals and said, If you want this so badly, I will think of a way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do nothing, but be patient. I will think.\n\nHis breath came once more, and his thoughts welled once more to the dark cave. Do this one thing for me, and I will be patient.\n\nShe stepped out of the cave, water shining in her hair, and breathed deeply of the cool night air. She thought of the Dragon in flight, smooth flame in motion, and of the deep, peaceful pools of the Black Swan's eyes, and the memory of the Dragon's ground mind with the broken embers of his passions faded deep into her own. Then she heard a rustling behind her in the dark, still earth, sensed a watching.\n\n\"Tam? Maelga?\"\n\nBut no voice, no mind answered. The black trees rose like monoliths, blocking the stars. The rustling faded like the breath of wind into silence. She turned again toward the house, a line between her white brows.\n\nShe went to see Maelga a few days later and sat on the skin by the fireplace, her arms around her knees, and Maelga watched her face as she stirred soup." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is Something in the forest without a name.\"\n\n\"Are you afraid of it?\" Maelga asked. Sybel looked up at her surprisedly.\n\n\"Of course not. But how can I call it if it has no name? It is very strange. I cannot remember reading about a nameless thing anywhere. What are you cooking? If I were not already hungry, I would be hungry from the smell of it.\"\n\n\"Mushrooms,\" said Maelga. \"Onions, sage, turnips, cabbage, parsley, beets, and something Tam brought me that has no name.\"\n\n\"Some day,\" Sybel said, \"Tam will poison us all.\" She leaned her shining head back against the stones and sighed. Maelga's eyes flicked to her.\n\n\"What is it? Does it have a name?\"\n\nShe stirred. \"I do not know; I am very restless these days, but I do not know what I want. Sometimes, I fly with Ter in his thoughts as he hunts. He cannot fly as high as I want him to, or so fast, though the earth rushes beneath us and he goes higher than Eld Mountain... And I am there, when he kills. That is why I want the Liralen so. I can ride on its back and we can go far, far into the setting sun, the world of the stars. I want... I want something more than my father had, or even my grandfather, but I do not know what I want.\"\n\nMaelga tasted the soup, the jewels on her thin hands winking. \"Pepper,\" she said. \"And thyme. Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you help her?\"\n\n\"She gave me a box of sweet scent. So now she will be miserable and jealous for the rest of her life.\" She looked at Sybel, sitting still against the stones, her black eyes hidden, and she sighed. \"My child, can I do anything for you?\"\n\nSybel's eyes lifted, smiling faintly. \"Shall I add a man to my collection? I could. I could call anyone I want. But there is no one I want. Sometimes, the animals grow restless like this, dreaming of days of flights and adventures, of the acquiring of wisdom, of the sound of their names spoken in awe, in fear. The days are over, few remember their names, but they dream, still... and I think of the still way I learned, and how only my father, then you, then Tam, ever gave me back my name... I think... I think I want some days to take that mountain path down into the strange, incomprehensible world.\"\n\n\"Then go, child,\" said Maelga. \"Go.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I will. But who would keep my animals?\"\n\n\"Hire a wizardling.\"\n\n\"For Ter? No wizardling could hold him. When I was Tam's age, I could hold him. I wish Tam were half wizard. But he is only half king.\"\n\n\"You have never told him that, surely.\"\n\n\"Am I a fool? What good would knowing that do? A dream like that could make him miserable. In the world below, it may even kill him. He is better off playing with shepherd boys and foxes and marrying, when he is old enough, some pretty mountain girl.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sighed again, her white brows creeping into a little frown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she straightened, startled, as the door burst open." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 13 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tam stared down at her, taut, glistening with sweat, his pale hair sticking in points to his flushed face.\n\n\"Sybel—The Dragon—he hurt a man—Come quickly—\" He flashed away like a hare. Sybel followed him out. She stood motionless as a tree in front of the house and caught the current of the Dragon's thoughts with one swift blaze of his name.\n\nGyld.\n\nShe felt him curled in the darkness of his wet cave, thoughts tumbling in his mind of flight, of gold, of a man's pale face staring up at him, openmouthed, then hidden suddenly behind his upflung arms. She gave a tiny murmur of surprise.\n\n\"What is it?\" Maelga said, her hands clasped anxiously. Sybel's thoughts came back to her.\n\n\"Gyld went to get his gold, and a man saw him flying with it, so Gyld attacked him.\"\n\n\"Oh, no. Oh, dear.\" Then her gray eyes pinpointed Sybel's face. \"You know him.\"\n\n\"I know him,\" she said slowly, and the frown deepened in her eyes. \"Coren of Sirle.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's work on this story segment. I'll provide a part, and you'll continue with two sentences in the style of Patricia A. McKillip. This is Fantasy genre and characters might appear without introduction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the snow had melted from the warming earth, Rok spoke of building a garden at Sirle for Sybel's animals. She drew plans for him one morning, pictures of Gyld's cave, of the Black Swan's lake, of the white marble hall itself with its great dome, and Ceneth's son, Rok's daughters crowded around her, listening to the tales of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gyld requires darkness and silence; the Swan of course must have water. Gules Lyon and Moriah must have a walled place, warm in winter, where they will not frighten people and animals. I do not know how they will like being around people—they have all been hunted by men, especially Cyrin. In the Mountain they were secluded. But I cannot leave them alone there, prey to men and to their own impulses. You know how Coren was hurt by Gyld. That may happen easily again to someone less forgiving, and that would be dangerous, both for men and animals. Men may try to trap them, or kill them. I do not want them troubled.\"\n\n\"You care much for them,\" Rok murmured and she nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So you would, if you could speak with them. They are all powerful, lordly, experienced. I am very grateful for your help, Rok, and for letting them come here. I hoped for it, but I did not expect it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is a collection worthy of a king's dream,\" he said, his gold-brown eyes regarding her equivocally. \"I am not so loath to make Drede a little afraid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes dropped. \"I did not think so,\" she said softly, and he shifted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But we will not speak of such matters. There is a large, walled garden between the inner and outer walls that has run wild since the death of our mother. It was built as a place of quiet for her, away from her noisy sons. It has an inner gate, and an outer one beside the keep, opening to the fields. The children rarely play there; our wives have smaller private gardens. It will hold a small lake, many trees, a cave, and a fountain for the dragon, but I do not know how to build a crystal dome for you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She laughed. \"If you can do all that for me, I will not ask for a crystal dome. I only need a place for my books, and those I can store in a room. They are very valuable. I should go back to Eld Mountain soon to get them, but I am so comfortable here it is hard to think of a journey.\"\n\n\"I am glad you are happy here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was silent a moment, while Lara climbed on the back of his chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Truthfully, I never expected to see you here. I knew how you felt about Tamlorn, and how Coren felt about Drede; I did not think you could reconcile your loves and hates.\"\n\nShe glanced at him, sketching idly in the margin of her paper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have no great love for Drede. Only he is more use to Tam alive than dead. And Coren—I know he has reconciled himself to Norrel's death. But I know, too, he is a man of Sirle, and if you began another war he would fight, not against Drede, but for his brothers, as he fought for Norrel.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But though we plot and scheme, I see no prospect of war. No doubt you and Coren will lead peaceful lives in Sirle, at least while Drede is alive.\"\n\nHer pen stilled. \"And then what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rok rose, moving to the fire, with Lara clinging to one powerful leg." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If he dies while Tam is young there will be enough scavengers lying in wait for that young boy's kingdom,\" he said bluntly. \"This is not a quiet world you came down to; Tam must be learning that now, too. If he is shrewd, he may be able to learn to juggle power, giving and taking it. Drede will teach him, so he will not be helpless when Sirle begins to nibble at his kingdom one day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her black eyes were lowered, hidden from him. \"You are indeed a house of restless lions...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, but we cannot spring; we have no support, we exhausted arms and men at Terbrec, and we are crippled by the memory.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled, disengaging Lara and lifting her to his shoulder, where she sat clinging to his hair. \"But this is not something I should be talking about with you. I am sorry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is no need to be sorry. I am interested.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door to Rok's chamber opened, and Coren looked in. His eyes flicked between their faces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you doing with my brother?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked Sybel wistfully. \"You are tired of me. You hate my red hair. You want someone old, gnarled, lined—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Coren, Rok is going to build me a garden. Look, we have been drawing plans. This is Gyld's cave, this is the swan lake—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this is the Liralen,\" he said, touching the graceful lines of her sketch. \"Where will you keep that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is a Liralen?\" Rok asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A beautiful white bird, whose wings trail behind it like a wake in the sky. Very few people have ever caught it. Prince Neth did, just before he died. What is it?\" he said to Sybel, whose brows had drawn in a vague frown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something Mithran said about the Liralen. He said—he said once he had wept, like I wept that day, because he knew that he could never have power over it, even though he might have power over anything else... I wonder how he knew; I wonder why he could not take it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps the Liralen was more powerful than he was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But how? It is an animal, like Gules, like Cyrin—\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is more like Rommalb.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even Rommalb can be called.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coren shook his head, running his fingers down her long hair. \"I think Rommalb goes where it wills, when it wills. It chose to come to you, to be bound to you, because it looked into the bottom of the black wells of your eyes and saw nothing there of fear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is Rommalb?\" Rok asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have made no plans for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coren smiled. He sat down on the table, pulled the plans toward him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rommalb is a Thing I met on Sybel's hearth one day. I do not think you would care for it at Sirle. It goes its own way, mostly at night.\"\n\nRok's brows lifted. \"I am beginning to think some of the tales you have been telling us for nearly thirty years may be true.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have always told you the truth,\" Coren said simply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He laughed at Rok's expression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There are more dangerous things in Eldwold than troublesome kings.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are there? I am too old to meet anything more troublesome than Drede.\"\n\n\"Coren,\" Sybel said, \"I should go to Eld Mountain for my books.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know. I have been thinking about that, too. We can leave tomorrow if you want, make a slow journey in this beautiful season.\"\n\nRok's voice rumbled in his throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It may be dangerous. If Drede does not trust Sybel, he may be lying in wait for her at Eld, expecting her to return for her animals.\"\n\n\"I do not have to go for them,\" Sybel said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They can come themselves, when there is a place for them here. But I must have the books.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I could send Eorth and Herne for them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head, smiling. \"No, Rok, I want to see my house again, my animals. I will call Ter, and he can spy for us. If there is any danger, he will warn us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They left for Eld Mountain at midmorning the next day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The winds came cold from the icy peak of Eld, raced across the unbroken plain of the bright sky. The trees in the inner yard were beaded with the hard, dark buds of new leaves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rok and Eorth went out to watch them leave, their great cloaks billowing like sails in the wind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eorth said in his slow, deep voice, holding Sybel's stirrup as she mounted, \"Ceneth and I could go with you, Coren. It may be wise.\"\n\n\"I,\" Coren said, \"would like a few days of peace and privacy with a white-haired wizard woman. Do not worry about us. Sybel will transfix with one eye anyone who dares accost us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned his horse, one hand raised in farewell, and like a bolt out of the blue sky Ter landed on his arm. Rok laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is your guard.\"\n\nCoren grimaced at the taut, heavy grip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go sit on Sybel; I will guard myself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced at Sybel and fell still, seeing the look pass from woman to bird like a bond. Sybel gave a murmur of surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tam. He left Mondor this morning for Eld Mountain. I wonder that Drede let him go. Unless—\"\n\n\"Unless,\" Rok said, \"Drede knows nothing of his leaving. Extend an invitation of our hospitality to Tam, if you see him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We had him once,\" Coren said briefly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And we lost him. Let it be.\"\n\nRok smiled. \"I am sure Drede has trained him well. Besides, when you reach the Mountain, he will no doubt be on his way home again. Go. Enjoy your journey. Send Ter to us if you need help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They rode slowly across Sirle, through the forest land, spending the night in a tiny farmhouse on the very edge of the Plain of Terbrec." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'mountain' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They reached Eld Mountain in the early afternoon of the next day. The winding road was damp with melted snow; the Mountain blazed against the blue sky; winds, tangy with the scents of snow and pine, tasted like some rare wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sybel drew back her hood, let her hair stream like white fire in the wind; the brush of its chill drew blood beneath her clear skin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coren caught her hair, wound it through his fingers, drew her head back, and kissed her, and sunlight splashed hot on her closed eyes. They rode to the white hall and found the gate unlocked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tam came out to meet them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked slowly, Gules Lyon at his side, his eyes wide, uncertain on Sybel's face. She slipped from her horse with a startled exclamation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tam!\" She went to him, took his face between her hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My Tam, you are troubled. What is it? Has Drede—has he done something?\"\n\nHe shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hands dropped tight to his shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then what?\" His face was winter-pale, smudged; his eyes rimmed with sleeplessness. He put his hands on her arms, then looked past her to Coren, who had dismounted to take Sybel's horse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is he angry with Drede?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her fingers tightened. She said quickly, startled, \"He knows nothing. But you, Tam, what have you learned? How?\"\n\nHe shook his pale head wearily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not understand anything. Drede said you were going to marry him, and I was happy, and then he—suddenly something frightened him, and he would not speak of you; and when I told him you had married Coren, his face went so white I thought he would faint. But I touched him, and he spoke, and—he is so frightened it hurts me to see him. So I came to you to see if—what he was frightened of. I knew you would come, if Ter told you I was here.\"\n\n\"Tam, does he know you are here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. No one does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked over her shoulder as Coren came to them and said stiffly, \"I see one of the seven of Sirle. I am taught to fear you.\" Coren said gently, \"Ter sits on my shoulder and takes meat from my fingers, leaving the fingers behind. To him I am only Coren who loves Sybel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tam's hands dropped from Sybel's arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sighed, his face loosening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hoped she would marry Drede,\" he murmured. \"Are you alone?\"\n\n\"Ter is with us,\" Sybel said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is fortunate for you Coren's brothers did not come. Tam, half of Eldwold must be looking for you for one purpose or another. You should not run around Eldwold as freely as though you were still herding sheep barefoot with Nyl.\"\n\n\"I know. But Drede would not have let me come, and I wanted to see you, to know—to know that you—that you still—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smiled. \"That I still love you, my Tam?\" she whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded, his mouth crooking a little ruefully.\n\n\"I still have to know, Sybel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rubbed his face wearily." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'horses' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sometimes I am still a child. Shall I take your horses?\" He took the reins, murmured soothingly to the horses as he led them to the shed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sybel dropped her face into her hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am sorry I ever brought him and Drede face-to-face,\" she said tautly.\n\nCoren drew her hair back from her bowed face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You could not have kept him safe forever,\" he said soothingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was not destined by birth or the circumstances we created at Terbrec, for a quiet life.\"\n\n\"I would bring him back with me to Sirle except he would not want to come. He needs Drede. And I will not use Tam to punish Drede.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She checked suddenly, hearing her words, and lifted her head to see the bewilderment in Coren's eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Punish Drede for what?\"\n\nShe drew a breath and smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I am beginning to sound like Rok or Eorth, talking about Terbrec.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have they been troubling you?\"\n\n\"No. They have been very kind. But I do have ears, and I have heard the language of their hate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She bent to Gules Lyon, standing patiently before her, and looked deep into his golden eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Is it well with you?\n\nWell, White One, but I have heard a disturbing tale about that King." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tell me what must be done and I will do it.\n\nNothing. Yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am taking all of you to Sirle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We expected it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She rose, a little taut smile on her lips. Coren said softly, \"You seem so far from me sometimes. Your face changes—it is like a clear, still flame, powerful, untouchable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am no farther than the sound of my name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took his hand and they walked to the house. \"Gules said they expected to be moved. I am glad Rok wants them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rok, my sweet one, is shrewd.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyrin Boar greeted the open ing door and he stopped, a smile tugging at his mouth. \"Cyrin. You see how I have overcome a mountain of—glass.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The silver-bristled Boar said in his sweet voice, \"Have you? Or did the witch remove it herself for her own purposes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No doubt I did,\" Sybel said quietly. \"For a purpose I could not resist any longer. Cyrin, we are going to Sirle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Boar said privately, Does he know to ask why?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No. I will not have him troubled. Put a guard on your wise tongue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who will guard the tongue of the Wise One of Sirle when his blind eyes open?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was silent a moment, her fingers tight on Coren's hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I ask only for your silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you cannot give it, and you wish to be free, I will free you.\n\nCaught between the riddle and its answer there is no freedom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sybel,\" said Coren, and she came back to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Lord of Wisdom is at times disturbing,\" she said softly. \"But you know that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I know. But not to the undisturbed mind.\"\n\nShe looked at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am not always honest, Coren.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: myself, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I love you precisely because you are. Tell me what he said that troubled you.\"\n\n\"It is myself troubling myself over events that have passed. Nothing more. Like Tam, sometimes I am still a child.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tam came in then with Ter on his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He bent to stroke Moriah at Sybel's feet. \"Have you come back here to live?\" he asked hopefully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, Tam. I am moving my books and animals to Sirle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hand checked, hovering between Moriah's ears." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'perhaps' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said softly, not looking up, \"Sybel, it will be hard for me to come and see you there. But perhaps you could come sometimes to Mondor.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" she said gently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Also—\" He looked up, shaking his pale hair back from his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May I please talk to you awhile?\"\n\nShe glanced at Coren who said courteously, \"I will sit here by the fire and talk to Cyrin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you,\" Tam said and followed Sybel, his shoulders bowed, into the domed room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gules Lyon padded behind them. Sybel sat down on the thick fur and drew Tam down beside her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are growing. You are nearly as tall as I am.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded, twisting the soft fur around his fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His pale brows drew together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sybel, I miss you very much, and it hurts me that—that you chose to marry Coren, not because of him, but because to other people now we are not Sybel and Tam but Sirle and Drede, who have always been enemies. Things used to be very simple, and now they are so complicated I do not know how they will end.\"\n\n\"I do not know either, my Tam. I only know that I will never do anything to hurt you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes rose, troubled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sybel, what is my father afraid of? Is it you? He will not even let me say your name.\"\n\n\"Tam, I have done nothing to hurt him. I have done nothing to make him afraid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I have never seen him like this, and I do not know what to do to help him. I have not known him very long, and I am afraid—afraid of losing him, like I lost you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her brows twisted. \"You have not lost me—I will love you always, no matter where you live, where I live.\"\n\nHe nodded a little jerkily, his mouth twitching downward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know. But it is different, so different now, when the people we love hate each other. I thought as long as you were here on Eld, I could come here any time, away from the noise and people in Mondor and—just lie here by your fire with Gules, or run on the Mountain with Ter and Nyl—just for a while, and then go back home to Drede. I thought you would always be here with the animals. But now, you are going, taking them to a place where I know I cannot come. I never thought that would happen. I never thought you would marry Coren. You did not seem to like him.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'would' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I never thought I would, either. But then I found I loved him.\"\n\n\"Well, I can understand that. But I do not know why Drede does not. You would never use your powers to start a war; you said so. Drede must know that, but he is so afraid of something, and sometimes I think—I think he may be lost somewhere inside himself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She drew a breath and loosed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wish you were small again, so I could hold you in my arms and comfort you. But you are grown, and you know that for some things there is no comfort.\"\n\n\"Oh, I know. But Sybel—sometimes I am not that grown.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled and drew him against her. \"Neither am I.\" He rested his head on her shoulder, twisted a tendril of her long hair in his fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you happy at Mondor? Have you made friends?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I have cousins my age. I never knew before what cousins are. It surprised me that I have so many relatives, when here I had only you. We go hunting together—they like Ter, but they are afraid of him, and he will not let anyone hold him but me. At first they laughed at me, because I was so ignorant of many things. Maelga and you taught me to read and write but you never taught me to use a sword, or hunt with hounds, or even who was king before Drede. I have learned a great deal about Eldwold you never knew to tell me. But I learned such things on this mountain that they will never know. Are you—are you happy at Sirle?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. I am learning things, too, about living with people that Ogam never knew to tell me.\"\n\nHe shifted, stirred by a restless thought, and groped for words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sybel. Why—why did my father say you were going to marry him? He told me one night not long ago—he said he did not mean to tell me then, because it was still a little uncertain, but he wanted to watch my face. I hugged him, I was so glad, and he laughed and then—the next evening I spoke to him about it and he—just looked at me, saying nothing. He looked ill, and—old.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tam—\" Her voice shook slightly and she stopped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He had no right to tell you that because I had never consented to it. Perhaps he—\"\n\n\"Yes, but when did he ask you? Did he write to you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"I do not understand. He seemed so certain... Perhaps I made the mistake—I mistook something he said. I do not know. But what is he afraid of? He never laughs. He hardly talks to anyone. I thought, coming here I could find out what was troubling him, but I was wrong.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am sorry you are troubled about Drede, but I cannot—I cannot help you. Drede's fears are of his own making. Ask him.\"\n\n\"I have. He will not tell me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached out, put one arm around Gules, his brows knit worriedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think I had better go home carefully, more carefully than I came. Drede will be angry with me, but I am glad I came. I am glad I could talk to you. I miss you, and Gules. Someday, though, I will come to Sirle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled. \"I will come so quietly no one but you, Gules, and Cyrin will know I am there. I will come.\"\n\n\"Tam, no,\" she said helplessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You do not realize—\" She checked suddenly, her head turned quickly toward a drawling, bubbling wail that ascended, faded, and ascended again beyond the closed door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What—\" Gules rumbled beside Tam, rose suddenly, and gave a sharp, full-throated growl. Sybel rose. There was a crash beyond the door, and the murmur of men's voices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Coren—\" she breathed. She turned, flung open the door. Gules Lyon bounded past her, came to a crouch at the fireplace, his gold tail twitching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coren looked at Sybel over the blades of three swords held at his throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was unarmed, backed against the hearthstones. Moriah paced at his feet, wailing at three men who wore the black tunics with the single blood-red star of Drede's service on their breasts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tam, beside Sybel, said quickly, \"Do not hurt him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guards' faces turned slowly to him, their eyes flicking between him and Moriah. One of them said between his teeth, \"Prince Tamlorn, this one is of Sirle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you know them, Tamlorn?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coren asked. A blade point bit the hollow of his throat, and he closed his mouth.\n\n\"Yes. They are my father's guards.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes moved back to their tense faces. \"I came here to see Sybel. She did not know I was coming. I have talked to her, and I am ready to come home. Let him go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Coren of Sirle, Norrel's brother—he was at Terbrec—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know, but if you hurt him I do not think you will leave this place alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man glanced at Moriah, then at Gules, his golden eyes full on their faces, rumbling deep in his throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The King is half-mad with worry. If we let Coren loose, we will be killed by these beasts. And if Drede knows we let one of Sirle slip through our hands, we might as well be killed by them.\"\n\n\"Are you alone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. The others are beyond the gate. They will come if we call.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then no one but you will need to know that Coren and Sybel were here. I will not tell Drede.\"\n\n\"Prince Tamlorn, he is the King's enemy—your enemy!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He is Sybel's husband! And if you want to risk killing him in front of Sybel, Gules, and Moriah, go ahead. I can go home by myself like I came.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moriah screamed again, flat-eared, crouched at Coren's feet, and the blades jumped, winking. One of the guards drew his sword back suddenly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sybel's flat voice froze the drive of it toward Moriah." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you do that, I will kill you.\"\n\nThe guard stared at her still, black eyes, sweat breaking out on his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lady, we will take the Prince and go. I swear it. But how—what guarantee do we have that we will walk alive out of your house, if we let Coren go? What is the surety for our lives?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tam's eyes rested a moment speculatively on Coren's face. He came forward and knelt at Coren's feet beneath the swords, and put his arms around Moriah." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am. Now let him go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The swords wavered, winking in the firelight, fell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coren's breath rose soundlessly and fell.\n\n\"Thank you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tam looked up at him, stroking Moriah's head. \"Think of it as a gift from Drede to Sirle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rose and said to the guards, \"I will come home now. But no one of you is to stay here after me, or follow Sybel and Coren when they leave. No one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Prince Tamlorn—we saw nothing of Sybel or Coren.\"\n\nTam sighed. \"My horse is in the shed—the gray. Get him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They left quickly, followed by the soft whisperings of Lyon, Boar, and Cat. Tam went to Sybel, and she held him a moment, his face hidden in her hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My Tam, you are growing as fearless and wise as Ter.\"\n\nHe drew away from her a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I am shaking.\" He smiled at her, and she kissed him quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned and hugged Gules Lyon tightly, then rose to the sound of hoofbeats at the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Prince Tamlorn,\" Coren said soberly, \"I am very grateful. And I think this gift will be a great embarrassment to the Lord of Sirle.\"\n\n\"I hope he is pleased,\" Tam said softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good-bye, Sybel. I do not know when I will see you again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good-bye, my Tam.\"\n\nFrom a window, she watched him mount, Ter circling above his head, watched his straight figure swallowed by a crowd of dark-cloaked men with their fiery stars, until they had disappeared through the trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she turned and went to Coren, put her arms around him, her face against his breast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They might have killed you before I even knew they were in my house, in spite of all my powers. Then what would Rok have said?\"\n\nHe lifted her face with his hands, a smile creasing his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That I should not have to depend on my wife to save my skin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She touched his throat. \"You are bleeding.\"\n\n\"I know. You are shaking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sybel. Could you have killed that guard? He believed you could, and I was not sure, then, myself.\"\n\n\"I do not know. But if he had killed Moriah, I would have found out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sighed. \"I am glad he did not, for his sake and mine. Coren, I do not think we should stay here long. I do not trust those guards. Let us pack the books and leave.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coren nodded. He picked up a chair that had overturned, found his sword in a corner, and sheathed it. Gules Lyon lay muttering softly by the fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moriah prowled back and forth in front of the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sybel dropped a soothing hand on the flat, black head. She looked around vaguely at the house and found a strange emptiness that seemed to lie beneath the cool white stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She said slowly, \"It seems no longer my house... It seems to be waiting for another wizard, like Myk or Ogam, to begin his work here in this white silence...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps someone will come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He unfolded the big, tough grain sacks they had brought to pack the books in, and added wryly, \"I hope he will have gentler memories of it than I ever will.\"\n\n\"I hope so, too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gave him a tight parting hug, then went out to speak with Gyld and the Black Swan while he packed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The late afternoon turned from gold to silver, and then to ash gray. Coren finished before she returned; he went into the yard, calling her name in the wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She came to him finally from the trees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was with Gyld. I told him there would be a place for him at Sirle, and he told me he would bring his gold.\"\n\n\"Oh, no. I can see a glittering trail of ancient coin from here to Rok's doorstep.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Coren, I told him we would see to it somehow... he will have to fly by night, when we are ready for him. I hope he does not frighten all of Rok's livestock.\" She glanced up at the night-scented, ashen sky and the green-black shapes of trees." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'should' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is getting late. What should we do? I do not think we should even stay at Maelga's house.\"\n\n\"No. Drede would not mind risking a war by killing me if he could trap you, take you to Mondor. If he wants that, they will return tonight to look for us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then what should we do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have been thinking about that.\"\n\n\"The horses are tired. We cannot go far on them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, what have you been thinking about that has put the smile in your voice?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gyld.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stared at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gyld? Do you mean—ride him?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Why not? You could pretend he is the Liralen. Surely he is strong enough.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But—what would Rok say?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What would any man say if a dragon landed in his courtyard? Sybel, we cannot ride the horses far, and this mountain is no safe place for us tonight, wherever we are on it. You can loose the horses, call them back to Sirle when they are rested.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But there is no place to put Gyld in Sirle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will think of a place. And if I cannot, you can send him back here. Would he be willing?\"\n\nShe nodded dazedly. \"Oh, yes; he loves to fly. But Coren, Rok—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rok would rather see us alive on Gyld than dead on Eld Mountain. If we make a slow journey back with these books, we may be followed. So let us sail home through the sky on Gyld. Sybel, there must be a silence deeper than the silence of Eld between those stars; shall we go listen to it? Come. We will throw all the stars into Sirle, then go and dance on the moon.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A smile, faint and faraway, crept onto her face. \"I always wanted to fly...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So. If you cannot fly the Liralen, then make a fiery night flight on Gyld.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She called Gyld from his winter cave, and he came to her, soaring slowly above the trees, a great, dark shape against the stars. She looked deep into his green eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Can you carry a man, a woman, and two sacks of books on your back?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt a tremor of joy in his mind like a flame springing alive.\n\nForever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He waited patiently while Coren secured the books on his back, wound with lengths of rope around the base of his thick neck and wings." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'coren' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heaved himself up, so Coren could pass and repass the rope beneath him, and his eyes glowed like jewels in the night, and his scales winked, gold-rimmed. Coren placed Sybel between the two bags of books and sat in front of her, holding onto the rope at Gyld's neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned to look at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you comfortable?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded and caught Gyld's mind. Do the ropes bind you anywhere?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The great wings unfurled, black against the stars. The huge bulk lifted slowly, incredibly, away from the cold earth, through the wind-torn, whispering trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Above, the winds struck full force, billowing their cloaks, pushing against them, and they felt the immense play of muscle beneath them and the strain of wing against wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then came the full, smooth, joyous soar, a drowning in wind and space, a spiraling descent into darkness that flung them both beyond fear, beyond hope, beyond anything but the sudden surge of laughter that the wind tore from Coren's mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then they rose again, level with the stars, the great wings pulsing, beating a path through the darkness. The full moon, ice-white, soared with them, round and wondering as the single waking eye of a starry beast of darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ghost of Eld Mountain dwindled behind them; the great peak huddled, asleep and dreaming, behind its mists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The land was black beneath them, but for faint specks of light that here and there flamed in a second plane of stars. The winds dropped past Mondor, quieted, until they melted through a silence, a cool, blue-black night that was the motionless night of dreams, dimensionless, star-touched, eternal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And at last they saw in the heart of darkness beneath them the glittering torch-lit rooms of the house of the Lord of Sirle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They came to a gentle rest in his courtyard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A horse, waiting in the yard, screamed in terror. Dogs in the hall howled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coren dismounted stiffly, his breath catching in a laughter beyond words, and swung Sybel to the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She clung to him a moment, stiff with cold, and felt Gyld's mind searching for hers.\n\nGyld. Be still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There are men with torches. Shall I—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No. They are friends. They just did not expect us tonight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one will try to harm us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gyld, that was a flight beyond hope.\n\nIt pleased you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am well pleased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rok!\" Coren called to his brother's torch-lit figure moving toward them down the steps. The dogs swarmed growling between his legs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The children jammed the doors behind him, then scattered in a wave before Ceneth and Eorth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have a guest!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Coren,\" Rok said, transfixed by the lucent, inscrutable eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What in the name of the Above and the Below are we going to do with it?\"\n\nCoren caught one of the dogs before it nipped at Gyld's wing." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce four sentences as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wizard Gyre was sitting in a tavern in the back streets of the ancient city Thuse beside the Yellow Sea negotiating a price for his services when he received the summons from Unciel. The tavern was noisy, flea-bitten, not a suitable place in which to meet a messenger from Prince Frewan. But the messenger was in disguise. They always were, Gyre knew, and they chose such places in order to disguise the message." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Which was always the same, Gyre knew, in those lands along that part of the sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A loose scattering of constantly bickering princedoms lined the coast; the princes were always in need of this or that, something made or done in secret, about which Gyre must pledge not to breathe a word.\n\nPatiently, he ran through the list of things he would not do for anyone, for any amount of gold, as much as he could have used it. He was a dark-haired, sinewy young man, with calm eyes that hid an edge of restlessness as he spoke. Invisible weapons, this prince would want, or the walls around his palace made impregnable before he goaded a neighbor into attack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A secret tunnel built before dawn; a spy in the shape of a falcon to listen to conspiracies plotted on horseback in the middle of a meadow where no one could possibly hear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wizard was more than familiar with such requests.\n\nGyre was simply dressed; nothing about him proclaimed any particular powers. He had been born in those noisome streets to an itinerant tinker from across the sea, who performed magic tricks for his children when he was drunk. The child Gyre, trying to imitate the tricks, realized quickly that they were not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sodden tinker had a genuine spark of power within him, and Gyre found himself wanting it, with passion and beyond reason." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When his father ran out of things to teach him, he looked elsewhere. He nosed magic like a dog in those poor, crowded, colorful streets, where strangers constantly wandered in from the sea. One day he followed a stranger out of the city, beyond the sea, to a place where others like him gathered to be taught the astonishing magic in the color orange, in the shape of an orange, who peeled away the rind to discover the mysteries hidden within the wonder of the visible.\n\nLeaving that place a penniless wizard, he had wandered hither and yon, finding work where he could, until his path led him back to Thuse, perhaps to wait for another stranger to give him direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was still hungry; he woke at nights, wanting and not knowing what he wanted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He only had to wait and recognize it when it came. He thought he had found it once before, when he had first met Unciel, in a distant land full of the memory of dragons. He had found, he thought, the dragon's heart: the power, the fierce strength, the indomitable beauty of it. But it had disappeared, melted away in Thuse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had been mistaken; it had been nothing alive.\n\nSo here he sat, preparing to perform a series of tricks for as little as the prince who hired him could get away with offering him. Still, this prince might lead him to others, wealthier and more powerful, who could challenge his skills, use him for something other than those interminable petty feuds. He was listening with his usual imperturbable expression, treating the request with all the gravity with which it was made, when the image of a folded sheet of parchment slipped among his thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It unfolded, revealing a handful of brightly burning words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I need you in Dacia. Unciel.\n\nHe was on his feet without thinking; so Unciel had helped him once, when he was in dire need.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he told the surprised and aggrieved messenger. \"I must go.\" The man made an inarticulate protest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I promise,\" Gyre assured him, \"that your secret will be safe with me.\"\n\nFlying north from the sea in hawk-shape, he had only a map in his head to remind him where Dacia was. He had never been there. Rulers of Dacia were their own sorcerers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rumors of their power kept the land untroubled; conquering armies tended to veer away from it. The rocky, wrinkled land beneath him flattened, after several days, into broad river valleys, placid and richly green. On a hunch, the hawk dropped straight as a plumb line to a valley floor, where a farmer guided a donkey dragging a harrow across dark, crumbling soil.\n\nThe farmer stopped to stare as the hawk landed on a furrow and the young man emerged from its shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where am I?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In my beet field,\" the farmer ventured, still amazed.\n\n\"I mean what country?\"\n\n\"Oh. You're in Dacia. East of Serre, north of Fyriol, west of—\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Gyre said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He glanced around vaguely, as though the groves of trees and peaceful fields might conceal a city." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He guessed at several things in that moment: that Unciel had sent as much as he could, that he was still weak from his strange ordeal, of which Gyre had heard even as far as Thuse, and that exactly where he was would be so obvious that he would not need to waste effort to send yet another word. Gyre waved a gad-fly away from his face and addressed the farmer again.\n\n\"Which way is the king's city?\"\n\nThe farmer loosed a rein and pointed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That would be that way. Saillesgate, it's called, after the first king. The one who brought magic into Dacia.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gyre nodded, remembering the name from his studies. The uneducated warrior Sailles had conquered the land, and then, curious and fiercely determined, had hired a wizard to teach him to read and write. Words sparked magic within the king as they had within the tinker in Thuse. The king's children inherited his formidable gifts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beyond that scrap, Gyre knew little of Dacia." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'shape'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was small, wealthy, and rarely threatened. A good place for a drained, exhausted wizard to rest.\n\nHe reached Saillesgate one of several twilights later, in the shape of a ubiquitous pigeon. He changed shape somewhat wearily in a convenient shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rather than send his name silently through the city and force Unciel to use his depleted powers to answer, Gyre questioned a few shopkeepers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wizard was easily found, the third told him. He had not kept his presence hidden. But there was no use asking him for anything. Something terrible had befallen him; he had barely the strength to move his bones and breathe; he had nothing left to give..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gyre found Unciel waiting for him beyond a door that said COME IN.\n\nThe wizard might have just opened his eyes after a nap, or he might have been awake and waiting for days. His eyes startled Gyre, who remembered them as the light, burning blue of a high mountain stream. A bleak, impenetrable mist had settled over the blue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His voice was a tendril of itself, frail and slow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no visible wounds, nothing unhealed, that Gyre could see. But the wizard who had once helped him so effortlessly seemed barely to exist; there was only this husk closed protectively around the embers of his powers, which he stubbornly refused to let die.\n\nGyre asked the obvious, suddenly aware in that quiet cottage of what might lie beyond the known. \"What happened to you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's dead,\" Unciel answered, simply and implacably. \"I don't want to talk about it.\"\n\nThey were alone, Gyre sensed, but for a startlingly observant raven and a cat dreaming somewhere within the cottage.\n\n\"So are you,\" he breathed. \"Nearly dead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel did not answer, only gestured at a chair, and Gyre sat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was silent, waiting for Unciel to speak, keeping his own thoughts as tranquil as the twilight garden, with its stakes and lattices rising like peculiar growths among the patches of seedlings. At least he tried for tranquility. Horror and curiosity bubbled beneath it, throwing up shapes, intimations of power that he could only guess at. Again and again, questions tried to form; against Unciel's stubborn silence, they scattered into unfinished words, left question marks hanging in the air between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel said slowly, forming each word as painstakingly as a spell, \"I will tell you what I need. And then I will make supper.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'daughter' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't—\" Gyre began, but Unciel raised a palm.\n\n\"I like to cook. It is like making magic, and far easier for me these days.\" He paused as though hearing another unspoken question; they both let it die unremarked. \"The King of Dacia has pledged his youngest daughter, Sidonie, to the son of King Ferus of Serre. Serre being what it is, and as immense as it is, she will need a guardian and a guide. She must leave as soon as possible. It will take a few weeks of human travelling, perhaps most of the summer. The king will pay you well for guarding his daughter. Have you been to Serre?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gyre shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have heard that its magic is primitive and it is full of trees.\"\n\nLines deepened along the sides of Unciel's mouth; it was, Gyre realized after a moment, the haunting memory of a smile. \"All magic is primitive. It is the oldest language of the heart. Serre's heart is ancient, wild, and very lively. I would go myself if I could. I cannot, so I thought of you. I think that such a journey will test and broaden your abilities, and add a dimension to your understanding of what it is you want most.\" This time he took note of Gyre's silent response; the seared, veiled eyes meeting Gyre's seemed to look at him from very far away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which is what we all want, of course, for it is the nature of a wizard to want power.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gyre felt his answer before it became the word. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"The scribe I borrowed from the king's scriptorium has gathered together my writings about Serre. Some, which are toothless, we will send to the king, to reassure him. The rest you should read. If you can get through my handwriting.\" He separated himself from the chair slowly, bone by bone. \"The cat is sleeping on them. Read a little before you decide.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gyre followed the flickering thread of cat-dreams, and found the scribe's desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He read for a long time, incredulous but intrigued, while in the kitchen knife debated with chopping block, and pot-lids commented." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The magic of Serre seemed patched together out of children's tales, Gyre decided. Its king was by all accounts a force greater than all its magic. He had forged an immense, formidable kingdom, and the princess Sidonie would one day become its queen. A young woman useful to know, and certainly in need of a wizard, to whom she might have cause, if Gyre kept her safe, to be grateful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rest—witches, ogres, trolls—he consigned to a streak of eccentricity in Unciel, who seemed interested in anything, even cooking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gyre had dealt with such small magics before, mostly witches' spells, which frayed like spiderweb under a word of wizardry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed a simple matter, this journey across Serre with the princess. He owed Unciel far more than that. So he said, when the smells of hot bread and lamb stew drew him into the kitchen, \"Of course I will go.\"\n\n\"Good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unciel ladled stew into bowls with mesmerizing slowness, the ladle shaking constantly. Gyre watched him, guessing that he would refuse help. Little enough he could do, now... Again the intimations of something powerful and terrible, beyond all Gyre's imagination, swept through him. If he could have envisioned it, it might have forced itself into shape then and there between them in the wizard's tidy kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel let drop a final mushroom from the lip of the ladle, and put it back into the pot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tomorrow,\" he said, trying to pick up both bowls at once, \"I will take you to meet the king and Sidonie.\"\n\n\"Let me—\" Gyre murmured hastily, taking the bowls from him. \"I prefer not to eat off the floor.\"\n\nAgain he glimpsed the forgotten ghost of a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel found a couple of goblets in a cupboard, and a dusty crock of wine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He blew at the cobwebs on the label. \"Pear? Or could it be pea?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then it must be pear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He left it for Gyre to uncork, and carried a couple of spoons to the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I haven't been here long; this place still has surprises for me. The widow who owns it told me that her son liked to experiment with different—\"\n\n\"What happened to you?\" Gyre demanded, standing with the wine in one hand, gazing at Unciel, while the dark pushed against the window behind him and tapped at it with urgent, invisible wings. Gyre felt his own bones willing to shape themselves into an answer, to reveal the deadly, perilous face of what must have been the opposite of Unciel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did this to you? And why did you fight it alone?\"\n\nFor a moment, he saw Unciel's face shift, its stark, rigid lines flow into the reflection of what he had fought. The vision was gone in an instant, but it took Gyre's breath with it; he felt the hoarfrost form, cold and heavy, on his bones. Unciel took the crock as it began to slide, and set it with some effort on the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said gently to Gyre, \"It seemed a simple matter at first. I was mistaken.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He touched the young wizard's shoulder, and Gyre could move again. He drew his hands over his face, caught a shuddering breath, feeling the ice still in his fingers. \"It was very old,\" he heard Unciel say. \"And now it's dead. Some day when I'm stronger, I will be able to speak of it. But not now. Not now. Let it leave us in peace for now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You became what you fought.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a moment before he realized he had spoken aloud. But it didn't matter, he thought dazedly; Unciel would have heard the thought in his heartbeat, in his marrow. Unciel set bread on the table silently, a knife. Then he wandered into the middle of the floor, stood looking vaguely for something, and Gyre saw his eyes, stunned and bright with pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" Gyre whispered, shaken again, and reached out to grasp a trembling hand, guide the wizard out of his memories to the table." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am sorry. I wish I had been there with you.\"\n\n\"You were,\" Unciel said, so quietly that Gyre made nothing of the words themselves, only of their echo, which he heard some hours later when a nightmare without a face loomed across his dreams and spoke his name." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce eight sentences using the user's text as a seed. Follow the established character context if any exists. Stick to the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was after midnight before Ronan remembered the Princess from Dacia. He had followed the firebird to the moon. He had run across luminous, barren plains, over empty crystal mountains, down ancient river beds, dry and white as bone, where the pale stones reflecting passing fire ahead of him flushed the color of garnets. The bird sang as it flew. It patterned the black sky and the moon with a star-burst of sounds, each more brilliant, more haunting than the last. It drew farther and farther from Ronan, finally no bigger than a shining tear across the face of the moon. When it had vanished and he fell, choking on glittering shards of moondust, he heard it sing again with a woman's voice that should have melted mountains, drawn water out of the harsh landscape. She would not show him her face; the bird would not change while he was watching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He crawled to his feet after a while, and followed her singing, trying to come upon her unexpectedly. But he fell to earth before he saw her.\n\nIn the forests of Serre, he leaned against a tree and stared up at the moon, transfixed, waiting for that tear of fire, of blood, to cross its face again. The moon only grew cold, distant, gathering its stars about it, wandering away into some darker realm, leaving the forest black around him. A burning star within the trees brought him to his feet again. But he smelled it before he moved: charred trees bleeding pitch. Human fire, he thought, and remembered the princess.\n\nAt the time, she had seemed little more than a daydream, a bit of story, appearing out of nowhere like a talking bird or a crone, to give him something and then vanish again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, in a lucid moment, he saw her more clearly: a young woman in a strange land who had no idea, when she entered the walls of the summer palace, what morass she would be walking into. His father, faced with the absence of a marriageable son, would be in no mood to return her to Dacia with a polite apology. Ronan couldn't just leave her there to fend for herself against the ogre. Wherever \"there\" was. He couldn't marry her, any more than he could fly or turn himself into a fish. The idea was preposterous. He had died with Maye and their child; his heart had turned to ash; the dead do not marry. He had to free the princess somehow, persuade her to go back home. Surely she would want nothing else, after a few days with his father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Ronan had slipped into a sideways world, where the summer palace did not exist. He could not even see the waterfalls. Nothing—no trail of crumbs, or jewels, or drops of blood—marked his path home. The forest was the world; the firebird held all its truths and secrets. Following such beauty, he left all pain behind. Within the bird lay the greatest mystery of all: the woman who made him forget. He would follow her all his days, all his life. But first he had this one small thing to do: he must find Brume and persuade her to show him his way back into the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then he would help the princess, who seemed innocent and kind, and who certainly did not deserve to be shut up in the bleak walls of the summer palace with his father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he would flee from that barren world, back into the forests of the firebird, follow it until he found her.\n\nA waft of something fallen into a firebed and slowly cooking knotted his belly. He had forgotten about food. He still carried the princess's bow slung over one shoulder; he had forgotten about that, too. The arrow still rode at a slant in his belt, pushing against his ribs. He stood up slowly, clinging to the tree when the world spun. He was dizzy with hunger suddenly, gnawed with it. He couldn't see to hunt in the dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he could see fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would forage for the forgotten morsel searing itself in the coals, if nothing got to it before he did. But the other animals were afraid of fire; he alone was in love with it.\n\nHe steadied himself, walked across the little meadow beyond the trees.\n\nThe forgotten morsel turned out to be an entire hare skinned, spitted, and charring above the embers. He knelt beside the fire, ate the hare with his hands, tearing pieces off the spit, burning his fingers and his mouth; he did not care. He scarcely saw the horses tethered nearby, or the wagons hung with cooking pots, the silent pavilions lining the river. The man beside the fire seemed to shape himself out of the sudden flames leaping up to lick at the fat dripping between Ronan's hands. First an eye was illumined, unblinking and remote as a star." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then a tendril of lank, dark hair. A jawline, lean as a fox's and faintly shadowed. Ronan, putting the pieces together, felt himself go still as a hare under a hawk's stare.\n\nBut the man only said softly, \"Go ahead—eat. I cooked it for you. You looked half-starved.\"\n\nAfter a time, Ronan managed a word. \"When—\"\n\n\"I saw you with the princess. I'm travelling with her. My name is Gyre. I guard the camp at nights; I sensed you out there, awake and hungry. I was curious about you. So I threw a scent in your direction and you followed it.\"\n\nRonan, still scenting it, tore off a few more bites. The man disappeared again, back into the fire, maybe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ronan dropped the bones of the hare into the fire, reached for the cloth left on an old stump." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wiped his hands, looking at the half-loaf of bread and the cup of wine that seemed to have appeared when he wanted them. Like magic, he thought, reaching for them. So the man appeared again, like magic, when Ronan had turned the bread into crumbs, and swallowed the last of the wine.\n\nThen he wanted to do nothing but sleep, which had not occurred to him before, either. Perhaps, in his dreams, he would see the firebird.\n\nBut the man, Gyre, had begun to talk again. \"The princess told you her name, and that she is to be married to Prince Ronan.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said indifferently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were characters in another story, the prince and the princess happily wed, not in the life he led." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you know him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nGyre was silent, his cool eyes remote again, revealing nothing. \"I saw the firebird,\" he said finally. \"It is more beautiful than anything I could imagine.\"\n\nRonan's hands clenched; above him, star fire blurred and spun. \"How could you see her,\" he whispered, \"and not want to follow?\"\n\nThe still eyes spoke finally, of wonder, before the man did. \"Her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is a woman hidden within the bird, even more beautiful than it is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard Gyre's indrawn breath. \"How strange... And the witch? You said that you would return home after you found the witch. Will she help you find the bird?\"\n\n\"She'll help me find my way home.\"\n\n\"Which is where?\"\n\n\"No where. Nowhere in this world.\"\n\n\"And the witch? Where is she?\"\n\n\"In her cottage made of bones.\"\n\nAgain he heard the man's breath, and the name that flowed out of him, almost inaudibly, as though to keep her from hearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where will you find her?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Perhaps in the waste where I first saw her. She warned me then that I would have to find her to return home. But she did not foresee the firebird.\"\n\n\"Aren't you afraid of the witch? She sounds very dangerous.\"\n\nRonan shrugged. \"It doesn't matter. I have been trying to die for some time now.\"\n\nAgain Gyre was silent. He leaned forward abruptly, stirred the fuming cinders with his bare hand, and flames danced between his fingers. Ronan blinked, struggling with the image. Mage? he thought. Magic?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heard a hollow, desperate plea for hope, a night-bird's cry; was it in himself or within the trees?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Gyre was still again, so still he could not have moved; Ronan could not have seen what he saw.\n\nHe had a single, coherent thought before he saw the firebird again. \"You must not let the princess enter my father's house.\"\n\nHe did not hear Gyre's reply. The bird hovering above the meadow, trying to catch stars in its beak, turned its head and looked at him out of one melting, golden eye. It caught his heart in its beak and he followed it thoughtlessly, helplessly, forgetting burned bones and princesses, the mysterious Gyre, the possibility of magic.\n\nDawn stranded him, bone-weary and empty, somewhere within the forest. He slept curled like an animal in the hollow trunk of one of the ancient trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At noon, he stirred, brushed the bracken from his hair, and went in search of the witch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found her a night or three later, under a shrivelled moon, in the barren patch of forest where they had first crossed paths. The bones of her cottage glowed eerily, brighter than the moon. The round green window watched him like an eye. He had no fear left. He walked up to her door, pounded on it with his fist. The cottage seemed to shift, startled out of sleep; what sounded like her entire flock of chickens began to squawk. If she invited him in, he thought, he would go in. If she invited him to drink a broth made of his heart's blood, he would." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anything to end the endless confusion of worlds, of longing and loss, anything to rest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pounded again, heard her voice like wind blowing hollowly through a bone. \"Go away!\"\n\nFist cocked, he stared incredulously at the door. \"You brought me here. Now tell me how to find my way home.\"\n\n\"It's the middle of the night.\"\n\n\"What night?\" he demanded bitterly. \"In what world? And why do you care? You would open your door to anything with a beating heart.\"\n\n\"You're dead,\" she said succinctly. He brought both fists down against the door, and then his face, pushing it against the hard, dry bones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please,\" he whispered, terrified at last." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'against' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't leave me out here. Tell me how to find my way home.\"\n\n\"It's late and you have wakened all my chickens. Come back another day.\"\n\n\"No!\" He pried at the bones of her door with his fingers, then threw himself against them. It was, he thought, like trying to batter at his father's implacable will. He sank down finally, leaned against the door. \"I will sit on your steps outside the door until you open it. I'll ride your house if you run. I'll wake your hens every hour with my shouting. You won't be able to leave your cottage without tripping over me. I will cling to these stinking bones like a carbuncle until you answer me. Tell me how to find my way home.\"\n\nThe third time was the charm. The door opened abruptly; he tumbled backward into a darkness smelling of hens and rotting marrow." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'lenses' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thin, plain, knobby woman with her grey hair in a bun and her sparse brows arching adjusted her lenses and peered down at him.\n\n\"Why,\" she asked distantly, \"are you suddenly so eager to return home? You hate it.\"\n\n\"I don't intend to stay.\" He was reluctant to bring up the matter of the princess. But the witch already knew what questions to ask. He had no idea what else she might know, and he dared not lie to those wide, unblinking eyes behind the fly-green lenses. \"I must go back to help someone.\"\n\n\"Who?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A young—a princess, a stranger. She should never have come to Serre. I fear for her, in my father's house.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The witch sniffed, wiped her long nose on her sleeve. \"A princess.\" Ronan, chilled by a tone in her voice, gazed up at her silently, wondering which of the two Sidonie might find most incomprehensible: the witch or his father. But Brume only commented, \"You can't expect me to bother myself with all this.\"\n\n\"I warned you,\" he answered recklessly, \"what a bother I will be if you don't. You warned me that having left my father's palace, I would not find my way back until I found you. I have found you.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" Her lenses slipped down her nose; she studied him over them, groping with one hand in a pocket for her ox-bone pipe. She lit it with a flick of nail, puffed something that reeked worse than the house. \"You're a clever and troublesome young man. Such a clever man would know to bring me something worth your trouble.\"\n\nHe felt the utter weariness seep through him, as though the barren land around him were leaching him of life." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Such as?\" he asked without hope, knowing that whatever she wanted, it would be innocent and alive.\n\n\"You killed my white hen.\"\n\n\"Yes. You have already punished me for that.\"\n\n\"You refused to pluck it, or to bring even one of your warriors into my house to drink a cup of broth with me.\"\n\n\"Even one was one too many.\"\n\n\"Then bring me this, to replace my white hen. Bring me the firebird in a golden cage, and I will set you free.\"\n\nHe stared at her wordlessly. She puffed a billow of foul smoke, levered him off her threshold with a broad foot under his shoulder, and slammed the door. The cottage, rising under him, shook him off the steps and onto the moon-parched ground before it stalked away to find a quieter corner of night." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n1 sentence sentences\nStyle: Patricia A. McKillip\nGenre: Fantasy\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan Ash's pen encountered Gyre's name for the first time toward the end of an endless summer day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pen stopped on the curve of the first letter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gyre, the scribe thought curiously, and then remembered the name spoken on the day he had seen the princess." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw her again, vividly, as he sat with his pen poised to begin the name: standing in the wizard's garden with her hair like coils of braided gold, and the bees braiding their erratic golden paths through the light as they followed her scent." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'color' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now Unciel's seedlings had grown tall, vines and stalks offering a confusion of color and scents that caused other flashes of color to hover and dart through the corners of Euan's attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shifted the pen just before the bead of ink in its nib welled and dropped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How long had she been gone?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he wondered, and then realized, with surprise, how much of the summer had passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would have reached Serre, begun the long journey through its forests weeks ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She might, beginning a longer and even more hazardous journey, have already married." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He frowned down at his paper, ruthlessly pulling his attention out of memories, colors, the intimate, throbbing voices of the mourning doves on the garden wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could hear the wizard Unciel working in the kitchen, tying herbs to dry, cooking up odd ointments for bunions and spider bites." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan dipped his pen again, finished the name finally: Gyre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In Fyriol, a harsh land south of Dacia, I met a young mage called Gyre...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heard the wizard's breathing then, and turned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unciel, his fingers green from tearing herb leaves, leaned against the doorway, panting slightly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had used magic to move, Euan guessed, recognizing the pallor, the weary slump of shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made a questioning noise, wondering if the wizard needed help with some disaster in the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Unciel, his breath calming, only looked at Euan quizzically a moment before he spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why now?\" he asked, then made himself clearer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why that tale now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan shrugged slightly, baffled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It came next out of the chest.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can copy it later,\" Euan offered, stifling interest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or not at all. I haven't read it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know.\" He explained, as Euan blinked at him, \"What you write wakens memories. They are, after all, my words.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan put the pen down, gathered papers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you tell me when to do it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the wizard lingered in the doorway, gazing, it seemed, at the wall at the back of the garden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even in the warm light, his eyes looked the color of ash." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said finally, mildly, not seeing Euan at all as he made his decision, \"As you said. It came next.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He drew himself slowly off the doorpost to walk back to the kitchen, and added, \"I had forgotten that I wrote about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan listened until he heard a murmured greeting; the raven, answering, spoke the wizard's name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moments later, a lid clattered in the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan, unable to quell a curiosity that must have made itself palpable even in the steamy air above the boiling pots, dipped his pen and went on with the tale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In Fyriol, a harsh land south of Dacia...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fyriol, he learned that afternoon, was a hot, parched land whose fierce winds laid bare the bones of hills and sculpted them into high, eerie shapes of colored sand and granite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dragons had once lived there, tales said, and had left the land unfit for human occupation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'seventh' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the seventh son of a king who was also a seventh son had gone looking for a land of his own to rule, and had claimed Fyriol." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As there were only a few nomadic wanderers occupying it at the time who soon drifted north to fairer climes, no one argued with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Other adventurers, disinherited, dispossessed, and otherwise frustrated, joined him to wrest their fates out of the difficult land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The king, building a palace out of the colored sandstone, unearthed a vein of gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With that, he paid a wizard to tame the unpredictable and ruthless storms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wizard died of his work, struck by a recalcitrant claw of lightning—the ghost, some said, of a dragon-king." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the weather did improve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wanderers stopped there and settled, raised their flocks on hardy grasses and scrub." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As years passed, the kingdom grew rich on gold and oil from the fruit of gnarled, twisted trees that thrived on arid ground and light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The aging king, wanting to protect his fledgling kingdom for his own sons, sent word to more civilized lands that he would hire another mage or sorcerer or wizard to pursue any rumors of dragons still living, and to mark the borders of his land with signs of magic to discourage other kings' sons with nothing else to do from casting an eye toward his domain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A fledgling wizard by the name of Gyre, seeking to establish a reputation, responded to his request." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was,\" Unciel wrote, \"passing through Fyriol out of curiosity, on my way to Dacia, when I heard a silent, desperate cry for help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his dreams that night, Euan tried to continue the tale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dragon flowed out of his pen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Many dragons stirred in their stony haunts, forgotten fires smoldering at the interruption of their sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A band of brutal thieves posing as nomads found the young wizard alone on the borderlands and forced him to use his magic to draw unwary travellers into trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The King of Fyriol himself, furious at some wizardly ineptitude, had locked Gyre in a tower and thrown away the key." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gyre, his throat raw, his voice dead from shouting, had cried out silently for help, pounding at the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan, startled out of his dreams, opened his eyes and still heard the pounding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to cry out in the dark; his voice would not come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he recognized the drunken laughter at his door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a pair of pretty scribes who had cast their eyes earlier that summer at the lanky, cat-eyed Euan, challenged by his shyness and reserve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come out with us,\" they called, their bangles ringing brightly against his door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Euan. We haven't seen you for weeks, and our eyes have grown desolate. Come and play.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone across the narrow street drew attention to the sinking moon and bellowed for silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan, motionless on his bed, pretended he was not there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lowering moon, full and milky, shed light on his uncluttered, meticulous life: the water jug there, pens and ink so, manuscripts of favorite poetry stacked neatly here, shoes aligned in suspended motion beneath the window, at the end of a journey, or the beginning of another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Euan,\" the door whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We know you're in there. Summer's almost over. Come out before the leaves wither and the sun grows pale. Euan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan rolled over and dragged his pillow over his ears, wanting to find his way back into the strange, dragon-haunted tale where the mysteriously imperiled wizard cried out wordlessly for help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he still heard the laughing, coaxing voices, even after the young scribes had gone and he had fallen asleep again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I followed the silent cry to its source,\" he wrote the next morning, trying to keep his curiosity from outrunning his pen as he copied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In a cave along the rocky northern border of Fyriol, I stood in the heart of the cry. There were bones in that cave. I recognized them: the huge triangular jaws, the backbone running the length of the visible cave, stretching back into the utter dark. The teeth were jagged, and blackened with the dying fires of its last breaths. It had been dead a very long time, perhaps centuries. There was no danger from it. And yet the silent cry for help seemed to echo against the walls of the cave as it pulsed out of my heart. It came, I guessed finally, out of the dark deep within the cave.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Invisible, soundless, able to see in the dark as easily as day, the wizard Unciel followed the trail of helplessness and terror through the winding corridors of stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That it was another wizard in trouble I already knew: the power of his cry, reaching so far across the desolate land to find me, told me what he must be. I sensed something else, beyond his power, that I could not define. It seemed at once small and vast, here and elsewhere, vulnerable and yet absolutely implacable. I could find no name for it. And so I came at last to meet Gyre, in the dark under earth and stone, caught with his hand in a gold casket inside the coil of the monstrous backbone of yet another dragon. Its ribs, collapsed under the fallen weight of backbone, spilled in a ring around him. The gold, filigreed casket itself was a small treasure. He could carry it easily out of the cave into the light. It belonged to no one any longer; why should it not belong to him? So he must have thought.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What Gyre saw becoming suddenly visible in front of him was left unwritten." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What Unciel saw was a young, very helpless man lying on the ground within a spill of bones, one hand locked under the lid of a casket, which seemed to have bitten down on it like a live thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His wrist was bloody; on his free hand the nails were broken and bleeding from tearing at the lid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His lean, dirty face was hollow with hunger and pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel, accustomed to noting such things, saw that the earth beneath the casket was black, hardened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something once there had left its shadow of blood and fire, which, hardening through the centuries, had sealed the casket to the ground as though it were gripped in stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young wizard opened his mouth at the sight of Unciel and croaked like a raven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had worn his voice to nothing; only his heart could speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I told him my name, and felt it reverberate in his thoughts, in recognition and in hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But I was not so sure of myself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I did not tell him that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knelt beside him and told him what I saw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'The casket has been hidden within stone, in the dark within the stone, in the dragon within the dark, in the heart within the dragon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What, I wonder, is within the casket?'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He had wondered, too, his rueful thoughts told me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had glimpsed something, but the casket had slammed over his hand when he touched the secret it held." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His name was Gyre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had been hired by the King of Fyriol to seek out any dragons left alive in the kingdom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only life he had found in that cave was the hinged jaws of the little casket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To open the casket, I told him, I would have to persuade it that it recognized me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gyre had already guessed that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had lain there in that changeless night saying every name he had ever learned in his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even in a young wizard's life, that is a great many names." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tried a few; the casket refused to open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So I did what I had to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I reached into the casket with my mind to encompass the power hidden within it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Masked in that power, I would reflect like a mirror whatever lay within, giving the illusion that the casket belonged to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I brought all my thoughts, all my powers, to focus upon a nightmare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I withdrew as soon as my thoughts had touched it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like becoming death." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But in that instant, when I became the power within the casket, it opened to me, freeing Gyre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its lid dropped back, revealed its secret: a small, faceted ball of black crystal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An odd jewel, it must have seemed to Gyre, looking neither very beautiful nor very valuable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it must be both for someone to have hidden it so completely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We both knelt there, staring at it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gyre seemed perplexed, and still curious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could not speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My heart had changed shape for only an instant, a sand-grain of time, but I had glimpsed what I did not know had ever existed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such dark power. Such evil." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I recognized the thing for what it was, but not whose..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Remember the tales you have been taught,' I said at last, rising." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'Within a dragon-ridden land there is a cave; within the darkness of the cave there is a dragon; within the dragon's fiery heart there is a casket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hidden within the casket...' There is a heart, he finished silently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'Yes. Kept in secret far from its owner, whose body cannot be killed until the heart is found and destroyed.'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I heard Gyre's thoughts again, untangled finally from his wonder: It must be centuries old, as old and dead as these dead bones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned away, sickened by the thought that whoever claimed it had existed at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'Leave it,' I told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'It is well buried here.'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I heard the casket close, and then Gyre's uncertain steps behind me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It never occurred to me that, having been trapped for days in the dark with a casket gnawing at his wrist, he would risk putting a hand back into it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But that was Gyre, and that was his mistake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I had opened the casket for him; I had persuaded the heart within that it had recognized itself, that it belonged to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was my mistake.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tale ended there, at dusk on a summer's day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan sat silently, gazing down at the last word he had written." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kitchen, he realized slowly, had grown as silent, as though Unciel were listening for Euan's first coherent thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt it before he thought: a chill prickling through him, even in that tranquil warmth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The nightmare that Unciel had glimpsed had been very much alive, and it had come looking for its stolen heart... That was the untold tale, the one left unwritten, only glimpsed between the lines of an earlier tale, where, for an instant, something powerful enough to leave a fragile husk of a wizard in the wake of its death had opened an eye in the dark and looked at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Gyre had taken its heart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gyre must have been there when Unciel had fought his nightmare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young wizard had escaped unscathed; he must have run—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan had not heard the wizard enter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel stood beside him without speaking again tor a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He touched the paper gently, the blank inches beneath its final line." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan saw his hand tremble." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'heart' 5 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he continued, \"Gyre never saw whose heart he had stolen. I began to hear terrifying tales that haunted me, that roused memories of what I had glimpsed so briefly in the cave. I knew that whoever had lost its heart had begun to search for it. I found Gyre and took the heart from him without telling him. Nothing I could do would destroy the heart, and I felt its owner's power focussing on me, searching now for me. So I took the heart far north, to lure the danger away from all the worlds I knew. I thought such an ancient thing would be easy to destroy. If I had known, I would never have gone alone...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does Gyre know what you fought? And that you rescued him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I never told him. We spoke only of Dacia and Serre when I sent him with the princess. He knows that I fought something deadly, and he might have guessed what, but I refused to let him question me. It exhausts me to remember.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" Euan said shakily. \"I didn't mean—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I could have stopped you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why didn't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wanted to test my own strength,\" the wizard answered slowly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And because that was the tale that found its way out of the chest into your hands. Like water, tales find their own paths; they go where they are needed. Perhaps I need to remember.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan gathered the sheets of parchment, put them in order: two tales in two different hands, one hasty, careless, nearly illegible, the other neat, clear, nothing in its straight lines and even words indicating that the scribe had been moved by anything beyond the shape and flow of letters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tapped the two piles straight, said tentatively without looking at the wizard, \"Maybe you should finish it. Tell it to me. I'll write it as you speak.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He waited, but the wizard did not answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turning, he found himself alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next morning, having begun a less harrowing account of the mishaps of a ruler's son attempting to study magic with Unciel, the scribe was startled by the sudden cry of the raven in the quiet house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unciel was among the tidy rows in the garden, picking beans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The visitor, too impatient to wait, pushed open the back door and went out to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan, watching, saw the king's livery among the bean rows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A paper passed from messenger to wizard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel read it, folded it again slowly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan couldn't see the expression beneath the shadow of his hat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said something. The messenger nodded briefly, came back in as quickly as he had gone out; Euan heard the front door close behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unciel came in far more slowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan was back at work, with a prince under his pen who had just set a carpet on fire, when he heard the wizard behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned. Unciel, untying the apron full of pockets he wore to harvest, said, \"I'll need your help.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euan put his pen down and rose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unciel, he saw with some apprehension, did not look pleased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face, set, colorless, did not look anything at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If the messenger from the king had come with news of Sidonie, Euan guessed, it was not to report word of a marriage accomplished, happily or unhappily, after all those weeks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is something wrong?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is what we must find out. The king wanted to know if I had heard from Gyre. He has had no word from anyone since the princess and her entourage reached the forests of Serre. Gyre was to have passed me word of any trouble, which he could do quickly, by various ways—water, crystal, even thought, if he felt strongly enough. I heard nothing, so I thought that all was well. Gyre was also to have sent word to me when Sidonie finally reached the summer palace safely.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe,\" Euan suggested, \"it took longer—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe. But the king's patience will not stretch longer. He asked me to speak to Gyre.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan scratched a brow with his thumbnail, gazing doubtfully at the wizard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will it be difficult?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anything,\" Unciel sighed, \"beyond chopping cucumbers is difficult. Some ways are easier than others. I will start with the simplest, but even for that I'll need you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Euan nodded. He glanced vaguely at his work, dipped the pen nib in water to clean it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he heard his own voice again, bringing to light unexpectedly what had been lurking beneath the threshold of his thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why did you send Gyre with the princess? He was careless of you after you helped him—he should have known what happens when you steal a heart.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Unciel said, and left the matter there. \"He'll never hear me with all this light,\" he added incomprehensibly, and took Euan's arm. \"Come.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with Patricia A. McKillip's style in the Fantasy genre. This is part of a longer work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sidonie heard the mad King of Serre shouting at her all night long. Some time near dawn words changed to water, flowing endlessly past the summer palace, flinging itself to freedom in the valley below. Sleepless in the silvery light, she contemplated what she had left behind when she had ridden through the gates of the palace. On one side of the gates she had been free; riding under stone and shadow, she had—No. She tossed restlessly. She had left freedom behind in Dacia on a bright summer's day when she had stopped running away from what her father had told her. No. Her father and the King of Serre had signed away her freedom long before that. No. History had consumed her freedom as greedily and mindlessly as the hounds in the king's hall had gnawed at their bones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "King Ferus was swallowing the world; her father had not inherited the weapons he needed to fight the threat to Dacia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had lost her freedom even before she had been born." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She rose, looked out at the quiet trees in the wood across the river. If she leaned out of the casement, she could see the place where the water vanished, turned into sky, space, nothing. A high crook of road emerged from behind the falls, angled sharply and disappeared from view. Perhaps Gyre was walking down it at that moment. He had told her the night before that he would leave at dawn to search for the prince. But why would a wizard walk or ride when he could fly? She looked up, saw a bird wheeling through the vast emptiness beyond the palace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A blazing finger of light illumined it, colored its red-gold feathers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gyre? she asked silently, with wonder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It answered, or it seemed to, or her own wishes answered her: If you need me, I will know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will return as soon as I can.\n\nAs soon as you can, she thought dourly. As soon as you find the witch, the bird, the prince. And here I am, trapped like a bird in a cage in the house of the King of Trolls. On what should have been my wedding day, she remembered ruefully. Her life was held in abeyance by creatures out of Auri's tales. Such things never happened in Dacia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At mid-morning, she watched the king and a dozen guards file around the steep elbow of road visible from her window. Then they disappeared completely. Ferus would badger the forest to give him back his son, she guessed; he would scar the trees with his huge sword, scare the crows with his roaring. Her attendants crowded around her, not wanting to be separated, mending torn lace and hems, and speaking wistfully of Dacia. Her wedding dress hung over a mirror, a billow of gold cloth and pearls. Empty shoes stood beneath it. Going nowhere, she noted morosely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chamber door opened abruptly; Sidonie, looking up with apprehension, found the Queen of Serre in her doorway.\n\nThere was a flutter; needles fell, tugging floating lace behind them, as heads bowed, skirts wafted into deep curtseys. Sidonie, raising her head again and taking a second look at the still, colorless face, felt as though she were looking into a mirror. Fear, sorrow, loss, the mirror said, and she swallowed a sudden burning in her throat.\n\n\"Leave us,\" she said impulsively and her attendants filed out reluctantly abandoning her to the empty wedding shoes, the incessant noise of water, the silent queen.\n\nCalandra slid her fingers together, clenched them, and said stiffly, haltingly, \"I came to tell you that my—that Ronan is nothing like his father—\"\n\n\"I know.\" Sidonie's own hands had found themselves, fretting around one another anxiously as she studied the tall, somber woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Expression touched the frozen eyes.\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"He spoke to me when I saw him in the forest. He didn't tell me his name. But I recognized the color of his hair—his face—in—in the king.\" She stopped, swallowed drily at the memory of the indescribable supper.\n\n\"Yes. They look alike.\"\n\n\"The prince seemed very sad. But not—but not unkind.\"\n\n\"Cruel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cruel,\" Sidonie whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen's eyes flickered past her to the window as though Ferus might have heard the word falling with the water half-way down the cliff. \"It is difficult to speak in this place,\" she said wearily. \"I never know how much he can hear. Did my son give any reason for pursuing the firebird?\"\n\n\"Only that it was beautiful.\" She saw it again as she spoke, opening in her mind like a flower of fire, blinding her to time, sound, the stones around her.\n\n\"You saw it too,\" someone said and Sidonie blinked. \"Your eyes are full of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen shook her head a little, her mouth tight. \"Many things, I think. To Ronan, it must have been what he followed to flee from his life.\"\n\nSidonie looked at her wordlessly. The queen's hair was a braided crown of chestnut and gold and silver; her eyes were the cold color of dawn at the end of a sleepless night. Her son had inherited those grey eyes, Sidonie realized. And that heart.\n\n\"I know,\" she said with difficulty, \"that your son still grieves for his first wife and their dead child. Was it his wedding he fled from?\"\n\n\"It was life,\" the queen said simply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He keeps trying to leave it.\"\n\nSidonie's hands slid over her arms. She started to answer. Then the gold of her useless wedding dress filled her eyes and she found herself crying instead, noiselessly, mutely, staring at the queen and shaking, holding herself tightly so that what was trying to come out of her would not overwhelm them both.\n\nThe queen's face changed, expression melting through the set, icy cast of it. She touched Sidonie's wet cheek. \"I can't remember,\" she murmured, \"the last time I cried.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She eased Sidonie onto the cushions and furs in the window seat. Then she stood beside the weeping princess, gazing at the world beyond the stones, one hand resting on a trembling shoulder. Her voice ran in and out of the sound of tears and water; now and then an image surfaced, flashed alive. \"The firebird is what you follow to change your life, and every tale of it is different. But in every tale it is inevitably the heart's desire. Once there was a great king who heard it singing in his garden by moonlight, and he fell so in love with its beauty that he promised to marry his youngest, fairest daughter to any man who could capture it for him... The young man who pursued it left everything he knew behind and entered a world where animals gave advice, where horses flew, where not even death was the end of the story, for the singing of the firebird could wake the dead. He won his heart's desire. The firebird, which in the end eludes all capture, escaped from the king and flew away into another tale...\"\n\nSidonie, quieting so that she could hear past her own sorrow, said hollowly, \"That is not very comforting, when the heart's desire of the man you are to marry is his dead wife and their child.\"\n\n\"No.\" The queen sat down beside her, took her hand. \"His heart's desire is the firebird now; he goes where it takes him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wish I could.\"\n\n\"The king will never let you go,\" Calandra said softly. \"Even if Ronan does not return. Ferus will force your father to come for you, force the powers to Dacia to challenge the magic of Serre. He wants Dacia; he thought it would be easy.\"\n\n\"It should have been. It should have been as simple a matter as putting on that dress. Not a matter of warring sorceries.\" She fell silent, gazing again at the confection of gold and lace, with its overlay of tiny pearls like a web whose threads ran everywhere. Her eyes followed a single strand along a sleeve; in her mind she held the strand in one hand, following it while it led her down a hallway, down stairs, into shadowy, unwatched places within the palace. Surely there was a way..." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'sidonie' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no escape,\" the queen said, reading her thoughts. \"I have tried.\"\n\nSidonie, her eyes dry now and seeing more clearly than ever where the vagaries of history had stranded her, answered simply, \"Your son escaped.\"\n\nAt dusk, she watched the dark, powerful figure of the king, in black leather and chain mail, appear again at the sharp angle of the road, and disappear behind the falls as he rode toward the gates. His guards followed. Sidonie studied each figure carefully before it vanished. The bright-haired prince was not among them.\n\nShe braced herself for another unnerving supper, full of flying fish and bones. But the king did not appear, and the summer court, suspended between a wedding and a funeral, not knowing whether to celebrate or mourn, spoke in subdued voices of an uncertain future." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sidonie retired as soon as she could with her attendants, relieved at the absence of the obstreperous king." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as she reached her chamber, he sent for her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'caught' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His guards took her to a high tower room above the falls. They left her alone there, hanging between air and stars, breathless at the bird's eye view of the darkening fields and forests a thousand feet below her. The river, barely wider than a knife blade, caught light from the rising moon, turned a liquid silver as she stared down. She closed her eyes, backed away from the casements, and nearly bumped into the king as he entered the room behind her.\n\nShe smelled leather and sweat as she veered hastily away. Still lightly armed, dusty from the road, with a twig or two caught in his hair, he eyed her dourly, chewing on something that, she guessed, had once had a hoof or a claw attached to it.\n\nHe swallowed and said, \"Your father must have a room like this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My father,\" she answered dizzily while the king stuck his head out a window to spit, \"is not a mountain goat.\" Then she took a closer look at it.\n\nIt did resemble the room her grandfather had taken her into when she was small, where she watched him float fire in water, and call birds out of the air to perch on her fingers. Later, her father had tried such things in that chamber full of books and beakers, scrolls written in letters resembling twigs and bird-claws, jars and stoppered pots, pet toads, owls, crows, mirrors, cauldrons, precious stones, crystals, flakes of gold, and an endless supply of candles. She had watched the King of Dacia set his boots on fire trying to light a candle, and erase his reflection in a mirror trying to make himself invisible. For several years, the castle rang with his shouts of frustration or sudden cries for help; it trembled now and then with random explosions; swathes of colored air fluttered out of the windows like windblown curtains. Abruptly, he gave up on magic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The last time Sidonie had seen the room, it had grown very dusty and all the animals were gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This chamber seemed more the lair of some mad witch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ogre, she amended, watching the strong teeth tearing at the meat, the single eye above it rolling darkly toward her. This was the ogre's lair, with animal bones in the fire bed and a grinning human skull with a red, faceted jewel in one eye socket. His basins of water were cloudy with ash or blood; dried mushrooms, dead moths, desiccated birds were strewn across his tables. More lively, lizards flicked in and out of the casements; a poisonous toad, one leg cuffed and chained with a slender strand of gold, swelled and hissed at any movement. The mirrors were opaque, reflecting the ghosts of trees. No, she realized suddenly, the trees were real. High above the forests of Serre, the mirrors searched the night-ridden trees for the prince." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was drawn to them, the magical eyes of the king. He watched her stand in front of a long oval mirroring the silent forest. She had slept beneath the canopy of those huge branches; she had watched the birds weave their colored threads of flight through them, and the small animals burrow among the massive roots. She stretched out a hand, remembering how time had stopped within those changeless trees, and how she thought she had been free. The king, his mouth closed motionlessly on a bite, seemed to be expecting some unfamiliar display of sorcery. Her hand touched cold glass, dropped.\n\nHe said harshly, \"You must have inherited the powers of Dacia's kings. Why else would I have chosen you to marry my son? Show me how you would search for him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at him, her face expressionless, very pale. Words failed her. The whole idea was ludicrous, and he might very well toss her out of the nearest window along with his bone if she told him so.\n\nGyre, she hoped desperately, would catch her if he did.\n\nSomewhere between laughter and terror, she began to babble, giving him the only magic she could remember: the fragment of a tale. \"I cannot. I hid my powers in a secret place before I left Dacia, so that the wild powers in Serre would not sense it and seek to challenge it. The wizard Unciel gave me this advice. He is a very powerful wizard and has travelled many times in Serre. Gyre helped me. Unciel told me that I must never, ever, for any reason, tell anyone where my magical powers are hidden. When Gyre returns, he will get them for me.\" The king's eye, flat black and smoldering like a coal, seemed to bore through her, seeking what she hid. Beyond him, on top of a pile of books, the skull's eye glittered at her as though it laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inspired by it, she added, \"My magic is hidden in a jewel, in a locked box without a key. My voice is the key that will open it.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A guttural confusion of words snarled in the king's throat. He gave up on them, raising his hand instead. But it was the bone, not the princess, that he pitched out of the window, before he bellowed for guards to remove her from his sight." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene and character context, and you will continue with 12 sentences, keeping within the Horror genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's not quite what I expected,\" Julia commented as they stood in the hallway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was twilight; a cold day in August. Not the ideal time to view a house that had been left empty for so long.\n\n\"It needs work,\" Rory said. \"That's all. It's not been touched since my grandmother died. That's the best part of three years. And I'm pretty sure she never did anything to it towards the end of her life.\"\n\n\"And it's yours?\"\n\n\"Mine and Frank's. It was willed to us both. But when was the last time anybody saw big brother?\"\n\nShe shrugged, as if she couldn't remember, though she remembered very well. A week before the wedding.\n\n\"Someone said he spent a few days here last summer. Rutting away, no doubt. Then he was off again. He's got no interest in property.\"\n\n\"But suppose we move in, and then he comes back, wants what's his?\"\n\n\"I'll buy him out. I'll get a loan from the bank and buy him out. He's always hard up for cash.\"\n\nShe nodded, but looked less than persuaded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't worry,\" he said, going to where she was standing and wrapping his arms around her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The place is ours, doll. We can paint it and pamper it and make it like heaven.\"\n\nHe scanned her face. Sometimes—particularly when doubt moved her, as it did now— her beauty came close to frightening him.\n\n\"Trust me,\" he said.\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"All right then. What say we start moving in on Sunday?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writers block help pls. ill send something, u do seven sentences. going for Clive Barker vibe. note: might have existing chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julia didn't sleep well. Not that night, nor any night that followed.\n\nWhat she'd seen in the damp room, what she'd heard and, finally, felt—was enough to keep easy slumbers at bay forever, or so she began to believe.\n\nHe was here. Brother Frank was here, in the house—and had been all the time. Locked away from the world in which she lived and breathed, but close enough to make the frail, pitiful contact he had. The whys and the wherefores of this she had no clue to; the human detritus in the wall had neither the strength nor the time to articulate its condition.\n\nAll it said, before the wall began to close on it again, and its wreckage was once more eclipsed by brick and plaster, was \"Julia \"—then, simply: \"It's Frank \"—and at the very end the word \"Blood.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then it was gone completely, and her legs had given way beneath her. She'd half fallen, half staggered, backward against the opposite wall. By the time she gathered her wits about her once more there was no mysterious light, no wasted figure cocooned in the brick. Reality's hold was absolute once again.\n\nNot quite absolute perhaps. Frank was still here, in. the damp room. Of that she had no doubt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Out of sight he might be, but not out of mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was trapped somehow between the sphere she occupied and some other place: a place of bells and troubled darkness. Had he died?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was that it? Perished in the empty room the previous summer, and now awaiting exorcism? If so, what had happened to his earthly remains? Only further exchange with Frank himself, or the remnants thereof, would provide an explanation.\n\nOf the means by which she could lend the lost soul strength she had little doubt. He had given her the solution plainly.\n\n\"Blood,\" he'd said. The syllable had been spoken not as an accusation but as an imperative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rory had bled on the floor of the damp room; the splashes had subsequently disappeared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somehow, Frank's ghost—if that it was—had fed upon his brother's spillage, and gained thereby nourishment enough to reach out from his cell, and make faltering contact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What more might be achieved if the supply were larger?\n\nShe thought of Frank's embraces, of his roughness, his hardness, of the insistence he had brought to bear upon her. What would she not give to have such insistence again? Perhaps it was possible. And if it were—if she could give him the sustenance he needed—would he not be grateful? Would he not be her pet, docile or brutal at her least whim? The thought took sleep away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Took sanity and sorrow with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been in love all this time, she realized, and mourning for him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it took blood to restore him to her, then blood she would supply, and not think twice of the consequences.\n\nIn the days that followed, she found her smile again. Rory took the change of mood as a sign that she was happy in the new house. Her good humor ignited the same in him. He took to the redecoration with renewed gusto.\n\nSoon, he said, he would get to work on the second floor. They would locate the source of dampness in the large room, and turn it into a bedroom fit for his princess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She kissed his cheek when he spoke of this, and she said that she was in no hurry, that the room they had already was more than adequate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Talk of the bedroom made him stroke her neck, and pull her close, and whisper infantile obscenities in her ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not refuse him, but went upstairs meekly, and let him undress her as he liked to do, unbuttoning her with paint-stained fingers. She pretended the ceremony aroused her, though this was far from the truth.\n\nThe only thing that sparked the least appetite in her, as she lay on the creaking bed with his bulk between her legs, was closing her eyes and picturing Frank, as he had been.\n\nMore than once his name rose to her lips; each time she bit it back. Finally she opened her eyes to remind herself of the boorish truth. Rory was decorating her face with his kisses. Her cheeks crawled at his touch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She would not be able to endure this too often, she realized." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was too much of an effort to play the acquiescent wife: her heart would burst.\n\nThus, lying beneath him while September's breath brushed her face from the open window, she began to plot the getting of blood." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene and character context, and you will continue with 12 sentences, keeping within the Horror genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes it seemed that eons came and went while he lingered in the wall, eons that some clue would later reveal to have been the passing of hours, or even minutes.\n\nBut now things had changed; he had a chance of escape. His spirit soared at the thought. It was a frail chance, he didn't deceive himself about that. There were several reasons his best efforts might falter. Julia, for one. He remembered her as a trite, preening woman, whose upbringing had curbed her capacity for passion. He had untamed her, of course, once. He remembered the day, among the thousands of times he had performed that act, with some satisfaction. She had resisted no more than was needful for her vanity, then succumbed with such naked fervor he had almost lost control of himself.\n\nIn other circumstances he might have snatched her from under her would be husband's nose, but fraternal politics counseled otherwise. In a week or two he would have tired of her, and been left not only with a woman whose body was already an eyesore to him, but also a vengeful brother on his heels. It hadn't been worth the hassle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Besides, there'd been new worlds to conquer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had left the day after to go East: to Hong King and Sri Lanka, to wealth and adventure." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'denied' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd had them, too. At least for a while. But everything slipped through his fingers sooner or later, and with time he began to wonder whether it was circumstance that denied him a good hold on his earnings, or whether he simply didn't care enough to keep what he had. The train of thought, once begun, was a runaway. Everywhere, in the wreckage around him, he found evidence to support the same bitter thesis: that he had encountered nothing in his life—no person, no state of mind or body—he wanted sufficiently to suffer even passing discomfort for.\n\nA downward spiral began. He spent three months in a wash of depression and self pity that bordered on the suicidal. But even that solution was denied him by his newfound nihilism. If nothing was worth living for it followed, didn't it, that there was nothing worth dying for either. He stumbled from one such sterility to the next, until all thoughts were rotted away by whatever opiate his immoralities could earn him.\n\nHow had he first heard about Lemarchand's box? He couldn't remember. In a bar maybe, or a gutter, from the lips of a fellow derelict." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the time it was merely a rumor—this dream of a pleasure dome where those who had exhausted the trivial delights of the human condition might discover a fresh definition of joy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the route to this paradise?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were several, he was told, charts of the interface between the real and the realer still, made by travelers whose bones had long since gone to dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One such chart was in the vaults of the Vatican, hidden in code in a theological work unread since the Reformation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another—in the form of an origami exercise was reported to have been in the possession of the Marquis de Sade, who used it, while imprisoned in the Bastille, to barter with a guard for paper on which to write The 120 Days of Sodom. Yet another was made by a craftsman—a maker of singing birds—called Lemarchand, in the form of a musical box of such elaborate design a man might toy with it half a lifetime and never get inside.\n\nStories. Stories. Yet since he had come to believe in nothing at all it was not so difficult to put the tyranny of verifiable truth out of his head. And it passed the time, musing drunkenly on such fantasies.\n\nIt was in Düsseldorf, where he'd gone smuggling heroin, that he again encountered the story of Lemarchand's box. His curiosity was piqued once more, but this time he followed the story up until he found its source. The man's name was Kircher, though he probably laid claim to half a dozen others. Yes, the German could confirm the existence of the box, and yes, he could see his way to letting Frank have it. The price? Small favors, here and there. Nothing exceptional. Frank did the favors, washed his hands, and claimed his payment.\n\nThere had been instructions from Kircher, on how best to break the seal on Lemarchand's device, instructions that were part pragmatic, part metaphysical." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To solve the puzzle is to travel, he'd said, or something like that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The box, it seemed, was not just the map of the road, but the road itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This new addiction quickly cured him of dope and drink." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'world'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps there were other ways to bend the world to suit the shape of his dreams.\n\nHe came back to the house on Lodovico Street, to the empty house behind whose walls he was now imprisoned, and prepared himself—just as Kircher had detailed—for the challenge of solving Lemarchand's Configuration. He had never in his life been so abstemious, nor so single-minded. In the days before the onslaught on the box he led a life that would have shamed a saint, focusing all his energies on the ceremonies ahead.\n\nHe had been arrogant in his dealing with the Order of the Gash, he saw that now; but there were everywhere—in the world and out of it—forces that encouraged such arrogance because they traded on it. That in itself would not have undone him. No, his real error had been the naive belief that his definition of pleasure significantly overlapped with that of the Cenobites.\n\nAs it was, they had brought incalculable suffering. They had overdosed him on sensuality, until his mind teetered on madness, then they'd initiated him into experiences that his nerves still convulsed to recall. They had called it pleasure, and perhaps they'd meant it. Perhaps not. It was impossible to know with these minds; they were so hopelessly, flawlessly ambiguous. They recognized no principles of reward and punishment by which he could hope to win some respite from their tortures, nor were they touched by any appeal for mercy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd tried that, over the weeks and months that separated the solving of the box from today.\n\nThere was no compassion to be had on this side of the Schism; there was only the weeping and the laughter. Tears of joy sometimes (for an hour without dread, a breath's length even), laughter coming just as paradoxically in the face of some new horror, fashioned by the Engineer for the provision of grief.\n\nThere was a further sophistication to the torture, devised by a mind that understood exquisitely the nature of suffering. The prisoners were allowed to see into the world they had once occupied. Their resting places—when they were not enduring pleasure—looked out onto the very locations where they had once worked the Configuration that had brought them here. In Frank's case, onto the upper room of number fifty-five, Lodovico Street.\n\nFor the best part of a year it had been an unilluminating view: nobody had ever stepped into the house. And then, they'd come: Rory and the lovely Julia. And hope had begun again...\n\nThere were ways to escape, he'd heard it whispered; loopholes in the system that might allow a mind supple or cunning enough egress into the room from which it had come. If a prisoner were able to make such an escape, there was no way that the hierophants could follow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had to be summoned across the Schism." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without such an invitation they were left like dogs on the doorstep, scratching and scratching but unable to get in. Escape therefore, if it could be achieved, brought with it a decree absolute, total dissolution of the mistaken marriage which the prisoner had made. It was a risk worth taking. Indeed it was no risk at all. What punishment could be meted out worse than the thought of pain without hope of release?\n\nHe had been lucky. Some prisoners had departed from the world without leaving sufficient sign of themselves from which, given an adequate collision of circumstances, their bodies might be remade. He had. Almost his last act, bar the shouting, had been to empty his testicles onto the floor. Dead sperm was a meager keepsake of his essential self, but enough. When dear brother Rory (sweet butterfingered Rory) had let his chisel slip, there was something of Frank to profit from the pain. He had found a finger hold for himself, and a glimpse of strength with which he might haul himself to safety. Now it was up to Julia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes, suffering in the wall, he thought she would desert him out of fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Either that or she'd rationalize the vision she'd seen, and decide she'd been dreaming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If so, he was lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lacked the energy to repeat the appearance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But there were signs that gave him cause for hope." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fact that she returned to the room on two or three occasions, for instance, and simply stood in the gloom, watching the wall. She'd even muttered a few words on the second visit, though he'd caught only scraps. The word \"here\" was amongst them. And \"waiting,\" and \"soon.\" Enough to keep him from despair.\n\nHe had another prop to his optimism. She was lost, wasn't she? He'd seen that in her face, when—before the day Rory had chiseled himself—she and his brother had had occasion to be in the room together. He'd read the looks between the lines, the moments when her guard had slipped, and the sadness and frustration she felt were apparent.\n\nYes, she was lost. Married to a man she felt no love for, and unable to see a way out.\n\nWell, here he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They could save each other, the way the poets promised lovers should." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was mystery, he was darkness, he was all she had dreamed of. And if she would only free him he would service her—oh yes—until her pleasure reached that threshold that, like all thresholds, was a place where the strong grew stronger, and the weak perished.\n\nPleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Writer's block help needed. This is from a bigger story - gonna send you something then keep it going two sentences at a time. Going for Clive Barker vibes in the Horror genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julia had gone back upstairs trembling, and found White Tie at the door. Or rather, his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time, either out of an excess of greed or malice, Frank had dismembered the corpse. Pieces of bones and dried meat lay scattered about the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no sign of the gourmet himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned back toward the door, and he was there, blocking her path. Mere minutes had passed since she'd seen him bending to drain energy from the dead man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In that brief time he had changed out of all recognition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where there had been withered cartilage, there was not ripening muscle; the map of his arteries and veins was being drawn anew: they pulsed with stolen life. There was even a sprouting of hair, somewhat premature perhaps given his absence of skin, on the raw ball of his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of this sweetened his appearance a jot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed in many ways it worsened it. Previously there had been scarcely anything recognizable about him, but now there were scraps of humanity everywhere, throwing into yet greater relief the catastrophic nature of his wounding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was worse to come." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He spoke, and when he spoke it was with a voice that was indisputably Frank's. The broken syllables had gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I feel pain,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His browless, half-lidded eyes were watching her every response. She tried to conceal the queasiness she felt, but knew the disguise inadequate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My nerves are working again,\" he was telling her, \"and they hurt.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What can I do about it?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Maybe... maybe some bandages.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bandages?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Help me bind myself together.\"\n\n\"If that's what you want.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I need more than that, Julia. I need another body.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Another?\" she said. Was there no end to this?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's to lose?\" he replied, moving closer to her. At his sudden proximity she became very anxious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reading the fear in her face, he stopped his advance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll be whole soon...\", he promised her, \"and when I am...\"\n\n\"I'd better clear up,\" she said, averting her gaze from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When I am, sweet Julia...\"\n\n\"Rory will be home soon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rory!\" He spat the name out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My darling brother! How in God's name did you come to marry such a dullard?\"\n\nShe felt a spasm of anger toward Frank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I loved him,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then, after a moment's pondering, corrected herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought I loved him.\"\n\nHis laugh only made his dreadful nakedness more apparent. \"How can you have believed that?\" he said. \"He's a slug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Always was. Always will be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Never had any sense of adventure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unlike you.\"\n\n\"Unlike me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked down at the floor; a dead man's hand lay between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For an instant she was almost overwhelmed by self-revulsion. All that she had done, and dreamed of doing, in the last few days rose up in front of her: a parade of seductions that had ended in death—all for this death that she had hoped so fervently would end in seduction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was as damned as he, she thought; no fouler ambition could nest in his head than presently cooed and fluttered in hers.\n\nWell... it was done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Heal me,\" he whispered to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The harshness had gone from his voice. He spoke like a lover. \"Heal me... please.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I promise you I will.\"\n\n\"And then we'll be together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She frowned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about Rory?\"\n\n\"We're brothers, under the skin,\" Frank said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll make him see the wisdom of this, the miracle of it. You don't belong to him Julia. Not anymore.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. It was true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We belong to each other. That's what you want isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's what I want.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know I think if I'd had you I wouldn't have despaired,\" he said to her. \"Wouldn't have given away my body and soul so cheaply.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cheaply?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For pleasure. For mere sensuality. In you...\" here he moved toward her again. This time his words held her; she didn't retreat. \"In you I might have discovered some reason to live." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm here,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without thinking, she reached across and touched him. The body was hot, and damp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His pulse seemed to be everywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In every tender bud of nerve, in each burgeoning sinew. The contact excited her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was as if, until this moment, she had never quite believed him to be real. Now it was incontestable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had made this man, or remade him, used her wit and her cunning to give him substance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thrill she felt, touching this too vulnerable body, was the thrill of ownership.\n\n\"This is the most dangerous time,\" he told her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Before now, I could hide myself. I was practically nothing at all. But not anymore.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I've thought of that.\"\n\n\"We must be done with it quickly. I must be strong and whole, at whatever cost. You agree?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course.\"\n\n\"After that there'll be an end to the waiting, Julia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pulse in him seemed to quicken at the thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he was kneeling in front of her. His unfinished hands were at her hips, then his mouth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Forsaking the dregs of her distaste, she put her hand upon his head, and felt the hair—silken, like a baby's—and the shell of his skull beneath. He had learned nothing of delicacy since last he'd held her. But despair had taught her the fine art of squeezing blood from stones; with time she would have love from this hateful thing, or know the reason why." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: Add one sentence sentences to this story segment. Style: Neil Gaiman. Genre: Urban Fantasy, Mythology. Note: Part of longer narrative." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maeve Livingstone rode the lift up to the fifth floor alone, the slow jerky journey giving her plenty of time to rehearse in her head what she would say to Grahame Coats when she got there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was carrying a slim brown briefcase, which had belonged to Morris: a peculiarly masculine object." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wore a white blouse and a blue denim skirt and over it, a gray coat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had very long legs and extremely pale skin and hair which remained, with only minimal chemical assistance, quite as blonde as it had been when Morris Livingstone had married her twenty years earlier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maeve had loved Morris very much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he died, she did not delete him from her cell phone, not even after she had canceled his service and returned his phone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her nephew had taken the photo of Morris that was on her phone, and she did not want to lose that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wished she could phone Morris now, ask his advice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had told the speakerphone who she was, to be buzzed in downstairs, and when she walked into reception Grahame Coats was already waiting for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How de do, how de do, good lady,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We need to talk privately, Grahame,\" said Maeve. \"Now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grahame Coats smirked; oddly enough, many of his private fantasies began with Maeve saying something fairly similar, before she went on to utter such statements as \"I need you, Grahame, right now,\" and \"Oh Grahame, I've been such a bad bad bad bad girl who needs to be taught some discipline,\" and, on rare occasions, \"Grahame, you are too much for one woman, so let me introduce you to my identical naked twin sister, Maeve II.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They went into his office." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maeve, slightly disappointingly as far as Grahame Coats was concerned, said nothing about needing it right here, right now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did not take off her coat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead she opened her briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers, which she placed upon the desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Grahame, at my bank manager's suggestion, I had your figures and statements for the last decade independently audited. From back when Morris was still alive. You can look at them if you like. The numbers don't work. None of them. I thought I'd talk to you about it before I called in the police. In Morris's memory, I felt I owed you that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You do indeed,\" agreed Grahame Coats, smooth as a snake in a butter churn. \"Indeed you do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well?\" Maeve Livingstone raised one perfect eyebrow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her expression was not reassuring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grahame Coats liked her better in his imagination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm afraid we've had a rogue employee at the Grahame Coats Agency for quite a while, Maeve. I actually called in the police myself, last week, when I realized that something was amiss. The long arm of the law is already investigating. Due to the illustrious nature of several of the clients of the Grahame Coats Agency—yourself among them—the police are keeping this as quiet as possible, and who can blame them?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not seem as mollified as he had hoped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried another tack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They have high hopes of recovering much, if not all, of the money.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maeve nodded. Grahame Coats relaxed, but only a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can I ask which employee?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Charles Nancy. I have to say I trusted him implicitly. It came as quite a shock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh. He's sweet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Appearances,\" pointed out Grahame Coats, \"can be deceptive.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled then, and a very sweet smile it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It won't wash, Grahame. This has been going on for yonks. Since long before Charles Nancy started here. Probably since before my time. Morris absolutely trusted you, and you stole from him. And now you're trying to tell me that you're hoping to frame one of your employees—or blame one of your confederates—well, it won't wash.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Grahame Coats, contritely. \"Sorry.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She picked up the sheaf of papers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Out of interest,\" she said, \"how much do you think you got from Morris and me over the years? I make it about three million quid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah.\" He was not smiling at all, now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was certainly more than that, but still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That sounds about right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They looked at each other, and Grahame Coats calculated, furiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He needed to buy time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was what he needed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What if,\" he said, \"what if I were to repay it, in full, in cash, now. With interest. Let's say, fifty percent of the amount in question.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're offering me four and a half million pounds? In cash?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grahame Coats smiled at her in exactly the same way that striking cobras tend not to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Absa-tively. If you go to the police, then I will deny everything, and hire excellent lawyers. In a worst-case scenario, after an extremely lengthy trial, during which I shall be forced to blacken Morris's good name in every way I possibly can, I will be sentenced at most to ten to twelve years in prison. I might actually serve five years, with good behavior—and I should be a model prisoner. Given the general overcrowding of the prison services, I'd serve most of my sentence in an open prison, or even on day release. I don't see this as being too problematic. On the flip side, I can guarantee that if you go to the police, you will never get a penny of Morris's money. The alternative is to keep your mouth shut, get all the money you need and more, while I buy myself a little time to...to do the decent thing. If you see what I mean.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maeve thought about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Iwould like to see you rot in prison,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then she sighed, and nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I take the money. I never have to see or deal with you again. All future royalty checks come directly to me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Absatively. The safe is over here,\" he told her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a bookcase on the far wall, on which were uniform leatherbound editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, and Austen, all unread." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fumbled with a book, and the bookcase slipped to one side, revealing a door behind it, painted to match the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maeve wondered if it would have a combination, but no, there was just a small keyhole, which Grahame Coats unlocked with a large brass key." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door swung open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached in and turned on the light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a narrow room, lined with rather amateurishly fixed shelves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the far end was a small, fireproof filing cabinet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can take it in cash, or in jewelery, or in a combination of the two,\" he said, bluntly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd advise the latter. Lots of nice antique gold back there. Very portable.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He unlocked several strongboxes and displayed the contents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rings and chains and lockets glittered and gleamed and shone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maeve's mouth opened. \"Take a look,\" he told her, and she squeezed past him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a treasure cave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She pulled out a golden locket on a chain, held it up, stared at it in wonder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is gorgeous,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It must be worth—\" and she broke off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the polished gold of the locket she saw something moving behind her, and she turned, which meant that the hammer did not hit her squarely on the back of the head, as Grahame Coats had intended, but instead glanced off the side of her cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You little shit!\" she said, and she kicked him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maeve had good legs and a powerful kick, but she and her attacker were at close quarters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maeve's foot connected with his shin, and she reached for the hammer he was holding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grahame Coats smashed out with it; this time it connected, and Maeve stumbled to one side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes seemed to unfocus." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'again' 3 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hit her again, squarely on the top of the head, and again, and again, and she went down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grahame Coats wished that he had a gun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A nice, sensible handgun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a silencer, like in the films." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Honestly, if it had ever occurred to him that he would need to kill someone in his office he would have been much better prepared for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He might even have laid in a supply of poison." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That would have been wise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No need for any of this nonsense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was blood and blonde hair adhering to the end of the hammer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put it down with distaste and, stepping around the woman on the floor, grabbed the safe-deposit boxes containing the jewelery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tipped them out onto his desk and returned them to the safe, where he removed an attaché case containing bundles of hundred-dollar bills and of five-hundred euro notes, and a small black velvet bag half full of unset diamonds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He removed some files from the filing cabinet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, last but—as he would have pointed out—by no means least, he took out from the secret room the small leather vanity case containing two wallets and two passports." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he pushed the heavy door closed, and locked it, and swung the bookcase back into position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood there, panting somewhat, and caught his breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All in all, he decided, he was rather proud of himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Good job, Grahame. Good man. Good show." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had improvised with the materials at hand and come out ahead: bluffed and been bold and creative—ready, as the poet said, to risk it all on a turn of pitch-and-toss." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had risked, and he had won." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was the pitcher." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was the tosser." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One day, on his tropical paradise, he would write his memoirs, and people would learn how he had bested a dangerous woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although, he thought, it might be better if she had actually been holding a gun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably, he realized on reflection, shehad pulled a gun on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was fairly sure he had seen her reach for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been extremely fortunate that the hammer had been there, that he had a tool kit in the room for moments of necessary DIY, or he would not have been able to act in self-defense with it so swiftly or so effectively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only now did it occur to him to lock the main door to his office." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was, he noticed, blood on his shirt and on his hand, and on the sole of one shoe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took off his shirt, and wiped down his shoe with it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he dropped the shirt into the bin beneath his desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He surprised himself by putting his hand to his mouth and licking the gobbet of blood off it, like a cat, with his red tongue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then he yawned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took Maeve's papers from the desk, ran them through the shredder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had a second set of documents in her briefcase, and he shredded them as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reshredded the shreddings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a closet in the corner of his office, with a suit hanging in it, and spare shirts, socks, underpants, and so on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You never knew when you would need to head to a first night from the office, after all. Be prepared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He dressed with care." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a small suitcase with wheels in it in the closet, too, of the kind that is meant to be placed in overhead lockers, and he put things into it, moving them around to make room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He called reception. \"Annie,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you pop out and get me a sandwich? Not from Prêt, no. I thought the new place in Brewer Street? I'm just wrapping up with Mrs Livingstone. I may actually wind up taking her out for a spot of real lunch, but best to be prepared.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He spent several minutes on the computer, running the kind of disk-cleaning program that takes your data, overwrites it with random ones and zeroes, then grinds it up extremely small before finally depositing it at the bottom of the Thames wearing concrete overshoes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he walked down the hall, pulling his wheeled suitcase behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put his head around one office door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Popping out for a bit,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll be back in about three, if anyone asks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Annie was gone from reception, which, he thought, was a good thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People would assume that Maeve Livingstone had already left the agency, just as they would expect Grahame Coats to return at any time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time they started looking for him, he would be a long way away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He descended in the lift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was all happening early, he thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would not turn fifty for more than a year." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the exit mechanisms were already in place." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He needed simply to think of it as a golden handshake, or perhaps a golden parachute.\n\nAnd then, pulling the wheelie suitcase behind him, he walked out of the front door into the sunny Aldwych morning, and out of the Grahame Coats Agency forever." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "im ur writing buddy. i set scene (might have existing chars), u do 8 sentences like Neil Gaiman" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The oddest thing, thought Grahame Coats, who was not given to self-inspection, was how normal and chipper and generally good he felt.\n\nThe captain told them to fasten their safety belts, and mentioned that they would be landing soon on Saint Andrews. Saint Andrews was a small Caribbean island which, on declaring independence in1962, had elected to demonstrate its freedom from colonial rule in a number of ways, including the creation of its own judiciary and a singular lack of extradition treaties with the rest of the world.\n\nThe plane landed. Grahame Coats got off and walked across the sunny tarmac dragging his wheeled bag behind him. He produced the appropriate passport—Basil Finnegan's—and had it stamped, collected the rest of his luggage from the carousel, and walked out through an unattended customs hall into the tiny airport and from there into the glorious sunshine. He wore a T-shirt and shorts and sandals and looked like a British Holidaymaker Abroad.\n\nHis groundskeeper was waiting for him outside the airport, and Grahame Coats sat himself in the back of the black Mercedes and said \"Home, please.\" On the road out of Williamstown, the road to his clifftop estate, he stared out at the island with a satisfied and proprietorial smile on his face." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: Add one sentence sentences to this story segment. Style: Neil Gaiman. Genre: Urban Fantasy, Mythology. Note: Part of longer narrative." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rosie's mother, now bathed, reappeared refreshed, invigorated and positively glowing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Before I give you both a ride into Williamstown, can I give you a hasty guided tour of the house?\" asked Grahame Coats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We do have to get back to the ship, thanks all the same,\" said Rosie, who had not been able to convince herself that she wanted a bath in Grahame Coats's house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother checked her watch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have ninety minutes,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It won't take more than fifteen minutes to get back to the harbor. Don't be ungracious, Rosie. We would love to see your house.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "So Grahame Coats showed them the sitting room, the study, the library, the television room, the dining room, the kitchen and the swimming pool." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened a door beneath the kitchen stairs that looked as if it would lead to a broom cupboard, and walked his guests down the wooden steps into the rock-walled wine cellar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He showed them the wine, most of which had come with the house when he had bought it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked them to the far end of the wine cellar to the bare room that had, back in the days before refrigeration, been a meat storage locker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was always chilly in the meat locker, where heavy chains came down from the ceiling, the empty hooks on the ends showing where once whole carcases had hung long before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grahame Coats held the heavy iron door open politely while both the women walked inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know,\" he said, helpfully, \"I've just realized. The light switch is back where we came in. Hold on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he slammed the door behind the women, and he rammed closed the bolts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He picked out a dusty-looking bottle of1995 Chablis Premier Cru from a wine rack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He went upstairs with a swing in his step and let his three employees know that he would be giving them the week off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to him, as he walked up the stairs to his study, as if something were padding soundlessly behind him, but when he turned there was nothing there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oddly, he found this comforting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found a corkscrew, opened the bottle and poured himself a pale glass of wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drank it and, although he had never previously had much time for red wines, he found himself wishing that what he was drinking was richer and darker.It should be, he thought,the color of blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he finished his second glass of Chablis, he realized that he had been blaming the wrong person for his plight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maeve Livingstone was, he saw it now, merely a dupe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, the person to blame, obviously and undeniably, was Fat Charlie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without his meddling, without his criminal trespass into Grahame Coats's office computer systems, Grahame Coats wouldn't be here, an exile, like a blond Napoleon on a perfect, sunny Elba." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wouldn't be in the unfortunate predicament of having two women imprisoned in his meat locker.If Fat Charlie was here, he thought,I would tear out his throat with my teeth, and the thought shocked him even as it excited him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You didn't want to screw with Grahame Coats." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evening came, and Grahame Coats watched theSqueak Attack from his window as it drifted past his house on the cliff and off into the sunset. He wondered how long it would take them to notice that two passengers were missing. He even waved." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Job: User writes start, you add ~ten sentences sentences. Style: Neil Gaiman. Note: May include established characters" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stories are webs, interconnected strand to strand, and you follow each story to the center, because the center is the end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each person is a strand of story." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy, for example.\n\nDaisy could not have lasted as long as she had in the police force without having a sensible side to her nature, which was mostly all anybody saw. She respected laws, and she respected rules. She understood that many of these rules are perfectly arbitrary—decisions about where one could park, for example, or what hours shops were permitted to open—but that even these rules helped the big picture. They kept society safe. They kept things secure.\n\nHer flatmate, Carol, thought she'd gone mad.\n\n\"You can't just leave and say you're going on holiday. It doesn't work like that. You're not on a TV cop show, you know. You can't just zoom all over the world to follow up a lead.\"\n\n\"Well, then, in that case I'm not,\" Daisy had retorted untruthfully. \"I'm just going on holiday.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She said it so convincingly that the sensible cop who lived at the back of her head was shocked into silence and then began to explain to her exactly what she was doing wrong, beginning with pointing out that she was about to go off on an entirely unauthorized leave—tantamount, muttered the sensible cop, to neglect of duty—and moving on from there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It explained it on the way to the airport, and all across the Atlantic. It pointed out that even if she managed to avoid a permanent black mark in her Personal File, let alone being thrown out of the police force altogether, even if she did find Grahame Coats, there was nothing she could do once she found him. Her Majesty's constabulary look unkindly on kidnapping criminals in foreign countries, let alone arresting them, and she rather doubted she would be able to persuade him to return to the UK willingly.\n\nIt was only when Daisy got off the little plane from Jamaica and tasted the air—earthy, spicy, wet, almost sweet—of Saint Andrews that the sensible cop stopped pointing out the sheer ill-considered madness of what she was doing. That was because it was drowned out by another voice. \"Evildoers beware!\" it sang. \"Beware! Take care! Evildoers everywhere!\" and Daisy was marching to its beat. Grahame Coats had killed a woman in his office in the Aldwych, and he had walked out of there scot-free. He had done it practically under Daisy's nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She shook her head, collected her bag, brightly informed the immigration officer that she was here on her holidays, and went out to the taxi rank." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want a hotel that's not too expensive, but isn't icky, please,\" she said to the driver.\n\n\"I got just the place for you darlin',\" he said. \"Hop in.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce three sentences using the prose and structure of Neil Gaiman every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed. Story may drop you into ongoing events with established characters - work with whatever context is provided." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right. I want to know exactly where he is. where did he go? What have you done to him?\"\n\n\"I didn't do anything. Lord, child,\" said Mrs. Higgler. \"This never happened the last time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It looked like he was beamed up to the mothership,\" said Benjamin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cool. Real-life special effects.\"\n\n\"I want you to bring him back,\" said Daisy, fiercely. \"I want him backnow .\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't even know where he is,\" said Mrs. Higgler." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I didn't send him there. He do that himself.\"\n\n\"Anyway,\" said Clarissa. \"What if he's off doing what he's doing and we make him come back? We could ruin it all.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Benjamin. \"Like beaming the landing party back, halfway through their mission.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy thought about this and was irritated to realize that it made sense—as much as anything made sense these days, anyway.\n\n\"If nothing else is happening,\" said Clarissa, \"I ought to go back to the restaurant. Make sure everything's all right.\"\n\nMrs. Higgler sipped her coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothin' happenin' here,\" she agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy slammed her hand down on the table. \"Excuse me. We've got a killer out there. And now Fat Charlie's beamed up to the mastership.\"\n\n\"Mothership,\" said Benjamin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Higgler blinked. \"Okay,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We should do something. What do you suggest?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" admitted Daisy and she hated herself for saying it. \"Kill time, I suppose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She picked up the copy of theWilliamstown Courier that Mrs. Higgler had been reading and began to flip through it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The story about the missing tourists, the women who hadn't gone back to their cruise ship was a column on page three.The two at the house, said Grahame Coats in her head.Did you think I'd believe they were from the ship?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the end of the day, Daisy was a cop.\n\n\"Get me the phone,\" she said.\n\n\"Who are you calling?\"\n\n\"I think we'll start with the minister of tourism and the chief of police, and we'll go on from there.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing exercise: 12 sentences sentences continuing this chapter, Neil Gaiman style, Urban Fantasy, Mythology genre. characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crimson sun was shrinking on the horizon. Spider, had he not been Spider, would have despaired. On the island, in that place, there was a clean line between day and night, and Spider watched the last red crumb of sun being swallowed by the sea. He had his stones and the two stakes.\n\nHe wished he had fire.\n\nHe wondered when the moon would be up. When the moon rose, he might have a chance.\n\nThe sun set—the final smudge of red sank into the dark sea, and it was night.\n\n\"Anansi's child,\" said a voice from out of the darkness. \"Soon enough, I shall feed. You will not know I am there until you feel my breath on the back of your head. I stood above you, while you were staked out for me, and I could have crunched through your neck then and there, but I thought better of it. Killing you in your sleep would have brought me no pleasure. I want to feel you die. I want you to know why I have taken your life.\"\n\nSpider threw a rock toward where he thought the voice was coming from, and heard it crash harmlessly into the undergrowth.\n\n\"You have fingers,\" said the voice, \"but I have claws sharper than knives. You have your two legs, but I have four legs that will never tire, that can run ten times as fast as you ever will and keep on running. Your teeth can eat meat, if it has been made soft and tasteless by the fire, for you have little monkey teeth, good for chewing soft fruit and crawling bugs; but I have teeth that rend and tear the living flesh from the bones, and I can swallow it while the lifeblood still fountains into the sky.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then Spider made a noise." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'anansi's' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a noise that could be made without a tongue, without even opening his lips. It was a \"meh\" noise of amused disdain.You may be all these things, Tiger, it seemed to say,but so what? All the stories there ever were are Anansi's. Nobody tells Tiger stories .\n\nThere was a roar from the darkness, a roar of fury and frustration.\n\nSpider began to hum the tune of the \"Tiger Rag.\" It's an old song, good for teasing tigers with: \"Hold that tiger,\" it goes. \"Where's that tiger?\"\n\nWhen the voice came next from the darkness, it was nearer.\n\n\"I have your woman, Anansi's child. When I am done with you, I shall tear her flesh. Her meat will taste sweeter than yours.\"\n\nSpider made the \"hmph!\" sound people make when they know they're being lied to.\n\n\"Her name is Rosie.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'lucky' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spider made an involuntary noise then.\n\nIn the darkness, someone laughed. \"And as for eyes,\" it said, \"You have eyes that see the obvious, in broad daylight, if you are lucky, whereas my people have eyes that can see the hairs prickle on your arms as I talk to you, see the terror on your face, and see that in the nighttime. Fear me, Anansi's child, and if you have any final prayers to say, say them now.\"\n\nSpider had no prayers, but he had rocks, and he could throw them. Perhaps he might get lucky, and a rock might do some damage in the darkness. Spider knew that it would be a miracle if it did, but he had spent his entire life relying on miracles.\n\nHe reached for another rock.\n\nSomething brushed the back of his hand.\n\nHello,said the little clay spider, in his mind.\n\nHi,thought Spider.Look, I'm a bit busy here, trying not to be eaten, so if you don't mind keeping out of the way for a while....\n\nBut I brought them,thought the spider.Like you asked.\n\nLike I asked?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You told me to go for help. I brought them back with me. They followed my web strand. There are no spiders in this creation, so I slipped back and webbed from there to here and from here to there again. I brought the warriors. I brought the brave.\n\n\"A penny for your thoughts,\" said the big cat voice in the darkness. And then it said, with a certain refined amusement, \"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?\"\n\nA single spider is silent. They cultivate silence. Even the ones that do make noises will normally remain as still as they can, waiting. So much of what spiders do is waiting.\n\nThe night was slowly filled with a gentle rustling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spider thought his gratitude and pride at the little sevenlegged spider he had made from his blood and spittle and from the earth. The spider scuttled from the back of his hand up to his shoulder.\n\nSpider could not see them, but he knew they were all there: the great spiders and the small spiders, venomous spiders and biting spiders: huge hairy spiders and elegant chitinous spiders. Their eyes took whatever light they could find, but they saw through their legs and their feet, constructing vibrations into a virtual image of the world about them.\n\nThey were an army.\n\nTiger spoke again from the darkness. \"When you are dead, Anansi's child—when all of your bloodline is dead—then the stories will be mine. Once again, people will tell Tiger stories. They will gather together and praise my cunning and my strength, my cruelty and my joy. Every story will be mine. Every song will be mine. The world will be as it once was again: a hard place. A dark place.\"\n\nSpider listened to the rustle of his army.\n\nHe was sitting at the cliff edge for a reason. While it gave him nowhere to retreat to, it meant that Tiger could not charge, he could only creep.\n\nSpider started to laugh.\n\n\"What are you laughing at, Anansi's child? Have you lost your reason?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At that, Spider laughed longer and louder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a yowl from the darkness. Tiger had met Spider's army.\n\nSpider venom comes in many forms. It can often take a long while to discover the full effects of the bite. Naturalists have pondered this for years: there are spiders whose bite can cause the place bitten to rot and to die, sometimes more than a year after it was bitten. As to why spiders do this, the answer is simple. It's because spiders think this is funny, and they don't want you ever to forget them.\n\nBlack widow bites on Tiger's bruised nose, tarantula bites on his ears: in moments his sensitive places burned and throbbed, swelled and itched. Tiger did not know what was happening: all he knew was the burning and the pain and the sudden fear.\n\nSpider laughed, longer and louder, and listened to the sound of a huge animal bolting into the undergrowth, roaring in agony and in fright.\n\nThen he sat and he waited. Tiger would be back, he had no doubt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not over yet." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spider took the seven-legged spider from his shoulder and stroked it, running his fingers back and forth across its broad back.\n\nA little way down the hill something glowed with a cold green luminescence, and it flickered, like the lights of a tiny city, flashing on and off into the night. It was coming toward him.\n\nThe flickering resolved itself into a hundred thousand fire-flies. Silhouetted and illuminated in the center of the firefly-light was a dark figure, man-shaped. It was walking steadily up the hill.\n\nSpider raised a rock and mentally readied his spider troops for one more attack. And then he stopped. There was something familiar about the figure in the firefly-light; it wore a green fedora." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: Add 11 sentences sentences to this story segment. Style: Neil Gaiman. Genre: Urban Fantasy, Mythology. Note: Part of longer narrative." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grahame Coats was most of the way through a half bottle of rum he had found in the kitchen. He had opened the rum because he had no desire to go down into the wine cellar, and because he imagined it would get him drunk faster than wine would. Unfortunately, it didn't. It did not seem to be doing much of anything, let alone providing the emotional off-switch he felt he needed. He walked around the house with a bottle in one hand and a half-full glass in the other, and sometimes he took a swig from one, and sometimes from the other. He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, hangdog and sweaty. \"Cheer up,\" he said aloud. \"Might never happen. Cloud silver lining. Life rain mus' fall. Too many cooks. 'S an ill wind.\" The rum was pretty much gone.\n\nHe went back into the kitchen. He opened several cupboards before he noticed a bottle of sherry toward the back. Grahame picked it up and cradled it gratefully, as if it were a very small old friend who had just returned after years at sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He unscrewed the top of the bottle. It was a sweet cooking sherry, but he drank it down like lemonade.\n\nThere were other things Grahame Coats had noticed while looking for alcohol in the kitchen. There were, for example, knives. Some of them were very sharp. In a drawer, there was even a small stainless steel hacksaw. Grahame Coats approved. It would be the very simple solution to the problem in the basement.\n\n\"Habeas corpus,\" he said. \"Orhabeas delicti . One of those. If there is no body, then there was no crime.Ergo .Quod erat demonstrandum.\"\n\nHe took his gun out of his jacket pocket, put it on the kitchen table. He arranged the knives around it in a pattern, like the spokes of a wheel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" he said, in the same tones he had once used to persuade innocent boy bands that it was time to sign their contract with him and to say hello to fame if not actually fortune, \"no time like the present.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'stood' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pushed three kitchen knives blade-down through his belt, placed the hacksaw in his jacket pocket, and then, gun in hand, he went down the cellar stairs. He turned on the lights, blinked at the wine bottles on their side, each in their rack, each covered with a thin layer of dust, and then he was standing beside the iron meat locker door.\n\n\"Right,\" he shouted. \"You'll be pleased to hear that I'm not going to hurt you. I'll be letting you both go now. All a bit of a mistake. Still, no hard feelings. No use crying over spilt. Stand by the far wall. Assume the position. No funny stuff.\"\n\nIt was, he reflected, as he pulled back the bolts, almost comforting how many clichés already exist for people holding guns. It made Grahame Coats feel like one of a brotherhood: Bogart stood beside him, and Cagney, and all the people who shout at each other onCOPS.\n\nHe turned the light on and pulled open the door. Rosie's mother stood against the far wall, with her back to him. As he came in, she flipped up her skirt and waggled an astonishingly bony brown bottom.\n\nHis jaw dropped open. That was when Rosie slammed down a length of rusty chain onto Grahame Coats's wrist, sending the gun flying across the room.\n\nWith the enthusiasm and accuracy of a much younger woman, Rosie's mother kicked Grahame Coats in the groin, and as he clutched his crotch and doubled up, making noises pitched at a level that only dogs and bats could hear, Rosie and her mother stumbled out of the meat locker." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They pushed the door closed and Rosie pushed shut one of the bolts. They hugged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were still in the wine cellar when all the lights went off.\n\n\"It's just the fuses,\" said Rosie, to reassure her mother. She was not certain that she believed it, but she had no other explanation.\n\n\"You should have locked both bolts,\" said her mother. And then, \"Ow,\" as she stubbed her toe on something, and cursed.\n\n\"On the bright side,\" said Rosie, \"Hecan't see in the dark either. Just hold my hand. I think the stairs are up this way.\"\n\nGrahame Coats was down on all fours on the concrete floor of the meat cellar, in the darkness, when the lights went out. There was something hot dripping down his leg. He thought for one uncomfortable moment that he had wet himself, before he understood that the blade of one of the knives he had pushed into his belt had cut deeply into the top of his leg.\n\nHe stopped moving and lay on the floor. He decided that he had been very sensible to have drunk so much: it was practically an anaesthetic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He decided to go to sleep." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🔍 Find a place to insert: \"Can't. Just going to lie on the floor for a bit. Anyway. She bolted the door. I heard her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not alone in the meat locker. There was someone in there with him. Something that moved on four legs.\n\nSomebody growled, \"Get up.\"\n\n\"Can't get up. I'm hurt. Want to go to bed.\"\n\n\"You're a pitiful little creature and you destroy everything you touch. Now get up.\"\n\n\"Would love to,\" said Grahame Coats in the reasonable tones of a drunk. \"Can't. Just going to lie on the floor for a bit. Anyway. She bolted the door. I heard her.\"\n\nHe heard a scraping from the other side of the door, as if a bolt was slowly being released.\n\n\"The door is open. Now: if you stay here, you'll die.\" An impatient rustling; the swish of a tail; a roar, half-muffled in the back of a throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give me your hand and your allegiance. Invite me inside you.\"\n\n\"I don't underst—\"\n\n\"Give me your hand, or bleed to death.\"\n\nIn the black of the meat cellar, Grahame Coats put out his hand. Someone—something—took it and held it, reassuringly. \"Now, are you willing to invite me in?\"\n\nA moment of cold sobriety touched Grahame Coats then. He had already gone too far. Nothing he did would make matters worse, after all.\n\n\"Absatively,\" whispered Grahame Coats, and as he said it he began to change. He could see through the darkness easy as daylight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought, but only for a moment, that he saw something beside him, bigger than a man, with sharp, sharp teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then it was gone, and Grahame Coats felt wonderful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blood no longer spurted from his leg.\n\nHe could see clearly in the darkness. He pulled the knives from his belt, dropped them onto the floor. He pulled off his shoes, too. There was a gun on the ground, but he left it there. Tools were for apes and crows and weaklings. He was no ape.\n\nHe was a hunter.\n\nHe pulled himself up onto his hands and his knees, and then he padded, four-footed, out into the wine cellar.\n\nHe could see the women. They had found the steps up to the house, and they were edging up them blindly, hand-in-hand in the darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of them was old and stringy." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other was young and tender. The mouth salivated in something that was only partly Grahame Coats." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand on the story, maintaining character relationships, in the Urban Fantasy, Mythology genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hospital was a ten-minute-walk from the hotel, and Spider was sitting in the waiting room, holding a dog-eared copy ofEntertainment Weekly magazine as if he were actually reading it.\n\nCharlie tapped him on the shoulder, and Spider jumped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked up warily and then, seeing his brother, he relaxed, but not much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They said I had to wait out here,\" Spider said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I'm not a relation or anything.\"\n\nCharlie boggled. \"Well, why didn't you just tell them you were a relative? Or a doctor?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'don't' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spider looked uncomfortable. \"Well, it's easy to do that stuff if you don't care. If it doesn't matter if I go in or I don't, it's easy to go in. But now it matters, and I'd hate to get in the way or do something wrong, and I mean, what if I tried and they said no, and then...what are you grinning about?\"\n\n\"Nothing really,\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'there' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It just all sounds a bit familiar. Come on. Let's go and find Rosie. You know,\" he said to Daisy, as they set off down a random corridor, \"there are two ways to walk through a hospital. Either you look like you belong there—here you go Spider. White coat on back of door, just your size. Put it on—or you should look so out of place that no one will complain that you're there. They'll just leave it for someone else to sort out.\" He began to hum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's that song?\" asked Daisy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's called 'Yellow Bird,' \" said Spider." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie pushed his hat back on his head, and they walked into Rosie's hospital room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rosie was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine, and looking worried." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'looked' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she saw the three of them come in, she looked more worried. She looked from Spider to Charlie and back again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're both a long way from home,\" was all she said.\n\n\"We all are,\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now, you've met Spider. This is Daisy. She's in the police.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not sure that I am anymore,\" said Daisy. \"I'm probably in all kinds of hot water.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're the one who was there last night? The one who got the island police to come up to the house?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rosie stopped. She said, \"Any word on Grahame Coats?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's in intensive care, just like your mum.\"\n\n\"Well, if she comes to before he does,\" said Rosie, \"I expect she'll kill him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she said, \"They won't talk to me about my mum's condition. They just say that it's very serious, and they'll tell me as soon as there's anything to tell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at Charlie with clear eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's not as bad as you think she is, really. Not when you get time to know her. We had a lot of time to talk, locked up in the dark. She's all right.\"\n\nShe blew her nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she said, \"They don't think she's going to make it. They haven't directly said that to me, but they sort of said it in a not-saying-it sort of way. It's funny. I thought she'd live through anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlie said, \"Me too. I figured even if there was a nuclear war, it would still leave radioactive cockroaches and your mum.\"\n\nDaisy stepped on his foot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She said, \"Do they know anything more about what hurt her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I told them,\" said Rosie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There was some kind of animal in the house. Maybe it was just Grahame Coats. I mean it sort of was him, but it was sort of someone else. She distracted it from me, and it went for her....\" She had explained it all as best shecould to the island police that morning. She had decided not to talk about the blonde ghost-woman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes minds snap under pressure, and she thought it best if people did not know that hers had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rosie broke off. She was staring at Spider as if she had only just remembered who he was. She said, \"I still hate you, you know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Spider said nothing, but a miserable expression crept across his face, and he no longer looked like a doctor: now he looked like a man who had borrowed a white coat from behind a door and was worried that someone would notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dreamlike tone came into her voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only,\" she said, \"only when I was in the dark, I thought that you were helping me. That you were keeping the animal away. What happened to your face? It's all scratched.\"\n\n\"It was an animal,\" said Spider." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know,\" she said, \"Now I see you both at once, you don't look anything alike at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm the good-looking one,\" said Charlie, and Daisy's foot pressed down on his toes for the second time.\n\n\"Bless,\" said Daisy, quietly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then, slightly louder, \"Charlie? There's something we need to talk about outside. Now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They went out into the hospital corridor, leaving Spider inside.\n\n\"What?\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What what?\" said Daisy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What have we got to talk about?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why are we out here? You heard her. She hates him. We shouldn't have left them alone together. She's probably killed him by now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy looked up at him with the kind of expression that Jesus might have given someone who had just explained that he was probably allergic to bread and fishes, so could He possibly do him a quick chicken salad: there was pity in that expression, along with almost infinite compassion.\n\nShe touched a finger to her lips and pulled him back toward the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked back into the hospital room: Rosie did not appear to be killing Spider. Quite the opposite, if anything. \"Oh,\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were kissing. Put like that, and you could be forgiven for presuming that this was a normal kiss, all lips and skin and possibly even a little tongue. You'd miss how he smiled, how his eyes glowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then, after the kiss was done, how he stood, like a man who had just discovered the art of standing and had figured out how to do it better than anyone else who would ever come along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie turned his attention back to the corridor to find Daisy in conversation with several doctors and the police officer they had encountered the previous evening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, we always had him figured as a bad man,\" the police officer was saying to Daisy. \"I mean, frankly, you only get this kind of behavior from foreigners. The local people, they simply wouldn't do that kind of thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Obviously not,\" said Daisy.\n\n\"Very. Very grateful,\" said the police chief, patting her shoulder in a way that set Daisy's teeth on edge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This little lady saved that woman's life,\" he told Charlie, giving his shoulder a patronizing pat for good measure, before setting off with the doctors down the corridor.\n\n\"So what's happening?\" asked Charlie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, Grahame Coats is dead,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"More or less. And they don't hold out any hope for Rosie's mum, either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I see,\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought about this. Then he finished thinking and came to a decision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Said, \"Would you mind if I just chatted to my brother for a bit? I think he and I need to talk.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm going back to the hotel anyway. I'm going to check my e-mail. Probably going to have to say sorry on the phone a lot. Find out if I still have a career.\"\n\n\"But you're a hero, aren't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think that's what anyone was paying me for,\" she said, a little wanly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come and find me at the hotel when you're done.\"\n\nSpider and Charlie walked down the Williamstown high street in the morning sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know, that really is a good hat,\" said Spider." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You really think so?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Can I try it on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie gave Spider the green fedora." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Spider put it on, looked at his reflection in a shop window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made a face and gave Charlie the hat back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" he said, disappointed, \"it looks good on you, anyway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlie pushed his fedora back onto his head. Some hats can only be worn if you're willing to be jaunty, to set them at an angle and to walk beneath them with a spring in your stride as if you're only a step away from dancing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They demand a lot of you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This hat was one of those, and Charlie was up to it. He said, \"Rosie's mum is dying.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I really,really never liked her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't know her as well as you did. But given time, I'm sure I would have really, really disliked her too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie said, \"We have to try and save her life, don't we?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said it without enthusiasm, like someone pointing out it was time to visit the dentist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think we can do things like that.\"\n\n\"Dad did something like it for mum. He got her better, for a while.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But that was him. I don't know how we'd do that.\"\n\nCharlie said, \"The place at the end of the world. With the caves.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Beginning of the world, not the end. What about it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can we just get there? Without all that candles-and-herbs malarkey?\"\n\nSpider was quiet. Then he nodded, \"I think so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They turned together, turned in a direction that wasn't usually there, and they walked away from the Williamstown high street.\n\nNow the sun was rising, and Charlie and Spider walked across a beach littered with skulls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were not proper human skulls, and they covered the beach like yellow pebbles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlie avoided them where he could, while Spider crunched his way through them. At the end of the beach they took a left turn that was left to absolutely everything, and the mountains at the beginning of the world towered above them and the cliffs fell away below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlie remembered the last time he was here, and it seemed like a thousand years ago. \"Where is everyone?\" he said aloud, and his voice echoed against the rocks and came back to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said, loudly, \"Hello?\"\n\nAnd then they were there, watching him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All of them. They seemed grander, now, less human, more animal,wilder . He realized that he had seen them as people last time because he had expected to meet people." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they were not people. Arrayed on the rocks above them were Lion and Elephant, Crocodile and Python, Rabbit and Scorpion, and the rest of them, hundreds of them, and they stared at him with eyes unsmiling: animals he recognized; animals that no one living would be able to identify." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the animals that have ever been in stories." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the animals that people have dreamed of, worshipped, or placated.\n\nCharlie saw all of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's one thing,he thought,singing for your life, in a room filled with diners, on the spur of the moment, with a gun barrel in the ribs of the girl you...\n\nThat you..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh.\n\nWell,thought Charlie,I can worry about that later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Right now he badly wanted either to breathe into a brown paper bag or to vanish.\n\n\"There must be hundreds of them,\" said Spider, and there was awe in his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a flurry in the air, on a nearby rock, which resolved itself into the Bird Woman. She folded her arms and stared at them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever it is you're going to do,\" Spider said, \"you better do it soon. They aren't going to wait around forever.\"\n\nCharlie's mouth was dry. \"Right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Spider said, \"So. Um. What exactly do we do now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We sing to them,\" said Charlie, simply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's how we fix things. I figured it out. We just sing it all, you and I.\"\n\n\"I don't understand. Singwhat?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlie said, \"The song. You sing the song, you fix things.\" Now he sounded desperate. \"The song.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Spider's eyes were like puddles after the rain, and Charlie saw things in them he had not seen before: affection, perhaps, and confusion and, mostly, apology." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know what you're talking about.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lion watched them from the side of a boulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monkey looked at them from the top of a tree. And Tiger....\n\nCharlie saw Tiger. It was walking gingerly on four feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its face was swollen and bruised, but there was a glint in its eyes, and it looked as if it would be more than happy to even the score." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie opened his mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A small croaking noise came out, as if Charlie had recently swallowed a particularly nervous frog. \"It's no use,\" he whispered to Spider." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This was a stupid idea, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Yup.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you think we can just go away again?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie's nervous glance swept the mountainside and the caves, took in each of the hundreds of totem creatures from before the dawn of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was one he had not seen the last time he had looked: a small man, with lemon yellow gloves and a pencil-thin moustache and no fedora hat to cover his thinning hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man winked when he caught Charlie's gaze." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't much, but it was enough.\n\nCharlie filled his lungs, and he began to sing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am Charlie,\" he sang." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am Anansi's son. Listen as I sing my song. Listen to my life.\"\n\nHe sang them the song of a boy who was half a god, and who was broken into two by an old woman with a grudge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sang of his father, and he sang of his mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sang of names and words, of the building blocks beneath the real, the worlds that make worlds, the truths beneath the way things are; he sang of appropriate ends and just conclusions for those who would have hurt him and his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sang the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a good song, and it was his song. Sometimes it had words, and sometimes it didn't have any words at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he sang, all the creatures listening began to clap and to stamp and to hum along; Charlie felt like he was the conduit for a great song that took in all of them. He sang of birds, of the magic of looking up and seeing them in flight, of the sheen of the sun on a wing feather in the morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The totem creatures were dancing now, the dances of their kind. The Bird Woman danced the wheeling dance of birds, fanning her tail feathers, tossing back her beak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was only one creature on the mountainside who did not dance.\n\nTiger lashed his tail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not clapping or singing or dancing. His face was bruised purple, and his body was covered in welts and in bite marks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had padded down the rocks, a step at a time, until he was close to Charlie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The songs aren't yours,\" he growled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlie looked at him, and sang about Tiger, and about Grahame Coats, and those who would prey upon the innocent. He turned: Spider was looking up at him with admiration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiger roared in anger, and Charlie took the roar and wound his song around it. Then he did the roar himself, just like Tiger had done it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, the roar began just as Tiger's roar had, but then Charlie changed it, so it became a really goofy sort of roar, and all the creatures watching from the rocks started to laugh. They couldn't help it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie did the goofy roar again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like any impersonation, like any perfect caricature, it had the effect of making what it made fun of intrinsically ridiculous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one would ever hear Tiger roar again without hearing Charlie's roar underneath it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Goofy sort of a roar,\" they'd say." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'crowd' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiger turned his back on Charlie. He loped through the crowd, roaring as he ran, which only made the crowd laugh the harder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tiger angrily retreated back into his cave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Spider gestured with his hands, a curt movement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a rumble, and the mouth of Tiger's cave collapsed in a small rock slide. Spider looked satisfied. Charlie kept singing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sang the song of Rosie Noah and the song of Rosie's mother: he sang a long life for Mrs Noah and all the happiness that she deserved.\n\nHe sang of his life, all of their lives, and in his song he saw the pattern of their lives as a web that a fly had blundered into, and with his song he wrapped the fly, made certain it would not escape, and he repaired the web with new strands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And now the song was coming to its natural end.\n\nCharlie realized, with no little surprise, that he enjoyed singing to other people, and he knew, at that moment, that this was what he would spend the rest of his life doing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would sing: not big, magical songs that made worlds or recreated existence. Just small songs that would make people happy for a breath, make them move, make them for a little while, forget their problems." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he knew that there would always be the fear before performing, the stage fright, that would never go away, but he also understood that it would be like jumping into a swimming pool—only uncomfortably chill for a few seconds—and then the discomfort would pass and it would be good....\n\nNeverthis good. Never this good again. But good enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he was done. Charlie hung his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The creatures on the cliff top let the last notes die away, stopped stamping, stopped clapping, stopped dancing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Charlie took off his father's green fedora and fanned his face with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Under his breath, Spider said, \"That was amazing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You could have done it too,\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think so. What was happening at the end? I felt you doing something, but I couldn't really tell what it was.\"\n\n\"I fixed things,\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For us. I think. I'm not really sure....\" And he wasn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now the song was over, the content of the song was unraveling like a dream in the morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pointed to the cave mouth that was blocked by rocks. \"Did you do that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" said Spider. \"Seemed the least I could do. Tiger will dig his way out eventually, though. I wish I'd done something worse than just shut the door on him, to be honest.\"\n\n\"Not to worry,\" said Charlie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did. Something much worse.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He watched the animals disperse. His father was nowhere to be seen, which did not surprise him." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "CONTINUE STORY. PARAMETERS: ten sentences sentences, character continuity, Science Fantasy, BDSM genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ho!\" cried Torm, that most improbable member of the Caste of Scribes, throwing his blue robes over his head as though he could not bear to see the light of day. Out of the robes then popped the sandy-haired head of the scribe, his pale blue eyes twinkling on each side of that sharp needle of a nose. He looked me over. \"Yes,\" he cried, \"I deserve it!\" Back went the head into the robes. Muffled, his voice reached me. \"Why must I, an idiot, be always afflicted with idiots?\" Out came the head. \"Have I nothing better to do? Have I not a thousand scrolls gathering dust on my shelves, unread, unstudied?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look,\" he cried in actual despair, waving his blue-robed arms hopelessly at the messiest chamber I had seen on Gor." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'piled' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His desk, a vast wooden table, was piled with papers and pots of ink, and pens and scissors and leather fasteners and binders. There was no square foot of the chamber that did not contain racks of scrolls, and others, hundreds perhaps, were piled like cord wood here and there. His sleeping mat was unrolled, and his blankets must not have been aired for weeks. His personal belongings, which seemed to be negligible, were stuffed into the meanest of the scroll racks.\n\nOne of the windows into Torm's chamber was quite irregular, and I noted that it had been forcibly enlarged. I imagined him with a carpenter's hammer, angrily cracking and banging away at the wall, chipping away the stone that more light might enter his room. And always under his table a brazier filled with hot coals burned near the feet of the scribe, perilously close to the scholarly litter with which the floor was strewn. It seemed that Torm was always cold or, at best, never quite warm enough. The hottest days would be likely to find him wiping his nose on the sleeve of his blue robes, shivering miserably and lamenting the price of fuel.\n\nTorm was of slight build and reminded me of an angry bird which enjoys nothing so much as scolding squirrels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His blue robes were worn through in a dozen spots, only two or three of which had been ineptly attacked by thread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of his sandals had a broken strap that had been carelessly knotted back together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Goreans I had seen in the past few weeks had tended to be meticulous in their dress, taking great pride in their appearance, but Torm apparently had better things on which to spend his time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Among these things, unfortunately, was berating those like myself who were hapless enough to fall within the ambit of his wrath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet, in spite of his incomparable eccentricities, his petulance and exasperation, I felt drawn to the man and sensed in him something I admired—a shrewd and kind spirit, a sense of humor, and a love of learning, which can be one of the deepest and most honest of loves. It was this love for his scrolls and for the men who had written them, perhaps centuries before, that most impressed me about Torm. In his way, he linked me, this moment, and himself with generations of men who had pondered on the world and its meaning. Incredible as it may seem, I did not doubt that he was the finest scholar in the City of Cylinders, as my father had said.\n\nWith annoyance, Torm poked through one of the enormous piles of scrolls and at last, on his hands and knees, fished out one skimpy scroll, set it in the reading device—a metal frame with rollers at the top and bottom—and, pushing a button, spun the scroll to its opening mark, a single sign.\n\n\"Al-Ka!\" said Torm, pointing one long, authoritative finger at the sign. \"Al-Ka,\" he said.\n\n\"Al-Ka,\" I repeated.\n\nWe looked at one another, and both of us laughed. A tear of amusement formed along the side of his sharp nose, and his pale blue eyes twinkled.\n\nI had begun to learn the Gorean alphabet." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'tongue' must be used 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the next few weeks I found myself immersed in intensive activity, interspersed with carefully calculated rest and feeding periods. At first only Torm and my father were my teachers, but as I began to master the language of my new home, numerous others, apparently of Earth stock, assumed responsibility for my lessons in special areas. Torm's English, incidentally, was spoken with a Gorean accent. He had learned our tongue from my father. Most Goreans would have regarded it as a worthless tongue, since it is nowhere spoken on the planet, but Torm had mastered it, apparently only for the delight of seeing how living thought could express itself in yet another garb.\n\nThe schedule that was forced upon me was meticulous and grueling, and except for rest and feeding, alternated between times of study and times of training, largely in arms, but partly in the use of various devices as common to the Goreans as adding machines and scales are to us.\n\nOne of the most interesting was the Translator, which could be set for various languages. Whereas there was a main common tongue on Gor, with apparently several related dialects or sublanguages, some of the Gorean languages bore in sound little resemblance to anything I had heard before, at least as languages; they resembled rather the cries of birds and the growls of animals; they were sounds I knew could not have been produced by a human throat. Although the machines could be set for various languages, one term of the translation symmetry, at least in the machines I saw, was always Gorean. If I set the machine to, say, Language A and spoke Gorean into it, it would, after a fraction of a second, emit a succession of noises, which was the translation of my Gorean sentences into A." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the other hand, a new succession of noises in A would be received by the machine and emitted as a message in Gorean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My father, to my delight, had taped one of these translation devices with English, and accordingly it was a most useful tool in working out equivalent phrases. Also, of course, he and Torm worked intensively with me. The machine, however, particularly to Torm's relief, allowed me to practice on my own. These translation machines are a marvel of miniaturization, each of them, about the size of a portable typewriter, being programmed for four non-Gorean languages. The translations, of course, are rather literal, and the vocabulary is limited to recognitions of only about 25,000 equivalencies for each language. Accordingly, for subtle communication or the fullest expression of thought, the machine was inferior to a skilled linguist. The machine, however, according to my father, retained the advantage that its mistakes would not be intentional, and that its translations, even if inadequate, would be honest.\n\n\"You must learn,\" Torm had said matter-of-factly, \"the history and legends of Gor, its geography and economics, its social structures and customs, such as the caste system and clan groups, the right of placing the Home Stone, the Places of Sanctuary, when quarter is and is not permitted in war, and so on.\"\n\nAnd I learned these things, or as much as I could in the time I was given. Occasionally Torm would cry out in horror as I made a mistake, incomprehension and disbelief written large on his features, and he would then sadly take up a large scroll, containing the work of an author of whom he disapproved, and strike me smartly on the head with it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One way or another, he was determined that I should profit by his instruction.\n\nOddly enough, there was little religious instruction, other than to encourage awe of the Priest-Kings, and what there was, Torm refused to administer, insisting it was the province of the Initiates. Religious matters on this world tend to be rather carefully guarded by the Caste of Initiates, who allow members of other castes little participation in their sacrifices and ceremonies. I was given some prayers to the Priest-Kings to memorize, but they were in Old Gorean, a language cultivated by the Initiates but not spoken generally on the planet, and I never bothered to learn them. To my delight, I learned that Torm, whose memory was phenomenal, had forgotten them years ago. I sensed that a certain distrust existed between the Caste of Scribes and the Caste of Initiates.\n\nThe ethical teachings of Gor, which are independent of the claims and propositions of the Initiates, amount to little more than the Caste Codes—collections of sayings whose origins are lost in antiquity. I was specially drilled in the Code of the Warrior Caste.\n\n\"It's just as well,\" said Torm. \"You would never make a Scribe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Code of the Warrior was, in general, characterized by a rudimentary chivalry, emphasizing loyalty to the Pride Chiefs and the Home Stone. It was harsh, but with a certain gallantry, a sense of honor that I could respect. A man could do worse than live by such a code.\n\nI was also instructed in the Double Knowledge—that is, I was instructed in what the people, on the whole, believed, and then I was instructed in what the intellectuals were expected to know. Sometimes there was a surprising discrepancy between the two. For example, the population as a whole, the castes below the High Castes, were encouraged to believe that their world was a broad, flat disk. Perhaps this was to discourage them from exploration or to develop in them a habit of relying on common-sense prejudices—something of a social control device.\n\nOn the other hand, the High Castes, specifically the Warriors, Builders, Scribes, Initiates, and Physicians, were told the truth in such matters, perhaps because it was thought they would eventually determine it for themselves, from observations such as the shadow of their planet on one or another of Gor's three small moons during eclipses, the phenomenon of sighting the tops of distant objects first, and the fact that certain stars could not be seen from certain geographical positions; if the planet had been flat, precisely the same set of stars would have been observable from every position on its surface.\n\nI wondered, however, if the Second Knowledge, that of the intellectuals, might not be as carefully tailored to preclude inquiry on their level as the First Knowledge apparently was to preclude inquiry on the level of the Lower Castes. I would guess that there is a Third Knowledge, that reserved to the Priest-Kings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The city-state,\" said my father, speaking to me late one afternoon, \"is the basic political division on Gor—hostile cities controlling what territory they can in their environs, surrounded by a no-man's land of open ground on every side.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How is leadership determined in these cities?\" I asked.\n\n\"Rulers,\" he said, \"are chosen from any High Caste.\"\n\n\"High Caste?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" was his answer. \"In fact, in the First Knowledge, there is a story told to the young in their public nurseries, that if a man from Lower Caste should come to rule in a city, the city would come to ruin.\"\n\nI must have appeared annoyed.\n\n\"The caste structure,\" said my father patiently, with perhaps the trace of a smile on his face, \"is relatively immobile, but not frozen, and depends on more than birth. For example, if a child in his schooling shows that he can raise caste, as the expression is, he is permitted to do so. But, similarly, if a child does not show the aptitude expected of his caste, whether it be, say, that of physician or warrior, he is lowered in caste.\"\n\n\"I see,\" I said, not much reassured.\n\n\"The High Castes in a given city,\" said my father, \"elect an administrator and council for stated terms. In times of crisis, a war chief, or Ubar, is named, who rules without check and by decree until, in his judgment, the crisis is passed.\"\n\n\"In his judgment?\" I asked skeptically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Normally the office is surrendered after the passing of the crisis,\" said my father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is part of the Warrior's Code.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But what if he does not give up the office?\" I asked. I had learned enough of Gor by now to know that one could not always count on the Caste Codes being observed.\n\n\"Those who do not desire to surrender their power,\" said my father, \"are usually deserted by their men. The offending war chief is simply abandoned, left alone in his palace to be impaled by the citizens of the city he has tried to usurp.\"\n\nI nodded, imagining a palace, empty save for one man sitting alone on his throne, clad in his robes of state, waiting for the angry people outside the gates to break through and work their wrath.\n\n\"But,\" said my father, \"sometimes such a war chief, or Ubar, wins the hearts of his men, and they refuse to withdraw their allegiance.\"\n\n\"What happens then?\" I asked.\n\n\"He becomes a tyrant,\" said my father, \"and rules until eventually, in one way or another, he is ruthlessly deposed.\" My father's eyes were hard and seemed fixed in thought. It was not mere political theory he spoke to me. I gathered that he knew of such a man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Until,\" he repeated slowly, \"he is ruthlessly deposed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next morning it was back to Torm and his interminable lessons.\n\nIn large outline Gor, as would be expected, was not a sphere, but a spheroid. It was somewhat heavier in its southern hemisphere and was shaped somewhat like the Earth—like a rounded, inverted top. The angle of its axis was somewhat sharper than the Earth's, but not enough to prevent its having a glorious periodicity of seasons. Moreover, like the Earth, it had two polar regions and an equatorial belt, interspersed with northern and southern temperate zones. Much of the area of Gor, surprisingly enough, was blank on the map, but I was overwhelmed trying to commit as many of the rivers, seas, plains, and peninsulas to memory as I could.\n\nEconomically, the base of the Gorean life was the free peasant, which was perhaps the lowest but undoubtedly the most fundamental caste, and the staple crop was a yellow grain called Sa-Tarna, or Life-Daughter. Interestingly enough, the word for meat is Sa-Tassna, which means Life-Mother. Incidentally, when one speaks of food in general, one always speaks of Sa-Tassna. The expression for the yellow grain seems to be a secondary expression, derivative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This would seem to indicate that a hunting economy underlay or was prior to the agricultural economy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This would be the normal supposition in any case, but what intrigued me here, perhaps for no sufficient reason, was the complex nature of the expressions involved. This suggested to me that perhaps a well-developed language or mode of conceptual thought existed prior to the primitive hunting groups that must have flourished long ago on the planet. People had come, or had been brought to Gor possibly, with a fully developed language. I wondered at the possible antiquity of the Voyages of Acquisition I had heard my father speak of. I had been the object of one such voyage, he, apparently, of another.\n\nI had little time for speculation, however, as I was trying to bear up under an arduous schedule which seemed designed to force me to become a Gorean in a matter of weeks or perhaps see me die in the attempt. But I enjoyed those weeks, as one is likely to when learning and developing oneself, though to what end I was still ignorant. I met many Goreans, other than Torm, in these weeks—free Goreans, mostly of the Caste of Scribes and the Caste of Warriors. The Scribes, of course, are the scholars and clerks of Gor, and there are divisions and rankings within the group, from simple copiers to the savants of the city.\n\nI had seen few women, but knew that they, when free, were promoted or demoted within the caste system according to the same standards and criteria as the men, although this varied, I was told, considerably from city to city." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'children' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the whole, I liked the people I met, and I was confident that they were largely of Earth stock, that their ancestors had been brought to the planet in Voyages of Acquisition. Apparently, after having been brought to the planet, they had simply been released, much as animals might be released in a forest preserve, or fish stocked free in a river.\n\nThe ancestors of some of them might have been Chaldeans or Celts or Syrians or Englishmen brought to this world over a period of centuries from different civilizations. But the children, of course, and their children eventually became simply Gorean. In the long ages on Gor almost all traces of Earth origin had vanished. Occasionally, however, an English word in Gorean, like \"ax\" or \"ship,\" would delight me. Certain other expressions seemed clearly to be of Greek or German origin. If I had been a skilled linguist, I undoubtedly would have discovered hundreds of parallels and affinities, grammatical and otherwise, between Gorean and various of the Earth languages. Earth origin, incidentally, was not a part of the First Knowledge, though it was of the Second.\n\n\"Torm,\" I once asked, \"why is Earth origin not part of the First Knowledge?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is it not self-evident?\" he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" I said.\n\n\"Ah!\" he said, and closed his eyes very slowly and kept them shut for about a minute, during which time he was apparently subjecting the matter to the most intense scrutiny.\n\n\"You're right,\" he said at last, opening his eyes. \"It is not self-evident.\"\n\n\"Then what do we do?\" I asked.\n\n\"We continue with our lessons,\" said Torm.\n\nThe caste system was socially efficient, given its openness with respect to merit, but I regarded it as somehow ethically objectionable. It was still too rigid, in my opinion, particularly with respect to the selection of rulers from the High Castes and with respect to the Double Knowledge. But far more deplorable than the caste system was the institution of slavery. There were only three statuses conceivable to the Gorean mind outside of the caste system: slave, outlaw, and Priest-King." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man who refused to practice his livelihood or strove to alter status without the consent of the Council of High Castes was, by definition, an outlaw and subject to impalement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl I had originally seen had been a slave, and what I had taken to be the jewelry at her throat had been a badge of servitude. Another such badge was a brand concealed by her clothing. The latter marked her as a slave, and the former identified her master. One might change one's collar, but not one's brand. I had not seen the girl since the first day. I wondered what had become of her, but I did not inquire. One of the first lessons I was taught on Gor was that concern for a slave was out of place. I decided to wait. I did learn, casually from a Scribe, not Torm, that slaves were not permitted to impart instruction to a free man, since it would place him in their debt, and nothing was owed to a slave. If it was in my power, I resolved to do what I could to abolish what seemed to me a degrading condition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I once talked to my father about the matter, and he merely said that there were many things on Gor worse than the lot of slavery, particularly that of a Tower Slave.\n\nWithout warning, with blinding speed, the bronze-headed spear flew toward my breast, the heavy shaft blurred like a comet's tail behind it. I twisted, and the blade cut my tunic cleanly, creasing the skin with a line of blood as sharp as a razor. It sunk eight inches into the heavy wooden beams behind me. Had it struck me with that force, it would have passed through my body.\n\n\"He's fast enough,\" said the man who had cast the spear. \"I shall accept him.\"\n\nThis was my introduction to my instructor in arms, whose name was also Tarl. I shall call him the Older Tarl. He was a blond Viking giant of a man, a bearded fellow with a cheerful, craggy face and fierce blue eyes, who strode about as though he owned the earth on which he stood." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'could' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His whole body, his carriage, the holding of his head bespoke the warrior, a man who knew his weapons and, on the simple world of Gor, knew that he could kill almost any man who might stand against him. If there was one outstanding impression I gathered of the Older Tarl in that first terrifying meeting it was that he was a proud man, not arrogant, but proud, and rightfully so. I would come to know this skilled, powerful, proud man well.\n\nIndeed, the largest part of my education was to be in arms, mostly training in the spear and sword. The spear seemed light to me because of the gravity, and I soon developed a dexterity in casting it with considerable force and accuracy. I could penetrate a shield at close distance, and I managed to develop a skill sufficient to hurl it through a thrown hoop about the size of a dinner plate at twenty yards. I was also forced to learn to throw the spear with my left hand.\n\nOnce I objected.\n\n\"What if you are wounded in the right arm?\" demanded the Older Tarl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What will you do then?\"\n\n\"Run?\" suggested Torm, who occasionally observed these practice sessions.\n\n\"No!\" cried the Older Tarl. \"You must stand and be slain like a warrior!\"\n\nTorm tucked a scroll, which he had been pretending to read, under his arm. He wiped his nose sagely on the sleeve of his blue robe. \"Is that rational?\" he asked.\n\nThe Older Tarl seized a spear, and Torm, lifting his robes, hastily departed the training area.\n\nIn despair, with my left arm I lifted another spear from the spear-rack, to try once more. Eventually, perhaps more to my surprise than that of the Older Tarl, my performance became almost creditable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had increased my margin of survival by some obscure percentage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My training in the short, stabbing sword of the Goreans was as thorough as they could make it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had belonged to a fencing club at Oxford and had fenced for sport and pleasure at the college in New Hampshire, but this current business was serious. Once again, I was supposed to learn to wield the weapon equally well with either hand, but, again, I could never manage to develop the skill to my genuine satisfaction. I acknowledged to myself that I was inveterately, stubbornly right-handed, for better or worse.\n\nDuring my training with the sword, the Older Tarl cut me unpleasantly a number of times, shouting out, annoyingly enough, I thought, \"You are dead!\" At last, near the end of my training, I managed to break through his guard and, pulling my stroke, to drive my blade against his chest. I withdrew it bright with his blood. He flung down his sword with a crash on the stone tiles and clasped me to his bleeding chest, laughing.\n\n\"I am dead!\" he shouted in triumph. He slapped me on the shoulders, proud as a father who has taught his son chess and has been defeated for the first time.\n\nI also learned the use of the shield, primarily to meet the cast spear obliquely so that it would deflect harmlessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Toward the end of my training I always fought with shield and helmet." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'warrior' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would have supposed that armor, or chain mail perhaps, would have been a desirable addition to the accouterments of the Gorean warrior, but it had been forbidden by the Priest-Kings. A possible hypothesis to explain this is that the Priest-Kings may have wished war to be a biologically selective process in which the weaker and slower perish and fail to reproduce themselves. This might account for the relatively primitive weapons allowed to the Men Below the Mountains. On Gor it was not the case that a cavern-chested toothpick could close a switch and devastate an army. Also, the primitive weapons guaranteed that what selection went on would proceed with sufficient slowness to establish its direction, and alter it, if necessary.\n\nBesides the spear and sword, the crossbow and longbow were permitted, and these latter weapons perhaps tended to redistribute the probabilities of survival somewhat more broadly than the former. It may be, of course, that the Priest-Kings controlled weapons as they did simply because they feared for their own safety. I doubted that they stood against one another, man to man, sword to sword, in their holy mountains, putting their principles of selection to the test in their own cases. Incidentally, speaking of the crossbow and longbow, I did receive some instruction in them, but not much. The Older Tarl, my redoubtable instructor in arms, did not care for them, regarding them as secondary weapons almost unworthy for the hand of a warrior." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did not share his contempt, and occasionally during my rest periods had sought to improve my proficiency with them.\n\nI gathered that my education was coming to an end. Perhaps it was in the lengthening of the rest periods; perhaps it was in the repetition of materials I had already encountered; perhaps it was something in the attitude of my instructors. I felt that I was nearly ready—but for what I had no idea. One pleasure of these final days was that I had begun to speak Gorean with the facility that comes from constant contact with and intensive study of a language. I had begun to dream in Gorean and to understand easily the small talk of my teachers among themselves when they were speaking for one another and not for the ears of an outlander. I had begun to think in Gorean as well, and after a time I was conscious of a deliberate mental shift involved in thinking in English. After a few English sentences or a page or so in one of my father's books, I would be at home again in my native tongue, but the shift was there, and necessary. I was fluent in Gorean. Once, when struck by the Older Tarl, I had cursed in Gorean, and he had laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This afternoon, when it was time for our lesson, he was not laughing. He entered my apartment, carrying a metal rod about two feet long, with a leather loop attached. It had a switch in the handle, which could be set in two positions, on and off, like a simple torch. He wore another such instrument slung from his belt. \"This is not a weapon,\" he said. \"It is not to be used as a weapon.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" I asked.\n\n\"A tarn-goad,\" he replied. He snapped the switch in the barrel to the \"on\" position and struck the table. It showered sparks in a sudden cascade of yellow light, but left the table unmarked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned off the goad and extended it to me. As I reached for it, he snapped it on and slapped it in my palm. A billion tiny yellow stars, like pieces of fiery needles, seemed to explode in my hand. I cried out in shock. I thrust my hand to my mouth. It had been like a sudden, severe electric charge, like the striking of a snake in my hand. I examined my hand; it was unhurt. \"Be careful of a tarn-goad,\" said the Older Tarl. \"It is not for children.\" I took it from him, this time being careful to take it near the leather loop, which I fastened around my wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Older Tarl was leaving, and I understood that I was to follow him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We ascended a spiral staircase inside the cylinder and climbed for what must have been dozens of apartment levels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At last we emerged on the flat roof of the cylinder. The wind swept across the flat, circular roof, tugging one toward the edge. There was no protective rail. I braced myself, wondering what was to occur. Some dust blew against my face. I shut my eyes. The Older Tarl took a tarn whistle, or tarn call, from his tunic and blew a piercing blast.\n\nI had never seen one of the tarns before, except on the tapestry in my apartment and in illustrations in certain books I had studied devoted to the care, breeding, and equipment of tarns. That I had not been trained for this moment was intentional, as I later discovered. The Goreans believe, incredibly enough, that the capacity to master a tarn is innate and that some men possess this characteristic and that some do not." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One does not learn to master a tarn. It is a matter of blood and spirit, of beast and man, of a relation between two beings which must be immediate, intuitive, spontaneous. It is said that a tarn knows who is a tarnsman and who is not, and that those who are not die in this first meeting.\n\nMy first impression was that of a rush of wind and a great snapping sound, as if a giant might be snapping an enormous towel or scarf; then I was cowering, awe-stricken, in a great winged shadow, and an immense tarn, his talons extended like gigantic steel hooks, his wings sputtering fiercely in the air, hung above me, motionless except for the beating of his wings.\n\n\"Stand clear of the wings,\" shouted the Older Tarl.\n\nI needed no urging. I darted from under the bird. One stroke of those wings would hurl me yards from the top of the cylinder.\n\nThe tarn dropped to the roof of the cylinder and regarded us with his bright black eyes.\n\nThough the tarn, like most birds, is surprisingly light for its size, this primarily having to do with the comparative hollowness of the bones, it is an extremely powerful bird, powerful even beyond what one would expect from such a monster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whereas large Earth birds, such as the eagle, must, when taking flight from the ground, begin with a running start, the tarn, with its incredible musculature, aided undoubtedly by the somewhat lighter gravity of Gor, can with a spring and a sudden flurry of its giant wings lift both himself and his rider into the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Gorean, these birds are sometimes spoken of as Brothers of the Wind.\n\nThe plumage of tarns is various, and they are bred for their colors as well as their strength and intelligence. Black tarns are used for night raids, white tarns in winter campaigns, and multicolored, resplendent tarns are bred for warriors who wish to ride proudly, regardless of the lack of camouflage. The most common tarn, however, is greenish brown. Disregarding the disproportion in size, the Earth bird which the tarn most closely resembles is the hawk, with the exception that it has a crest somewhat of the nature of a jay's.\n\nTarns, who are vicious things, are seldom more than half tamed and, like their diminutive earthly counterparts, the hawks, are carnivorous. It is not unknown for a tarn to attack and devour his own rider. They fear nothing but the tarn-goad. They are trained by men of the Caste of Tarn Keepers to respond to it while still young, when they can be fastened by wires to the training perches. Whenever a young bird soars away or refuses obedience in some fashion, he is dragged back to the perch and beaten with the tarn-goad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rings, comparable to those which are fastened on the legs of the young birds, are worn by the adult birds to reinforce the memory of the hobbling wire and the tarn-goad. Later, of course, the adult birds are not fastened, but the conditioning given them in their youth usually holds, except when they become abnormally disturbed or have not been able to obtain food. The tarn is one of the two most common mounts of a Gorean warrior; the other is the high tharlarion, a species of saddle-lizard, used mostly by clans who have never mastered tarns. No one in the City of Cylinders, as far as I knew, maintained tharlarions, though they were supposedly quite common on Gor, particularly in the lower areas—in swampland and on the deserts.\n\nThe Older Tarl had mounted his tarn, climbing up the five-rung leather mounting ladder which hangs on the left side of the saddle and is pulled up in flight. He fastened himself in the saddle with a broad purple strap. He tossed me a small object which nearly fell from my fumbling hands. It was a tarn whistle, with its own note, which would summon one tarn, and one tarn only, the mount which was intended for me. Never since the panic of the disoriented compass back in the mountains of New Hampshire had I been so frightened, but this time I refused to allow my fear the fatal inch it required. If I was to die, it would be; if I was not to die, I would not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I smiled to myself in spite of my fear, amused at the remark I had addressed to myself." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It sounded like something out of the Code of the Warrior, something which, if taken literally, would seem to encourage its believer to take not the slightest or most sane precautions for his safety. I blew a note on the whistle, and it was shrill and different, of a new pitch from that of the Old Tarl.\n\nAlmost immediately from somewhere, perhaps from a ledge out of sight, rose a fantastic object, another giant tarn, even larger than the first, a glossy sable tarn which circled the cylinder once and then wheeled toward me, landing a few feet away, his talons striking on the roof with a sound like hurled gauntlets. His talons were shod with steel—a war tarn. He raised his curved beak to the sky and screamed, lifting and shaking his wings. His enormous head turned toward me, and his round, wicked eyes blazed in my direction. The next thing I knew his beak was open; I caught a brief sight of his thin, sharp tongue, as long as a man's arm, darting out and back, and then, snapping at me, he lunged forward, striking at me with that monstrous beak, and I heard the Older Tarl cry out in horror, \"The goad! The goad!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 3 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Science Fantasy, BDSM genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I threw my right arm up to protect myself, the goad, attached by its strap to my wrist, flying wildly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I seized it, using it like a puny stick, striking at the great snapping beak that was trying to seize me, as if I were a scrap of food on the high, flat plate of the cylinder's roof. He lunged twice, and I struck it twice. He drew back his head again, spreading his beak, preparing to slash downward again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In that instant I switched the tarn-goad to the \"on\" position, and when the great beak flashed downward again, I struck it viciously, trying to force it away from me. The effect was startling: there was the sudden bright flash of yellow glittering light, the splash of sparks, and a scream of pain and rage from the tarn as he immediately beat his wings, lifting himself out of my reach in a rush of air that nearly forced me over the edge of the roof. I was on my hands and knees, trying to get back on my feet, too near the edge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tarn was circling the cylinder, uttering piercing cries; then he began to fly away from the city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without knowing why, and thinking I was better off to have the thing in retreat, I seized my tarn whistle and blew its shrill note." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The giant bird seemed almost to shudder in the air, and then he reeled, losing altitude, gaining it again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he had not been simply a winged beast, I would have believed him to be struggling with himself, a creature locked inwardly in mental torture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the wild nature of the tarn, the call of the distant hills, the open sky, against the puny conditioning he had been subjected to, against the will of tiny men with their private objectives, their elementary psychology of stimulus and response, their training wires and tarn-goads." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At last, with a wild cry of rage, the tarn returned to the cylinder. I seized the short mounting ladder swinging wildly from the saddle and climbed it, seating myself in the saddle, fastening the broad purple belt that would keep me from tumbling to my death.\n\nThe tarn is guided by virtue of a throat strap, to which are attached, normally, six leather streamers, or reins, which are fixed in a metal ring on the forward portion of the saddle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The reins are of different colors, but one learns them by ring position and not color. Each of the reins attaches to a small ring on the throat strap, and the rings are spaced evenly. Accordingly, the mechanics are simple." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One draws on the streamer, or rein, which is attached to the ring most nearly approximating the direction in which one wishes to go. For example, to land or lose altitude, one uses the four-strap which exerts pressure on the four-ring, which is located beneath the throat of the tarn. To rise into flight, or gain altitude, one draws on the one-strap, which exerts pressure on the one-ring, which is located on the back of the tarn's neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The throat-strap rings, corresponding to the position of the reins on the main saddle-ring, are numbered in a clockwise fashion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tarn-goad also is occasionally used in guiding the bird." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One strikes the bird in the direction opposite to which one wishes to go, and the bird, withdrawing from the goad, moves in that direction. There is very little precision in this method, however, because the reactions of the bird are merely instinctive, and he may not withdraw in the exact tangent desired. Moreover, there is danger in using the goad excessively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It tends to become less effective if often used, and the rider is then at the mercy of the tarn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I drew back on the one-strap and, filled with terror and exhilaration, felt the power of the gigantic wings beating on the invisible air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My body lurched wildly, but the saddle belt held." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I couldn't breathe for a minute, but clung, frightened and thrilled, to the saddle-ring, my hand wrapped in the one-strap. The tarn continued to climb, and I saw the City of Cylinders dropping far below me, like a set of rounded children's blocks set in the gleaming green hills. I had never experienced anything like this, and if man ever felt godlike I suppose I did in those first savage, exhilarating moments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I looked below and saw the Older Tarl, mounted on his own tarn, climbing to overtake me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he was near, he shouted to me, the words merry but indistinct in the rush of air.\n\n\"Ho, child,\" he called. \"Do you seek to climb to the Moons of Gor?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suddenly realized I felt dizzy, or slightly so, but the magnificent black tarn was still climbing, though now struggling, his wings beating fiercely with frustrated persistence against the thinning, less resistant air. The hills and plains of Gor were a blaze of colors far below me, and it may have been my imagination, but it seemed almost as if I could see the curve of the world. I realize now it must have been the thin air and my excitement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fortunately, before losing consciousness, I drew on the four-strap, and the tarn leveled out and then lifted his wings over his back and dropped like a striking hawk, with a speed that left me without breath in my body. I released the reins, letting them hang on the saddle-ring, which is the signal for a constant and straight flight, no pressure on the throat strap. The great tarn snapped his wings out, catching the air under them, and smoothly began to fly a straight course, his wings beating slowly but steadily in a cruising speed that would soon take us far beyond the towers of the city." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Older Tarl, who seemed pleased, drew near. He pointed back toward the city, which was now several miles in the distance.\n\n\"I'll race you,\" I cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Agreed!\" he shouted, wheeling his tarn in the instant he spoke, and turning him to the city. I was dismayed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His skill was such that he had taken a lead that it would be impossible to overcome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At last I managed to turn the bird, and we were streaking along in the wake of the Older Tarl. Certain of his cries drifted back to us. He was urging his tarn to greater speed by a series of shouts intended to communicate his own excitement to his winged mount." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thought flashed through my mind that tarns should be trained to respond to voice commands as well as to the numbered straps and the tarn-goad. That they had not been seemed astounding to me.\n\nI shouted to my tarn, in Gorean and in English." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Har-ta! Har-ta! Faster! Faster!\"\n\nThe great bird seemed to sense what I intended, or perhaps it was merely his sudden realization that the other tarn was in the lead, but a remarkable transformation swept over my sable, plumed steed. His neck straightened and his wings suddenly cracked like whips in the sky; his eyes became fiery and his every bone and muscle seemed to leap with power." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a dizzying minute or two we had passed the Older Tarl, to his amazement, and had settled again in a flurry of wings on the top of the cylinder from which we had departed a few minutes before.\n\n\"By the beards of the Priest-Kings,\" roared the Older Tarl as he brought his bird to the roof, \"that is a tarn of tarns!\"\n\nThe tarns, released, winged their way back to the tarn cots, and the Older Tarl and I descended to my apartment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was bursting with pride. \"What a tarn!\" he marveled. \"I had a full pasang start, and yet you passed me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pasang is a measure of distance on Gor, equivalent approximately to .7 of a mile. \"That tarn,\" he said, \"was bred for you, specially selected from the best broods of the finest of our war tarns. It was with you in mind that the keepers of the tarns worked, breeding and crossbreeding, training and retraining.\"\n\n\"I thought,\" I said, \"on the roof it would kill me. It seems the tarn keepers do not train their prodigies as well as they might.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No!\" cried the Older Tarl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The training is perfect. The spirit of the tarn must not be broken, not that of a war tarn. He is trained to the point where it is necessary for a strong master to decide whether he shall serve him or slay him. You will come to know your tarn and he will come to know you. You will be as one in the sky, the tarn the body, you the mind and will. You will live in an armed truce with the tarn. If you become weak or helpless, he will kill you. As long as you remain strong, his master, he will serve you, respect you, obey you.\" He paused." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We were not sure of you, your father and myself, but today I am sure. You have mastered a tarn, a war tarn. In your veins must flow the blood of your father, once Ubar, War Chieftain, now Administrator of Ko-ro-ba, this City of Cylinders.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was surprised, for this was the first time I had known that my father had been War Chieftain of the city, or that he was even now its supreme civil official, or, for that matter, that the city was named Ko-ro-ba, a now archaic expression for a village market. The Goreans have a habit of not revealing names easily. For themselves, particularly among the Lower Castes, they often have a real name and what is called a use-name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Often only the closest relatives know the real name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the level of the First Knowledge, it is maintained that knowing the real name gives one a power over a person, a capacity to use that name in spells and insidious magical practices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps something of the same sort lingers even on our native Earth, where the first name of a person is reserved for use by those who know him intimately and presumably wish him no harm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The second name, which would correspond to the use-name on Gor, is common property, a public sound not sacred or to be protected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the level of the Second Knowledge, of course, the High Castes, at least in general, recognize the baseless superstition of the Lower Castes and use their own names comparatively freely, usually followed by the name of their city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For example, I would have given my name as Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba, or, more simply, as Tarl of Ko-ro-ba." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'names' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Lower Castes, incidentally, commonly believe that the names of the High Castes are actually use-names and that the High Castes conceal their real names.\n\nOur discussion terminated abruptly. There was a rush of wings outside the window of my apartment, and the Older Tarl flung himself across the room and dragged me to the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the same moment the iron bolt of a crossbow, fired through one of the narrow windows, struck the wall behind my chair-stone and ricocheted viciously about the room. I caught a glimpse of a black helmet through the port as a warrior, still clutching a crossbow and mounted on his tarn, hauled up on the one-strap and flew from the window. There were shouts, and, rushing to the window, I saw several answering bolts leave the cylinder and fly in the direction of the retreating assailant, who was now almost half a pasang away and making good his escape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A member of the Caste of Assassins,\" said the Older Tarl, gazing at the retreating speck in the distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Marlenus, who would be Ubar of all Gor, knows of your existence.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is Marlenus?\" I asked, shaken.\n\n\"You will learn in the morning,\" said the Older Tarl. \"And in the morning you will learn why you have been brought to Gor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why can't I know now?\" I demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because the morning will come soon enough,\" said the Older Tarl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked at him.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"tomorrow will be soon enough.\"\n\n\"And tonight?\" I asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tonight,\" he said, \"we will get drunk.\"\n\nIn the morning I awoke on the sleeping mat in the corner of my apartment, cold and shivering. It was shortly before dawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I turned off the power switch on the mat and folded back its blanket sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was chilly to the touch now, because I had set the chronometric temperature device to turn to cold an hour before the first light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One has little inclination to remain in a freezing bed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'headache' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I decided I disapproved of the Gorean devices for separating mortals from their beds as much as I loathed the alarm clocks and clock radios of my own world. Besides, I had a headache like the beating of spears on a bronze shield, a headache that drove all lesser considerations, such as the attempt on my life yesterday, from my mind. The planet might be exploding and a man would stop to remove a burr from his sandal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sat up, cross-legged, on the mat, which was now returning to room temperature. I struggled to my feet and staggered to the laving bowl on the table and splashed some water in my face.\n\nI could remember something of the night before, but not much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Older Tarl and I had made a round of taverns in the various cylinders, and I recall toddling precariously, singing obscene camp lyrics, along different narrow bridges, about a yard wide without rails, and the earth somewhere below—how far I had no idea at the time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If we were on the high bridges, it would have been more than a thousand feet away. The Older Tarl and I may have drunk too much of that fermented brew concocted with fiendish skill from the yellow grain, Sa-Tarna, and called Pagar-Sa-Tarna, Pleasure of the Life-Daughter, but almost always \"paga\" for short. I doubted that I would ever touch the stuff again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'natural' must appear 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I remembered, too, the girls in the last tavern, if it was a tavern, lascivious in their dancing silks, pleasure slaves bred like animals for passion. If there were natural slaves and natural free men, as the Older Tarl had insisted, those girls were natural slaves. It was impossible to conceive of them as other than they had been, but somewhere they, too, must be awakening painfully, struggling to their feet, needing to clean themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One in particular I remembered, young, her body like a cheetah, her black hair wild on her brown shoulders, the bangles on her ankles, their sound in the curtained alcove." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I found the thought crossing my mind that I would like to have owned that one for more than the hour I had paid for. I shook the thought from my aching head, made an unsuccessful effort to muster a decent sense of shame, failed, and was belting my tunic when the Older Tarl entered the room.\n\n\"We are going to the Chamber of the Council,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I followed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Chamber of the Council is the room in which the elected representatives of the High Castes of Ko-ro-ba hold their meetings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each city has such a chamber." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was in the widest of cylinders, and the ceiling was at least six times the height of the normal living level. The ceiling was lit as if by stars, and the walls were of five colors, applied laterally, beginning from the bottom—white, blue, yellow, green, and red, caste colors. Benches of stone, on which the members of the Council sat, rose in five monumental tiers about the walls, one tier for each of the High Castes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "These tiers shared the color of that portion of the wall behind them, the caste colors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tier nearest the floor, which denoted some preferential status, the white tier, was occupied by Initiates, Interpreters of the Will of the Priest-Kings. In order, the ascending tiers, blue, yellow, green, and red, were occupied by representatives of the Scribes, Builders, Physicians, and Warriors.\n\nTorm, I observed, was not seated in the tier of Scribes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I smiled to myself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am,\" Torm had said, \"too practical to involve myself in the frivolities of government.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I supposed the city might be under siege and Torm would fail to notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was pleased to note that my own caste, that of the Warriors, was accorded the least status; if I had had my will, the warriors would not have been a High Caste." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other hand, I objected to the Initiates being in the place of honor, as it seemed to me that they, even more than the Warriors, were nonproductive members of society. For the Warriors, at least, one could say that they afforded protection to the city, but for the Initiates one could say very little, perhaps only that they provided some comfort for ills and plagues largely of their own manufacture.\n\nIn the center of the amphitheater was a throne of office, and on this throne, in his robe of state—a plain brown garment, the humblest cloth in the hall—sat my father, Administrator of Ko-ro-ba, once Ubar, War Chieftain of the city." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At his feet lay a helmet, shield, spear, and sword.\n\n\"Come forward, Tarl Cabot,\" said my father, and I stood before his throne of office, feeling the eyes of everyone in the chamber on me. Behind me stood the Older Tarl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had noted that those blue Viking eyes showed almost no evidence of the previous night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hated him, briefly.\n\nThe Older Tarl was speaking. \"I, Tarl, Swordsman of Ko-ro-ba, give my word that this man is fit to become a member of the High Caste of Warriors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "My father answered him, speaking in ritual phrases." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No tower in Ko-ro-ba is stronger than the word of Tarl, this Swordsman of our city. I, Matthew Cabot of Ko-ro-ba, accept his word.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, beginning with the lowest tier, each member of the Council spoke in succession, giving his name and pronouncing that he, too, accepted the word of the blond swordsman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they had finished, my father invested me with the arms which had lain before the throne." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About my shoulder he slung the steel sword, fastened on my left arm the round shield, placed in my right hand the spear, and slowly lowered the helmet on my head.\n\n\"Will you keep the Code of the Warrior?\" asked my father.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"I will keep the Code.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is your Home Stone?\" asked my father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sensing what was wanted, I replied, \"My Home Stone is the Home Stone of Ko-ro-ba.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is it to that city that you pledge your life, your honor, and your sword?\" asked my father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then,\" said my father, placing his hands solemnly on my shoulders, \"in virtue of my authority as Administrator of this city and in the presence of the Council of High Castes, I declare you to be a Warrior of Ko-ro-ba.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "My father was smiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I removed my helmet, feeling proud as I heard the approval of the Council, both in voice and by Gorean applause, the quick, repeated striking of the left shoulder with the palm of the right hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aside from candidates for the status of Warrior, none of my caste was permitted to enter the Council armed. Had they been armed, my caste brothers in the last tier would have struck their spear blades on their shields. As it was, they smote their shoulders in the civilian manner, more exuberantly perhaps than was compatible with the decorum of that weighty chamber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somehow I had the feeling they were genuinely proud of me, though I had no idea why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had surely done nothing to warrant their commendation.\n\nWith the Older Tarl I left the Chamber of the Council and entered a room off the chamber to wait for my father. In the room was a table, and on the table was a set of maps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Older Tarl immediately went to the maps, and, calling me to his side, began to pore over them, pointing out this mark and that. \"And there,\" he said, poking downward with his finger, \"is the City of Ar, hereditary enemy of Ko-ro-ba, the central city of Marlenus, who intends to be Ubar of all Gor.\"\n\n\"This has something to do with me?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" said the Older Tarl." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are going to Ar. You are going to steal the Home Stone of Ar and bring it to Ko-ro-ba.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand on the story, maintaining character relationships, in the Science Fantasy, BDSM genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I set my course for Ko-ro-ba, carrying in my saddle pack the trophy that was now, at least to me, worthless. It had done its work. Its loss to Ar had already riven an empire and, for the time at least, had guaranteed the independence of Ko-ro-ba and her hostile sister cities. Yet my victory, if victory it was, brought me no satisfaction. My mission might have been concluded, but I did not rejoice. I had lost the girl I had loved, cruel and treacherous though she might have been.\n\nI took the tarn high, to bring a circle of some two hundred pasangs or so under my view." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the far distance I could see the silver wire I knew must be the great Vosk, could see the abrupt shift from the grassy plains to the Margin of Desolation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the height I could look down on a portion of the Voltai Range, with its arrogant reddish heights, as it faded away to the east." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To the southwest I could see dimly the evening light reflected from the spires of Ar, and to the north, approaching from the Vosk, I could see the glow from what must be thousands of cooking fires, the night's camp of Pa-Kur." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'below' 3 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I was drawing on the two-strap, to guide the tarn to Ko-ro-ba, I saw something I did not expect to see, something directly below, which startled me. Shielded among the crags of the Voltai, invisible except from directly above, I saw four or five small cooking fires, such as might mark the camp of a mountain patrol or a small company of hunters, perhaps after the agile and bellicose Gorean mountain goat, the long-haired, spiral-horned verr, or, more dangerously, the larl, a tawny leopardlike beast indigenous to the Voltai and several of Gor's ranges, standing an incredible seven feet high at the shoulder and feared for its occasional hunger-driven visitations to the civilized plains below. Curious, I dropped the tarn lower, not willing to believe the fires belonged to either a patrol or to hunters. It did not seem likely that one of Ar's patrols would be presently bivouacked in the Voltai, nor did it seem likely the fires below would be those of hunters.\n\nAs I dropped lower, my suspicions were confirmed. Perhaps the men of the mysterious camp heard the beating of the tarn's wings, perhaps I had been outlined for an instant against one of Gor's three circling moons, but suddenly the fires disappeared, kicked apart in a flash of sparks, and the glowing embers were smothered almost immediately. Outlaws, I supposed, or perhaps deserters from Ar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There would be many who would leave the city to seek the comparative safety of the mountains." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Feeling that I had satisfied my curiosity and not wanting to risk a landing in the darkness, where a spear might dart from any shadow, I drew back on the one-strap and prepared to return at last to Ko-ro-ba, whence I had departed several days—an eternity—before.\n\nAs the tarn wheeled upward, I heard the wild, uncanny hunting cry of the larl, piercing the dusk from somewhere in the peaks below. Even the tarn seemed to shiver in its flight. The hunting cry was answered from elsewhere in the peaks and then again from a farther distance. When the larl hunts alone, it hunts silently, never uttering a sound until the sudden roar that momentarily precedes its charge, the roar calculated to terrify the quarry into a fatal instant of immobility. But tonight a pride of larls was hunting, and the cries of the three beasts were driving cries, herding the prey, usually several animals, toward the region of silence, herding them in the direction from which no cries would come, the direction in which the remainder of the pride waited.\n\nThe light of the three moons was bright that night, and in the resultant exotic patchwork of shadows below, I caught sight of one of the larls, padding softly along, its body almost white in the moonlight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It paused, lifted its wide, fierce head, some two or three feet in diameter, and uttered the hunting scream once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Momentarily it was answered, once from about two pasangs to the west and once from about the same distance to the southwest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It appeared ready to resume its pace when suddenly it stopped, its head absolutely motionless, its sharp, pointed ears tense and lifted. I thought perhaps he had heard the tarn, but he seemed to show no awareness of us.\n\nI brought the bird somewhat lower, in long, slow circles, keeping the larl in view. The tail of the animal began to lash angrily. It crouched, holding its long, terrible body close to the ground. It then began to move forward, swiftly but stealthily, its shoulders hunched forward, its hind quarters almost touching the ground. Its ears were lying back, flat against the sides of its wide head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As it moved, for all its speed, it placed each paw carefully on the ground, first the toes and then the ball of the foot, as silently as the wind might bend grass, in a motion that was as beautiful as it was terrifying.\n\nSomething unusual was apparently happening. Some animal must be trying to break the hunting circle. One would suppose that the larl might be unconcerned with a single animal escaping its net of noise and fear and would neglect an isolated kill in order to keep the hunting circle closed, but that is not true. For whatever reason, the larl will always prefer ruining a hunt, even one involving a quarry of several animals, to allowing a given animal to move past it to freedom. Though I suppose this is purely instinctive on the larl's part, it does have the effect, over a series of generations, of weeding out animals which, if they survived, might transmit their intelligence, or perhaps their erratic running patterns, to their offspring. As it is, when the larl loses its hunt, the animals which escape are those which haven't tried to break the circle, those which allow themselves to be herded easily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly, to my horror, I saw the quarry of the larl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a human being, moving with surprising alacrity over the rough ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To my astonishment, I saw it wore the yellow cerements of the sufferer of Dar-Kosis, that virulent, incurable, wasting disease of Gor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without bothering to think, I seized my spear and, dragging harshly on the four-strap, brought the tarn into a sharp, abrupt descent. The bird struck the ground between the diseased victim and the approaching larl.\n\nRather than risk casting my spear from the safe but unsteady saddle of the tarn, I leaped to the ground, just as the larl, furious that it had been discovered, uttered the paralyzing hunting roar and charged. For an instant I could not move, literally. Somehow the shock of that great, wild cry gripped me in a steel fist of terror. It was uncontrollable, an immobility as much a physiological reflex as the jerking of a knee or the blinking of an eye.\n\nThen, as swiftly as it had come, that nightmarish instant of immobility passed and I set my spear to take the jolt of the larl's attack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps my sudden appearance had disoriented the beast or shaken its marvelous instincts, because it must have uttered its killing cry an instant too soon, or perhaps my muscles and nerves responded to my will more rapidly than it had anticipated. When, twenty feet away, the great, bounding beast, fangs bared, leaped for its prey, it encountered instead only the slender needle of my spear, set like a stake in the ground, braced by the half-naked body of a warrior of Ko-ro-ba. The spearhead disappeared from sight in the furry breast of the larl, and the shaft of the spear began to sink into it as the weight of the animal forced it deeper into its body. I leaped from under the tawny, monstrous body, narrowly escaping the slashings of its clawed forefeet. The spear shaft snapped and the beast fell to the earth, rolling on its back, pawing at the air, uttering piercing, enraged shrieks, trying to bite the toothpick-like object from its body. With a convulsive shudder, the great head rolled to one side and the eyes half closed, leaving a milky slit of death between the lids.\n\nI turned to regard the individual whose life I had saved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was now bent and crooked, like a broken, blasted shrub in his yellow shroudlike robe. The hood concealed his face.\n\n\"There are more of these things about,\" I said. \"You'd better come with me. It won't be safe here.\"\n\nThe figure seemed to shrink backward and grow smaller in its yellow rags. Pointing to its shadowed, concealed face, it whispered, \"The Holy Disease.\"\n\nThat was the literal translation of Dar-Kosis—the Holy Disease—or, equivalently, the Sacred Affliction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The disease is named that because it is regarded as being holy to the Priest-Kings, and those who suffer from it are regarded as consecrated to the Priest-Kings. Accordingly, it is regarded as heresy to shed their blood. On the other hand, the Afflicted, as they are called, have little to fear from their fellow men. Their disease is so highly contagious, so invariably devastating in its effect, and so feared on the planet that even the boldest of outlaws gives them a wide berth. Accordingly, the Afflicted enjoy a large amount of freedom of movement on Gor. They are, of course, warned to stay away from the habitations of men, and, if they approach too closely, they are sometimes stoned. Oddly enough, casuistically, stoning the Afflicted is not regarded as a violation of the Priest-Kings' supposed injunction against shedding their blood." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 4 instance(s) of the word 'afflicted'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As an act of charity, Initiates have arranged at various places Dar-Kosis Pits where the Afflicted may voluntarily imprison themselves, to be fed with food hurled downward from the backs of passing tarns. Once in a Dar-Kosis Pit, the Afflicted are not allowed to depart. Finding this poor fellow in the Voltai, so far from the natural routes and fertile areas of Gor, I suspected he might have escaped, if that was possible, from one of the Pits.\n\n\"What is your name?\" I asked.\n\n\"I am of the Afflicted,\" said the weird, cringing figure. \"The Afflicted are dead. The dead are nameless.\" The voice was little more than a hoarse whisper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was glad that it was night and that the hood of the man was drawn, for I had no desire to look on what pieces of flesh might still cling to his skull." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you escape from one of the Dar-Kosis Pits?\" I asked.\n\nThe man seemed to cringe even more.\n\n\"You are safe with me,\" I said. I gestured to the tarn, which was impatiently opening and closing his wings. \"Hurry. There are more larls about.\"\n\n\"The Holy Disease,\" the man protested, pointing into the hideously dark recesses of his drawn hood.\n\n\"I can't leave you here to die,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I shivered at the thought of taking this dread creature, this whispering corpse, with me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I feared the disease as I had not feared the larl, but I could not leave him here in the mountains to fall prey to one beast or another.\n\nThe man cackled—a thin, whining noise. \"I am already dead,\" he laughed insanely. \"I am of the Afflicted.\" Again the weird cackle came from the folds of the yellow shroud. \"Would you like the Holy Disease?\" he asked, stretching out one hand in the darkness, as if trying to clutch my hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I drew back my hand in horror.\n\nThe thing stumbled forward, reaching for me, and fell to the ground with a tiny, moaning sound. It sat on the ground, wrapped in its yellow cerements—a mound of decay and desolation under the three Gorean moons. It rocked back and forth, uttering mad little noises, as if grieving or whimpering.\n\nFrom perhaps a pasang away I heard the frustrated roar of a larl, probably one of the companions of the beast I had killed, puzzled about the failure of the hunt.\n\n\"Get up,\" I said. \"There isn't much time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Help me,\" whined the yellow mound.\n\nI stilled a shiver of disgust and extended my hand to the object.\n\n\"Take my hand,\" I said. \"I'll help you.\"\n\nFrom the bent heap of rags that was a fellow human being, a hand reached up to me, the fingers crooked, as though they might have been the claws of a chicken. Disregarding my misgivings, I took the hand, to draw the unfortunate creature to its feet.\n\nTo my amazement, the hand that clasped mine firmly was as solid and hardened as saddle leather. Before I realized what was happening, my arm had been jerked downward and twisted, and I had been thrown on my back at the feet of the man, who leaped up and set his boot on my throat." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 1 sentence as a continuation of this story segment in the Science Fantasy, BDSM genre. Characters may be pre-established." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shackled in a kneeling position, my back open and bleeding from the lash, I was thrown before the Ubar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nine days I had been a prisoner in his camp, subjected to torture and abuse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet this was the first time since I had saved his life that I had seen him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I gathered that he had finally seen fit to terminate the suffering of the warrior who had stolen the Home Stone of his city." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the tarnsmen of Marlenus thrust his hand in my hair and forced my lips down to his sandal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I forced my head up and kept my back straight, my eyes granting my captor no satisfaction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knelt on the granite floor of a shallow cave in one of the Voltai peaks, a sheltered fire on each side of me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before me, on a rough throne of piled rocks, sat Marlenus, his long hair over his shoulders, his great beard reaching almost to his sword belt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a gigantic man, larger even than the Older Tarl, and in his eyes, wild and green, I saw the masterful flame which had, in its way, also burned in the eyes of Talena, his daughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Die though I must at the hands of this magnificent barbarian, I could feel no ill will toward him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If I had had to kill him, I would have done so not with hatred or rancor, but rather with respect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Around his neck he wore the golden chain of the Ubar, carrying the medallionlike replica of the Home Stone of Ar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his hands he held the Stone itself, that humble source of so much strife, bloodshed and honor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held it gently, as though it might have been a child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the entrance of the cave two of his men had set a tharlarion lance, of the sort carried by Kazrak and his men, in a crevice obviously prepared to receive it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I supposed it was to serve for my impalement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There are various ways in which this cruel mode of execution can be accomplished, and, needless to say, some are more merciful than others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did not expect that I would be granted a swift death." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are he who stole the Home Stone of Ar,\" said Marlenus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was well done,\" said Marlenus, looking at the Stone, holding it so the light reflected variously from its worn surface." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I waited, kneeling at his feet, puzzled that he, like the others in his camp, evinced no interest in the fate of his daughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You realize clearly that you must die,\" said Marlenus, not looking at me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holding the Home Stone in both hands, Marlenus leaned forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are a young and brave and foolish warrior,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked into my eyes for a long time, then leaned back against his rough throne." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was once as young and brave as you,\" he said, \"and perhaps as foolish—yes, perhaps as foolish.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes of Marlenus stared over my head, into the darkness outside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I risked my life a thousand times and gave the years of my youth to the vision of Ar and its empire, that there might be on all Gor but one language, but one commerce, but one set of codes, that the highways and passes might be safe, that the peasants might cultivate their fields in peace, that there might be but one Council to decide matters of policy, that there might be but one supreme city to unite the cylinders of a hundred severed, hostile cities—and all this you have destroyed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marlenus looked down at me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What can you, a simple tarnsman, know of these things?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked. \"But I, Marlenus, though a warrior, was more than a warrior, always more than a warrior. Where others could see no more than the codes of their castes, where others could sense no call of duty beyond that of their Home Stone, I dared to dream the dream of Ar—that there might be an end to meaningless warfare, bloodshed, and terror, an end to the anxiety and peril, the retribution and cruelty that cloud our lives—I dreamed that there might arise from the ashes of the conquests of Ar a new world, a world of honor and law, of power and justice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your justice,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mine, if you like,\" he agreed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marlenus set the Home Stone on the ground before him and drew his sword, which he laid across his knees; he looked like some remote and terrible god of war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you know, Tarnsman,\" he asked, \"that there is no justice without the sword?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled down on me grimly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is a terrible truth,\" he said, \"and so consider it carefully.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused. \"Without this,\" he said, touching the blade, \"there is nothing—no justice, no civilization, no society, no community, no peace. Without the sword there is nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By what right,\" I challenged, \"is it the sword of Marlenus that must bring justice to Gor?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You do not understand,\" said Marlenus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right itself—that right of which you speak so reverently—owes its very existence to the sword.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think that is false,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hope it is false.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I shifted, even that small movement irritating the whip cuts on my back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marlenus was patient. \"Before the sword,\" he said, \"there is no right, no wrong, only fact—a world of what is and what is not, rather than a world of what should be and what should not be. There is no justice until the sword creates it, establishes it, guarantees it, gives it substance and significance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lifted the weapon, wielding the heavy metal blade as though it were a straw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"First the sword—\" he said, \"then government—then law—then justice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But,\" I asked, \"what of the dream of Ar, that dream of which you spoke, that dream that you believed it right to bring about?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\" said Marlenus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that a right dream?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is a right dream,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And yet,\" I said, \"your sword has not yet found the strength to bring it into being.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marlenus looked at me thoughtfully, then laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By the Priest-Kings,\" he said, \"I think I have lost the exchange.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I shrugged, somewhat incongruously in the chains; it hurt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But,\" went on Marlenus, \"if what you say is true, how shall we separate the right dreams from the wrong dreams?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed to me a difficult question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will tell you,\" laughed Marlenus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He slapped the blade fondly. \"With this!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Ubar then rose and sheathed his sword." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if this were a signal, some of his tarnsmen entered the cave and seized me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Impale him,\" said Marlenus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tarnsmen began to unlock the shackles, that I might be impaled freely on the lance, perhaps so that my struggles might provide a more interesting spectacle to the onlookers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I felt numb, even my back, which presumably would have been a riot of pain if I had not felt myself near death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your daughter, Talena, is alive,\" I said to Marlenus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had not asked and did not now appear to have much interest in the matter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still, if he was human at all, I assumed this remote, kingly, dream-obsessed man would want to know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She would have brought a thousand tarns,\" said Marlenus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Proceed with the impalement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tarnsmen grasped my arms more securely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two others removed the tharlarion lance from its crevice and brought it forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would be forced into my body, and I would then be lifted, with it, into place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's your daughter,\" I said to Marlenus. \"She's alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did she submit to you?\" asked Marlenus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then she valued her life more than my honor.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly my feeling of numbness, of incapacity, departed as if in a lightning flash of fury." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Damn your honor!\" I shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Damn your precious stinking honor!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without realizing what I was doing, I had shaken the two restraining tarnsmen from my arms as if they had been children, and I rushed on Marlenus and struck him violently in the face with my fist, causing him to reel backward, his face contorted with astonishment and pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I turned just in time to knock the impaling lance aside as, carried by two men, it plunged toward my back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I seized it, twisting it, and, using it like a bar held by the men, leaped into the air, kicking at them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I heard two screams of pain and found that I held the lance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some five or six tarnsmen ran toward the wide opening of the shallow cave, but I rushed forward, holding the lance parallel to my body, striking them with almost superhuman strength and forcing them over the ledge near the mouth of the cave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their screams mingled with shouts of rage as the other tarnsmen rushed forward to capture me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One tarnsman leveled a crossbow, and in that instant I hurled the lance and he toppled backward, the shaft of the weapon protruding from his chest, the bolt from his crossbow ricocheting from the rock above my head with a flash of sparks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the men I had kicked lay writhing at my feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I seized the sword from his scabbard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I engaged and dropped the first of the tarnsmen to reach me and wounded the second, but was pressed back toward the rear of the cave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was doomed, but resolved to die well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I fought, I could hear the lion laughter of Marlenus behind me, as what had been a simple impalement turned into a fight of the sort after his own heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As I found a moment's respite, I spun to face him, hoping to have it out with the Ubar himself, but as I did so, the shackles that I had worn struck me forcibly in the face and throat, thrown like a bolo by Marlenus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I choked, and shook my head to clear the blood from my eyes, and in that instant was seized by three or four of the Ubar's tarnsmen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well done, young warrior,\" acclaimed Marlenus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought I would see if you would die like a slave.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He addressed his men, pointing to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What say you?\" he laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Has this warrior not earned his right to the tarn death?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He has indeed,\" said one of the tarnsmen, who held a wadded lump of tunic over his slashed rib cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was dragged outside, and binding fiber was fastened to my wrists and ankles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The loose ends of the fiber were then attached by broad leather straps to two tarns, one of them my own sable giant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will be torn to pieces,\" said Marlenus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not pleasant, but better than impalement.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was fastened securely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A tarnsman mounted one tarn; another tarnsman mounted the other tarn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not dead yet,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a stupid thing to say, but I felt that it was not yet my time to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marlenus did not deride me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You it was who stole the Home Stone of Ar,\" he said. \"You have luck.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No man can escape the tarn death,\" said one of the men." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warriors of the Ubar moved back, to give the tarns room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marlenus himself knelt in the darkness to check the knots in the binding fiber, tightening them carefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he checked the knots at my wrists, he spoke to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you wish me to kill you now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked softly. \"The tarn death is an ugly death.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hand, shielded from his men by his body, was on my throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I felt it could have crushed it easily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why this kindness?\" I asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For the sake of a girl,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But why?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For the love she has for you,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your daughter hates me,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She agreed to be the mate of Pa-Kur, the Assassin,\" he said, \"in order that you might have one small chance of life, on the Frame of Humiliation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you know this?\" I asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is common knowledge in the camp of Pa-Kur,\" replied Marlenus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could sense him smiling in the darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I myself, as one of the Afflicted, learned it from Mintar, of the Merchant Caste. Merchants must keep their friends on both sides of the fence, for who knows if Marlenus may not once more sit upon the throne of Ar?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I must have uttered a sound of joy, for Marlenus quickly placed his hand over my mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He asked no more if he should kill me, but rose to his feet and walked away, under the snapping wing of one of the tarns, and waved farewell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good-bye, Warrior,\" he called." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a sickening lurch and sharp jolt of pain the two tarnsmen brought their birds into the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment I swung between the birds, and then, perhaps a hundred feet in the air, the tarnsmen, at a prearranged signal—a sharp blast of a tarn whistle from the ground—turned their birds in opposite directions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sudden wrenching pain seemed to rip my body." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think I inadvertently screamed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The birds were pulling against one another, stabilized in their flight, each trying to pull away from the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now and again there would be a moment's giddy respite from the pain as one or the other of the birds failed to keep the ropes taut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could hear the curses of the tarnsmen above me and saw once or twice the flash of the striking tarn-goad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the birds would throw their weight again on the ropes, bringing another flashing wrench of agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, suddenly, there was a ripping sound as one of the wrist ropes broke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without thinking, but responding blindly, with a surge of joy, I seized the other wrist rope and tried to force it over the wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the bird drew again, there was a sharp pain as flesh was torn from my hand, but the rope darted off into the darkness, and I was swinging by my ankles from the other ropes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might take a moment for the tarnsmen to realize what had happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first guess would be that my body had torn in two, and the darkness would conceal the truth for a moment, until the tarnsman himself would try the ropes, to test the weight of their burden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I swung myself up and began to climb one of the two ropes leading to the great bird above me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a few wild moments I had gained the saddle straps of the bird and hauled myself nearly to the weapon rings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the tarnsman saw me and shouted in rage, drawing his sword." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slashed downward, and I slipped down one talon of the bird, which screamed and became unmanageable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, with one hand, while clinging to the talon, I loosened the girth straps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a moment, given the wild motion of the bird, the entire saddle, to which the tarnsman was fixed by the saddle straps, slid from the bird's back and flew wildly into the depths below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I heard the scream of the tarnsman and then the sudden silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other tarnsman would be alerted now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each moment was precious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daring everything, I leaped in the darkness for the reins of the bird and with one scrambling hand managed to seize the guiding collar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sudden tug downward caused the bird to respond as I had hoped it would, as if pressure had been exerted on the four-strap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It immediately descended, and a minute later I was on the ground, on a sort of rough plateau." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a rim of red light over the mountains, and I knew it was nearly dawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My ankles were still fastened to the bird, and I quickly untied the ropes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the first streak of the early light I saw a few hundred yards away what I had hoped to find—the saddle and twisted body of the tarnsman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I released the bird, ran to the saddle, and removed the crossbow which, to my joy, was intact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of the bolts had escaped from the specially constructed quiver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I set the bow and fitted one of them on the guide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could hear the flight of another tarn above me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As it swept in for the kill, its tarnsman, too late, saw my leveled bow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The missile left him sagging lifeless in the saddle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tarn, my sable giant from Ko-ro-ba, landed and stalked majestically forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I waited uneasily until he thrust his head past me, over my shoulder, extending his neck for preening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Good-naturedly, I scratched out a handful or two of lice which I slopped on his tongue like candy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then I slapped his leg with affection, climbed to the saddle, dropped the dead tarnsman to the ground, and fastened myself in the saddle straps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I felt ebullient. I had weapons again, and my tarn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was even a tarn-goad and saddle gear." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I rose into flight, not thinking about Ko-ro-ba again or the Home Stone. Foolishly perhaps, but with invincible optimism, I lifted the tarn above the Voltai and turned it toward Ar." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing exercise: 8 sentences sentences, keep character vibes, Science Fantasy, BDSM genre!" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kazrak and I returned to his tent, and until the early morning we discussed the possibilities of rescuing Talena. We turned over a number of plans, none of which seemed likely to succeed. It would presumably be suicidal to make any direct attempt to cut through to her, and yet, if this was the last resort, I knew I would make the attempt. In the meantime, until the city fell or Pa-Kur altered his plans, she would presumably be safe. It seemed unlikely that Pa-Kur would be so politically naive as to use the girl before she had publicly accepted him as her Free Companion, according to the rites of Ar. Treated as a pleasure slave, she would have negligible political value. On the other hand, the thought of her in the tents of Pa-Kur enraged me, and I knew I would be unable to restrain myself indefinitely. For the time being, however, Kazrak's counsels of patience won me over, convincing me that any precipitous action would be almost surely doomed to failure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Accordingly, for the next few days, I remained with Kazrak and bided my time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I dyed my hair black and acquired the helmet and gear of an Assassin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Across the left temple of the black helmet I fixed the golden slash of the messenger. In this disguise I freely wandered about the camp, observing the siege operations, the appointment of the compounds, the marshaling of troops. Occasionally I would climb halfway up one of the siege towers under construction and observe the city of Ar and the skirmishes that took place between it and the first ditch.\n\nPeriodically the shrill notes of alarm bugles would pierce the air, as forces from Ar emerged to do battle on the plains before the city. When this occurred, inevitably the spearmen and lancers of Pa-Kur, following the lead of siege slaves through the maze of stakes and traps, would engage the men from Ar. Sometimes the forces of Pa-Kur drove the warriors of Ar back to the very walls of the city, forcing them through the gates. Sometimes the forces of Ar would drive the men of Pa-Kur back against the defensive stakes, and once they drove them to take refuge across the now constructed siege bridges spanning the great ditch.\n\nStill, there was little doubt that Pa-Kur's men had the best of things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The human resources on which Pa-Kur could draw seemed inexhaustible, and, as important, he had at his command a considerable force of tharlarion cavalry, an arm almost lacking to the men of Ar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In these battles the skies would be filled with tarnsmen, from Ar and from the camp, firing into the massed warriors below, engaging one another in savage duels hundreds of feet in the air. But gradually the tarnsmen of Ar were diminished, overwhelmed by the superior forces which Pa-Kur could, with ruthless liberality, throw against them. On the ninth day of the siege the sky belonged to Pa-Kur, and the forces of Ar no longer emerged from the great gate. All hope of lifting the siege by battle was gone. The men of Ar remained within their walls, under their tarn wire, waiting for the attacks to come, while the Initiates of the city sacrificed to the Priest-Kings.\n\nOn the tenth day of the siege small engines, such as covered catapults and ballistae, were flown across the ditches by tarn teams and soon were engaged in artillery duels with the engines mounted on the walls of Ar. Simultaneously, exposed chains of siege slaves began to move the stake lines forward. After some four days of bombardment, which probably had small effect, if any, the first assault was mounted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It began several hours before dawn, as the giant siege towers, covered now with plates of steel to counter the effect of fire arrows and burning tar, were slowly rolled across the ditch bridges." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By noon they were within crossbow range of the walls. After dark, in the light of torches, the first tower reached the walls. Within the hour three others had touched the first wall. Around these towers and on top of them warriors swarmed. Above them, tarnsman met tarnsman in battles to the death. Rope ladders from Ar brought defenders two hundred feet down the wall to the level of the towers. Through small postern gates other defenders rushed against the towers on the ground, only to be met by Pa-Kur's clustered support troops. From the height of the walls, some two hundred feet above the towers, missiles would be fired and stones cast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within the towers, sweating, naked siege slaves, under the frenzied whips of their overseers, hauled on the great chains that swung the mighty steel rams into the wall and back.\n\nOne of Pa-Kur's towers was undermined, and it tilted crazily and they crashed into the dust, amidst the screaming of its doomed occupants. Another was captured and burned. But five more towers rolled slowly toward the walls of Ar. These towers were fortresses in themselves and would be maintained at all costs; hour in and hour out, they would continue their work, gnawing at the walls.\n\nMeanwhile, at several points in the city and at randomly selected times, picked tarnsmen of Pa-Kur, each of whose tarns carried a dangling, knotted rope of nine spearmen, dropped to the wires and the tops of cylinders, landing their small task forces of raiders. These task forces seldom managed to return, but sometimes they were outstandingly successful.\n\nOn the twentieth day of the siege there was great rejoicing in the camp of Pa-Kur, because in one place the wires had been cut and a squad of spearmen had reached the main siege reservoir, emptying their barrels of toxic kanda, a lethal poison extracted from one of Gor's desert shrubs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The city would now have to depend primarily on its private wells and the hope of rain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed probable that food and water would soon be scarce in the city and that the Initiates, whose resistance had been unimaginative and who were apparently unable to protect the city, would be forced to face a hungry and desperate population.\n\nThe fate of Marlenus during these days was in doubt. I was certain that he had entered the city in some manner and was presumably waiting for his chance to strike at the Home Stones of the tributary cities, in order, if possible, to divide the horde of Pa-Kur. Then, in the fourth week of the siege, my heart fell. Marlenus and several men had entered the city, it seemed, but had been discovered—and sealed off in the very cylinder of the Home Stones—indeed, in that cylinder that had been his palace in the days of his glory.\n\nMarlenus and his men apparently had command of the top floor and roof of the cylinder, but there was little hope he could use the Home Stones that now lay within his grasp. He and his men had no tarns, and their retreat was cut off. Moreover, the ubiquitous tarn wire heavily netted in the area of the Central Cylinder would ward off any attempts at rescue, unless perhaps by a large force." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pa-Kur, of course, was pleased to leave Marlenus precisely where he was, to be destroyed by the men of Ar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Also, Pa-Kur was not so much a fool as to bring the tributary Home Stones to his camp and risk disuniting his horde before the siege was completed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed, it was probable that Pa-Kur had no intention of returning the Home Stones at all but was determined to follow in the imperial footsteps of Marlenus himself. I wondered how long Marlenus could hold out. It would surely depend, in part, on the food and water available and on the persistence of the Initiates' attempts to dislodge him. I was confident that there would be cisterns and canisters of water in the palace, and I supposed that Marlenus, as an enlightened precaution, in view of the unstable politics of Ar, would have outfitted his cylinder as a keep, laying in stores of food and missile weapons. At any rate, my plan for the division of the Home Stones had failed, and Marlenus, on whom I had depended, was, in the language of the game, neutralized if not removed from the board.\n\nIn despair, Kazrak and I discussed these matters over and over. The probability of Ar's resisting the siege was minimal. One thing at least remained to be done: there must be an attempt to rescue Talena." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another plan entered my head, but I dismissed it as too far-fetched, as unworthy of consideration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kazrak noticed my frown and demanded to know what I had thought.\n\n\"The siege might be lifted,\" I said, \"if a force could take Pa-Kur by surprise, a force of some thousands of warriors attacking from the unprotected side of the camp.\"\n\nKazrak smiled. \"That is true. Where will you find the army?\"\n\nI hesitated for a moment, and then said, \"Ko-ro-ba, perhaps Thentis.\"\n\nKazrak looked at me in disbelief. \"Are you rid of your senses?\" he asked. \"The fall of Ar will be Ka-la-na wine to the free cities of Gor. When Ar falls, there will be rejoicing in the streets. When Ar falls, the bridges will be hung with garlands, there will be free paga, slaves will be freed, enemies will pledge friendship.\"\n\n\"How long will it last,\" I queried, \"with Pa-Kur on the throne of Ar?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kazrak seemed suddenly to darken with thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pa-Kur will not destroy the city,\" I said, \"and he will keep as much of his horde as he can.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Kazrak. \"There will be little cause for rejoicing.\"\n\n\"Marlenus had a dream of empire,\" I said, \"but the ambition of Pa-Kur will yield only a nightmare of oppression and tyranny.\"\n\n\"It is unlikely that Marlenus will ever again be a danger,\" said Kazrak. \"Even should he survive, he is outlawed in his own city.\"\n\n\"But Pa-Kur,\" I said, \"as Ubar of Ar, will threaten all Gor.\"\n\n\"True,\" said Kazrak, looking at me questioningly.\n\n\"Why should not the free cities of Gor unite to defeat Pa-Kur?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The cities never unite,\" responded Kazrak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They never have,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But surely, if Pa-Kur is to be stopped, this is the time, not after he is master of Ar.\"\n\n\"The cities never unite,\" repeated Kazrak, shaking his head.\n\n\"Take this ring,\" I said, giving him the ring that bore the crest of Cabot. \"Show it to the Administrator of Ko-ro-ba and to the Administrator of Thentis and to the Ubars or Administrators of whatever cities you can. Tell them to raise the siege. Tell them they must strike now, and that you come with this message from Tarl Cabot, Warrior of Ko-ro-ba.\"\n\n\"I will probably be impaled,\" said Kazrak, rising to his feet, \"but I will go.\"\n\nWith a heavy heart I watched Kazrak loop his sword belt over his shoulder and pick up his helmet. \"Goodbye, Sword Brother,\" he said, and turned and left the tent, as if he might have been merely going to the tharlarion corrals or to take his post for guard duty, as in our caravan days. I felt a choking sensation in my throat and asked myself if I had sent my friend to his death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a few minutes I gathered together my own gear and put on the heavy black helmet of the Assassin, left the tent, and turned my steps in the direction of the tents of Pa-Kur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I made my way to the interior perimeter of the second ditch, opposite the great gate of Ar in the distance." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'began' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There, on a hillock overlooking the palisades that rimmed the rampart to the ditch, I saw the wall of black silk that surrounded the compound of Pa-Kur. Inside were the dozens of tents that formed the quarters for his personal retinue and bodyguard. Above them, at several places, flew the black banner of the Caste of Assassins.\n\nI had neared the compound a hundred times before, but this time I was determined to enter. I began to walk with a quickened pace, my heart began to beat powerfully, and I felt the elation of decision. I would act. It would be suicide to attempt to cut my way in, but Pa-Kur was in the environs of Ar, directing the siege operations, and I might, with luck, pass myself off as his messenger; who would be bold enough to deny entrance to one whose helmet bore the golden slash of the courier?\n\nWithout hesitation I climbed the hillock and presented myself impatiently to the guards.\n\n\"A message from Pa-Kur,\" I said, \"for the ears of Talena, his Ubara-to-be.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'message' exactly 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will carry the message,\" said one of the guards, a large man, his eyes suspicious. He regarded me closely. Obviously, I was not anyone he knew.\n\n\"The message is for the Ubara-to-be, and for her alone,\" I said angrily. \"Do you deny admittance to the messenger of Pa-Kur?\"\n\n\"I do not know you,\" he growled.\n\n\"Give me your name,\" I demanded, \"so that I may report to Pa-Kur who it is that denies his message to his future Ubara.\"\n\nThere was an agonized silence, and then the guard stepped aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I entered the compound, not having a settled plan, but feeling that I must contact Talena." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps together we could arrange an escape at some later time. For the moment I did not even know where in the compound she might be kept.\n\nWithin the first wall of black silk, there was a second wall, but this time of iron bars. Pa-Kur was not as careless about his own safety as I had conjectured. Additionally, overhead I could see lines of tarn wire. I walked about the second wall until I came to a gate, where I repeated my story. Here I was admitted without question, as though my helmet were sufficient guarantee in itself of my right to be there. Inside the second wall, I was escorted among the tents by a tower slave, a black girl whose livery was golden and who wore large golden earrings that matched a golden collar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind me, two guards fell into line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We stopped before a resplendent tent of yellow-and-red silk, some forty feet in diameter and twenty feet high at the dome. I turned to my escort and the guards. \"Wait here,\" I said. \"My message is for the ears of she who is pledged to Pa-Kur, and for her ears alone.\" My heart was beating so loudly I wondered that they didn't hear it. I was amazed that my voice sounded so calm.\n\nThe guards looked at one another, not having anticipated my request. The tower slave regarded me gravely, as though I had chosen to exercise some long-neglected or obsolescent privilege." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait here,\" I commanded, and stepped inside the tent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the tent was a cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was perhaps a ten-foot cube, entirely enclosed. The heavy metal bars were coated with silver and set with precious stones. I noted with dismay that the cage had no door. It had literally been constructed about its prisoner. A girl sat within the cage, proudly, on a throne. She wore the concealing robes and veils, the full regalia of a Ubara.\n\nSomething seemed to tell me to be careful. I don't know what it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something seemed to be wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suppressed an impulse to call her name; I restrained an impulse to leap to the bars, to seize her and to crush her to them and to my lips. This must be Talena whom I loved, to whom my life belonged. Yet I approached slowly, almost cautiously. Perhaps it was something in the carriage of the muffled figure, something in the way the head was held. It was much like Talena, but not as she had been. Had she been injured or drugged? Did she not recognize me? I stood before the cage and lifted my helmet from my head." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'slightest' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gave no sign of recognition. I sought for some glimmer of awareness in those green eyes, for the slightest sign of affection or welcome.\n\nMy voice sounded faraway. \"I am the messenger of Pa-Kur,\" I said. \"He wishes me to say that the city will soon fall and that you shall soon sit beside him on the throne of Ar.\"\n\n\"Pa-Kur is kind,\" said the girl.\n\nI was stunned, but I revealed not the slightest surprise. Indeed, I was momentarily overwhelmed with the cunning of Pa-Kur and rejoiced that I had followed something of Kazrak's counsels of patience and caution, that I had not disclosed my identity, that I had not attempted to cut my way to her side and bring her out by the blade of the sword." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, that would have been a mistake." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The voice of the girl in the cage was not the voice of the girl I loved. The girl in the cage was not Talena." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene (which might reference existing characters and worldbuilding), and you will continue the story with 11 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of D.L. Jackson." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shay stepped into the club. Dayne's hand pressed into the small of her back, guiding her across the packed room toward a table in the corner. The beat pulsed, throbbing up from the soles of her feet to her torso, each boom driving her need deeper.\n\nEverywhere around them dancers undulated, grinding bodies together. On couches sprawled across the room, patrons in various states of dress and undress committed acts that would make her gasp in shock, if she hadn't been so barraged by it.\n\nJust what kind of club is this?\n\n\"The best kind.\"\n\nMirrored pillars at least five feet across and twice as high supported a minnica floor over their heads. If one looked up, he could see more dancers and sexual acts of every kind. Shay swallowed, thankful they hadn't gone to the second floor. Once her panties had been removed, Dayne hadn't let her put them back on." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Somewhere in your response, you need to say: \"I didn't say we. You're going to dance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anyone looking up would get a good look at her... Please don't make me go up there.\n\nHe chuckled and sat down to the table, pulling her into his lap. One arm wrapped around her waist and his finger began to trace a puckered nipple through the thin fabric of her dress.\n\n\"I thought you said we were going to dance.\"\n\n\"I didn't say we. You're going to dance.\" His gaze swept the room and stopped on a woman grinding on a hovering platform, surrounded by men. She danced with complete abandon, swiveling her hips and running her hands along her body. Anytime anyone tried to touch her, she kicked them away, which only seemed to make them more determined to get to her.\n\nHe pointed. \"With her. Seduce her. Get her to agree to go home with us, and bring her back to the table.\"\n\nShe swallowed. \"Her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The woman planted a high-heeled boot in the middle of a man's forehead and launched him back across the room, where he was caught by a couple of buddies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She doesn't look like she wants to be seduced.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not by them. But she wants to be seduced by you.\"\n\nShay shook her head. \"I don't think so.\"\n\n\"I wasn't asking you to do it. I'm telling you.\"\n\nShe balled her fists. Rea—\n\n\"Really.\"\n\nShe pushed up, and he pulled her back into his lap. \"One moment.\" With the tip of his index finger, he hooked her chin, tilted her face to his, and kissed her. Seconds later, as she was certain she'd melt into a puddle, he broke the kiss and tapped the tip of her nose. \"Now you can go.\" Hands grasped her waist and lifted her from his lap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dayne slapped her ass and gave her a shove. \"Go on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With complete irreverence for the personal property of the club owner, he tossed his feet up on the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leaning back, he crossed his arms and stared into the distance, away from her.\n\nSeduced by me? Is he out of his freaking mind? Shay didn't have any training to cover this.\n\nWhen she didn't move immediately, he nodded at the woman.\n\nOkay, then. Shay gathered her courage and started across the crowded club toward her objective. She'd made it halfway there when someone snagged her wrist and yanked her into his arms.\n\n\"Where you going?\"\n\nWith a coy smile, she grabbed the amorous man's shoulders, kneed him in the groin, shoved him, and continued on her way. Not part of the mission. Maybe not the most graceful move, but she'd long since lost her patience with the whole setup.\n\nOnce there, she jumped, trying to see past the crowd around the dancing women." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hopped several more times, but couldn't get a look over their heads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not working. Shay bit her lip and surveyed the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Off to the side was an empty floating stage, just like the platform the woman danced on, only a bit smaller. Gathering her courage, Shay climbed up, wobbled on the disc, and found her footing. Once balanced, she began a slow, undulating dance. She focused her every thought on moving her body like a Pelerian dancer.\n\nThe woman on the other platform stopped and stared. All heads on the floor turned in Shay's direction. A smile crept onto her target's face, and she began to sing, taking back the crowd's attention.\n\nShay propped her hands on her hips. Oh no, you didn't just do that. She'd had vocal training, and might not be as good as the woman on the other disc, but it wasn't going to stop her. She could be brazen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slutty, even. She'd show her she wasn't the only one with the power to hold a room captive.\n\nShay chose a sexy blues song, a song from her home world, and began to purr the words out, filling the air with wicked promises.\n\nThe men turned back to her. She lifted her hand and crooked her finger, beckoning the tall brunette to join her. The woman stopped and watched her, as though debating her next action. That's right. Come and get it. Shay continued to dance and sing, grabbing fistfuls of her skirt and drawing it up just enough to keep them from getting a peek at what lay underneath, but also showing off a lot of thigh. She rolled her shoulders and body, moving around like a belly dancer, singing the seductive song. Not once did she break the beautiful woman's gaze, making it clear every note was for her only.\n\nThat's all it took. The brunette hopped off her platform and parted the crowd as she made her way over to where Shay sang." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two men lifted her up on the hovering table. She ran her hands up Shay's body as she stood, finally settling them around the waist. A sliver of air hung between them. Up close, the woman was even more stunning.\n\n\"Well, now you've got my attention. What do you want?\"\n\n\"I want you to come home with me and my companion.\"\n\nHer eyes glittered in the dim light and a wicked smile tugged at her luscious lips. \"And I get what in return, bel concubina?\"\n\n\"What makes you think I am a concubine?\"\n\nThe woman leaned in, her lips so close to Shay's, she could feel her every breath. \"Because you have come in with a Dominus. Yes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" she whispered back.\n\nThe woman's tongue slid along her lower lip as though she were hungry. \"Innocens?\" She leaned in and sniffed Shay's neck. \"A...\" She lifted her head away and locked gazes again. \"Virgin. Yes?\"\n\n\"I am, and not a concubine.\"\n\n\"And yet you are with Dayne?\" She traced a finger down Shay's shoulder, to her breast, and around her nipple. It puckered like a stone.\n\n\"Yes.\" The woman's touch sent energy zinging through her and her pulse racing.\n\n\"How intriguing.\" A dimple appeared in the corner of her mouth and her eyes sparkled. \"I will come with you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She grabbed Shay's hand." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'would' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you will give me something I need in return.\"\n\nWhat could she have that this woman would possibly need? \"What do you want?\"\n\n\"You really are an innocent. I will explain when the time comes. I am what one would call a siren. I come from a small planet called Cerrius. Do you know what a siren is?\"\n\nShay shook her head. She'd never heard of them in anything but Terran lore. Surely the woman couldn't be referring to that.\n\n\"Let's get out of here, and I'll show you.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Add 2 sentences to continue story. May include established elements" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But a darkness sat amid the mist, a piece of night perched on the stump of a dead tree by a sluggish river, for Lord Death rested from his Hunt. His horse and hounds were nearby, a restlessness beyond the leaves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You need not be afraid,\" said Lord Death. \"You have the stone, after all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ciaran was afraid, all the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was not their first meeting, not the first in which he had faced that shapeless dark inside the cowl and wished not to be facing it, for fear that he would see what was inside it. \"She asked me to carry it,\" Ciaran said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you know why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am not privy to her counsels. She shares them only with Men, it seems. But then—\" The shadow moved in a semblance of a gesture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you might invite me to your hall.\"\n\n\"Someday,\" he said, feeling the cold of a wind that blew from that third and dreadful Eald." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But not yet. I wish to ask you—what I ought to do. Surely you have some advice, my lord.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, not your lord. But I am lord of those you love.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have mercy. Were we not allies—and are we not allies still? You've hated me for cheating you once. But let me beg you. I know nothing else to do now, and I am not too proud, if it will make a difference. These of mine, my family, my friends—I need them. Everything I am asked I will do. But stay away from Caer Wiell.\"\n\nThere was a long silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You suspect me of kindness.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps. Sometimes.\"\n\n\"Give me your hand. Do you dare that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The darkness extended the likeness of a hand to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All his instinct rebelled, but he reached out deliberately, ignoring the cold, and felt the touch of fingers so dark the shape of them seemed cut out of the world, and the touch of them numbed, but not utterly. They brushed his forearm as if there were no cloth between, and a pain leaped through his body at that touching of an old wound half-healed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hounds of the Hunt had made it years ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had left a part of himself in their jaws and they had devoured it, he suspected. This much of him Death already owned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The touch passed on, and the robes enfolded him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very tenderly Lord Death embraced him, and as if it were his brother or his King he returned the embrace, his arms about a body less body than burning cold. Perhaps Lord Death meant to mock him; but there had touched him such peace, and peace parted from him as Death drew back from him, leaving him chilled and prey again to the wind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are bold,\" said Death, and the voice seemed gently wistful. \"Few would dare that, even the most eager. It's your pride, is it not? If I asked that, too, would you give your pride, to ransom Caer Wiell?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ciaran sank to his knees, one and then the other, out of practice, having been ten years a kingless lord." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt a flush of shame, and lifted his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That, too,\" he said.\n\nBut Death was gone, leaving only a swirling in the mist." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lord,\" he called after him, rising to his feet. He suspected Death of laughter at his expense; of cruelty passing his expectations. \"Lord Death!\"\n\nBut a third time he dared not call, and he waked in Branwyn's arms, in the dark of his own room." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Add 2 sentences to continue story. May include established elements" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hold loomed shapeless on its hill in the darkness, a mass which thrust up only one of its corners against the backdrop of starlight. The rest was hid against the higher hills about it; but it massed large, like some crouching giant above its stream-cut valley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps, Domhnull thought, they should have stopped before this and not pressed on, but they had begun to come under sight of cottages set high on the flanks of the hills a they entered twilight—no great expanse of tillage, not like Caer Wiell, but pasturage throughout the hills; and dogs, most likely, and wary folk who might view strangers with suspicion. It seemed best to him to keep moving, quietly, and not to chance the country." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No lights,\" said Boc. \"Gods, how dark that pile is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think it is the face we see,\" Domhnull said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'ciaran' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Its walls and not the keep itself.\" Rough, lord Ciaran had called his native hold; mostly shepherds, flocks scattered in every fold of the hills round about; a keep which had grown up as chance and invention built it, a wall here, a shed there, a hall of rough stone and timbers—it had never had to stand siege, Ciaran had said, except by wind and weather." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They rode closer, the lonely clop of the horses' hooves echoing off the cliff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are we not reported?\" Brom wondered, rearmost, who led the other horses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Surely the shepherds saw us coming.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gods know,\" Domhnull said, and unslung his shield from his back where he had carried it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So did the others then, a rattle of wood and metal. With that thumping on his left arm he felt at least some cover about him, for they rode near brush and jagged stone as the road followed the streamcourse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a place apt for ambush. His weary horse picked up its head, skittish at the sound of the shield, snorted in the darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He touched his heels to it and it moved a little faster on the dark trail, past trees and up again, with the walls and gates rising now above them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Caer Donn,\" Domhnull called out, \"ho the watch, Caer Donn!\"\n\n\"Who is it?\" a voice drifted back to them. \"What purpose?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was relieved at that hailing, reined in his horse with his men about him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am Domhnull Gaelbhan mac Gaelbhan, Beorc Scaga's-son's cousin, of my lord of Caer Wiell the messenger, and four men my escort. Open your gate for us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was long delay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Domhnull sat his horse and kept his shield on his arm while his eyes scanned the rim of the wall. His heart was beating as hard as it had at the worst of their journey, dreading words this time, not arrows: Go away, go back unheard, our lord will not admit you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No man behind him spoke, Boc, Caith, Dubhlaoch; and Brom who led the horses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hooves shifted, clattered, restless: the horses saw a gate, thought of hay and straw and shelter, unwitting of all politics." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will come in by the lesser gate,\" the voice hailed them from the wall, \"your shields at your backs, Domhnull mac Gaelbhan.\"\n\nIt was no more than reasonable, at this hour, with the dark behind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do what they ask,\" Domhnull said, and slung his own shield to his back, tapped his horse in the ribs and rode forward as the lesser gate eased open outward, showing torchlight beyond it.\n\nHe passed beneath the arch, among boys who came to take his horse, no different than at Caer Wiell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped from the saddle, looked about him, not missing the men who stood above the gate: archers, if they were needed. Caith came through, and Boc and Dubhlaoch, Brom last of all, with the string of horses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gate slammed shut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The yard passed into the confusion ordinary with lads and half a score of horses.\n\n\"My lord will see you,\" a man came to say, a graying, square-faced man wearing a gold chain that glinted in the torchlight, wealthier than the look of this place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everywhere was timber. Not a hold for war, lord Ciaran had said: it was far too much of wood, a mass of wood and stone before them, like some shepherd's cottage turned fortress, as if some giant had tumbled a hundred such cottages together. Here was a wall, there a corner, a second story of wood and stone overhanging, and some of the roof timbers jutting out from all of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Steps went up to the doors, thundering and creaking under their heavy tread, and so they came into a smoky, timbered hall, a great long table in the midst of it, a fireplace burning, torches lit, so that light chased the shadows; and a great carved chair where a man sat with others standing by him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Donnchadh, Domhnull thought, finding uncomfortable this place, this sitting in chairs like some minor king, when his own lord would have come down to the yard to meet a guest, or at least stood up to meet him.\n\n\"Domhnull mac Gaelbhan,\" said Donnchadh—there was no brother-likeness, none." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This man was lean and gray as a wolf, where Ciaran was fair and golden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half-brothers, they were. \"My brother has some word for me, does he?\"\n\n\"Lord, he sent a ring to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Domhnull slid it from his hand—easily it slipped, when Ciaran had worn it on his smallest finger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He offered it, and gave it when Donnchadh held out his palm.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Donnchadh, \"I gave it him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My lord sent it for a token.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked into Donnchadh's eyes and for a moment lost all his thread of thought, everything unraveling— I cannot, he thought, I cannot do this.\n\n\"And wishes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Peace,\" he said. \"Peace and other things ... He said—\" His wits rallied; he gathered his forces, embarrassed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lords his word was that he wished peace. That foremost. He says that silence profits neither. He spoke with me—\" O Gods, this is not easy. This man hates him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am close to him. I know his heart. He thinks often of Donn, has thought, through the years, and wants to see you. Go to him, he said to me, and answer his questions, whatever he might want to ask—and bring back news again, and perhaps—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shame flooded his face with heat. The word tangled on his tongue, echoed in this hostile hall. \"Forgiveness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Long silence afterward. Donnchadh stared at him, looked down at the ring, looked up again and his eyes were less fierce." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is strange to hear from my brother.\"\n\n\"His word, lord.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have waited many years,\" said Donnchadh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His lips clamped taut. He looked down and slipped the ring to his own hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" he said then, \"well, Domhnull of Caer Wiell. I know your cousin.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"lord.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "That little seemed safest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"News. Is it news my brother wants? Well. You have had a long road and a dangerous one, and I am bound to listen. I have long thought he might have sent to me; and tomorrow you will tell me what is in his mind. In the meanwhile—in the meanwhile, there is rest and food, whatever you have need of.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He beckoned to the man who stood nearest at his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Geannan, see you to it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lord,\" said Domhnull, \"thank you.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow we shall talk at some length,\" said Donnchadh, \"and I shall have thought, and you will. Go with Geannan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Domhnull made his respects and his escort with him, and followed after the slight man in rich clothing who led them from the hall." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'would' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My lord, he thought, would call for food and drink in hall, would be frank and open-handed. He dismissed such carping thoughts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was another hall, another custom, a sterner lord. He felt young before this man, young and simple, and felt the eyes of Boc and the others on his shoulders, expecting him to uphold Caer Wiell's honor, while bowing and giving courtesies in this place, before this wolf-eyed lord who sat high in the councils of the King in Dun na h-Eoin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pages came, meeting them in the hallway beyond the great hall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall show you where you will lodge,\" said Geannan, \"and the lads will see your men well fed and comfortable.\"\n\n\"I will go with my men,\" Domhnull said, but Geannan soberly caught his arm and drew him on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We would not have you say in Caer Wiell that we lodged you meanly, sir Domhnull; you will not report my lord in that way. Come, come, no mean lodging for your men; plenty of ale and perhaps cook will find some of that lamb we had for dinner. For yourself, perhaps some wine, and I know some of that lamb is left, and perhaps a slice or two of that good ham we had. I shall entreat the cook myself and hot water, yes, and a fine feather bed, I'll warrant will be far better than the saddle. Did you ride straight on, then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We had come into your lands. We thought it best to come and give an account of ourselves straightway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wise, yes; the shepherds have the dogs out by night throughout the hills. There's little stirs but what they set to it. Ho, page, where are you going? Go straight ahead with that light: open up the west chamber.\"\n\nSir Domhnull he had become." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This man Donnchadh had sent beside him spoke him fairly, delivered him to a room of wooden walls and fine appointments, sent the page scurrying with orders for fire, water, servants." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Donnchadh from close-handed began then to seem generous beyond all expectation. He was dazed by this, and yet afraid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where am I in this, great place?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he wondered. And where are Boc and the rest of us in this rambling warren? He shivered, and looked anxiously in Geannan's direction as the man left him with promises of food and wine to follow, with a flurry of servants seeing to the fire, the fine soft bed, the warming of water for his washing. He was afraid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not know why this was so, only that it was in the air, the walls, a silence in which the soft sounds the servants made were all too loud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered the shores of Lioslinn, the silences of the passes, the uncanny stillness of the rocks.\n\nI have done a foolish thing, he thought, wishing he and his escort had never been parted; and then he shook off the feeling as top much caution." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 1 sentence sentences in the style of CJ Cherryh spawning from what the user wrote, within the Fantasy genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shadows were deep by the river, where the road ran, and the water whispered louder than the leaves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rhys went warily in this place, marking how desolate it had become, how in want of tending—the King's road that linked all Caerdale with the plain, and all unused by honest folk, or by Caer Wiell in these years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rode with all his weapons, with his saddlebags full of Cook's gifts, and now with his shield upon his arm, for he came to that point which ran between the river and An Beag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, now, he asked speed of his horse, knowing silence would not serve him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was less than likely that An Beag would watch the road, that any of those bandits would be devoted enough to duty to sit out on the riverbank in ambush in the rare hope of a man of Caer Wiell to murder—but anything was possible with trouble abroad in the land." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brush loomed close on either side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grass had grown in the roadway, and here and there a bush had taken hold, or brambles flung their spite out where they might rake the horse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The black gelding disliked this nighttime running, this uncertain ground: he used the spurs he seldom gave it and kept it going, reckless of such hazards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It spent its strength, began to labor under his armed weight when they had come well toward the hills." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He let it slow its pace at last, still beside the river, and now tending to Caerbourne Ford, the place he liked least of all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The trees took him then in their embrace of willow fronds, trailing like a curtain darker than the starlit skies, caressing, cutting him and the beast off from sight—whisper of leaves and water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The horse danced and shied suddenly, finding something to alarm it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He touched it with the spurs, fended the willow leaves with his shield." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now came Eald. He felt it, the haunted quality of the shore before him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now lend me luck, he wished, remembering that one had shed a blessing on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He kept her memory in his eyes, in the dark before him—o sidhe, you promised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found the ford, itself more perilous in the dark, in length of time untried: the river might have carved new ways, made pits to trap horse and rider, brought down uncertain sands instead of solid bottom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slid down and led the horse for prudence, waist deep in the Caerbourne's sluggish water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The horse plunged. A thing slid past his thighs, large and live and horrid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He kept the reins and stumbled on, struggling in the water, and now the whisper of the river had the sound of laughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shore wavered before him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A second time the touch came at his legs, his waist, soft hands reached upward, clinging to his armor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He flung himself toward the shallow water, fell to his knees and made the horse stumble by the pull on the reins, then regained his feet and hastened through the reeds, on soft and yielding mud, past dead and breaking branches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He set his foot in the stirrup, heavy with his weight of metal, with the horse shifting this way and that and starting to move at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It threw its head as he hit the saddle, and leaped forward, catching panic; he reined it hard, for branches whipped at them: they went blind and at hazard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He held it; it walked, shivering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shivering. He shivered likewise, soaked to the skin and remembering what had touched him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each-uisge, Ciaran had said. Water-horse. River nix." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A thing to frighten children." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'where' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He feared as he had never feared in battle, in this path that he had taken, and ever and again he heard the sound of hooves, like a horse running where no horse could run, like the thunder of a gallop that grew loud and soft by turns, now on this side of the path and now on that, where the way to his own lands bordered Eald." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Grant you mercy,\" he whispered to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were quiet neighbors.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not give way to panic, not even when eyes like coals stared at him from out the thicket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might do him harm, he knew it; but it went beside him, and his horse shuddered and shivered and snorted at its presence, that moved on hooves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pooka,\" he said, \"you do not frighten me. I have leave to pass here, and you cannot stop me.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes never came again. The beat of hooves stayed with him." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Chapter Segment Request:\n- Sentences: three sentences\n- Style: CJ Cherryh\n- Genre: Fantasy\n- Note: Part of ongoing narrative" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They had no business to be riding out in the first place,\" their mother said, over by the fire where she had gone to stand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meadhbh looked at her distractedly, as if she had gone mad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With all that they had come panting up to the hall to say, that was what their mother settled on, with their father sitting still in his thoughts and Domhnull sweating and pale from their climb up the stairs. \"The Bradhaeth loose and Caer Damh stirred up and they riding out as if there was no trouble at all.\"\n\n\"I saw Caer Wiell burned,\" Meadhbh cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hush!\" said their father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come here. How was it burned?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meadhbh shook her head and came to her knees by her father's chair. Ceallach hung on his other side.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Domhnull, \"when she lent me her gift to hold, she confused things in it. Maybe it was some other place.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And Caer Donn?\" asked Ceallach. \"I saw Donn, did I not?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" said Domhnull, \"you caught it from me, something I had seen or imagined.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Doubtless so,\" their mother declared and came back again, sweeping past Muirne who hovered near the fire with large, frightened eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've held the stone. It was like that. One remembers things.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their mother wanted it to be so. Meadhbh looked at her, understanding now and wishing for once the same thing her mother wished, that what she had seen could turn out to be something past, something of Domhnull's rememberings and nothing yet to come.\n\n\"Meadhbh,\" her father said, \"give me your hand, and you, Ceallach.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did that, and for a moment thought he only meant to tell them something; but then he shut his eyes, and the world turned gray and full of mist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ciaran!\" their mother called.\n\nThe hold was burned and the land was waste, with smoke over all the hills, that spread to the forest; and there was a hill of bones, and a shallow lake with something coiled at the depth of it, and deep places under the hills that had cracked open like eggs, empty in their darkness.\n\n\"No!\" It was their father's voice." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'meadhbh' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He let go of their hands, a fierce shove, and for a moment Meadhbh was lost and breathless in the mist.\n\nBut it was her mother's arms she felt, smelled the lilacs and herbs of her skirts against her face, and her mother was shouting at her father.\n\n\"It's going to be true,\" Meadhbh said, \"it's all going to be true.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They are children,\" their mother cried.\n\n\"Yes,\" their father said. Meadhbh blinked him clear, and there were tears on his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That won her silence. She wanted not to look at him but there was no other place she could, not now. Her father reached out quite calmly and ruffled her hair as he had not done since she was very small, and tousled Ceallach's after. \"Domhnull.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lord,\" Domhnull answered quietly.\n\n\"The Sight can mislead. Sometimes it is not quite what it seems. But all the same, with the Bradhaeth roused, with all our enemies combined—and Rhys not here—well, I have no kinsman, Domhnull; and where I go, Beorc is like to go. My lady's kin—something untoward has delayed them, or Rhys would be back by now. Be in a kinsman's stead to her and Meadhbh and Ceallach—if need should be, stand by them.\"\n\n\"On my life, lord,\" Domhnull whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meadhbh felt her mother's arms tighten about her as she rose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother smoothed the hair her father had ruffled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let me go, she wished, wanting to shout it, and turned instead and hugged her mother, thinking that someone ought to.\n\n\"Caer Wiell will never fall,\" her mother said without a doubt in her voice. \"This nonsense comes of meddling with the Sidhe gifts, that's what it is. Or listening at doors where they shouldn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one said anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their father only sat still and gazed at all of them with that look he had when he was far away, and then he got up from his chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Domhnull, go rest, Muirne, see he gets a pot of cool ale—I daresay it would come welcome. Maybe a bit for Meadhbh and Ceallach too if they would like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A very little,\" said their mother, measuring with pinched fingers and frowning at Miurne. She combed Meadhbh's hair then with her fingers and held her face steady, looking in her eyes. \"You are too old to be riding about the country, do you hear? You will not be doing such things again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would have galled Meadhbh even if she thought it would come to no more than the other threats, but now it had the sound of doom, louder than any intent in the words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not again, not again, not again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pretended she had not heard; saying anything to it might seal it like the magic of true names. \"May I go?\" she asked instead.\n\n\"Go. Comb your hair.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother was distracted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hair was something she said without thinking. Meadhbh went with Muirne, beside Ceallach, and Domhnull came after, but Meadhbh cast a backward glance where her mother and her father were, her mother standing with her arms hugged about herself, her father standing staring off toward nothing at all and with a grimness about his mouth that tokened words to come.\n\nNot be doing such things again, Meadhbh thought, and her hands were cold." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's work on this story segment. I'll provide a part, and you'll continue with 8 sentences in the style of CJ Cherryh. This is Fantasy genre and characters might appear without introduction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"Tell him we have come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Branwyn wept, quietly, at their coming to the room; and hugged them one and all, Rhys and Owein and Madawc, though talk went in whispers: \"He will mend,\" she said as she had insisted a hundred times. \"He sleeps a great deal, and that is to the good. I will tell him you've come. He'll want to see you.\"\n\nBut Ciaran lay very still, his breathing hardly stirring the coverlet, so pale that his flesh and the moonstone on his breast seemed little different. \"Yes,\" Rhys whispered back. \"Tell him we have come.\"\n\nAnd afterward in hall Rhys hugged his youngest cousins and sat down to ale and meat, he and his brothers, trail-worn and haggard, while the dark fell outside and the wailing began again from the riverside.\n\n\"You had no easy ride coming here,\" Domhnull said. They were all at hand, Beorc, Muirne, Meadhbh and Ceallach by the fire they laid of evenings; Leannan with his harp encased and songless; Siodhachan whose wrinkled face was a map of years and present sorrows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Rhys, \"it was not. But An Beag has men to bury, by the ford.\"\n\n\"Well done,\" Beorc said. His eyes burned. His huge hands knotted up in fists.\n\n\"There were other things,\" said Rhys. He did not look up, but the thought was there, the ring of cloud, the darkness through which they had ridden. \"There were men we could not bury. Gods help them.\" His mouth was drawn at the corners. He took a drink of wine and Domhnull looking on him caught a glance of his eyes when the cup had lowered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A chill came on Domhnull then, a keen ache in all his wounds, kinship with all those who had fared outside of daylight, in fell places and old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What happened here?\" Rhys asked.\n\n\"Misjudgment,\" Domhnull said. His muscles all were hard, and ached on mended bones. \"How did you get through?\"\n\nThere was darkness enough in Owein's and Madawc's eyes, of proud men not used to fear; but Rhys' darkness was more. \"With small things in the bushes and arrows in the dark; and two horses gnawed to bone and men we never found. Nor could delay for.\" Rhys shivered, and leaned on his knees, the cup clenched between his knees; a fury was on his face. \"Mist. A lot of that. An unnatural lot of that. We hoped for better here. Some of my folk went home: Gwernach and his folk—I sent them for my father's defence. We saw the sunlight; we had hoped for better beyond Caerbourne Ford. Easier An Beag arrows than the forest road by night; but something went with us—whether a fair thing or foul I know not, but at the last it led us fair. There have been such things. I saw a pooka once.\"\n\n\"And followed it?\" Domhnull asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"O, friend, it followed me. That was on my way. This was smaller, a noise in the leaves—it loved the trees too well to leave them, and hung about the streams. And we none of us liked it, but there was no parting from it. We saw it scampering through the brush. Small and quick it was, and always ahead of us til the ford, til the cursed singer—\" He fell silent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was the wind outside, and always, the singing. \"We have heard that wailing at night. Two nights upon the road.\"\n\n\"It can sing all it likes,\" said Muirne. \"It's not coming in, that thing.\"\n\n\"It's Sidhe,\" said Meadhbh, a small voice. She sat by her brother, by the fire. \"It wants our father.\"\n\n\"Be still,\" said Muirne, \"hush, Meadhbh, don't speak of it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was silence then. There were a great many things not fit for speaking tonight. Domhnull's heart went out to the children. He moved close by them and sat down on the hearthside, his arms about them both.\n\n\"You'll want your beds,\" said Beorc to Rhys and the others. \"I'll have bedding brought.\"\n\nRhys looked about him, at the hall where bedding was scattered in corners, pillows tucked in chairs, disorder that told its own tale of how they rested. \"I'll wash,\" he said. \"I'll watch here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beorc nodded, gazing steadily at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Tis hard to think of riding, Rhys, but those men of yours would be a welcome sight northward: Ruadhan is hard pressed on the border. Gods know I should be up there, but—\"\n\n\"We will be glad of the beds for a few hours,\" said Madawc in a voice like Rhys', quiet. \"Owein and I will take our men north. That is why we came. Or we will go west. Or where you like.\"\n\nBeorc clamped his lips together, still staring, moist-eyed. \"Gods reward it, Madawc.\"\n\n\"Gods send us enemies,\" said Owein darkly. \"Our folk have need of them after such a ride, facing things no arrow troubles. We have arrows saved for the Bradhaeth, or Damh, and gladly for An Beag.\"\n\n\"We are Dryw's sons,\" said Rhys." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And there is blood between us and these northrons. Much of it.\"\n\nBeorc rose up and led them down the stairs. Domhnull sat watching, but his heart was not eased. He held Meadhbh and Ceallach against him. Frail-seeming, watching much, they were. He felt them shiver. Oftentimes they gazed off into nothing at all, or watched the fire, or drowsed and picked at the food Muirne kept offering them. They are in danger, he thought, perceiving war of a different kind than spears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held them tightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Be kinsman to them, Ciaran had said. Domhnull thought of his own mother, busy among her neighbors down below with this and that matter, the baking of bread, the ordering of shelters, meddling even in Caer Wiell's kitchens on the strength of her connections—nothing daunted her. She always had an answer; and these waifs, the children of a lord and a lady too wrapped in grief, he wished he could bring them to her; but he could not. They would not be comforted. Go to bed, Muirne had told them, had sternly ordered; but Meadhbh had sat down, plump upon the hearth three nights ago, and Ceallach had folded his arms and lifted his chin with a look that was Ciaran's own, that look which few had seen but his men when things were at their worst; and Meadhbh had one of his looks, too, that quieter one, which measured distances and battlefields. So there had been pallets laid down, and both of them like weeds did as they liked, when they liked, where they liked; only sometimes they turned anguished looks toward the Stairs when there was some sound, not often asking with more than silence; or their shoulders would droop or their heads fall, when, as now, they were willing to be held, to lay their heads against him, being not all grown. In his mind he railed on Branwyn, that she deserted them; and in his heart he knew why, as Ciaran had known—that they were strangers to Branwyn and grew more so.\n\nHe bent his head, overburdened with knowings, brushed Meadhbh's brow with a kiss for comfort, as if she were his sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She never stirred, nor did Ceallach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A stone of the fireplace bore into his back, but he did not move.\n\nRhys came back upstairs quietly and settled to sleep, the quick hard sleep of a man long without, in the dimmed hall; others settled; the fire burned down to embers and Muirne drowsed in her chair, her head on pillows.\n\nAnd still the voice wailed, outside.\n\nGo away, he wished it fiercely. Bain Sidhe, go away: he cannot die, our lord. Give up and go away.\n\nMeadhbh lifted her head suddenly, violent and lost; Ceallach stirred. \"Hush,\" Domhnull said, \"it's just the same noise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My father!\" Ceallach cried, thrusting him away." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And from the hall: \"Beorc!\" Branwyn cried. \"Beorc—o help me!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nContext: May include established characters/lore without introduction\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with 4 sentences, emulating the writing style of CJ Cherryh." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Branwyn,\" Ciaran whispered. He thought he did. He heard the hoofbeats coming. She bent close and kissed him. He could hardly feel the touch." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 1 sentence sentences in the style of CJ Cherryh spawning from what the user wrote, within the Fantasy genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Your brother is gone, the Dark Man whispered. Lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Donnchadh started and looked about him, in the solitude of the gloomy hall in Dun na h-Eoin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Armies were about it: his; the lords had gathered like carrion birds at the King's failing; and among them had come one eagle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What—dead?\" he whispered aloud; but the voice came creeping inward, cold as ice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Last night, the voice said, soft as spidersilk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Bain Sidhe has sung it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ciaran of Caer Wiell, of Donn, Branwyn's husband—he is gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Donnchadh sat down on the plain wooden throne, that being where there was to sit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt it like a blow, a hammer-strike to the heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt like weeping; and felt relief at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dead—of the wounds An Beag gave him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dead— The voice grew softer still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ah, well, but nearly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At least as dead as Sidhe can die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a dagger-thrust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked up at the shadows, but there was no one to see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man is dead or not, ghost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh, but a Man is—dead or not." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there was less and less of Man in him—cousin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now he has no boundaries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He might be here, this moment—or stand beside your bed of nights." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He might easily come this way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would still defend his hold, his son—with every means at his command, and those means are many." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A chill came on Donnchadh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It grew, as if warmth were leaving him forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was true: there was his brother's son, heir through Meara, Evald, Branwyn; and all those armies knew it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wanted so little to produce one rebel, one of those lords to rouse others in the name of a boy who could be brought up as they pleased, if he fell into their ambitious hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That is the first danger, he thought; and it was his thought, perhaps; or it was the Dark Man's, who had come so close now there was no distinguishing one from the other. The boy. Ceallach." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laochailan's heir; and my brother's; and Dryw's kinsman. In Caer Wiell, near the Sidhe. He must die." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "make story longer like CJ Cherryh would. heads up: might have existing chars/lore" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something touched him, faint and far away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered, then: sometimes he wandered, and even Aodhan lost the way, in the woods that were everywhere across the face of the world, in the maze of his thoughts, the tangle of his desires." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Going anywhere was difficult; going the way that he must made his heart ache." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But that voice spoke now in a tremor of the ground, in small shudderings as if the earth itself knew pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked over his shoulder, toward the darker trees, and there were elves.\n\n\"Brother,\" they hailed him kindly, \"what do you here astray?\"\n\nHe had seen them before. They had never come so close. He gazed on them, on faces fair and perilous, into the eyes of Sidhe. They were not Sidhe of the kind he knew. He read cold power there and lust for a thousand things to which elves might be tempted.\n\n\"Let go the stone,\" they whispered. \"It hinders you.\"\n\nAodhan shied, breaking the spell. Then he could look away, desperately toward the west.\n\n\"Let it go, Ciaran Cuilean!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He clutched the stone within his hands; they held his Name in theirs, and it was hard, hard, not to hear them. There had been a place, a hall, faces that he loved. They wished to show him these things, to bind him to the name that once had been enough for him; they offered these things, and his heart ached, somewhere in the stone.\n\n\"Ciaran,\" they called behind him. \"Ciaran!\"\n\nAodhan ran, ran toward the west, spurning the earth beneath him. Small darknesses leaped at him. The dark elves pursued. On and on he fled in his despair, seeming at last to gain a little.\n\nBut there was worse ahead. He felt it, like a rift in the world itself, a blight on all that was.\n\nHe broke from the woods on a hillcrest, and it was there, in the plain that stretched before him, a darkness the like of which he had never seen, not in the world and not in Death's domain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It lay from hill to hill, and reached toward the sea, casting a pall everywhere, from Caerbourne to the north. The likeness of horses moved in it; it glittered with spears and arms.\n\nHe had never felt so naked as on that hillside, where distance meant nothing and that darkness might see as well as be seen. The stone burned with icy cold, and Aodhan faltered, shivering, coming to a standstill. Love, duty, all these things seemed small and far and fleeting against such a thing. The hills lay broken, having given up the secrets at their roots; every tree was slain; every blade of grass had perished in that darkness.\n\n\"No, go on,\" he urged Aodhan, though all the fear that was gathered in him counseled otherwise. \"They are at our heels—go on!\"\n\nYou will perish, their doubts assailed him.\n\nAnd an attention which he had felt but slightly until now turned full upon him.\n\nThere, it said, he is there, and the hills themselves quaked with it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "make story longer like CJ Cherryh would. heads up: might have existing chars/lore" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drow's sword was in his hand, tarnished silver, poisoned. His comrades made now a ring about the grove, a darkness cold with hate.\n\n\"I would not fight you,\" said Duilliath, \"either one. There is nothing more to gain but wounds—on either side. Give up, cousins.\"\n\nLiosliath stood watching, every shift of eye; and at their backs the two horses moved, circling, small mutters of thunder, pacing the ring that was all that remained of Eald on the earth. They were protecting Arafel ... who gained her feet, such as she could.\n\nBut the circle diminished more, grass curling black. \"Liosliath,\" he heard her call his name, felt a sword-hilt touch his hand. He closed his hand on it, lifted it; the blade shone bright against the dark.\n\n\"We have done this before,\" Duilliath reminded him.\n\n\"Not well enough,\" he said.\n\nMore grass perished. A flower died." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The drow came nearer, and there was about him the gleam of sullen fires." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blades lifted, crossed, flickered with subtle passes, feigning ease, feigning movements that led to this side and that.\n\nFaster, then and faster. The line of green drew inward, held. They battled back and forth on that line which he could cross and drow could not; and the wind was blowing, with chill that grew and grew. He heard his name called, heard the dragon-voice.\n\n\"Ware!\" cried Arafel.\n\nThe border yielded all at once, a falling inward. Grass blackened, a flower died and went to dust: Duilliath thrust forward on the instant and Liosliath flung up a hand, took the point, unarmored as he was. The blade slid through his palm, venomed, cold and keen. His own moonbright point touched Donnchadh's armor, found a hold, went deep, and snapped within the wound.\n\n\"Brother!\" wailed what had been Donnchadh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It perished. The drow lingered longer, fading even so, a fair cold face, a wail, a passing chill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Horns were sounding, riders were coming; the drow sped in retreat, racing for Dun Gol.\n\nThe trees faded; the mist remained. The riders came in sudden pallor, and two that rode on fuaths, two their hair red as sunrise; two steeds black and sleek. Thunder muttered; elf horses neighed and stamped. There was light within the grove.\n\n\"Arafel!\" cried Nearachd, leaping to the ground. \"Liosliath!\"\n\nThen Liosliath felt his wound, the cold within his arm, felt the strength ebbing from him with a flow of blood dark as the night about them. He wavered on his feet, and there were friends about him; there was Arafel before him, after so many ages—face to face.\n\nStay, came a Voice through the earth itself, soothing and seducing. O stay, Daoine Sidhe. Do not think to retreat from me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do not listen,\" said Nearachd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The ships are waiting, Aoibheil. An old dragon will never take us. Come. There is nothing more to gain.\"\n\n\"Nothing more,\" said Liosliath. He looked at her with ages stored up of hope, of waiting, but something came into the stone that dimmed it all at once. She looked sadly faded, streaked with darkness that was blood; there was sorrow in her eyes and heartbreak in the stone.\n\n\"You understand,\" she said. \"You would understand.\"\n\n\"Haste!\" cried Nearachd.\n\n\"No,\" said Arafel.\n\n\"Would you still hold to this land?\" Liosliath asked. \"O Aoibheil, no more.\"\n\n\"But there are Men,\" she said. \"If we quit this world to go to safety—we leave them to the Worm. We have weapons. We are not defeated yet!—O cousins, have we learned nothing? What happens here matters to the balance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we should fall to it,\" said Gliadrachan, \"o Aoibheil, the risk—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It matters,\" Liosliath said. \"Aoibheil is right.\" He still held the broken sword, heard the dragon coming, felt cold steal up his arm. He touched the stone he wore, the dreams that all the others lacked. \"I remember. I remember Caer Righ before it was Dun Gol. We made both. Myself—I stand with Aoibheil.\"\n\n\"Then you do not stand alone,\" said Gliadrachan, leaping from her horse.\n\n\"Not alone,\" said Nearachd, and others leaped down, setting arrows to their bows.\n\nSo they set themselves and waited, and now they heard its tread, felt the shiver in the air. Arafel stood with them, nocked the last arrow that she had. \"Stay back from it,\" Liosliath said, standing by her. \"It aims most at you.\"\n\nShe had nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Foolish, said the Worm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why struggle? You have seen the world changed from all it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Would you have it back again? We can remake it. It can be anything we will.\n\nThen was cold and a time that passed measureless, when nothing stirred at all. The dragon was with them, how they had not seen, came glittering like bronze and gold, moving slowly as in some dream, and as it came it seemed the sun had come into that darksome place and shone, glowing on its scales. Its wings blew away the mist and fire coursed the veins that webbed them. Most of all its eyes—its eyes were no color at all. They drew in the eye that tried to see what in truth that color was, and nothing was there at all.\n\nNo need of weapons, said Nathair Sgiathach. No need of struggle. The leaves will grow again, the lakes be pure, all things that you desire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bows unbent, strings eased, their arrows unsped." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 12 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Sidhe stood mazed and lost. In the grove the last green perished.\n\nBut one, Meadhbh held her elf-gift within her hand. This leaf, this point of light shielded in a mortal hand, it burned, it had warmth when all had failed, when the each-uisge's trembling stilled, as spellbound as the elves. It loomed, this dreadful thing—it wanted them; and the thing she had, that Ceallach had, it spied this now and drew them.\n\n\"No,\" she said, and louder yet: \"No!\" cried Ceallach.\n\nOne Sidhe moved. It was Arafel, who crashed to one knee, who suddenly bent her bow; it shook and faltered, the arrow leaped and settled on the bowstring.\n\nThe dragon lunged and the arrow sped into its numbing eye. It wailed, it reared, its wings beat in storm and whirlwind as it rose into the air.\n\nIt rose and rose, a shadow now, like a plume of smoke above them; it hovered, plunged—somewhere beyond the hills.\n\nThe earth shuddered. There was silence.\n\nThen the world began dissolving, blown on winds that blew it all in shreds of light and dark." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 1 sentence sentences in the style of CJ Cherryh spawning from what the user wrote, within the Fantasy genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was an evening the fuaths came, down by the little stream that wandered by the steading; they appeared as two black horses grazing on the margin; and on another evening a black horse bounded the fences just for sport and raced across the fields." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That would be Seaghda,\" said Ceallach, and felt a longing in his heart that was cramped by fences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meadhbh felt a longing, too, a restlessness beneath this open sky; at night she heard the forest singing, and she thought of the Daoine Sidhe—for they had never left her heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Indeed a thing had happened with the elf-gifts, and they were never quiet, so she had never been much distressed at the absence of the Sidhe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not yet, not yet, they said to her and to Ceallach within their hearts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And there was much to do here, with Caer Wiell folk, with their mother, with Muirne and Domhnull, and Rhys as he healed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'there' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was all the steading to find out about, and there was riding to be done, with Flann and Floinn to carry them again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Gruagach kept them company on the piebald mare, or on the brown pony, and was sometimes there and sometimes not, according to his whims." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They learned the heron's name from him, and what the owls were like, who hunted in the barn; they learned all the horses' true names, and where the brook came from, high up in the hills, and where the brook went, which was down to the sea if one followed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We shall go there someday, Meadhbh thought, as she planned other things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And always in her heart she knew the wider world was alive and all about them: she knew when the Sidhe were near that no one saw; and most of all she knew that there were two most dear to them who would come when hearts were healed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rhys for his part began to fret about, now that he was healed; one found him sitting on the steading porch and staring forestward. And one evening:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I shall ride south,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Sidhe said all was well there, but my folk and I—we've all been too long from home. The road at least should be safer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall ride with you,\" said Domhnull." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To see these mountains of yours.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Muirne looked up from her spinning by the fire, saying nothing, but with anxiousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Branwyn said nothing, thinking only that such partings were inevitable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was what she had learned in life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw Meadhbh and Ceallach, how a silence came on them in winter and lingered into spring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She marked how grave they could become, how wise their eyes had grown." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ceallach, the folk called her son, quite simply, for he was still a boy; but the young King Beorc named him when he spoke of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "King he was, but of what she did not know; and what her daughter was she hardly dared to guess—Meadhbh, Beorc called her, just Meadhbh and nothing more, but with that tone he used on King." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meadhbh rode where she liked and nothing harmed her; the ponies came when she wanted and the owls answered when she called to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Branwyn did not hope to keep them, or anything else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she cherished what she had, which was the warmth of friends about her, a health to sit by, fences that kept things generally where they belonged ... but they could keep nothing in nor but that tried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And this was the way of things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spring came. Her children strayed; Leannan went walking in hills and sometimes they heard his harping where he played alone, harp-song drifting like magic down the hills, sweeter than ever were the songs he played for them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And most of all the Sidhe came back with the greening of the land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would pass on their white horses, usually in the morning, riding from the south." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So Branwyn sat on the porch this morning, while Rhys and Domhnull were about whatever preparations they made, and Smith was hammering away down beside the barn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She counted all her memories and wished—so many things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They are coming,\" said the Gruagach, sitting on the step where he had not been before, and then he was gone again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Branwyn stood up, glancing to the south; and her heart lifted with the sight of elvish riders by the stream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the whole steading stopped its business when a whole band of such riders turned up toward the yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bring food,\" Beorc called, \"and drink! Visitors have come!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meadhbh and Ceallach arrived from wherever they had been; Domhnull came, all out of breath, and Rhys; and Muirne from the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Branwyn stood still, her heart beating hard, her hands clenched together, for it was Arafel with Liosliath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The riders came up by the fence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All clad in green they were, with gray cloaks, and a light seemed to go about them, like the sun upon far hills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They carried bows and swords, rode reinless, and when they slid down by the gate the white horses vanished in the way those horses had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Folk gathered, making a ring about them—it was always like that, that folk wanted to see, and somehow felt a silence on them and a dread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rhys,\" said Liosliath, offering his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Domhnull.\" It was a familiar gesture, like one they had known and lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He embraced the children, touched their faces; and on his left hand was a mark like a pale smooth star." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They kissed him on the cheek and he touched his lips to each brow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Branwyn clenched her hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then he looked at her, and came to the porch step where she stood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes were gray, not at all like Ciaran's; nothing about him now recalled the Man that she had loved—except a gentleness as he took her hand and touched it to his lips, that, and the look within his eyes: I was his friend, it said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He loved you; loves you still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Branwyn,\" he said. So it was duty that he paid, this prince of the Daoine Sidhe, who was older than the hills about them and younger than the dawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was earth and knew it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he had to love them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Ciaran's heart he had, buried deep within his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come,\" said Beorc, \"come, sit and drink. Leannan, where is your harp? Be welcome, all who come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So they went to the great table in the yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Gruagach had snatched a cake; he had a pot of ale and perched on the fence to watch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fox rested near, his long eyes dark and wise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was milk and honey, cakes and ale and cider and mounds of butter yellow as the flowers that bloomed down by the stream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her children were there, her friends about her, all that mattered in the world; and she felt fortunate again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is it well with you?\" asked Liosliath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well enough,\" she said, \"lord elf.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The fuaths are back,\" said Meadhbh at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, well,\" said Arafel, \"that was certain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sipped at the cider and a smile touched her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tame trees,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We like them,\" said Beorc. \"And tend them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fences,\" said Arafel in gentle scorn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They have stood you in good stead, elf.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That they have.\" A light was in her eye and dancing in the stone that hung upon her breast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I shall bring you wild honey when next we come. The Gruagach likes his saucer and his cup of ale, but most of all he likes the fields, o Man. For that he labors. And still your fences stand; and shall. But there will be singing in your brook come moonrise. And that presence will take no saucers and respect no fences.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She set the cup aside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May your tame trees flourish, neighbor. And those who care for them. The luck is on this place and rests on all who find it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On our friends,\" said Liosliath, whose way it was to say little." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When you go south, I shall go, and show you wonders.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Might we?\" asked Meadhbh at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not yet,\" said Arafel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But someday soon—The gifts I gave you: how do they fare?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meadhbh looked distressed then, looked at Branwyn, and Ceallach did, in a way that boded something that foretold secrets and Sidhe things long kept from her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her heart ached without knowing why, at the look in her daughter's eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I love you, she thought at her children: she was doomed to love the Sidhe, at last, the green magic, the things that would not be held." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I love you,\" she shaped with her lips, and thought: even if I lose you now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They brought out the gifts, but no longer leaves—they were stones, filled with light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They changed,\" said Ceallach to the Sidhe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They changed that day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So did Miadhail,\" said Arafel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was the only tree born within Man's age. They were his life you bore; no one else could have borne it but Sidhe born within his age. Nothing could have shielded them but mortal flesh. Your burden was more precious than even your father knew. Now they hold your hearts; be careful of them, to keep them what they are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at Branwyn, a long, gray glance in which the wind forgot to breath and nothing stirred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This place will hold you while you will. Forever if you like. But take my counsel—go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go where?\" asked Branwyn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where should we go? Our enemies have Caer Wiell—do they not?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you not know by now,\" asked Beorc beside her, \"that you are beyond the sea—that the land has left the world?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then my father—\" said Rhys. \"My home—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, your mountains are here,\" said Liosliath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The forest, the plain—all, wherever Camhanach sounded in Men's hearts—all of it came away from the mortal world, and lodged here, forever in faery. The world of Men goes on much as it was. It will not miss this little corner of it. Your mountains, Caer Wiell and Donn—Dun na h-Eoin of the Kings, they stand here—Men might till the fields, heal old scars, live in peace with Eald as it exists here—Have you not seen gulls fly here? They come from behind the wind.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The realms are divided now,\" said Arafel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The dark things and the brighter came into faery at Camhanach's call—we could not take the bright and leave the dark to Men. Caer Wiell might be; many things might be if one summoned them, Branwyn of Caer Wiell.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go there,\" said Liosliath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Build your Caer Wiell.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tears burned in Branwyn's eyes so that the Sidhe brightness wavered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If he were here, lord elf—\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do what pleases you. He would say that if he were here.\"\n\nShe thought on it, on fields golden in the sun, on steadings far and wide, and something widened in her heart, forever." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing buddy needed! five sentences more in CJ Cherryh's voice. Fantasy genre. this is from a bigger story btw" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They rode out into the morning and Arafel looked back as the Gruagach capered along the fence rail a little distance, as earthborn horses paced them and whinnied salutation to their own.\n\n\"Care for them!\" Liosliath called. \"Take care of them all!\"\n\n\"The Gruagach is with them,\" the brown man called. \"Fair, O fair in the morning, Daoine Sidhe, and the spring will be long, O long—fare well, fare back, light shine on you, Daoine Sidhe!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The steading fields lay brown beneath the plow; the hills were turning green and Men had their work before them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Liosliath loved these human folk; there was no helping that.\n\nAnd if Arafel searched her heart she found a certain joy in seeing the works of Men, neat fields, well cared for, folk keeping their boundaries and observing such swift change within them. They were scattered far, from Dryw in the south to these folk of the steading. At Dun Gol the drow slept fast. In Lioslinn, in those dark waters—no one knew what slept." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Men would wonder. They would be faring here and there through Eald, and dreams of things not yet done; but that was the way of Men.\n\nMen were chance, and risk, and change.\n\nAnd sometimes there was greatness about them. Liosliath could say so.\n\nIf one thing was certain, thought Arafel on this morning of the world, it was that change might happen; and the Daoine Sidhe rode through the land today in hope of things unfound." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "STORY CONTINUATION:\nLength: three sentences\nMaintain character context\nGenre: Fantasy, Fairy Tale" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia insisted Danielle remain outside until she examined Danielle's chambers. Only after checking every blanket and tapestry did she wave for her to enter. The instant Danielle stepped inside, Talia shut and locked the door behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dead dove still lay on the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blood had begun to dry, becoming a dark, syrupy puddle. A weak coo led her to the wounded pigeon, who was still crouched on the bed.\n\n\"You're a witch?\" Talia said, her tone making it less a question than a statement of fact." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'danielle' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle stared.\n\n\"The way you command those birds. They fight and die for you.\"\n\n\"They're my friends,\" Danielle said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They came to me when my mother died. The birds and the mice, they helped me with my chores and kept me company through the long hours locked in the attic.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia raised an eyebrow. \"Best not to mention that to too many people. They think the royal family is quirky enough already.\" She picked up Charlotte's hunting knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You fought better than I expected, but you made a very stupid mistake.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the first time since the wedding that anyone had spoken to her so bluntly. Anyone but her stepsisters, of course. Danielle was both relieved and annoyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What mistake was that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were quiet. Lesson number one: when someone tries to assassinate you, you scream like a spoiled child.\" Talia peered out the window. \"There are hundreds of guards and soldiers in this castle, all of whom are better trained than yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Guards like you?\" Danielle asked, cradling the pigeon in her lap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wing would need to be bandaged and splinted, from the look of it.\n\nTalia grabbed a pillow from the bed and stuffed it into the window frame, blocking all but a slim crack of light. \"Tell me about your stepsister. Has she always possessed such magic?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If she had, she would have turned me into a toad years ago.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: stool, frequency: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle glanced at the splintered remains of the stool. \"She destroyed the stool without touching it, but she seemed almost surprised when it worked.\"\n\nTalia grabbed one leg of the stool, tucking it through her belt like a sword." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing?\"\n\nTalia used her foot to sweep broken glass to one side. \"Whatever magic your stepsister used, there might be traces of the spell we can use to learn more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you a witch?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle asked. The pigeon tried to flap his good wing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle stroked the gray feathers and hummed a lullaby until he grew calm once more. \"You knew I was in trouble. You got through the door, even though it was bolted from the inside.\"\n\nTalia knelt by the dove's body, gently prying a few feathers from the sticky blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have a friend who knows a little magic. Don't call her a witch, though. She doesn't like that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She slipped the bloody feathers into the pocket of her apron. \"Did Charlotte say anything else about the prince?\"\n\n\"Not until the wall. I don't understand. Armand is supposed to be in Emrildale, negotiating with—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's not.\" Talia studied the room one last time, then turned her full attention on Danielle. \"I thought I told you to wait here while I went after your stepsister.\"\n\nDanielle lifted her head. \"Yes, you did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The slightest hint of a smile tugged at Talia's lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leave the pigeon here. He should be safe enough, and there's plenty of spilled food for him to eat.\"\n\n\"No. He needs help.\" Only then did it occur to her to ask, \"Where are we going?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Talia opened the door to the privy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To visit my friend.\"\n\nDanielle didn't move. \"In the privy?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Talia stepped into the dark confines, then beckoned for Danielle to follow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Danielle still refused, she rolled her eyes and said, \"She's also a healer. She'll be able to help your pet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A healer who lives in the privy,\" Danielle said again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Talia didn't answer, she shrugged and took a scarf from the trunk by the wall, using it to rig a simple sling. She set the pigeon inside.\n\n\"And you thought me strange for talking to birds,\" Danielle muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The smell of blood gave way to fouler things as she followed Talia into the privy. She blanched at the stench. The gutters channeled rainwater through the privies on the outer walls, washing away their contents, but it had been almost a week since the last rainfall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The incense she had burned yesterday evening did little to hide the stench." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had been back for close to a month, but her body had yet to fully adjust to the richness of palace food.\n\n\"Close the door,\" said Talia.\n\nDanielle obeyed. The only light came from two narrow, slitted windows at the top of the small chamber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could just make out Talia's slender form, sitting on the bench beside the leather-padded hole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia patted the bench. \"Reach inside.\"\n\n\"Why?\" She had cleaned worse things for her stepmother and stepsisters, but this was absurd.\n\n\"There's nothing to fear,\" said Talia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything you might have ... deposited has fallen two stories, where it can't hurt you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who are you?\" Danielle demanded.\n\n\"I'm the one who saved your life.\"\n\nThat much was true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holding the pigeon close to her chest, Danielle bent and stretched one hand into the hole. A ring of worn, padded leather cushioned the edge. She clenched her teeth, half expecting this to be some kind of trick, but nothing happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Search the underside of the bench, the back left corner.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shaft beneath was square, which left four irregular triangles of stone beneath the bench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gingerly, Danielle probed the corner Talia had indicated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Near the back edge, her fingers touched cold metal. A lever the size of her thumb protruded from the stone.\n\n\"Pull it,\" said Talia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lever moved without a sound, and the wall behind them cracked open.\n\nDanielle gasped, which was a mistake, given the foul air. She reached out to touch the wooden panel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The entire wall moved easily at her touch, swinging on oiled hinges concealed in the woodwork." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia chuckled and pulled the wall fully open, revealing a triangular pit. On the far side, Danielle could make out bronze rungs mounted to stone bricks.\n\n\"Does Armand know about this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle whispered, peering into the darkness." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'would' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only the queen and two others.\" Talia put a hand on Danielle's shoulder. \"And if this were a trap, I would have tossed you down that pit, and nobody would ever know what had happened to Princess Danielle Whiteshore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle's shoulders tensed. She put one hand on the edge of the doorway and tried to spin around, but Talia caught her elbow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia's other hand bent Danielle's wrist, holding her immobile. She couldn't turn without snapping her own arm.\n\n\"You're helping Charlotte?\" Danielle guessed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. I'm helping you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia let go. \"You're too trusting, Princess. You welcomed Charlotte into your bedroom. You barely survived one assassination attempt, and now you're following a strange servant into the darkness.\"\n\n\"You saved me,\" Danielle said.\n\n\"Just because someone saves you doesn't make them an ally.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Talia squeezed past Danielle, grabbed one of the rungs, and stepped onto the ladder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fortunately, I really am trying to keep you alive. I'd appreciate it if you did the same.\"\n\nWith that, Talia began to sink into the darkness. \"Pull the door closed behind you. You'll hear a click when the latch catches.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle reached for the topmost rung." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The metal was warmer than she had expected. She started to obey, then caught herself, remembering Talia's warning. \"How do we get back out?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's better,\" said Talia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's another lever inside the door.\"\n\nDanielle felt around until she located it. Only then did she pull herself onto the ladder and tug the door shut, sealing them in blackness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She closed her eyes, opened them again. It made no difference whatsoever. A quick tug of the lever opened the door again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where does this lead?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only one way to find out, Princess.\" Talia's feet rang softly on the rungs as she descended.\n\nGritting her teeth, Danielle closed the door and followed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ladder seemed to descend forever. Danielle lost count at the forty-second or forty-third rung. The pigeon stirred twice, both times making her heart pound from the fear that it would fall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her gown kept snagging on the rough-cut stone, and her knuckles were bruised and raw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At one point, she swore she felt something scurry past her fingers.\n\n\"Watch your step.\" Talia's voice sounded more distant, no longer directly beneath her.\n\nA few more rungs, and Danielle's feet touched hard-packed earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't move.\"\n\nThere was no light. Danielle kept one hand on the ladder. \"Where are we?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Far below the palace. Another twenty feet to the north, and you'd be swimming.\"\n\nA crack of white split the darkness, widening into an arched doorway. Danielle covered her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After so much time in this pit, the light was as bright as the afternoon sun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Surely the blurring of her eyes deceived her.\n\n\"Princess Danielle. Welcome.\" Beatrice Whiteshore, queen of Lorindar, gestured for Danielle to enter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle stared. \"What are you doing at the bottom of my privy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Waiting for you.\" The queen stepped aside, smiling as Danielle stepped from a damp, dark underworld into a realm of luxury equal to anything she had seen in the palace.\n\nThe room was as large as Danielle's own chamber. The walls were whitewashed wood, trimmed with gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The floor was polished marble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But where her own room felt open and spacious, this place was ... cluttered.\n\nBlack-lacquered bookshelves lined the wall to the left. Floor to ceiling, the shelves were packed with more books than Danielle had ever seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the opposite wall, weapons of every variety hung from velvet-padded hooks and pegs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were swords, knives, bows and crossbows, spears and chains, sticks of every size, and many other items Danielle couldn't begin to identify.\n\nOil-burning lamps sat in tiny stone niches in the wall. Curved disks of polished silver reflected the light into the room, making the steel weapons gleam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle's attention was drawn to what looked like a flattened spindle which hung between an oversized ax and a chained, spiked club." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The spindle resembled a wooden cross, with white cord wound around the long end. Talia picked it up and tested a loop of the cord. She gave a satisfied grunt, adjusted her grip on the handle, and flicked her wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A lead weight snapped out from the tip and thudded into the door, drawing the line behind it like a whip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is that?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"Talia brought several unusual weapons with her when she arrived,\" the queen explained.\n\n\"It's an assassin's weapon, a zaraq whip,\" said Talia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She drew in a bit of the line, then thrust the bare wooden tip forward like a knife." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not sharp, but a strike to the throat will leave a man helpless or dead, depending on how hard you attack.\"\n\nDanielle started to respond when a sparkle of color overhead caught her attention. A map of Lorindar covered the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The map was beautiful, a work of art to rival the mosaics in the throne room up above." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Highways, rivers, and footpaths crisscrossed through woods and mountains. The palace was a clear crystal on the northeast tip of the island. The ocean shone like actual water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she looked closer, Danielle could make out the individual tiles of lapis lazuli that made up the seas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blue tiles cut a line through the center of the island, marking the great chasm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flakes of amethyst formed a wide ring across the chasm, outlining the boundaries of Fairytown. The Colwich Swamps to the south were a kind of dark jade. Lines of blood-red pebbles marked the roads, from the Coastal Highway along the west shore to the King's Road leading southeast, to Dragon's Port." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She followed the roads, mentally retracing the journey she and Armand had taken." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A black shadow drifted away from the coast, near the palace. At first, Danielle took it for a spider, but closer examination showed it to be a tile of polished slate cut in the shape of a ship. \"It's moving!\"\n\nTalia finished winding the cord back around her whip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Probably the Sparrowhawk. They weren't scheduled to depart for another hour, but Captain Williamson has always been an early riser. Especially when he's angered another local husband or brother.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Talia spends a great deal of time reviewing the state of the kingdom,\" said the queen. She took Danielle's arm and gently pulled her through the room. \"Come, let me show you the rest of our little home beneath the castle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle held the pigeon with one hand as she followed the queen through an archway in the far wall." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'danielle' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room beyond was even larger and more magnificent than the first. Danielle stumbled over a stone lip in the floor, but the queen caught her, supporting her weight with fingers far stronger than Danielle would have guessed.\n\nWooden trunks and barrels, faded with age, lined the wall to either side of the archway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even more books filled the shelves above the trunks. The collection here was as vast as the royal library. The walls in this room were bare stone, and the air smelled of oil and preservatives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thick blue-and-gold carpeting covered the floor, a luxury marred by numerous stains and burns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the wall to the left hung a mirror, taller than Danielle herself. Unlike the small hand mirrors she had seen around the palace, this one was liquid smooth.\n\nThe silvering was flawless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a single speck marred the surface to distinguish reality from reflection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her father would have wept at such perfection." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'silver' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The frame was cast of gleaming silver metal. Danielle saw no trace of tarnish, so it wasn't likely to be silver. She knew better than most how hard it was to polish every nook of such a work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "White gold? Could it possibly be platinum?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been cast in the form of flowering vines crawling around the glass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle reached one hand toward the glass. \"This is a master-piece of glasswork. Where did it come from?\"\n\n\"Please don't touch that!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The reflection showed another woman hurrying into the room behind the queen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" said Danielle. \"I've never seen anything like it.\"\n\nShe could have said the same for this newcomer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Though she looked a few years older than Danielle, her smooth, pale face evoked the innocence of childhood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wore men's trousers tucked into high boots. A blue shirt draped her shoulders and made a half-hearted attempt to conceal the curve of her chest ... though it would have had a better chance had she bothered to do up the laces. A polished silver pendant in the shape of a snowflake hung between her breasts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle did her best not to look at it, or rather, at them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A delicate choker circled her neck. Fine braids of gold wire held a series of tiny oval mirrors in place.\n\n\"I'm sorry I'm late,\" the newcomer said, breathing hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was with Squire Timothy, and we—\" Circles of red flowered on her cheeks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, it doesn't matter.\" She grabbed Danielle's shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace. \"You must be Danielle. I'm so glad to finally meet you. It's been dreadfully unpleasant with only Talia to talk to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shove it, Snow,\" snapped Talia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snow stuck out her tongue. \"Don't worry about Talia. She's not happy unless she's stealing something or beating people to a pulp.\"\n\n\"Want to cheer me up?\" Talia asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle ignored her. \"You're Talia's friend. The one she told me about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She picked up the pigeon. \"She said you could help him.\"\n\nSnow stared. \"It's a pigeon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He helped me. Please.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Talia stepped closer to the queen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was the stepsister. The pretty one, Charlotte. She tried to kill the princess. She used magic of some sort to escape.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You let her escape?\" Snow repeated, apparently oblivious to the annoyance on Talia's face.\n\nThe queen spoke up before Talia could respond." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Princess Danielle, allow me to present Princess Ermillina Curtana of Allesandria.\"\n\n\"Snow, please,\" said the girl, dropping into a curtsy. She carried the pigeon to a table, setting him in front of one of the oil lamps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Princess?\" Danielle studied Snow's face, so different from the queen's long features. \"Is she your—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Beatrice. \"King Theodore and I have no daughters, and Armand is our only son. Snow came to Lorindar four years ago, shortly before Talia ... arrived.\"\n\nSnow snickered as she wound a bandage around the bird's wing. \"Before the guards found her stowed away in a shipment of cloud silk, you mean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The queen sighed. \"Like Snow, Princess Talia wished to escape from a rather unpleasant situation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Princess?\" Danielle said again. \"Talia, too?\"\n\n\"Princess Talia Malak-el-Dahshat,\" said the queen.\n\nIn the corner, Talia gave a quick bow, somehow managing to make the motion sarcastic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So ... you collect princesses, then?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle asked, trying to absorb it all. Princesses weren't supposed to run around foiling attempted assassinations, let alone serving drinks or taking abuse from enraged stepsisters.\n\n\"I took in three extraordinary girls,\" corrected the queen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her words took a moment to sink in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Three?\" Danielle glanced around, half expecting someone else to step out of the shadows.\n\nQueen Beatrice smiled. \"Who do you think told Armand's driver where to find you, after the ball?\"\n\n\"Queen Bea knows things,\" said Snow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had taken what looked like a knitting needle and was using it to splint the pigeon's wing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'queen' 3 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle turned to look at the queen. \"Queen ... Bea?\"\n\nThe queen sighed, but Snow didn't notice. \"That's how she found Talia on that ship,\" Snow said brightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And how she knew you'd be coming to the ball. She left orders with the guards not to stop you.\"\n\n\"The visions are rare, and often they're damned vague,\" said Beatrice.\n\nDanielle stared, taken aback." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her stepmother would have slapped Danielle's face, then locked her in the attic for such unladylike language.\n\n\"They also tend to leave me with a nasty headache.\" the queen added. \"I'm sorry, Danielle. I knew something was wrong when I awoke this morning, but I didn't know what. I sent Talia to watch over you while Snow and I hunted for the source of the threat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I tried searching the mirror, but ...\" Snow shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A magic mirror. Danielle's mouth went dry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her face as white as snow,\" she whispered. The story had spread through Lorindar several years before, just as Danielle's own story had done this past month. The beautiful young girl and her evil mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dashing hunter who awakened the girl from her curse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The death of the witch... \"You're Snow White?\"\n\nSnow nodded so vigorously her hair slipped over her face. She pursed her lips and blew it back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Snow White sounds so much better than Ermillina Curtana. I hated that name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Snow was the most beautiful girl in her kingdom,\" Beatrice said.\n\nSnow gave a modest shrug, which caused her shirt to slip down from one shoulder. \"It was a rather small kingdom.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She was exiled after her mother's death,\" the queen went on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Banished under pain of death should she return.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"For killing my mother,\" Snow said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She was beautiful but terribly jealous. She sent me to the woods and paid a hunter to cut out my heart. Instead, he fell in love with me, and we lived together until she tracked us down. She murdered him, and almost killed me as well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snow picked up the pigeon and handed him back to Danielle. \"Here's your bird,\" she said brightly.\n\n\"The death of Snow's mother pushed Allesandria toward civil war,\" said the queen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The king had long been under his wife's spell, and her death left him in no condition to rule. Snow was too young to rebuild her nation. The more power hungry of her kin saw her as an obstacle to the throne, and wanted her hanged for matricide.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'queen' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snow glanced down. Ebony hair hid her eyes as she fixed her shirt. \"Queen Beatrice and King Theodore helped my cousin Laurence take the throne.\"\n\n\"He was a less bloodthirsty choice than the others,\" the queen said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We did what we could to help his cause. But by the time he took control, Snow's guilt was too firmly established in the minds of her people. When we attended his coronation, Laurence disguised Snow as a servant and helped me sneak her out of the country when we departed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I always liked Laurence,\" Snow said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" Danielle said, not knowing what else to say. Her own stepmother, for all her flaws, had never tried to murder her. \"I thought ... I thought it was only a story.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is,\" Snow said. \"That doesn't mean it's not true. Just ask Sleeping Beauty there.\"\n\nTalia sighed. \"You know how I hate that name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I do,\" Snow said, grinning.\n\n\"Sleeping Beauty?\" Danielle turned to Talia. At first, all she could think to say was, \"Aren't you married?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hardly,\" said Talia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the stories, your prince awakened you with a kiss, breaking the fairy curse and—\"\n\n\"Sometimes the stories are wrong,\" Talia interrupted. \"Snow, have you had any luck finding the prince?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The amusement vanished from Snow's face. \"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle's stomach tightened. \"What's happened to Armand?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'queen' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He disappeared sometime last night,\" Beatrice said softly. She looked away, and in that moment, Danielle saw a tired aging woman, not a queen with the strength and confidence of royalty. Queen Beatrice was afraid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By the time I knew he was in danger, it was too late.\"\n\n\"Nobody told me,\" Danielle whispered.\n\nBack home, such an unspoken accusation would have landed her in the attic, locked away for the rest of the day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beatrice looked ... not angry, but sad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We needed to know you weren't involved,\" said Talia, her words striking like knives. \"There have been other attempts on the royal family over the years. Beatrice trusted you, but—\"\n\n\"I do trust you,\" the queen interrupted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But where my son is concerned, it's hard for me to trust myself. With so much at stake, I took Talia's fears to the king, who agreed. I'm sorry for that, and you have every right to be angry.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not angry,\" Danielle said automatically.\n\n\"You should be.\" Beatrice stepped closer, her fingertips closing gently around Danielle's shoulders. \"One day, I hope you'll feel safe enough here to express that anger.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just don't express it as much as Talia,\" Snow said. \"Or as violently. I've already had to replace three shelves down here.\"\n\nTalia stood with her arms folded, watching Danielle like a falcon waiting for its prey to make a move." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The odds were against you being involved, but we had to know. When your stepsister arrived today, I thought she had come either to conspire with you or to issue her demands for Armand's release.\"\n\nShe couldn't blame them. Danielle was still an outsider here, an upstart girl who had dared to marry a prince." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How could they not suspect her?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She clutched the wounded pigeon close, automatically stilling her face to keep the hurt from showing. \"Snow was the one who helped you get back inside the room?\"\n\n\"I can do a lot through my mirrors,\" Snow said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For which I'm in your debt.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beatrice gave a slight bow in Snow's direction, then turned her attention back to Danielle. \"I knew as soon as I awoke that Armand was in trouble. Snow confirmed it with her mirror. Theodore has already dispatched scouts to search the port where he disappeared, but they won't arrive for another day.\"\n\n\"I tracked Armand's movements after he left the ship,\" Snow said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He dined with his men, then retired to his room for the night. He never came out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What does that mean?\" Danielle asked. She stepped away from the others and stared at her reflection in Snow's mirror, as if her will alone could force it to show where her husband had gone.\n\n\"It means whoever took Armand is powerful enough to block Snow's spell,\" Talia said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Charlotte knew the prince was missing. She has to be involved.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She handed the broken stool leg and the bloody feather to Snow. \"She used her magic on both of these.\"\n\nSnow grimaced as she took the feather." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do I look like some sort of magical hunting hound?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stepped past Danielle and brushed the feather across the mirror, painting a faint circle of blood. The circle dried and flaked away an instant later, leaving the surface as clean as before. \"Someone else cast these spells. At least, it wasn't Charlotte alone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She had a necklace,\" Danielle said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She touched it right before the stool shattered.\"\n\n\"So she had an accomplice,\" said Talia.\n\n\"Stacia?\" Danielle frowned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That doesn't make sense.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlotte would hardly trust her sister with something as important as protecting Charlotte's life.\n\nSnow seemed to agree. \"I doubt either of your stepsisters are strong enough to do all of this by themselves. I watched them both at the ball, then later at your wedding. If they had this kind of power, I would have felt it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If they had that kind of power, Danielle never would have made it to the ball,\" Talia added." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So who was it?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"Probably witches,\" said Snow.\n\nAt the same time, Talia said, \"Fairies, I'd bet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Snow shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If Charlotte brought fairy magic past the wards in the wall, I would have known. Besides, no fairy would dare work magic within the palace. Malindar's Treaty prohibits it.\"\n\n\"And where are you going to find a witch strong enough to hide the prince from that?\" Talia pointed to the mirror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ten shillings says it's fairies.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Done.\"\n\n\"Why didn't your wards sense Charlotte's necklace?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"Because until she activated it, it was just a rock. Witches do magic. Fairies are magic. That makes fairies a lot easier to detect.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Snow, can you use these things to find Charlotte?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked the queen. \"If she does know about my son, it becomes even more urgent that we find her.\"\n\n\"I'll try,\" said Snow. She took the broken stool leg and turned back to the mirror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle stared at the gold wedding band on her finger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Simple and modest. Armand had wanted to give her a heavy, diamond-encrusted monstrosity as a memento of their love, but Danielle had insisted. This thin ring was a duplicate of the one she remembered seeing on her mother's finger.\n\nBeatrice touched her shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle turned, and the fear and pain on the queen's face were a match for her own. \"We will find Armand.\"\n\nDanielle's throat tightened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"South,\" said Snow. \"Charlotte fled south.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're on the northern edge of an island nation,\" Talia said. \"Do you think you could narrow it down a tad?\"\n\n\"I can't. She's hidden from the mirror, the same as Armand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle cleared her throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My house ... I mean, my father's house is south of here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia shook her head. \"Charlotte knows we'll be hunting her. To hide in such an obvious place would be the height of stupidity.\"\n\nDanielle folded her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Charlotte let her mother cut off part of her heel because she believed that would be enough to convince Armand she was me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good point.\" Talia snorted. \"Come on, Snow. Let's go visit the de Glas house.\"\n\n\"I'm going, too,\" said Danielle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Charlotte already tried to murder you once today,\" said Talia. \"If we find her, she—\"\n\n\"I lived with Charlotte and Stacia for most of my life,\" said Danielle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know them. I can help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Talia turned to the queen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bea, I'll have my hands full keeping this one out of trouble.\" She jerked a thumb at Snow, who rolled her eyes. \"I can't be a nursemaid to both.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle folded her arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Forgive me, Your Majesty, but your son is also my husband. My own stepsister may have taken him. The question isn't whether or not I'm going after her, it's whether or not these two are coming with me.\"\n\nThe queen studied her for a long time, until Danielle began to think she had overstepped herself. \"Three extraordinary girls,\" she whispered, with another of those soft, sad smiles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can see why Armand was drawn to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your Majesty—\" Talia began." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'would' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beatrice raised one hand. \"My dear Talia, this is the girl who snuck from her house for three nights to attend the winter ball, under the very noses of her stepsisters and stepmother. When they discovered the truth, they locked her away. Yet when Armand appeared, she again escaped her prison to find him. Would you have me lock Princess Danielle in the dungeons to prevent her from doing what she believes is right? Do you think even that would stop her?\"\n\n\"I could stop her,\" Talia muttered under her breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's enough.\" Beatrice leaned forward to kiss Danielle's forehead, then did the same to Talia and Snow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Danielle must be a part of this. I feel it in my heart.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talia shook her head. \"I hope your heart doesn't get us knifed in ours.\" With a sigh, she turned back toward the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come on, Princess. Let's get you ready.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Find my son,\" Beatrice said, turning back to the mirror. \"And stay safe.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding seven sentences. Context: May include pre-existing characters and lore." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They emerged at the base of an enormous iron tower, beside a mud-slick road. The tower's twin stood on the opposite side of the road, with walkways and tubular passages connecting the two like an enormous ladder. A low mist turned the air cool and damp.\n\nGlowing pixies darted around the walkways to cling to the sides. Most of them appeared to be polishing the walls.\n\nSpikes of all sizes covered the towers. Close to the ground, they were the size of sword blades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They grew larger the higher one looked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The three enormous spears jutting out from the tip of each tower could have skewered a giant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Harsh and cruel as the towers appeared, they blended perfectly with the great hedge which passed behind them." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'those' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Every one of those spikes can be adjusted from within. The higher ones can even be fired at intruders.\" Arlorran licked his lips. \"Marvelous workmanship. Never been inside myself, but I'd pay a lot to see how they managed some of those tricks.\"\n\n\"Where are we?\" Talia peered at the sky. Twin quarter moons faced each other over the horizon.\n\n\"This is the king's land,\" Arlorran said. \"The dwarven towers.\"\n\n\"That's the opposite side of Fairytown,\" Danielle said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have to get to the chasm.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"I told you, there are only a few places where the pull is strong enough for me to summon myself. If you want to reach the chasm before your stepsisters take their anger out on your prince, this is the place to start. Unless you'd rather take your chances on the road? Some of your race have been known to wander that road their whole lives, never finding their destination.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quit your whining,\" snapped Arlorran. \"I told you, there are only a few places where the pull is strong enough for me to summon myself. If you want to reach the chasm before your stepsisters take their anger out on your prince, this is the place to start. Unless you'd rather take your chances on the road? Some of your race have been known to wander that road their whole lives, never finding their destination.\"\n\n\"I thought we were protected, as long as we stayed on the road,\" said Danielle.\n\n\"Protected, sure,\" said Arlorran. \"That doesn't mean the road will take you where you want to go.\" He stuck his fingers in his mouth and gave two sharp whistles. One of the pixies whistled back, then disappeared through an unseen window above a spear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Damned dwarves,\" Arlorran muttered. \"She'll be back just as soon as they give her permission to speak with us.\"\n\nThe pixie emerged again before Danielle could respond. She flew faster than any bird, a blur of yellow light that streaked down to hover before Arlorran. \"What do you want, gnome?\" she asked.\n\n\"Nice to see you too, Nexxle.\" Arlorran gestured at Danielle and the others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My friends need transportation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then it's fortunate they have feet,\" said Nexxle.\n\n\"They need something faster.\" He pointed to Danielle. \"They need to rescue this one's husband. Nasty forces at work here, and they need all the speed and help they can get.\"\n\nNexxle's wings stilled, and she dropped lightly into the mud. \"What kind of forces?\"\n\nArlorran lowered his voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They set a darkling loose in my home, Nexxle. Little bugger could have killed me!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"Some husbands aren't worth rescuing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pixie's scowl never changed, but her light brightened slightly. \"Maybe he'll have better luck next time.\"\n\n\"Will you help us?\" Danielle asked.\n\nNexxle spat. \"Some husbands aren't worth rescuing.\"\n\n\"Do I have to call a meeting of the elders?\" Arlorran asked.\n\nNexxle's light dimmed to almost nothing. \"You would, wouldn't you? Never could take no for an answer. Stupid gnome.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She leaped up, wings buzzing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stay there. I'll find someone to take you to the stables.\"\n\nShe returned to the same window and disappeared into the tower.\n\n\"What's she doing?\" Danielle asked.\n\nArlorran rubbed his face with both hands. \"Getting permission from the dwarves to come with us. The whole bloodline lost a bet with the dwarves, years ago. Had they won, they would have taken the towers and supplanted the dwarves as the king's guardians.\"\n\n\"What did they lose?\" Danielle asked, watching the pixies work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One generation of servitude. One dwarf generation, lucky for them. Pixie generations are measured in centuries.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arlorran laughed, though there was little humor in the sound. \"I have to hand it to them. These towers have stood for centuries, and I don't think they've ever looked so clean.\"\n\n\"Who is Nexxle, and why does she hate you so much?\" asked Snow.\n\nArlorran pursed his lips. \"She's ... well, she's my mother-in-law.\"\n\nSnow's body went still. \"You're married?\"\n\n\"Uh-oh,\" Talia muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was married,\" Arlorran said hastily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A long time ago. She died young, fifty years ago this month.\" He turned away from Snow and stared up at the tower. \"A bit flighty, even for a pixie, but I loved her. You remind me of her, actually.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said Snow.\n\nArlorran shook his head. \"Suffice it to say, pixies take family ties pretty seriously. I've still got rights here, though it pains them to admit it.\" He took a deep, tremulous breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Enough of my troubles. You need to know who's got your prince. Maybe the tale of the Duchess will drive some sense into you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took Danielle's hand and tugged. \"Don't worry, Nexxle will catch up.\" He reached for Snow with his free hand, and soon he was walking along, swinging their arms like a child between his parents. \"The Duchess' story is an old one. Goes back to when Fairytown was little more than a lump in the earth, surrounded by a ring of toadstools. The king and queen kept within the hill most of the time, coming out only once a year to hunt.\"\n\n\"To hunt what?\" asked Snow.\n\n\"Humans, mostly.\" Arlorran gave an apologetic shrug. \"'Twas sport, little more. They'd capture their favorites, choosing the most handsome and beautiful of your race to be their playthings for the coming year. Others became slaves. Often the humans chose to remain with us, even when their year of slavery was up. It's not like we killed them, you understand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Talia. \"You fairies simply burst with kindness and compassion.\"\n\n\"We are what we are.\" Arlorran gave Danielle's hand a squeeze. \"Now back then, there was one ambitious little sprite who hoped to take the queen's place. She was a gifted one. Illusions, enchantment, earth magic ... they say she even knew a little summoning magic. She transformed herself into the most beautiful of men and slipped away before the hunt. She waited in the woods, and when the king and queen arrived—well, naturally the queen was struck by her perfection. His perfection, I mean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Blast it, how are you supposed to tell a story when the pronouns keep changing on you?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyway, the queen claimed him for her own, which annoyed the king to no end. He couldn't concentrate on his magic, and the girl he tried to ensnare that night managed to slip away. Understand, the king had his share of dalliances, too. He and the queen always returned to one another in the end, but this fellow was a little too good-looking, if you know what I mean.\" He clucked his tongue. \"I have the same problem when I visit the old gnomeland.\"\n\nDanielle glanced at Talia, who rolled her eyes.\n\n\"So the queen takes her prize back to the palace, where he acts as overwhelmed and befuddled as any of you humans. She's about to bed the fellow when the king bursts in. Jealousy had gotten the best of him, as it often did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fast as a dwarf can down a pint, the king throws his spear.\n\n\"Well, a spear in the back tends to be a bit distracting. The Duchess' spell unraveled then and there, leaving her naked and bleeding and still holding the silver knife she was planning to use to cut the queen's throat.\n\n\"The queen was quite miffed, as you can imagine. Nobody likes an assassin.\" He glanced up at Danielle. \"I guess you can imagine, at that. But no creature in the world has a temper to match that of fairy royalty. The queen was all set to rip this sprite apart when the king intervened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said he was impressed by the magical skill it took to fool the queen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Said he could use talented spellcasters like that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Personally, I think he just wanted to keep her alive to get back at the queen.\n\n\"The queen had already lost a good deal of face over the whole mess. Rather than risk an all-out fight with her husband, she backed down. But she swore that little would-be murderess would be tortured for a thousand years if the queen ever saw her again. The king agreed, promising to bind her to tasks that would keep her away from the queen.\"\n\n\"So what happened?\" Snow asked.\n\nArlorran chuckled. \"She played the same game with the king that she had with the queen. Seduced him into bed that very night, whispering sweet words into his ear to gain his sympathy. The king refused to release her, but he did allow her one wish. She said she wanted to see the sun rise one last time as a free woman. After that, she would serve him willingly. The instant he agreed, she fled. The king gave chase, but she was too quick. Dove into the earth and burrowed deep. She hasn't come up since. Until she comes out and sees a sunrise, she remains free.\"\n\n\"I've read everything in Lorindar about fairies, including most of Trittibar's books,\" said Snow. \"I've never heard of the Duchess.\"\n\n\"Not many have, even in Fairytown. And I'd take it as a favor if you kept the story to yourselves. The king and queen don't appreciate looking like fools, and they've done what they can to keep the Duchess quiet. Harder to do, since the war. Once the chasm opened up, the Duchess made a home for herself at the base of the cliffs. Started luring some of the darker creatures of Fairytown to her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She still wants to overthrow the king and queen?\" Talia asked.\n\n\"No doubt.\"\n\nDanielle stared at the road, trying to imagine her stepsisters in league with a mythical usurper to the fairy throne. \"How did you learn about the Duchess?\"\n\n\"The queen told me,\" Arlorran said. \"Back when she made me summoner. First thing she told me to do was summon the Duchess. Every few years she has me try again, hoping the Duchess will drop her guard.\"\n\n\"Why would she want to summon the Duchess?\" Danielle asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because then the queen would see her, which means she could carry out her threat,\" Talia said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just so.\" Arlorran's shudder wasn't entirely theatrical. \"I told you, nobody holds a grudge like fairy royals.\"\n\n\"They haven't exiled her?\" Snow asked.\n\n\"Exile her, and she'd be free of all ties to Fairytown,\" said Arlorran. \"Including her oath to the king.\"\n\nDanielle rubbed her arms, fighting a chill. \"So why would the Duchess kidnap Armand?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, she wouldn't,\" Arlorran said quickly. \"She's still a fairy, bound by the treaty like everyone else. But there's nothing in the treaty to prohibit her from harboring your stepsisters, so long as she's not actively harming any humans.\"\n\n\"What does she get out of it?\" Danielle tried to imagine what her stepsisters might offer someone like the Duchess. Her stepmother had lost most of the family's money over the years, spending the last on preparations for the ball. Charlotte and Stacia had nothing left. And their magic wouldn't impress someone with power enough to defy the fairy king and queen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The buzzing of wings announced Nexxle's return." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She carried a burlap sack three times her size. Those shimmering wings were stronger than Danielle would have guessed.\n\nNexxle tossed the sack to Arlorran. He did his best to catch it, but the impact knocked him onto his backside. \"Thanks.\" He yanked the drawstring and rummaged about, pulling out several reddish-yellow apples. \"Here you go,\" he said, tossing one to Danielle. He threw another to Snow, but Talia snatched it out of the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Got anything else?\" Talia asked. \"Snow's ... allergic.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle glanced at Snow, who was even paler than normal. Snow forced a smile. \"The taste makes me gag. \">\n\nThinking of the stories, Danielle couldn't blame her. If her mother had tried to murder her with a poisoned apple, Danielle would probably avoid them, too.\n\n\"They're not for you,\" Nexxle said. She flew low, smacking Arlorran on the head and knocking his cap to the road. \"Come on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She led them beneath a cluster of pine trees with needles that gleamed like silver. Nexxle's yellow light sparkled in the branches as she passed.\n\nDanielle touched one of the branches, half-expecting the needles to pierce her skin, but they were even softer than the pines she knew from back home. She followed Nexxle onto a narrow trail.\n\n\"Never used to be a path,\" Nexxle muttered. \"Stupid dwarves and their big, heavy boots. Might as well plant signs to mark the way.\"\n\nDanielle finished her apple as they walked, following Nexxle's light through the darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hurried to catch up with Arlorran." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You never explained why she doesn't like you.\"\n\n\"She wanted her daughter to marry a nice pixie boy,\" Arlorran said. \"She wanted little grandkids darting around like drunken fireflies. Instead, her little girl left the family to run off with a wrinkled old gnome.\" He chuckled, but not fast enough to hide the longing that passed over his face. \"Even if we could have had children together, can you imagine me trying to father a flock of flying kids?\"\n\n\"You could have always summoned them back,\" Danielle pointed out.\n\n\"Ha! True enough. I haven't the temperament for the job, though. You on the other hand, you'll make a good mother. Assuming you don't get yourself killed or enslaved to the Duchess first.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything I know about being a loving mother, I learned from a tree.\"\n\nArlorran grinned. \"That sounds like a tale strange enough to come from a fairy.\"\n\n\"Hurry up,\" Nexxle snapped. \"The dwarves want me to finish oiling the spears on the eighteenth level, and I mean to be done before sunrise.\"\n\nThe trees thinned as they climbed a broad hill. What Danielle saw when she reached the top was almost enough to drive all thoughts of her stepsisters, the Duchess, and even Armand from her mind.\n\nTree-covered hills spread out in a wide circle, creating a grassy bowl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grazing on the far side, painted by the light of a handful of pixies, was a small herd of what appeared to be horses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they were like no horses Danielle had ever seen.\n\nHuge, feathered wings lay flat along their sides. Even folded back, those wings extended far beyond the horses' backsides, looking like huge, feathered tails.\n\nNexxle gave a quick double-whistle, and one of the other pixies streaked toward them. This was a blue pixie, a male, with rumpled clothes and sweat-slick hair. He dropped to the ground in front of Arlorran, then gave the three princesses a long, appraising look. He punched Arlorran's leg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're doing well for yourself these days, old gnome!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shut up, Quink,\" said Nexxle. \"These three need mounts. Take care of them.\"\n\n\"We're going to ride them?\" Danielle whispered. Her heart pounded with a blend of fear and longing.\n\n\"Aviars will get you to the chasm faster than anything save a dragon,\" said Arlorran. He pulled an apple from the sack and hurled it out over the grass. Instantly, four of the aviars spread their wings and leaped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their whinnies were higher in pitch than Danielle was used to, sounding uncomfortably like human screams. Unshod hooves lashed out as they fought to reach the apple. A brown-and-white stallion gave one last flap of his wings, knocking a gray mare toward the ground. He caught the apple neatly in his jaws, dropped down, and galloped away to enjoy his prize.\n\n\"We're going to ride them?\" Danielle asked again, in a very different tone.\n\n\"Have fun!\" said Nexxle, grinning for the first time since they had met." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She actually giggled as she disappeared back into the woods." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arlorran grabbed another apple. \"Trust me. You try to cross Fairytown on your own, you'll face all manner of trouble and challenges. These beasts will fly straight and true, and most importantly, they'll keep you safe.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" said Quink. \"Let's find you ladies some mounts.\"\n\nThe aviars backed away as Danielle and the others followed Quink down to the field. Some rustled their wings. The brown-and-white stallion nickered and reared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wings spread, he balanced on his hind legs far longer than any normal horse could have." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you ride them?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"Us? We use carriages.\" Quink pointed to a spotted aviar near the back of the herd. A long, basketlike contraption was strapped to the aviar's back. Two pixies sat inside, their light clearly visible through triangular windows. A third pixie stood on the beast's neck, his arms and hands wound in the long mane. A thin riding crop, twice as long as his body, hung from his belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"These aren't pets, ladies. When pixies go to war, we can pack five or six warriors into every one of those carriages, firing arrows and casting spells in all directions while the rider controls the animal. That doesn't even cover the damage a well-trained aviar can do in a fight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you won't be riding one of the warbeasts,\" Arlorran said sternly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Isn't that so, Quink?\"\n\nThe pixie stuck out his tongue. \"You're no fun anymore.\" He emitted a shrill series of chirps, and several of the other pixies began to lead aviars their way. Arlorran pressed an apple into Danielle's hand, then did the same for Snow and Talia.\n\n\"No loud noises or sudden movements,\" said Quink. \"On the ground, these fellows spook even easier than your horses.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle smiled and held out her apple. She could see some of the other aviars snorting and stomping in their direction, but the pixies held them at bay. She stepped toward the leftmost aviar, a gray mare whose wings and mane were black as the ocean at midnight. Those wide blue eyes never blinked as she sniffed the apple. Slowly, she drew back her lips and plucked the apple from Danielle's hand.\n\nThe aviars smelled like fresh-cut hay, with a hint of a sharper, nuttier smell. \"Can I touch her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pretty hard to ride if you don't,\" Quink said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle reached up to pet the fur on the side of the mare's neck. One ear flicked back.\n\n\"You're beautiful,\" Danielle whispered, stroking the neck. The aviar's skin was warm, almost feverish, and the fur was stiffer than it looked.\n\nAn orange pixie flew up beside the aviar's head. He waited until she finished eating the apple, then slipped a brass bit into her mouth. The aviar took a step back, but the pixie was faster, darting around her head and buckling a light halter into place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The reins appeared normal, if longer than she was used to, but a third line ran along the top of the aviar's nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This line was knotted to the center of the reins, right between where the rider would hold on. Danielle stared. In the past month, she had barely gotten comfortable riding a normal horse. \"How do I—?\"\n\nThat was as far as she got. The mare shook her head sharply, then sneezed. Spit, snot, and bits of apple sprayed over Danielle's face and chest.\n\n\"They're not too fond of the bit,\" Quink said, stifling a grin.\n\nDanielle wiped her face on her sleeve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To her left, Talia had already climbed onto a bay with black wings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle brushed the worst of the mess from her shirt. \"So how do I control her?\"\n\nQuink flew up to stand on the base of the mare's neck. \"If you're a pixie, you use the braids in her mane. For you, I'd suggest the reins.\"\n\nDanielle ran her hands through the mane, finding one of the knotted braids. It was little thicker than a string, far too small for her to get a proper grip.\n\n\"Don't worry. If those meat-fisted dwarves can ride them, you'll be fine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Quink took the reins in his hands, holding them so that most of the slack fell between his hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Guiding them left or right is the same as your land-bound horses.\" Quink tugged the reins to the left, walking the aviar in a tight circle. \"Make sure you keep the flight line loose.\" He pointed to the third line.\n\n\"To fly higher, shift your grip like so.\" He slid his hands back, until they touched the knot of the flight line. The length of the reins meant the flight line pulled taut before the reins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Control the head and you control the animal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tugged, pulling the aviar's head up. The mare took a few quick steps, then surged up into the air. The rush of wind from the aviar's wings pushed Danielle back a step. \"Slide your hands forward on the reins and pull the head downward to bring her back to earth,\" Quink shouted, guiding the aviar down. \"You're not a screamer, are you? They don't like that. And unless you've got wings, you don't want to annoy these beasts while you're up there.\"\n\nHe hopped off and handed the reins to Danielle. \"Need a boost?\"\n\nThere was no saddle, and the wings were too high for her to use to pull herself up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was still studying the aviar when tiny hands seized her collar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quink's wings blew her hair into her face, and then her feet left the ground. Her shirt dug into her arms as Quink carried her over the aviar. She could have been light as air for all the strain the pixie showed.\n\n\"Pixie wings are magical,\" Snow explained. She had already mounted her own aviar. \"They can carry twenty times their own weight, just like insects.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Quink said. He gave a disdainful sniff, then turned his attention back to Danielle." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'wings' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is one of the older mares. Probably the most easygoing aviar we've got. They calm down once they're past childbearing age. Still a lot of strength in those wings, though.\" He stepped away, shaking his head and muttering, \"Insects, indeed.\"\n\nThe aviar started to follow Quink. Danielle leaned forward, wrapping her arms around the aviar's neck to keep from falling. The great wings jutted into the back of her thighs, shoving her farther up on the back than on a normal horse. There was no room for a saddle, and the aviar's spine promised all manner of interesting bruises before the night was over.\n\nTalia guided her aviar alongside Danielle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's the matter, Princess? You look like a marionette with half her strings cut.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle flushed. Her hands were damp around the reins as she forced herself to straighten, trying to mimic Talia's relaxed pose. The aviar chose that moment to do a little hop to the side. Danielle clamped her legs beneath the aviar's wings to keep from tumbling off.\n\n\"Relax,\" said Arlorran. He held another apple over his head. The aviar's movements stopped as she snatched it from his hand. \"Keep your knees bent like that, beneath the wings. She doesn't want you to fall either. The more comfortable and relaxed you are, the easier it is on her.\"\n\nQuink flew up beside her, dodging an annoyed flick of the mare's tail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Careful with that sword. Try to keep the scabbard from poking her beneath the wing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He grimaced as he watched Danielle fumble with the reins. Talia trotted alongside, looking like she had been born to ride aviars.\n\nDanielle gave the reins an experimental tug. The aviar jumped to the side, nearly knocking Arlorran to the ground. Quink glanced at Arlorran, a skeptical expression on his face.\n\nDanielle closed her eyes. This wasn't working. She could barely control a regular horse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could practically feel the aviar's discomfort growing with every clumsy move Danielle made." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She took a deep breath and turned to look at Quink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are their names?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'pixie' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pixie pointed to Snow. \"Your pale friend is riding Midnight, and the sour-faced girl is on Socks.\"\n\nTalia led her aviar toward Quink. \"Socks?\"\n\nThe pixie grinned. \"One of the kids named him.\" He pointed to the white fur on the ends of the aviar's legs. \"It was that or Bootsie.\"\n\nHis lips quirked slightly as he turned back to Danielle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As for your aviar, her birth name was Zoё. One of the dwarves renamed her, though. These days we call her Zirdiclav.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle did her best to imitate the chirping sounds of the name. \"What does it mean?\"\n\n\"Hard to translate into your tongue,\" Quink said, glancing away. \"Roughly, it comes out to 'Stormbreaker.'\"\n\nArlorran sniggered. \"They might not understand dwarvish, but I've picked up a smattering.\" He shook his head. \"'Zir' means breaker all right, but 'clav' is a dwarf word for an unexpected gust of wind.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So she's ...\" Danielle covered her mouth with her hand. \"Breaker of Wind?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She'll be fine,\" Quink said. \"Ah, your friends might not want to fly directly behind her, though.\"\n\n\"I'll call her Wind,\" Danielle said. She leaned forward, pressing her body to the aviar's neck. She had never tried to talk to any animal this large before. Would the aviar understand? Even if she did, there was no guarantee she would listen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please,\" Danielle whispered. Wind's ear flicked back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need to get to the chasm. My stepsisters are there, and they've taken my husband. My mate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The aviar snorted. Danielle couldn't tell if she understood or not.\n\n\"I know I'm clumsy. I'm doing the best I can. Could your foals run and fly so beautifully when they were born?\"\n\nAnother flick of the ear, and a slight shake of the head. The reins tugged free of her grip.\n\n\"I understand,\" said Danielle, praying that she did. She reached down until she touched the metal buckle. A sharp tug loosened the strap, and then she was sliding the reins up and off of the aviar's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wind shook her head, spitting the bit from her mouth and tossing the whole halter toward Quink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you think you're doing, lass?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arlorran asked, hurrying to her side. \"She'll dump you to the ground like—\"\n\nThe aviar leaped, wings slamming down with such force that Arlorran tumbled onto his back. Danielle hugged the aviar's neck, pressing her legs beneath the wings. Her weight was too high, and she felt like she would topple off the instant she relaxed at all.\n\n\"Well, all right, then,\" Arlorran said, brushing dirt from his backside. \"What do I know about flying horses anyway?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wind nickered as she cleared the treetops, where she stilled her wings and began to glide in slow, wide circles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her head turned slightly inward, and Danielle swore she saw amusement in that ocean-blue eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gradually, Danielle loosened the muscles in her legs, letting them slide down Wind's side until the wings no longer beat the back of her thighs. She could feel the powerful muscles pumping as the aviar maintained her flight.\n\nQuink flew after her, the discarded halter dangling from his hands. \"And how will you control her, you addlebrained, wingless nit of a girl?\"\n\n\"I won't.\" Danielle swallowed, hoping this wasn't a mistake. \"I'll trust her.\" She lowered her voice, speaking to the aviar alone. \"Can you take me back down to my friends?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The aviar's wings spread wider, slowing their flight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle tensed as they swooped down, but Wind landed as lightly as a sparrow.\n\n\"Better,\" said Talia. \"But you're still stiff as a statue. Keep riding like that, and you'll end up feeling like an ogre pummeled your legs with his club.\"\n\n\"Oh, hush,\" said Snow. \"You're just jealous because you have to use the reins.\" She clapped her hands and beamed at Danielle.\n\n\"Princess Danielle?\"\n\nShe looked down at Arlorran." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't have to call me princess.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Arlorran turned to watch Snow and Talia as they bickered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lured Wind away with another apple, until they were out of earshot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lowering his voice, he said, \"You've a dangerous path ahead of you. Keep them safe, lady.\"\n\nDanielle stared. \"Me keep them safe? Talia's the one who can kill a giant with nothing but a bootlace, and Snow's magic is powerful enough to—\"\n\n\"A mastery of weapons and magic will help, no doubt about it,\" said Arlorran. \"But I know Snow, and I've watched you and Talia.\" He reached up to pat her on the leg. \"Trust old Arlorran. Take care of those two.\"\n\nBefore Danielle could respond, Talia guided her aviar around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come on. The sooner we get moving, the sooner I'll be back on solid earth.\"\n\n\"They'll return to us on their own,\" Quink called. \"Just say 'Home' once you've reached your destination.\"\n\nDanielle started to ask how she and her companions were supposed to get back, then realized it didn't matter. If they found Armand, they could contact Beatrice to arrange for help through the fairy court. If not...\n\n\"Thank you,\" Danielle said. She turned to look at Arlorran." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you,\" she added." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Remember what I told you,\" Arlorran said. \"And don't forget about my wings!\"\n\nAs they climbed toward the clouds, Danielle found herself trembling. The pixies were little more than sparks, and a single strong wind could toss Danielle to the ground. Very soon, though, something within her surrendered to the inevitable. If she fell, she fell. There was nothing to do but trust Wind to keep her safe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fear faded, giving way to a dreamlike sense of excitement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cold night air chilled Danielle's skin, even as Wind's skin grew warmer from her exertions. This was so much more vivid than the flight from the palace, when she had been tucked away in Karina's basket. The air buffeted her face, ruffling her shirt and flinging her hair back in tangled streamers.\n\n\"Look at the moons,\" Danielle shouted. The wind sucked her words away, but the aviar appeared to hear, banking left in order to give Danielle a better view of the twin crescents. The moons faced one another, twin disks of silver and gold, the edges nearly touching.\n\nShe twisted back, searching for the dark shapes of the dwarven towers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hedge disappeared into the distance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had never understood how huge Fairytown was. She glanced to the east, where enormous rooftops poked through the trees.\n\n\"Giants,\" Snow shouted. She grinned and steered her aviar closer to Danielle. \"The elves are the only ones who can grow trees large enough for the giants to use to build their homes. In return, the giants don't eat the elves.\"\n\nTalia and Socks flew past on Danielle's right. \"Come on,\" Talia yelled. \"You can have your fill of sightseeing once we've found Armand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her aviar pulled ahead, wings pounding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danielle and Wind followed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sudden exuberance made Danielle giggle as they flew, so high and swift and free. She lowered her body and breathed in the musky, nutty scent of the aviar. She could have ridden like this forever.\n\nAnd then Wind began to sweat. She didn't notice until they caught up to Snow. Danielle pulled her hand away to wave. The instant her arm left the aviar's fur, the wind chilled her damp sleeve, making her shiver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soon, salty aviar sweat soaked her arms and the front of her shirt, and she could feel it seeping into her trousers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She pressed herself closer to Wind for warmth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wiry fur was slick and damp, and the mane kept sticking to her face, but the air was too cold to draw away.\n\nThe land below crawled past, marked by specks of campfires and lanterns. But the wind on her skin told her they were moving faster than any horse.\n\nUp ahead, a wisp of cloud moved against the wind, sparkling like the sea as it undulated toward them. Danielle's aviar let out a long, quavering scream. The other aviars did the same.\n\n\"Cloud strider,\" Talia shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tugged her reins, steering Socks away." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'talia' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Warning us away from the palace.\"\n\nDanielle turned her head. The black towers of the fairy king's palace were harder to see in the darkness. The silver bridge lay beyond, and she could see the lights of the queen's palace on the far side. Her own aviar turned to follow Talia. Danielle saw a quick flicker of lightning from the cloud strider, illuminating the long, winged form from within, and then it was flying back to the mass of clouds overhead.\n\n\"Land on the queen's side,\" Talia yelled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If your stepsisters are traveling on foot, we will have beaten them. We should be able to follow them down.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'chasm' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How?\" Down below, the chasm stretched away for miles in either direction. \"They could be anywhere. We can't guard the whole width of Fairytown!\"\n\n\"Says who?\" Snow called, grinning like a child. She was already guiding Midnight over the chasm. Far below, the river reflected broken shards of moonlight.\n\nDanielle shivered and leaned closer to Wind. Her thighs and lower legs were cramped and chapped, and her backside throbbed with every beat of the great wings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The edge of the chasm was thick with a kind of flowering willow tree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From a distance, they seemed like toys, each one identical to the next, spreading out for at least a mile on either side of the queen's palace.\n\n\"This way,\" Talia said, steering Socks toward the trees.\n\nDanielle sucked icy air through her teeth as she watched. There was no gap through which the aviar could fly. The branches hung to the ground, and many stretched even further, clinging like leeches to the rough face of the cliff.\n\nSocks' wings were perfectly still as he carried Talia closer to the trees. At the last instant he tucked his head, and his wings snapped back with a noise like a giant beating a rug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The aviar ripped through the branches and disappeared, with only a few falling leaves to mark his passage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snow followed, ducking her head as her aviar burst through the branches, and then it was Danielle's turn. She dug her fingers into Wind's skin, pressing her face against the sweat-slick fur.\n\nThin, flexible branches whipped her arms and head, and then Wind was galloping along hard-packed dirt, wings half-stretched as she slowed. Danielle gritted her teeth as those final steps drummed new bruises into her backside, not to mention the jarring of her bladder. \"That wasn't so bad,\" she said, her voice shaky. She clamped her jaw to keep from crying out as she hoisted one leg over Wind's back and jumped down. Her legs gave out immediately, leaving her sprawled in the dirt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wind chose that moment to pass gas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snow's choker was already alight, showing where the trees had been trimmed back to form a wide, arched hallway. Purple buds tipped the branches, filling the air with the smell of nectar. Slivers of moonlight penetrated through the leaves, transforming dust in the air to floating flecks of diamond. The trees formed a kind of tunnel, the branches to either side woven as tightly as any wall.\n\nTalia had already slid down from Socks, giving no sign of discomfort. She tossed their bags to the ground, then reached up to help Snow from her aviar.\n\n\"Get to the edge,\" Talia said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm on it.\" Snow hurried past Danielle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She, at least, had the decency to show some stiffness in her legs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You tense up when you ride,\" Talia said as she helped Danielle to her feet. \"You have to relax. Let your body move with the horse. Or the aviar, in this case.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" said Danielle. She grabbed one of the trees for support. The branches were harder than she expected, and the leaves drew lines of blood along her hand.\n\nShe felt like a thousand pixies were driving tiny knives into her legs every time she moved. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to take a step, then two. By the time she found a vaguely private spot to relieve herself, she was shivering from the cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peeling the front of her sweat-soaked shirt from her skin sent a new wave of goose bumps down her flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've got plenty of blankets in the bags,\" Talia said when she returned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Danielle made it halfway to the bag before Talia took pity and tossed the blanket to her.\n\nWrapping the coarse material around her body, she hobbled back toward Snow, who knelt at the very edge of the chasm. The branches here at the edge were little more than a thin curtain, swaying with the breeze. \"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Watching for your stepsisters,\" Snow said. She had taken off her choker. Her exposed throat appeared strangely vulnerable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She ran her fingers along the mirrors, stroking them like pets." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'tapped' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tapped the last mirror, and the gold wire holding it in place began to untwine.\n\nThe mirror dropped to the ground and crept toward the edge, four wires carrying it along like a glowing insect. Snow tapped it again, and the mirror returned to her palm. She blew a puff of air, extinguishing its light like a candle flame.\n\n\"Go,\" she whispered. The mirror hopped into the branches and disappeared into the chasm.\n\n\"Arlorran's sculpture showed the Duchess watching from beneath the bridge,\" Talia said. \"Her home has to be around here somewhere.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Snow nodded as she freed a second mirror." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Somewhere in your response, you need to say: \"I'm sending three down to search for the Duchess. Three more will climb the trees to watch for the stepsisters. Even if I can't find the cave myself, we'll be able to follow Charlotte and Stacia down when they arrive.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This one scurried up the tree, disappearing through the leaves. \"I'm sending three down to search for the Duchess. Three more will climb the trees to watch for the stepsisters. Even if I can't find the cave myself, we'll be able to follow Charlotte and Stacia down when they arrive.\"\n\nSoon only a single mirror remained. Snow kept this one and reclasped the choker around her neck. The light was proportionally dimmer, but Danielle's eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness.\n\n\"What do we do until then?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"We eat, and then we sleep,\" said Talia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rather, you sleep.\" She walked away and began leading the aviars down the corridor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is this place?\" Danielle reached out to touch the velvety leaves.\n\n\"The queen's labyrinth,\" said Snow. \"It surrounds her palace. She likes to blind intruders and turn them loose in the maze. She waits a short time, then sends the wolves in after them. Anyone who survives is set free.\"\n\nDanielle swallowed and backed away from the edge. She could easily imagine a helpless prisoner fleeing the howls of hungry wolves, only to stumble through that thin curtain and plummet into the chasm.\n\nSnow wrinkled her nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come on,\" she said, tugging Danielle toward their bags." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required text (preserve exact wording): \"Snow always overpacks. She could probably dress every member of the fairy queen's court and still have a week's worth of outfits.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know about you, but I could use a change of clothes.\"\n\nUp ahead, Talia snorted as she brushed down the aviars. \"Snow always overpacks. She could probably dress every member of the fairy queen's court and still have a week's worth of outfits.\"\n\n\"I like to be prepared, that's all,\" Snow said.\n\nTalia dropped her brush and walked back to snatch something blue and satiny from one of the bags. \"Prepared for what? You think they're holding Armand prisoner at a fancy dress ball?\"\n\nSnow snatched the blue garment away and stuck out her tongue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She dug through the bags and tossed Danielle a fresh shirt and trousers, along with clean undergarments." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drawers were lacier than she would have liked, and the chemise had frilly ribbons at the neck, but at least they were clean and dry. On Danielle, the clothes were tight at the waist and loose in the chest, but they would do.\n\nSnow glanced at Talia, who had gone back to brushing the aviars. Dragging Danielle away, she lowered her voice and said, \"I've got another undershirt that's nothing but lace, if you want to borrow it for when we save Armand. Men love that sort of thing.\"\n\nDanielle's cheeks grew warm.\n\n\"So what was it like when the two of you first met?\" Snow grabbed a shell-inlaid comb and began to work the tangles from her hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Strange,\" Danielle admitted. She sat down and stretched out her legs, biting her lip to keep from crying out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first night when she snuck away to attend the ball, Danielle never dreamed of catching the prince's eye. Simply escaping her stepmother's home, losing herself in music and dancing and the sheer, spoiled luxury of the ball had been all she ever wanted. \"I didn't even recognize him at first. He seemed so young. I thought he was somebody's son, a minor noble, maybe.\" Only when she saw everyone else falling back to give them space had she figured out who her dancing partner must have been.\n\n\"I stepped on his feet,\" she admitted. \"Glass slippers are not meant for dancing.\"\n\nSnow giggled and passed the comb to Danielle, who sighed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once again, Snow looked absolutely perfect." }, { "from": "system", "value": "can you add this somewhere in your response:\n\"So old, and so hairy. His hair was thick as a sheepdog's, all black, except for a few strands of gray. The gray ones used to bother him so. He'd pluck them out when he noticed them, but we were always finding more scattered across his back and ... other places.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sweaty strands of hair hanging in front of her face only made her more attractive. Danielle ran a hand through her own hair. She would be lucky if she didn't rip half of it out trying to fix the snarls.\n\n\"I thought my Roland was so old when I first saw him,\" Snow said. \"So old, and so hairy. His hair was thick as a sheepdog's, all black, except for a few strands of gray. The gray ones used to bother him so. He'd pluck them out when he noticed them, but we were always finding more scattered across his back and ... other places.\"\n\n\"Who was Roland?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"The man my mother hired to cut out my heart,\" Snow said, still smiling wistfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But he didn't?\" Danielle knew the question was a particularly stupid one the instant it left her mouth.\n\nSnow giggled again. \"I was young, but already woman enough for him to notice. He took me away to the woods to protect me. I learned to hunt and cook for myself, and I practiced my magic when he was away. We practiced a different kind of magic when he returned.\"\n\nHer smile faltered slightly. \"It was almost a year later when my mother found us. She arrived disguised as an old woman. One bite of that poisoned apple and I knew, but it was too late. She was already casting her spell, trapping me in a crystal coffin. I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\" Not knowing what else to do, Danielle reached out and squeezed Snow's hand.\n\n\"I heard everything, though. She gave Roland a choice. Finish the job he'd been paid to do, or suffer the same fate. He tried to fight, but she was too strong. Finally, he took his knife and opened my coffin. He could have saved himself, but instead he chose to free me. By the time I recovered enough to fight my mother, she had already killed him.\"\n\nSnow pointed to the branches overhead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This place reminds me of our cottage. Deep in the woods, away from the troubles of the world, safe from—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is the fairy queen's labyrinth,\" Talia said. She pressed a muffin into Danielle's hand. \"Safe is hardly the word I'd use.\"\n\n\"Don't be such a wet blanket.\" Snow swiped a muffin for herself, then tugged the waterskin from Talia's shoulder. \"The fairy queen almost never sends prisoners into the maze at night, and the creatures who patrol this place stay close to the castle. We'll be fine.\"\n\nDanielle took a bite of her muffin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was dry, and the small raisins inside were hard as wood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Goat cheese had been melted over the top. Plain, simple fare, as were the strips of dried lamb meat Talia handed out next. But her stomach seemed to prefer bland these days, and it was far better than the scraps she used to receive from her stepmother. The taste reminded her of simpler times, back when her father was still alive. Back before balls and princes and stepsisters who practiced black magic.\n\n\"The aviars are tied around the bend, munching the queen's maze,\" Talia said. \"Hopefully, she won't mind. We don't know when the stepsisters will show up, so you should rest now, while you can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Snow handed her choker to Talia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The mirror will flash when they approach.\" A few crumbs slipped down her chin as she spoke. \"Wake me, and I'll be able to see exactly where they are.\"\n\n\"If they don't show up tonight, we'll start searching the chasm for the Duchess in the morning,\" said Talia. She drew her sword and brought Snow's choker close, using the light to check the edge of the blade.\n\n\"What happens if my stepsisters have more of those darklings?\" Danielle asked.\n\n\"Then we'll probably die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Talia flipped her sword to study the other edge." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She ran a fingernail along the edge and clucked her tongue. Grabbing a small whetstone from her pocket, she sat down and began to sharpen the blade. \"Get some sleep, Princess.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he wasn't sitting against the wall of the Scrubba-Dubba anymore; he was a mile or more to the northwest of town, walking along 130, and the town of Powtanville was laid out below him like a scale-model community on a kid's HO railroad table." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tanks were only half a mile away and he had a toolkit in one hand and a five-gallon can of gas in the other.\n\nOh it was so bad but - - -\n\nSo after Wendell Elbert was underground, Sally Elbert had gotten a job at the Powtanville CafT and sometime, in the first or second grade, her one remaining chick, Donald Merwin Elbert, had started lighting fires in people's trashcans and running away.\n\nLook out girls here comes the Trashcan Man, he'll burn up ya dresses!\n\nEeeek! A freeeak!\n\nIt wasn't until he was in the third grade or so that the grown-ups found out who was doing it and then the sheriff came around, good old Sheriff Greeley, and he guessed that was how the man who cut his father down in front of the Methodist Church ended up being his stepfather.\n\nHey, Carley, got a riddle for ya: How can your father kill your father?\n\nI dunno, Petey, how?\n\nI dunno either, but it helps if you're the Trashcan Man!\n\nHeeheehahahaHawHawHaw!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Stephen King. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trashcan whispered: \"There you are, motherfuck,\" and then looked around furtively to see if anyone had heard him say that bad swear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course no one had, because he was on top of Cheery Oil's #1 storage tank, and even if he had been down on the ground, there was no one left. Except for ghosts. Above him, fat white clouds floated by.\n\nA large pipe projected out of the tangle of pumping machinery, its bore better than two feet, its end threaded to take what the oil people called a clutch- hose. It was strictly for outflow or overflow, but the tank was now full of unleaded gasoline and-some of it had trickled out, perhaps a pint, cutting shiny tracks through the light fall of dust on the tank. Trashcan stood back, eyes bright, still gripping a large wrench in one hand and a hammer in the other." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'dropped' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He dropped them and they clanged.\n\nHe wouldn't need the gasoline he'd brought after all. He picked up the can, yelled \"Bombs away!\" and dropped it over the side. He watched its tumbling, glinting progress with great interest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A third of the way down it hit the stairs, bounced off, and then fell all the way to the ground, turning over and over, spraying amber gas from the side that had been punched open when it hit the stairs.\n\nHe turned back to the outflow pipe. He looked at the shiny puddles of gasoline. He took a package of paper matches from his breast pocket and looked at them, guilty and fascinated and excited. There was an ad on the front that said you could get an education in most anything you wanted at the La Salle Correspondence School in Chicago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm standing on a bomb, he thought." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He closed his eyes, trembling in fear and ecstasy, the old cold excitement on him, making his toes and fingers feel numb.\n\nHey, Trash, ya fuckin firebug!" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing exercise: eight sentences sentences continuing this chapter, Stephen King style, Horror genre. characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They went first-cabin.\n\nManhattan Sporting Goods was locked, but Larry broke a hole in the show window with a long iron pipe he had found. The burglar alarm brayed senselessly into the deserted street. He selected a large pack for himself and a smaller one for Rita. She had packed two changes of clothes for each of them-it was all he would allow-and he was carrying them in a PanAm flight bag she had found in the closet, along with toothbrushes. The toothbrushes struck him as slightly absurd.\n\nRita was fashionably attired for walking, in white silk deckpants and a shell blouse. Larry wore faded bluejeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They loaded the packs with freeze-dried foods and nothing else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no sense, Larry told her, in weighting themselves down with a lot of other stuff- including more clothes hen they could simply take what they wanted on the other side of the river. She agreed wanly, and her lack of interest nettled him again.\n\nAfter a short interior debate with himself, he also added a .30-.30 and two hundred rounds of ammunition. It was a beautiful gun, and the pricetag he pulled from the triggerguard and dropped indifferently on the floor said four hundred and fifty dollars.\n\n\"Do you really think we'll need that?\" she asked apprehensively. She still had the .32 in her purse.\n\n\"I think we'd better have it,\" he told her, not wanting to say more but thinking about the monster-shouter's ugly end.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said in a small voice, and he guessed from her eyes that she was thinking about that, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That pack's not too heavy for you, is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no. It isn't. Really.\"\n\n\"Well, they have a way of getting heavier as you walk along. You just say the word and I'll carry it for a while.\"\n\n\"I'll be all right,\" she said, and smiled. After they were on the sidewalk again, she looked both ways and said, \"We're leaving New York.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe turned to him. \"I'm glad. I feel like... oh, when I was a little girl.\n\nAnd my father would say, 'We're going on a trip today.' Do you remember how that was?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Larry smiled a little in return, remembering the evenings his mother would say, \"That Western you wanted to see is down at the Crest, Larry. Clint Eastwood. What do you say?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess I do remember,\" he said.\n\nShe stretched up on her toes, and readjusted the pack a little bit on her shoulders.\n\n\"The beginning of a journey,\" she said, and then so softly he wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly: \"The way leads ever on ...\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's a line from Tolkien,\" she said. \"The Lord of the Rings. I've always thought of it as sort of a gateway to adventure.\"\n\n\"The less adventure the better,\" Larry said, but almost unwillingly he knew what she meant.\n\nStill she was looking at the street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Near this intersection it was a narrow canyon between high stone and stretches of sun-reflecting thermopane, clogged with cars backed up for miles." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was as if everyone in New York had decided at the same time to park in the streets.\n\nShe said: \"I've been to Bermuda and England and Jamaica and Montreal and Saigon and to Moscow. But I haven't been on a journey since I was a little girl and my father took my sister Bess and me to the zoo. Let's go, Larry.a" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Job: User writes start, you add ~seven sentences sentences. Style: Stephen King. Note: May include established characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a walk that Larry Underwood never, forgot. He found himself thinking that she hadn't been so wrong to quote Tolkien at that, Tolkien with his mythic lands seen through the lens of time and half-mad, half-exalted imaginings, peopled with elves and ents and trolls and orcs. There were none of those in New York, but so much had changed, so much was out of joint, that it was impossible not to think of it in terms of fantasy. A man hung from a lamppost at Fifth and East Fifty-fourth, below the park and in a once congested business district, a placard with the single word LOOTER hung around his neck. A cat lying on top of a hexagonal litter basket (the basket still had fresh-looking advertisements for a Broadway show on its sides) with her kittens, giving them suck and enjoying the midmorning sun. A young man with a big grin and a valise who strolled up to them and told Larry he would give him a million dollars for the use of the woman for fifteen minutes.\n\nThe million, presumably, was in the valise. Larry unslung the rifle and told him to take his million elsewhere. \"Sure, man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't hold it against me, you dig it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Can't blame a -guy for tryin, can you? Have a nice day.\n\nHang loose.\"\n\nThey reached the corner of Fifth and East Thirty-ninth shortly after meeting that man (Rita, with a hysterical sort of good humor, insisted on referring to him as John Bearsford Tipton, a name which meant nothing to Larry). It was nearly noon, and Larry suggested lunch. There was a delicatessen on the corner, but when he pushed the door open, the smell of rotted meat that came out made her draw back.\n\n\"I'd better not go in there if I want to save what appetite I have,\" she said apologetically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Larry suspected he could find some cured meat insidesalami, pepperoni, something like that-but after running across \"John Bearsford Tipton\" four blocks back, he didn't want to leave her alone for even the short time it would take to go in and check." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So they found a bench half a block west, and ate dehydrated fruit and dehydrated strips of bacon. They finished with cheese spread on Ritz crackers and passed a thermos of iced coffee back and forth.\n\n\"This time I was really hungry,\" she said proudly.\n\nHe smiled back, feeling better. Just to be on the move, to be taking some positive action-that was good. He had told her she would feel better when they got out of New York. At the time it had just been something to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, consulting the rise in his own spirits., he guessed it was true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being in New York was like being in a graveyard where the dead were not yet quiet. The sooner they got out, the better it would be. She would perhaps revert to the way she had been that first day in the park. They would go to Maine on the secondary roads and set up housekeeping in one of those rich-bitch summer houses. North now, and south in September or October. Boothbay Harbor in the summer, Key Biscayne in the winter. It had a nice ring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Occupied with his thoughts, he didn't see her grimace of pain as he stood up and shouldered the rifle he had insisted. on bringing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were moving west now, their shadows behind them—at first as squat as frogs, beginning to- lengthen out as the afternoon progressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They passed the Avenue of the Americas, Seventh Avenue, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The streets were crammed and silent, frozen rivers of automobiles in every color, predominated by the yellow of the taxicabs. Many of the cars had become hearses, their decaying drivers still leaning behind the wheels, their passengers slumped as if, weary of the traffic jam, they had fallen asleep. Larry started to think that maybe they'd want to pick up a couple of motorcycles once they got out of the city.\n\nThat would give them both mobility and a fighting chance to skirt the worst of the clots of dead vehicles which must litter the highways everywhere.\n\nAlways assuming she can run a bike, he thought. And the way things were going, it would turn out she couldn't. Life with Rita was turning out to be a real pain in the butt, at least in some of its aspects." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But if push came down to shove, he supposed she could ride pillion behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the intersection of Thirty-ninth and Seventh, they saw a young man wearing cutoff denim shorts and nothing else lying atop a Ding-Dong Taxi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is he dead?\" Rita asked, and at the sound of her voice the young man sat up, looked around, saw them, and waved. They waved back. The young man lay placidly back down.\n\nIt was just after two o'clock when they crossed Eleventh Avenue. Larry heard a muffled cry of pain behind him and realized Rita was no longer walking on his left.\n\nShe was down on one knee, holding her foot. With something like horror, Larry noticed for the first time that she was wearing expensive open-toed sandals, probably in the eighty-dollar range, just the thing for a four-block stroll along Fifth Avenue while window-shopping, but for a long walk-a hike, really- like the one they hart been making...\n\nThe ankle-straps had chafed through her skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Blood was trickling down her ankles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Larry, I'm s-\"\n\nHe jerked her abruptly to her feet. \"What were you thinking about?\" he shouted into her face. He felt a moment's shame at the miserable way she recoiled, but also a mean sort of pleasure. \"Did you think you could cab back to your apartment if your feet got tired?\"\n\n\"I never thought-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, Christ!\" He ran his hands through his hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess you didn't. You're bleeding, Rita. How long has it been hurting?\"\n\nHer voice was so low and husky that he had trouble hearing her even in the preternatural silence. \"Since... well, since about Fifth and Forty-ninth, I guess.\"\n\n\"Your feet have been hurting you for twenty fucking blocks and you didn't say anything?\"\n\n\"I thought... it might... go away... not hurt anymore... I didn't want to... we were making such good time... getting out of the city...\n\nI just thought...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't think at all,\" he said angrily." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that How much good time are we going to make with you like this? Your fucking feet look like you got fucking crucified." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How much good time are we going to make with you like this? Your fucking feet look like you got fucking crucified.\"\n\n\"Don't swear at me, Larry,\" she said, beginning to sob. \"Please don't... it makes me feel so bad when you... please don't swear at me.\"\n\nHe was in an ecstasy of rage now, and later he would not be able to understand why the sight of her bleeding feet had blown all his circuits that way. For the moment it didn't matter. He screamed into her face: \"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!\" The word echoed back from the high-rise apartment buildings, dim and meaningless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She put her hands over her face and leaned forward, crying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made him even angrier, and he supposed that part of it was that she really didn't want to see: she would just as soon put her hands over her face and let him lead her, why not, there had always been someone around to take good care of Our Heroine, Little Rita. Someone to drive the car, do the marketing, wash out the toilet bowl, do the taxes. So let's put on some of that gagging-sweet Debussy and put our well-manicured hands over our eyes and leave it all up to Larry. Take care of me, Larry, after seeing what happened to the monster-shouter, I've decided I don't want to see anymore. It's all rawther sordid for one of my breeding and background.\n\nHe yanked her hands away. She cringed and tried to put them over her eyes again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look at me.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'would' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head.\n\n\"Goddammit, you look at me, Rita.\"\n\nShe finally did in a strange, flinching way, as if thinking he would now go to work on her with his fists as well as his tongue. The way a part of him felt now, that would be just fine.\n\n\"I want to tell you the facts of life because you don't seem to understand them. The fact is, we may have to walk another twenty or thirty miles. The fact is, if you get infected from those scrapes, you could get blood poisoning and die. The fact is, you've got to get your thumb out of your ass and start helping me.\"\n\nHe had been holding her by the upper arms, and he saw that his thumbs had almost disappeared into her flesh. His anger broke when he saw the red marks that appeared when he let her go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stepped away, feeling uncertain again, knowing with sick certainty that he had overreacted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Larry Underwood strikes again. If he was so goddam smart, why hadn't he checked out her footgear before they started out?\n\nBecause that's her problem, part of him said with surly defensiveness.\n\nNo, that wasn't true. It had been his problem. Because she didn't know. If he was going to take her with him (and it was only today that he had begun to think how much simpler life would be if he hadn't), he was just going to have to be responsible for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Be damned if I will, the surly voice said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mother: You're a taker, Larry.\n\nThe oral hygienist from Fordham, crying out her window after him: I thought you were a nice guy! You ain't no nice guy!\n\nThere's something left out of you, Larry. You're a taker.\n\nThat's a lie! That is a goddamned LIE!\n\n\"Rita,\" he said, \"I'm sorry.\"\n\nShe sat down on the pavement in her sleeveless blouse and her white deckpants, her hair looking gray and old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She bowed her head and held her hurt feet. She wouldn't look at him.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he repeated. \"I... look, I had no right to say those things.\"\n\nHe did, but never mind. If you apologized, things got smoothed over. It was how the world worked." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'sorry' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on, Larry,\" she said, \"don't let me slow you down.\"\n\n\"I said I was sorry,\" he told her, his voice a trifle petulant. \"We'll get you some new shoes and some white socks. We'll...\"\n\n\"We'll nothing. Go on.\"\n\n\"Rita, I'm sorry-\"\n\n\"If you say that one more time, I'll scream. You're a shit and your apology is not accepted. Now go on.\"\n\n\"I said I was-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She threw back her head and shrieked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took a step backward, looking around to see if anyone had heard her, to see if maybe a policeman was running over to see what kind of awful thing that young fellow was doing to the old lady who was sitting on the sidewalk with her shoes off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Culture lag, he thought distractedly, what fun it all is." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stopped screaming and looked at him. She made a flicking gesture with her hand, as if he was a bothersome fly.\n\n\"You better stop,\" he said, \"or I really will leave you.\"\n\nShe only looked at him. He couldn't meet her eyes and so dropped his gaze, hating her for making him do that.\n\n\"All right,\" he said, \"have a good time getting raped and murdered.\"\n\nHe shouldered the rifle and started off again, now angling left toward the car-packed 495 entrance ramp, sloping down toward the tunnel's mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the foot of the ramp he saw there had been one hell of a crash; a man driving a Mayflower moving van had tried to butt his way into the main traffic flow and cars were scattered around the van like bowling pins. A burned-out Pinto lay almost beneath the van's body. The van's driver hung halfway out of the cab window, head down, arms dangling. There was a fan of dried blood and puke sprayed out below him on the door.\n\nLarry looked around, sure he would see her walking toward him or standing and accusing him with her eyes. But Rita was gone.\n\n\"Fuck you,\" he said with nervous resentment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I tried to apologize.\"\n\nFor a moment he couldn't go on; he felt impaled by hundreds of angry dead eyes, staring out at him from all these cars. A snatch of Dylan occurred to him:\n\n\"I waited for you inside the frozen traffic... when you knew I had some other place to be... but where are you tonight, sweet Marie?\"\n\nAhead, he could see four lanes of westbound traffic disappearing into the black arch of the tunnel, and with something like real dread he saw that the overhead fluorescent bars inside the Lincoln were out. It would be like going into an automobile graveyard. They would let him get halfway and then they would all begin to stir... to come alive... he would hear car doors clicking open and then softly chunking closed... their shuffling footsteps..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A light sweat broke on his body." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Overhead a bird called raucously and he jumped. You're being stupid, he told himself. Kid's stuff, that's what this is.\n\nAll you have to do is stay on the pedestrian catwalk and in no time at all you'll be —strangled by the walking dead.\n\nHe licked his lips and tried to laugh. It came out badly. He walked five paces toward the place where the ramp joined the highway and then stopped again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To his left was a Caddy, an El Dorado, and a woman with a blackened troll face was staring out at him. Her nose was pressed into a bulb against the glass. Blood and snot had trickled out onto the window. The man who had been driving the Caddy was slumped over the wheel as if looking for something on the floor. All the Caddy's windows were rolled up; it would be like a greenhouse in there. If he opened the door the woman would spill out and break open on the pavement like a sack of rotten melons and the smell would be warm and steamy, wet and crawling with decay.\n\nThe way it would smell in the tunnel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Abruptly Larry turned around and trotted back the way he had come, feeling the breeze he was making cool the sweat on his forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rita! Rita, listen! I want to-\"\n\nThe words died as he reached the top of the ramp. Rita was still gone. Thirty ninth Street dwindled away to a point. He ran from the south sidewalk to the north, squeezing between bumpers and scrambling over hoods almost hot enough to blister his skin. But the north sidewalk was also empty.\n\nHe cupped his hands around his mouth and cried: \"Rita!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rita!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His only answer a dead echo: \"Rita... ita... ita... ita...\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing exercise: eight sentences sentences continuing this chapter, Stephen King style, Horror genre. characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sam Tauber was five and a half years old. His mother had died on June the twenty-fourth in the Murfreesboro, Georgia, General Hospital. On the twenty- fifth, his father and younger sister, two-year-old April, had died. On June the twenty-seventh, his older brother Mike died, leaving Sam to shift for himself.\n\nSam had been in shock ever since the death of his mother. He wandered carelessly up and down the streets of Murfreesboro, eating when he was hungry, sometimes crying. After a while he stopped crying, because crying did no good.\n\nIt didn't bring the people back." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode: Collab writing\nContext: May reference existing characters/world\nAmount: three sentences\nVoice: Stephen King" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Richard Hoggins was a young black man who had lived his entire life in Detroit, Michigan. He had been addicted to the fine white powder he called \"hehrawn\" for the last five years. During the actual superflu epidemic, he had gone through extreme withdrawal as all the pushers and users he knew died or fled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On this bright summer afternoon he was sitting on a littered stoop, drinking a warm 7-Up and wishing he had a pop, just a small, minor skinpop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began to think about Allie McFarlane, and something he had heard about Allie on the streets, just before the shit hit the fan. People were saying that Allie, who was about the third-biggest in Detroit, had just gotten a fine shipment. Everybody was going to get well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of that brown shit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "China White, all kinds of the stuff.\n\nRichie didn't know for sure where McFarlane would keep a big order like that- it wasn't healthy to know about such things-but he had heard it said at different times in passing that if the cops ever got a search-writ for the Grosse Pointe house that Allie had bought for his great-uncle, Allie would go away until the new moon turned to gold.\n\nRichie decided to take a walk up to Grosse Pointe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After all, there was nothing better to do.\n\nHe got the Lake Shore Drive address of one Erin D. McFarlane from the Detroit phone book and walked out there. It was almost dark by the time he made it and his feet hurt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was no longer trying to tell himself that this was just a casual stroll; he wanted to shoot and he wanted to bad." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'there' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a gray fieldstone wall around the estate and Richie went over it like a black shadow, cutting his hands on the broken glass embedded in the top.\n\nWhen he broke a window to gain entry, a burglar alarm went off, causing him to flee halfway down the lawn before he remembered there were no cops to answer. He came back, jittery and slicked with sweat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The main power was off, and there were easily twenty rooms in the fucking place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd have to wait until tomorrow to look properly, and it would still take three weeks to dump the place upside down in the proper way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the stuff probably wasn't even here. Christ. Richie felt sick despair wave through him.\n\nBut he would at least look in the obvious places." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And in the upstairs bathroom, he found a dozen large plastic bags bulging with white powder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were in the toilet tank, that old standby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Richie stared at them, sick with desire, dimly thinking that Allie must have been greasing all the right people if he could afford to leave a stash like this in a fucking toilet tank. There was enough dope here to last one man sixteen centuries.\n\nHe took one bag into the master bedroom and broke it open on the bedspread." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hands trembled as he got his works out and cooked up. It never occurred to him to wonder how much this stuff was cut. On the street the heaviest hit Richie had ever taken was 12 percent pure, and that had put him into a sleep so deep it was nearly a coma." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't even nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just bang and off he went, outta the blue and into the black.\n\nHe injected himself above the elbow and pushed the plunger of his spike home.\n\nThe stuff was almost 96 percent pure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It hit his bloodstream like a highballing freight and Richie fell down on the bags of heroin, flouring the front of his shirt with it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was dead six minutes later." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the afternoon he made himself speed up a little, but he could not force himself to twist the throttle any farther once the speedometer needle had reached twenty, not even if he could see the road was clear ahead. There was a sporting goods and cycle shop on the outskirts of Wilmington, and he stopped there and got a sleeping bag, some heavy gloves, and a helmet, and even with the helmet on he could not force himself to go faster than twenty-five. On blind corners he slowed down until he was walking the big cycle along. He kept having visions of lying unconscious at the side of the road and bleeding to death unattended.\n\nAt five o'clock, as he was approaching Brattleboro, the Harley's overheat light went on. Larry parked it and turned it off with mingled feelings of relief and disgust.\n\n\"You might as well have pushed it,\" he said. \"It's meant to run at sixty, you goddam fool!\"\n\nHe left it and walked into town, not knowing if he would come back for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He slept on the Brattleboro Municipal Common that evening, under the partial shelter of the bandshell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned in as soon as it was dark, and fell asleep instantly. Some sound woke him with a jerk a time later. He looked at his watch.\n\nThe thin radium lines on the dial scratched out eleventwenty. He got up on one elbow and stared into the darkness, feeling the bandshell huge around him, missing the little tent that had held in body heat. What a fine little canvas womb it had been!\n\nIf there had been a sound, it was gone now; even the crickets had fallen silent. Was that right? Could it be right?\n\n\"Is someone there?\" Larry called, and the sound of his own voice frightened him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He groped for the .30-.30 and for a long and increasingly panicky moment could not find it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he did, he squeezed the trigger without thinking, just as a man drowning in the ocean will squeeze a thrown life preserver. If the safety hadn't been on, he would have fired it. Possibly into himself.\n\nThere was something in the silence, he was sure of it. Perhaps a person, perhaps some large and dangerous animal. Of course, a person could be dangerous, too. A person like the one who had repeatedly stabbed the poor monstershouter or like John Bearsford Tipton, who had offered him a million in cold cash for the use of his woman.\n\n\"Who is it?\"\n\nHe had a flashlight in his pack, but in order to hunt for it, he would have to let go of the rifle, which he had drawn across his lap: Besides... did he really want to see who it was?\n\nSo he just sat there, willing movement or a repetition of the sound which had awakened him (had it been a sound?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "or just something he had dreamed?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "), and after a little while he first nodded, then dozed off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly his head jerked up, his eyes wide, his flesh shrinking against his bones. Now there was sound, and if the night hadn't been cloudy, the moon, nearly full, would have shown him—\n\nBut he didn't want to see. No, he most definitely didn't want to see. Yet he sat forward, head cocked, listening to the sound of dusty bootheels clocking away from him down the sidewalk of Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont, moving west, fading, until they were lost in the open hum of things.\n\nLarry felt a sudden mad urge to stand up, letting the sleeping bag slither down around his ankles, to shout: Come back, whoever you are! I don't care! Come back! But did he really want to issue such a blank check to Whoever? The bandshell would amplify his shout-his plea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And what if those bootheels actually did return, growing louder in a stillness where not even the crickets sang?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of standing, he lay back down and curled up in the fetal position with his hands wrapped around the rifle. I won't sleep again tonight, he thought, but he was asleep in three minutes and quite sure the next morning that he had dreamed the whole thing.\n\nChapter 42\n\nWhile Larry Underwood was taking his Fourth of July spill only a state away, Stuart Redman was sitting on a large rock at the side of the road and eating his lunch. He heard the sound of approaching engines. He finished his can of beer at a swallow and carefully folded over the top of the waxedpaper tube the Ritz crackers were in. His rifle was leaning against the rock beside him. He picked it up, flicked off the safety catch, and then put it down again, a little closer to hand. Motorcycles coming, small ones by the sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twofifties? In this great stillness it was impossible to tell how far away they were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ten miles, maybe, but only maybe. Plenty of time to eat more if he wanted to, but he didn't. In the meantime, the sun was warm and the thought of meeting fellow creatures pleasant. He had seen no living people since leaving Glen Bateman's house in Woodsville. He glanced at the rifle again. He had flicked the safety because the fellow creatures might turn out to be like Elder. He had left the rifle leaning against the rock because he hoped they would be like Bateman-only not quite so glum about the future. Society will reappear, Bateman had said. Notice I didn't use the word \"reform.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "That would have been a ghastly pun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's precious little reform in the human race.\n\nBut Bateman himself hadn't wanted to get in on the ground floor of society's reappearance. He seemed perfectly content-at least for the time being-to go for his walks with Kojak, paint his pictures, putter around his garden, and think about the sociological ramifications of nearly total decimation.\n\nIf you come back this way and renew your invitation to \"jine up,\" Stu, I'll probably agree. That is the curse of the human race. Sociability. What Christ should have said was \"Yea, verily, whenever two or three of you are gathered together, some other guy is going to get the living shit knocked out of him.\"\n\nShall I tell you what sociology teaches us about the human race? I'll give it to you in a nutshell. Show me a man or woman alone and I'll show you a saint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Give me two and they'll fall in love." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call \"society.\" Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice.\n\nGive me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the imnage of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.\n\nWas that true? If it was, then God help them. Just lately Stu had been thinking a great deal about old friends and acquaintances. In his memory there was a great tendency to downplay or completely forget their unlovable characteristics the way Bill Hapscomb used to pick his nose and wipe the snot on the sole of his shoe, Norm Bruett's heavy hand with his kids, Billy Verecker's unpleasant method of controlling the cat population around his house by crushing the thin skulls of the new kittens under the heels of his Range Rider boots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thoughts that came wanted to be wholly good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Going hunting at dawn, bundled up in quilted jackets and Day-Glo orange vests. Poker games at Ralph Hodges's house and Willy Craddock always complaining about how he was four dollars in the game, even if he was twenty ahead. Six or seven of them pushing Tony Leominster's Scout back onto the road that time he went down into the ditch drunk out of his mind, Tony staggering around and swearing to God and all the saints that he had swerved to avoid a U-Haul full of Mexican wetbacks. Jesus, how they had laughed. Chris Ortega's endless stream of ethnic jokes. Going down to Huntsville for whores, and that time Joe Bob Brentwood caught the crabs and tried to tell everybody they came from the sofa in the parlor and not from the girl upstairs. They had been goddam good times. Not what your sophisticates with their nightclubs and their fancy restaurants and their museums would think of as good times, maybe, but good times just the same. He thought about those things, went over them and over them, the way an old recluse will lay out hand after hand of solitaire from a greasy pack of cards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mostly he wanted to hear other human voices, get to know someone, be able to turn to someone and say, Did you see that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "when something happened like the meteor shower he had watched the other night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not a talkative man, but he did not care much for being alone, and never had.\n\nSo he sat up a little straighter when the motorcycles finally swept around the bend, and he saw they were a couple of Honda 250s, ridden by a boy of about eighteen and a girl who was maybe older than the boy. The girl was wearing a bright yellow blouse and light blue Levi's.\n\nThey saw him sitting on the rock, and both Hondas swerved a little as their drivers' surprise caused control to waver briefly. The boy's mouth dropped open.\n\nFor a moment it was unclear whether they would stop or just speed by heading west...\n\nStu raised an empty hand and said \"Hi!\" in an amiable voice. His heart was beating heavily in his chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wanted them to stop. They did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment he was puzzled by the tenseness in their postures. Particularly the boy; he looked as if a gallon of adrenaline had just been dumped into his blood. Of course Stu had a rifle, but he wasn't holding it on them and they were armed themselves; he was wearing a pistol and she had a small deer-rifle slung across her back on a strap, like an actress playing Patty Hearst with no great conviction.\n\n\"I think he's all right, Harold,\" the girl said, but the boy she called Harold continued to stand astride his bike, looking at Stu with an expression of surprise and considering antagonism.\n\n\"I said I think-\" she began again.\n\n\"How are we supposed to know that?\" Harold snapped without taking his eyes off Stu.\n\n\"Well, I'm glad to see you, if that makes any difference,\" Stu said.\n\n\"What if I don't believe you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Harold challenged, and Stu saw that he was scared green." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scared by him and by his responsibility to the girl.\n\n\"Well, then, I don't know.\" Stu climbed off the rock. Harold's hand jittered toward his holstered pistol.\n\n\"Harold, you leave that alone,\" the girl said. Then she fell silent and for a moment they all seemed helpless to proceed further-a group of three dots which, when connected, would form a triangle whose exact shape could not yet be foreseen." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Job: User writes start, you add ~seven sentences sentences. Style: Stephen King. Note: May include established characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Waking up, he first wondered in that dazed way you have when you sleep heavily in the middle of the day why he was sweating so much. Sitting up, he understood.\n\nIt was quarter to five in the afternoon; he had slept over two and a half hours and the sun had moved out from behind the war memorial. But that was not all.\n\nTom Cullen, in a perfect orgy of solicitude, had covered him so he would not take a chill. With two blankets and a quilt.\n\nHe threw them aside, stood up, stretched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom was not in sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick walked slowly toward the main entrance to the square, wondering what-if anything-he was going to do about Tom... or with him. The retarded fellow had been feeding himself from the A&P on the far side of the town square. He had felt no compunction about going in there and picking out what he wanted to eat by the pictures on the labels of the cans because, Tom said, the supermarket door had been unlocked.\n\nNick wondered idly what Tom would have done if it hadn't been. He supposed that, when he'd gotten hungry enough, he would have forgotten his scruples, or laid them aside for the nonce. But what would become of him when the food was gone?\n\nBut that wasn't what really bothered him about Tom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the pathetic eagerness with which the man had greeted him. Retarded he might be, Nick thought, but he was not too retarded to feel loneliness. Both his mother and the woman who had served as his commonlaw aunt were dead. His dad had run off long before. His employer, Mr. Norbutt, and everyone else in May had stolen off to Kansas City one night while Tom slept, leaving him behind to wander up and down Main Street like a gently unhinged ghost. And he was getting into things he had no business getting into-like the whiskey. If he got drunk again, he might hurt himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And if he got hurt with no one to take care of him, it would probably mean the end of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But... a deaf-mute and a man who was mentally retarded? Of what possible use could they be to each other? Here you got one guy who can't talk and another guy who can't think. Well, that wasn't fair. Tom could think at least a little, but he couldn't read, and Nick had no illusions about how long it would take him to get tired of playing charades with Tom Cullen. Not that Tom would get tired of it. Laws, no.\n\nHe stopped on the sidewalk just outside the park's entrance, hands stuffed in his pockets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, he decided, I can spend the night here with him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One night won't matter. I can cook him a decent meal at the very least.\n\nCheered a little by this, he went to find Tom." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next one sentence. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They got on Route 283 going north and had ridden only two and a half hours when thunderheads began to build up in the west." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The storm came at them quickly, riding on a gauzy caul of rain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick couldn't hear the thunderclaps, but he could see forks of lightning stabbing down from the clouds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were bright enough to dazzle the eyes with bluish-purple afterimages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they approached the outskirts of Rosston, where Nick meant to turn east on Route 64, the veil of rain under the clouds disappeared and the sky turned a still and queerly ominous shade of yellow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wind, which had been freshening against his left cheek, died away altogether." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He began to feel extremely nervous without knowing why, and oddly clumsy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one had ever told him that one of the few instincts man still shares with the lower animals is exactly that response to a sudden and radical drop in the air pressure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Tom was tugging at his sleeve, tugging him frantically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nick looked over at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was startled to see that all the color had gone out of Tom's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes were huge, floating saucers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tornado!\" Tom screamed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a tornado coming!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick looked for a funnel and saw none." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned back to Tom, trying to think of a way to reassure him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Tom was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was riding his bike into the field at the right of the road, beating a twisted, flattened path through the high grass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Goddamned fool, Nick thought angrily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You're going to break your fucking axle!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom was making for a barn with an attached silo which stood at the end of a dirt road about a quarter of a mile long." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick, still feeling nervous, pedaled his own bike up the highway, lifted it over the cattlegate, and then pedaled up the dirt feeder road to the barn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom's bike lay on the dirt fill outside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't even bothered to put the kickstand down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nick would have chalked this up to simple forgetfulness if he hadn't seen Tom use the kickstand several times before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's scared right out of what little mind he has, Nick thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His own uneasiness made him take one last look over his shoulder, and what he saw coming froze him coldly in his tracks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A horrible darkness was coming out of the west." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not a cloud; it was more like a total absence of light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was in the shape of a funnel, and at first glance it looked a thousand feet high." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was wider at the top than at the bottom; the bottom was not quite touching the earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At its summit, the very clouds seemed to be fleeing from it, as if it possessed some mysterious power of repulsion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Nick watched, it touched down about three quarters of a mile away and a long blue building with a roof made of corrugated metal-an auto supply place, or perhaps a lumber storage shed-exploded with a loud bang." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could not hear this, of course, but the vibration struck him, rocking him back on his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the building seemed to explode inward, as if the funnel had sucked all the air out of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next moment the tin roof broke in two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sections whirled upward, spinning and spinning like a top gone insane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fascinated, Nick craned his neck to follow their progress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am looking at whatever it is in my worst dreams, Nick thought, and it is not a man at all, although it may sometimes look like a man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What it really is is a tornado." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One almighty big black twister ripping out of the west, sucking up anything and everything unlucky enough to be in its path. It's—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he was grabbed by both arms and literally jerked off his feet and into the barn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked around at Tom Cullen and was momentarily surprised to see him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his fascination with the storm, he had quite forgotten that Tom Cullen existed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Downstairs!\" Tom panted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quick! Quick! Oh my laws, yes! Tornado! Tornado!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At last Nick was fully, consciously afraid, ripped out of the half-entranced state he had been in and aware again of where he was and who he was with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he let Tom lead him to the stairs going down into the barn's storm cellar, he became aware of a strange, thrumming vibration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the closest thing to sound he had ever experienced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like a nagging ache in the center of his brain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, as he went down the stairs behind Tom, he saw something he would never forget: the plank siding of the barn being pulled out board by board, pulled out and whirled up into the cloudy air, like rotted brown teeth being pulled out by invisible forceps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hay littered on the floor began to rise and whirl in a dozen miniature tornado funnels, nodding and dipping and skipping." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That thrumming vibration grew ever more persistent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then Tom was pushing open a heavy wooden door, thrusting him through." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick smelled wet mold and decay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the last instant of light he saw they were sharing the storm cellar with a family of rat-gnawed corpses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then Tom slammed the door shut and they were in perfect darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The vibration lessened but did not cease completely even then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Panic crept up on him with its cloak open and gathered him in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blackness reduced his senses to touch and smell, and neither of them sent messages which were comforting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could feel the constant vibration of the boards beneath his feet, and the smell was death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom clutched his hand blindly and Nick drew the retarded man next to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could feel Tom trembling, and he wondered if Tom was crying, or perhaps trying to speak to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thought eased some of his own fear and he slung an arm about Tom's shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom reciprocated and they stood bolt upright in the dark, clinging to each other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The vibration grew stronger under Nick's feet; even the air seemed to be trembling lightly against his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom held him more tightly still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blind and deaf, he waited for what might happen next and reflected that if Ray Booth had gotten his other eye, all of life would be like this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If that had happened, he believed he would have shot himself in the head days ago and had done with it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Later he would be almost unable to believe his watch, which insisted that they had spent only fifteen minutes in the darkness of the storm cellar, although logic told him that since the watch was still running, it must be so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Never before in his life had he understood how subjective, how plastic, time really is." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed that it must have been at least an hour, probably two or three." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And as the time passed, he became convinced that he and Tom were not alone in the storm cellar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, there were the bodies-some poor guy had brought his family down here near the end, perhaps on the fevered assumption that, since they had weathered other natural disasters down here, they could weather this here one, too-but it wasn't the bodies that he meant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Nick's mind, a corpse was just a thing, no different than a chair or a typewriter or a rug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A corpse was just an inanimate thing which filled space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What he felt was the presence of another being, and he became more and more convinced who—or what-it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the dark man, the man who came to life in his dreams, the creature whose spirit he had sensed in the black heart of the cyclone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somewhere... over in the corner or perhaps right behind them... he was watching them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And waiting At the right moment he would touch them and they would both... what?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Go mad with fear, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just that. He could see them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nick was sure he could see them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had eyes which could see in the dark like a cat's eyes, or those of some weird alien creature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like the one in that movie, Predator, perhaps. Yes-like that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dark man could see tones of the spectrum that human eyes could never attain to, and to him everything would look slow and red, as if the whole world had been tie-dyed in a vat of gore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At first Nick was able to divide this fantasy from reality, but as time passed, he became more and more sure that the fantasy was reality." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fancied he could feel the dark man's breath on the back of his neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was about to make a lunge at the door, open it and flee upstairs no matter what, when Tom did it for him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The arm around Nick's shoulders was suddenly gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next instant the door of the storm cellar banged open, letting in a flood of dazzling white light that made Nick raise a hand to shield his good eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He caught just a ghostly, wavering glimpse of Tom Cullen staggering and stumbling up the stairs, and then he followed, groping his way in the dazzle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time he got to the top, his eye had adjusted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought that the light hadn't been so bright when they went down, and saw why immediately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The roof had been torn off the barn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed to have been almost surgically removed; the job was so clean that there were no splinters and hardly any litter lying on the floor it had once sheltered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three roofbeams hung down from the sides of the loft, and almost all the boards had been stripped off the sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Standing here was like standing inside the picked skeleton of a prehistoric monster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom had not stopped to inventory the damage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was fleeing the barn as if the devil himself was at his heels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked back just once, his eyes huge and almost comically terrified." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nick could not resist a look back over his shoulder and into the storm cellar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stairs pitched and yawed downward into shadow, old wood, splintered and sunken in the center of each riser." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could see littered straw on the floor and two sets of hands protruding from the shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fingers had been stripped down to the bone by rats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If there was anyone else down there, Nick did not see him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nor did he want to.\n\nHe followed Tom outside." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with 2 sentences in Stephen King's voice, keeping within the Horror genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cycle shop in Wells was a Honda dealership, and from the way the showroom bikes were lined up, Larry deduced that two of them were missing. He was more proud of a second find-a crumpled candy wrapper near one of the wastebaskets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A chocolate Payday. It looked as if someonelovesick Harold Lauder probably-had finished his candy bar while deciding which bikes he and his inamorata would be happiest with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had balled up his wrapper and shot it at the wastebasket. And missed.\n\nNadine thought his deductions were good, but she was not as fetched by them as Larry was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was eyeing the remaining bikes, in a fever to be off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Joe sat on the showroom's front step, playing the Gibson twelve-string and hooting contentedly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Listen, Larry said, \"it's five o'clock now, Nadine. There's absolutely no way to get going until tomorrow.\"\n\n\"But there's three hours of daylight left! We can't just sit around! We might miss them!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we miss them, that's that,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Harold Lauder left instructions once, right down to the roads they were going to take. If they move on, he'll probably do it again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But--\"\n\n\"I know you're anxious,\" he said, and put his hands on her shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could feel the old impatience building up and forced himself to control it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you've never been on a motorcycle before.\"\n\n\"I can ride a bike, though." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And I know how to use a clutch, I told you that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Please, Larry. If we don't waste time we can camp in New Hampshire tonight and be halfway there by tomorrow night. We--'\n\n\"It's not like a bike, goddammit!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he burst out, and the guitar came to a jangling stop behind him. He could see Joe looking back at them over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed and instantly distrustful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gee, I sure do have a way with people, Larry thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That made him even angrier.\n\nNadine said mildly: \"You're hurting me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked and saw that his fingers were buried in the soft flesh of her shoulders, and his anger collapsed into dull shame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Joe was still looking at him, and Larry recognized that he had just lost half the ground he had gained with the boy. Maybe more. Nadine had said something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said, tell me why it's not like a bike.\"\n\nHis first impulse was to shout at her, If you know so much, go on and try it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "See how you like looking at the world with your head on backward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He controlled that, thinking it wasn't only the boy he had lost ground with. He'd lost some with himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe he had come out the other side, but some of the old childish Larry had come out with him, tagging along at his heels like a shadow which has shrunk in the noonday sun but has not entirely disappeared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're heavier,\" he said. \"If you overbalance, you can't get rebalanced as easily as you can with a bicycle. One of these 360s goes three hundred and fifty pounds. You get used to controlling that extra weight very quickly, but it does take some getting used to. In a standard shift car, you operate the gearshift with your hand and the throttle with your foot. On a cycle it's reversed: the gearshift is footoperated, the throttle hand-operated, and that takes a lot of getting used to. There are two brakes instead of one. Your right foot brakes the rear wheel, your right hand brakes the front wheel. If you forget and just use the handbrake, you're apt to fly right over the handlebars. And you're going to have to get used to your passenger.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Joe? But I thought he'd ride with you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd be glad to. take him,\" Larry said. \"But right now I don't think he'd have me. Do you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nadine looked at Joe for a long, troubled time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" she said, and then sighed. \"He may not even want to ride with me. It may scare him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If he does, you're going to be responsible for him. And I'm responsible for both of you. I don't want to see you spill.\"\n\n\"Did that happen to you, Larry? Were you with someone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was,\" Larry said, \"and I took a spill. But by then the lady I was with was already dead.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She crashed her motorcycle?\" Nadine's face was very still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. What happened, I'd say it was seventy percent accident and thirty percent suicide. Whatever she needed from me... friendship, understanding, help, I don't know... she wasn't getting enough.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was upset now, his temples pounding thickly, his throat tight, the tears close." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her name was Rita. Ri a Blakemoor. I'd like to do better by you that's all. You and Joe.\"\n\n\"Larry, why didn't you tell me before?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because it hurts to talk about it,\" he said simply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It hurts a lot.\" That was the truth, but not the whole truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were the dreams." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found himself wondering if Nadine had bad dreams-last night he had awakened briefly and she had been tossing restlessly and muttering. But she had said nothing today." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Joe. Did Joe have bad dreams? Well, he didn't know about them, but fearless Inspector Underwood of Scotland Yard was afraid of the dreams... and if Nadine took a spill on the motorcycle, they might come back." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: This is part of a larger narrative. The user will write a segment, then you need to write around 10 sentences continuing directly from it. Characters and events may be pre-established from earlier chapters.\n\nAuthor style: Stephen King\nGenre: Horror" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They showed up two days later, on July 24. She hadn't got as much done as she would have liked in the way of preparations; once again she was lame and almost laid up, able to hobble from one place to another only with the aid of her cane and hardly able to pump water up from the well. The day after killing the chickens and standing off the weasels, she had fallen asleep for a long time in the afternoon, exhausted. She dreamed she was in some high cold pass in the middle of the Rockies, west of the Continental Divide. Highway 6 stretched and twisted between high rock walls that shaded this gap all day long, except from about eleven forty-five in the morning until about twelve-fifty in the afternoon. It was not daylight in her dream but full, moonless dark. Somewhere, wolves were howling. And suddenly an Eye had opened in all that darkness, rolling horribly from one side to the other while the wind moved lonesomely through the pines and the blue mountain spruce. It was him, and he was looking for her.\n\nShe had awakened from that long, heavy nap feeling less rested than she had when she lay down, -and again she prayed to God to let her off, or at least change the direction He wanted her to go in." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Stephen King sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'folding'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been told,\" she said, folding the paper, straightening it, then folding it again, for the time being unmindful of the misery of her arthritis, \"that we're to go west. I've been told in a dream, by the Lord God. I didn't want to listen. I'm an old woman, and all I want to do is die on this little piece of land. It's been my family's freehold for a hundred and twelve years, but I wasn't meant to die here any more than Moses was meant to go over into Canaan with the Children of Israel.\"\n\nShe paused. The two men watched her soberly in the lamplight, and outside the rain continued to fall, slow and ceaseless. There was no more thunder. Lord, she thought, these dentures hurt my mouth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'there' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I want to take them out and go to bed.\n\n\"I started having dreams two years before this plague ever fell. I've always dreamed, and sometimes my dreams have come true. Prophecy is the gift of God and everyone has a smidge of it. My own grandmother used to call it the shining lamp of God, sometimes just the shine. In my dreams I saw myself going west. At first with just a few people, then a few more, then a few more. West, always west, until I could see the Rocky Mountains. It got so there was a whole caravan of us, two hundred or more. And there would be signs... no, not signs from God but regular road-signs, and every one of them saying things like BOULDER, COLORADO, 609 MILES or THIS WAY TO BOULDER.\"\n\nShe paused.\n\n\"Those dreams, they scared me. I never told a soul I was havin em, that's how scared I was. I felt the way I guess Job must have felt when God spoke to him out of the whirlwind. I even tried to pretend they was just dreams, foolish old woman runnin from God the way Jonah did. But the big fish has swallowed us up just the same, you see! And if God says to Abby, You got to tell, then tell I must. And I always felt like someone would come to me, someone special, and that's how I'd be in the way of knowin the time had come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at Nick, who sat at the table and regarded her solemnly with his good eye through the haze of Ralph Brentner's cigarette smoke.\n\n\"I knew when I saw you,\" she said. \"It's you, Nick. God has put His finger on your heart. But he has more fingers than one, and there's others out there, still comin on, praise God, and He's got a finger on them, too. I dream of him, how he's lookin for us even now, and God forgive my sick spirit, I curse him in my heart.\" She began to weep and got up to have a drink of water and a splash." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her tears were the human part of her, weak and flagging." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she turned back, Nick was writing. At last he ripped the page off his pad and handed it to Ralph.\n\n\"I don't know about the God part, but I know something is working here.\n\nEveryone we've met has been moving north. As if you had the answer. Have you dreamed about any of the others? Dick? June or Olivia? Maybe the little girl?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not any of these others. A man who doesn't talk much. A woman who is with child. A man of about your age who comes to me with a guitar of his own. And you, Nick.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you think going to Boulder is the right thing?\"\n\nMother Abagail said, \"It's what we're meant to do.\"\n\nNick doodled aimlessly on his pad for a moment and then wrote, \"How much do you know about the dark man? Do you know who he is?\"\n\n\"I know what he's about but not who he is. He's the purest evil left in the world. The rest of the bad is little evil. Shoplifters and sexfiends and people who like to use their fists. But he'll call them. He's started already. He's getting them together a lot faster than we are. Before he's ready to make his move, I guess he'll have a lot more. Not just the evil ones that are like him, but the weak ones... the lonely ones... and the ones that have left God out of their hearts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe he's not real,\" Nick wrote. \"Maybe he's just...\" He had to nibble at the top of his pen and think. At last he added: \"... the scared, bad part of all of us. Maybe we are dreaming of the things we're afraid we might do.\"\n\nRalph frowned over this as he read it aloud, but Abby grasped what Nick meant right off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't much different from the talk of the new preachers who had got on the land in the last twenty years or so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There wasn't really any Satan, that was their gospel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was evil, and it probably came from original sin, but it was in all of us and getting it out was as impossible as getting an egg out of its shell without cracking it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "According to the way these new preachers had it, Satan was like a jigsaw puzzle-and every man, woman, and child on earth added his or her little piece to make up the whole. Yes, all that had a good modern sound to it; the trouble with it was that it wasn't true. And if Nick was allowed to go on thinking that, the dark man would eat him for dinner.\n\nShe said: \"You dreamed of me. Ain't I real?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nick nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I dreamed you. Ain't you real? Praise God, you're sittin right over there with a pad o paper on your knee. This other man, Nick, he's as real as you are.\"\n\nYes, he was real. She thought of the weasels, and of the red eye opening in the darkness. And when she spoke up again, her voice was husky. \"He ain't Satan,\" she said, \"but he and Satan know of each other and have kept their councils together of old.\n\n\"The Bible, it don't say what happened to Noah and his family after the flood went down. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was some awful tussle for the souls of those few people-for their souls, their bodies, their way of thinking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And I wouldn't be surprised if that was what was on for us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's west of the Rockies now. Sooner or later he'll come east. Maybe not this year, no, but when he's ready. And it's our lot to deal with him.\"\n\nNick was shaking his head, disturbed.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said quietly. \"You'll see. There's bitter days ahead. Death and terror, betrayal and tears. And not all of us will be alive to see how it ends.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't like any of this,\" Ralph muttered. \"Aren't things hard enough without this guy you and Nick are talkin about? Ain't we got enough problems, with no doctors or electricity or nothing? Why did we have to get stuck with this damn doorprize?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It's God's way. He don't explain to the likes of Abby Freemantle.\"\n\n\"If this is His way,\" Ralph said, \"why, I wish He'd retire and let somebody younger take over.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If the dark man is west,\" Nick wrote, \"maybe we ought to pick up stakes and move east.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head patiently. \"Nick, all things serve the Lord. Don't you think this black man serves Him, too? He does, no matter how mysterious His purpose may be. The black man will follow you no matter where you run, because he serves the purpose of God, and God wants you to treat with him. It don't do no good to run from the will 4f the Lord God of Hosts. A man or woman who tries that only ends up in the belly of the beast.\"\n\nNick wrote briefly. Ralph studied the note, rubbed the side of his nose, and wished he didn't have to read it. Old ladies like this didn't cotton to stuff like what Nick had just written." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd likely call it a blasphemy, and shout it loud enough to wake everyone in the place, too.\n\n\"What's he say?\" Abagail asked.\n\n\"He says...\" Ralph cleared his throat; the feather stuck in the band of his hat jiggled. \"He says that he don't believe in God.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Stephen King sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'ralph' precisely 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next morning, July 26, after a brief conference, Dick and Ralph set off for Columbus in Ralph's truck. \"I hate to trade her ins\" Ralph said, \"but if it's the way you say it is, Nick, okay.\"\n\nNick wrote, \"Be back as soon as you can.\"\n\nRalph uttered a short laugh and looked around the yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "June and Olivia were washing clothes in a large tub with a scrub board stuck in one end." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom was in the corn, scaring crows-an occupation he seemed to find endlessly diverting.\n\nGina was playing with his Corgi cars and his garage. The old woman sat dozing in her rocker, dozing and snoring.\n\n\"You're in one tearin hurry to stick your head in the lion's mouth, Nicky.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nick wrote: \"Have we got anyplace better to go to?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's true. It's no good just wandering around. It makes you feel kind of worthless. A person don't hardly feel right unless he's lookin forward, you ever notice that?\"\n\nNick nodded.\n\n\"Okay.\" Ralph clapped Nick on the shoulder and turned away. \"Dick, you ready to take a ride?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom Cullen came running out of the corn, silk clinging to his shirt and pants and long blond hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Me too! Tom Cullen wants to go on the ride, too! Laws, yes!\"\n\n\"Come on, then,\" Ralph said. \"Here, lookit you, cornsilk from top to bottom and fore to aft. And you ain't caught a crow yet! Better let me brush you off.\"\n\nGrinning vacantly, Tom allowed Ralph to brush off his shirt and pants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For Tom, Nick reflected, these last two weeks had probably been the happiest of his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was with people who accepted and wanted him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why shouldn't they? He might be feeble, but he was still a comparative rarity in this new world, a living human being.\n\n\"See you, Nicky,\" Ralph said, and climbed up behind the wheel of the Chevy.\n\n\"See you, Nicky,\" Tom Cullen echoed, still grinning.\n\nNick watched the truck out of sight, then went into the shed and found an old crate and a can of paint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He broke out one of the crate's panels and nailed a long piece of picket fence to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took the sign and the paint out into the yard and carefully daubed on it while Gina looked over his shoulder with interest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What does it say?\" she asked.\n\n\"It says, 'We have gone to Boulder, Colorado. We are taking secondary roads to avoid traffic jams. Citizen's Band Channel 14,' \" Olivia read.\n\n\"What does that mean?\" June asked, coming over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She picked Gina up and they both watched as Nick carefully planted the sign so that it faced the area where the dirt road became Mother Abagail's driveway. He buried the bottom three feet of the picket. Nothing but a big wind would knock it over now. Of course there were big winds out in this part of the world; he thought of the one which had almost carried him and Tom away, and of the scare they'd had in the cellar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wrote a note and handed it to June." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One of the things Dick and Ralph are supposed to get in Columbus is a CB radio. Someone will have to monitor Channel 14 all the time.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Olivia said. \"Smart.\"\n\nNick tapped his forehead gravely, then smiled.\n\nThe two women went back to hang their clothes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gina returned to the toy cars, hopping nimbly on one leg." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick walked across the yard, mounted the porch steps, and sat down next to the dozing old woman. He looked out over the corn and wondered what was going to become of them.\n\nIf that's the way you say it is, Nick, okay.\n\nThey had turned him into a leader." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had done that and he couldn't even begin to understand why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You couldn't take orders from a deaf-mute; it was like a bad joke. Dick should have been their leader. His own place was as spearcarrier, third from the left, no lines, recognized only by his mother. But from the time they had met Ralph Brentner pottering up the road in his truck, not really going anywhere, that business of saying something and then glancing quickly at Nick, as if for confirmation, had begun." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fog of nostalgia had already begun to creep over those few days between Shoyo and May, before Tom and responsibility. It was easy to forget how lonely he had been, the fear that the constant bad dreams might mean he was going crazy. Easy to remember how there had been only yourself to look out for, a spear-carrier, third from the left, a bit player in this terrible play.\n\nI knew when I saw you. It's you, Nick. God has put His finger on your heart ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Stephen King sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, I don't accept that. I don't accept God either, for that matter. Let the old woman have her God, God was as necessary for old women as enemas and Lipton tea bags. He would concentrate on one thing at a time, planting one foot ahead of the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Get them to Boulder, then see what came next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old woman said the dark man was a real man, not just a psychological symbol, and he didn't want to believe that, either... but in his heart he did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his heart he believed everything she had said, and it scared him. He didn't want to be their leader.\n\nIt's you, Nick.\n\nA hand squeezed his shoulder and he jumped with surprise, then turned around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she had been dozing, she wasn't anymore." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was smiling down at him from her armless rocker.\n\n\"I Was just sittin here and thinkin on the Great Depression,\" she said. \"Do you know my daddy once owned all this land for miles around? It's true. No small trick for a black man. And I played my guitar and sang down at the Grange Hall in nineteen and oh-two. Long ago, Nick. Long, long ago.\"\n\nNick nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Those were good days, Nick-most of em were, anyway. But nothin lasts, I guess. Only the love of the Lord. My daddy died, and the land was split between his sons with a piece for my first husband, sixty acres, not much. This house stands on part o that sixty, you know. Four acres, that's all that's left. Oh, I guess now I could lay claim to all of it again, but t'wouldn't be the same, somehow.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'little' appears 3 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick patted her scrawny hand and she sighed deeply.\n\n\"Brothers don't always work so well together; they almost always fall to squabblin. Look at Cain n Abel! Everyone wanted to be a foreman and nobody wanted to be a fieldhand! Comes 1931, and the bank called its paper home. Then they all pulled together, but by then it was most too late. By 1945 everything was gone but my sixty and forty or fifty more where the Goodell place is now.\"\n\nShe fumbled her handkerchief from her dress pocket and wiped her eyes with it, slowly and thoughtfully.\n\nFinally there was only me left, with no money nor nothing. And each year when tax-time came round, they'd take a little more to pay it off, and I'd come out here to look at the part that wasn't my own anymore, and I'd cry over it like I'm crying now. A little more each year for taxes, that's how it happened. A whack here, a whack there. I rented out what was left, but it was never enough to cover what they had to have for their cussed taxes. Then, when I got to be a hundred years old, they remanded the taxes in perpetuity. Yes, they give it over after they'd taken everything but this little piece o scratch that's here. Big o them, wa'n't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He squeezed her hand lightly and looked at her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'heart' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Nick,\" Mother Abagail said, \"I have harbored hate of the Lord in my heart. Every man or woman who loves Him, they hate Him too, because He's a hard God, a jealous God, He Is, what He Is, and in this world He's apt to repay service with pain while those who do evil ride over the roads in Cadillac cars.\n\nEven the joy of serving Him is a bitter joy. I do His will, but the human part o me has cursed Him in my heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'Abby,' the Lord says to me, 'there's work for you far up ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I'll let you live an live, until your flesh is bitter on your bones. I'll let you see all your children die ahead of you and still you'll walk the earth. I'll let you see your daddy's Ian taken away piece by piece. And in the end, your reward will be to go away with strangers from all the things you love best and you'll die in a strange land with the work not yet finished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's My will, Abby,' says He, and 'Yes, Lord,' says I. 'Thy will be done,' and in my heart I curse Him and ask, 'Why, why, why?' and the only answer I get is 'Where were you when I made the world?' \"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now her tears came in a bitter flood, running down her che ks and wetting the bodice of her dress, and Nick marveled that there could be so many tears in such an old woman, who seemed as dry and thin as a dead twig.\n\n\"Help me along, Nick,\" she said. \"I only want to do what's right.\"\n\nHe held her hands tightly. Behind them Gina giggled and held one of the toy cars up to the sky for the sun to shine and sparkle on." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: This is part of a larger narrative. The user will write a segment, then you need to write around 10 sentences continuing directly from it. Characters and events may be pre-established from earlier chapters.\n\nAuthor style: Stephen King\nGenre: Horror" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She rolled over again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she didn't go to sleep soon she really would take her diary out and write in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been keeping the journal since July 5." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a way she was keeping it for the baby. It was an act of faith-faith that the baby would live. She wanted it to know what it had been like. How the plague had come to a place called Ogunquit, how she and Harold had escaped, what became of them. She wanted the child to know how things had been.\n\nThe moonlight was strong enough to write by, and two or three pages of diary were always enough to make her feel snoozy. Didn't say much for her literary talents, she supposed. She would give sleep one more fair chance first, though.\n\nShe closed her eyes.\n\nAnd went on thinking of Harold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The situation might have eased with the coming of Mark and Perion if the two of them hadn't already been committed to each other. Perion was thirty-three, eleven years older than Mark, but in this world such things made little difference. They had found each other, they had been looking out for each other, and they were content to stick together. Perion had confided to Frannie that they were trying to make a baby. Thank God I was on the pill and didn't have a loop, Peri said. How in God's name would I ever have gotten it out?\n\nFrannie had almost told her about the baby she was carrying (she was over a third of the way along now) but something held her back. She was afraid it might make a bad situation even worse.\n\nSo now there were six of them instead of four (Glen refused utterly to try driving a motorcycle and always rode pillion behind Stu or Harold), but the situation hadn't changed with the addition of another woman.\n\nWhat about you, Frannie?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What do you want?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she had to exist in a world like this, she thought, with a biological clock inside her set to go off in six months, she wanted someone like Stu Redman to be her man-no, not someone like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wanted him: There it was, stated with complete baldness.\n\nWith civilization gone, all the chrome and geegaws had been - stripped from the engine of human society. Glen Bateman held forth on this theme often, and it always seemed to please Harold inordinately.\n\nWomen's lib, Frannie had decided (thinking that if she was going to be bald, she might as well go totally bald), was nothing more nor less than an outgrowth of the technological society. Women were at the mercy of their bodies. They were smaller. They tended to be weaker. A man couldn't get with child, but a woman could-every four-year-old knows it. And a pregnant woman is a vulnerable human being. Civilization had provided an umbrella of sanity that both sexes could stand beneath. Liberation-that one word said it all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before civilization, with its careful and merciful system of protections, women had been slaves. Let us not gild the lily; slaves was what we were, Fran thought. Then the evil days ended. And the Women's Credo, which should have been hung in the offices of Ms. magazine, preferably in needlepoint, was just this: Thank you, Men, for the railroads. Thank you, Men, for inventing the automobile and killing the red Indians who thought it might be nice to hold on to America for a while longer, since they were here frst. Thank you, Men, for the hospitals, the police, the schools. Now I'd like to vote, please, and have the right to set my own course and make my own destiny. Once 1 was chattel, but now that is obsolete. My days of slavery must be over; 1 need to be a slave no more than 1 need to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a tiny boat with sails. Jet planes are safer and quicker than little boats with sails and freedom makes more sense than slavery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "1 am not afraid of fying. Thank you, Men.\n\nAnd what was there to say? Nothing. The rednecks could grunt about burning bras, the reactionaries could play intellectual little games, but the truth only smiles.. Now all that had changed, in a matter of weeks it had changed-how much only time would tell. But lying here in the night, she knew that she needed a man. Oh God, she badly needed a man.\n\nNor was it all a matter of preserving herself and her baby, of looking out for number one (and, she supposed, number two). Stu attracted her, especially after Jess Rider. Stu was calm, capable, and most of all he was not what her father would have called \"twenty pounds of bullshit in a ten-pound bag.\"\n\nHe was attracted to her as well. She knew that perfectly well, had known it since that first lunch together on the Fourth of July in that deserted restaurant." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 11 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: fears, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a momentjust one moment-their eyes had met and there had been that instant of heat, like a power s rge when all the needles swing over to overload. She guessed Stu knew how things were, too, but he was waiting on her, letting her make her decision in her own time. She had been with Harold first, therefore she was Harold's chattel. A stinking macho idea, but she was afraid this was going to be a stinking macho world again, at least for a while.\n\nIf only there was someone else, someone for Harold, but there wasn't, and she was afraid she could not wait long. She thought of the day Harold, in his clumsy way, had tried to make love to her, to make his claim of ownership irrevocable.\n\nHow long ago? Two weeks? It seemed longer. All the past seemed longer now. It had pulled out like warm Bonomo's Turkish taffy. Between her worry of what to do about Harold-and her fears of what he might do if she did go to Stuart-and her fears of the dreams, she would never get to sleep.\n\nSo thinking, she drifted off." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stu?\" Perion said.\n\nIt was ten minutes past four. Stu was kneeling on a rubber sheet that had been spread under the tree. Sweat was pouring from his face in rivers. His eyes looked bright and haunted and frantic. Frannie was holding a book open in front of him, switching back and forth between two colored plates whenever Stu raised his eyes and nodded at her. Beside him, horribly white, Glen Bateman held a spool of fine white thread. Between them was an open case of stainless steel instruments. The case was now splashed with blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's here!\" Stu cried." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should naturally weave in this dialogue: \"Here's the little bastard! Here! Right here!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice was suddenly high and hard and exultant. His eyes had narrowed to two points. \"Here's the little bastard! Here! Right here!\"\n\n\"Stu?\" Perion said.\n\n\"Fran, show me that other plate again! Quick! Quick!\"\n\n\"Can you take it out?\" Glen asked. \"Jesus, East Texas, do you really think you can?\"\n\nHarold was gone. He had left the party early, holding one hand cupped over his mouth. He had been standing in a small grove of trees to the east, his back to them, for the last fifteen minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now he turned back, his large round face hopeful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Stu said, \"but I might. I just might.\"\n\nHe stared at the color plate Fran was showing him. He was wearing blood up to his elbows, like scarlet evening gloves.\n\n\"Stu?\" Perion said.\n\n\"It's self-containing above and below,\" Stu whispered. His eyes glittered fantastically. \"The appendix. It's its own little unit. It... wipe my forehead, Frannie, Jesus, I'm sweating like a fucking pig... thanks...\n\nGod, I don't want to cut his doins any worse than I have to... that's his e erfucking intestines... but Christ, I gotta. I gotta.\"\n\n\"Stu?\" Perion said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Give me the scissors, Glen. No-not those. The small pair.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stu. \"\n\nHe looked at her at last.\n\n\"You don't need to.\" Her voice was calm, soft. \"He's dead.\"\n\nStu looked at her, his narrowed eyes slowly widening.\n\nShe nodded. \"Almost two minutes ago. But thank you. Thank you for trying.\"\n\nStu looked at her for a long time. \"You're sure?\" he whispered at last.\n\nShe nodded again. Tears were spilling silently down her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stu turned away from them, dropping the small scalpel he had been holding, and put his hands over his eyes in a gesture of utter despair. Glen had already gotten up and walked off, not looking back, his shoulders hunched, as if from a blow.\n\nFrannie put her arms around Stu and hugged him.\n\n\"That's that,\" he said. He said it over and over again, speaking in a slow and toneless way that frightened her. \"That's that. All over. That's that. That's that.\"\n\n\"You did the best you could,\" she said, and hugged him even tighter, as if he might fly away.\n\n\"That's that,\" he said again, with dull finality.\n\nFrannie hugged him. Despite all her thoughts of the last three and a half weeks, despite her \"crushable crush,\" she had not made a single overt move." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had been almost painfully careful not to show the way she felt. The situation with Harold was just too much on a hair trigger. And she was not showing the true way she felt about Stu even now, not really. It was not a lover's hug she was bestowing on him. It was simply one survivor clinging to another. Stu seemed to understand this. His hands came up to her shoulders and pressed them firmly, leaving bloody handprints on her khaki shirt, marking her in a way which seemed to make them partners in some unhappy crime. Somewhere a jay cawed harshly, and closer at hand Perion began to weep.\n\nHarold Lauder, who did not know the difference between the hugs survivors and lovers may bestow on each other, gazed at Frannie and Stu with dawning suspicion and fear. After a long moment he crashed furiously off into the brush and didn't come back until long after supper." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Stephen King sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'frannie' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frannie slept heavily and dreamlessly. So did they all, with the exception of Harold Lauder. Sometime shortly after midnight he rose and walked softly to where Frannie lay, and stood looking down at her. He was not smiling now, although he had smiled all day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At times he had felt that the smile would crack his face right up the middle and spill out his whirling brains. That might have been a relief.\n\nHe stood looking down at her, listening to the chin of summer crickets. We're in dog days now, he thought: Dog days, from July the twenty-fifth to August twenty-eighth, according to Webster's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So named because rabid dogs were supposed t9 be the most common then. He looked down at Fran, sleeping so sweetly, using her sweater for a pillow. Her pack was beside her.\n\nEvery dog has his day, Frannie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knelt, freezing at the gunshots of his bending knees, but no one stirred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He unbuckled her pack, untied the drawstring, and reached inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He trained a small pencil flash on the pack's contents. Frannie muttered from deep down in sleep, stiffed, and Harold held his breath. He found what he wanted way at the bottom, behind three clean blouses and a lap-eared pocket road atlas. A Spiral notebook. He pulled it out, opened to the first page, and shone his light on Frannie's close but extremely legible handwriting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "July 6, 1990-After some persuasion, Mr. Bateman has agreed to come along with us..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Harold shut the book and crept back to his sleeping bag with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was feeling like the little boy he had once been, the boy with few friends (he had enjoyed a brief period of babyhood beauty until about age three, had been a fat and ugly joke ever since) but many enemies, the boy who had been more or less taken for granted by his parents---their eyes had been trained on Amy as she began her long walk down the Miss America/Atlantic City runway of her lifethe boy who had turned to books for solace, the boy who had escaped never being picked for baseball or always being passed over for School Patrol Boy by becoming Long John Silver or Tarzan or Philip Kent... the boy who had become these people late at night under his covers with a flashlight trained on the printed page, his eyes wide with excitement, barely smelling his own bedfarts; this boy now crawled upside down to the bottom of his sleeping bag with Frannie's diary and his flashlight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he trained its beam on the front cover of the Spiral, there was a moment of sanity. For just a moment part of his mind cried out Harold! Stop! so strongly that he was shaken to his heels. And stop he almost did." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'harold' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For just a moment it seemed possible to stop, to put the diary back where he had found it, to give her up, to let them go their own way before something terrible and irrevocable happened. For that moment it seemed he could put the bitter drink away, pour it out of the cup, and refill it with whatever there was for him in this world.\n\nGive it over, Harold, this sane voice begged, but maybe it was already too late.\n\nAt age sixteen he had given up Burroughs and Stevenson and Robert Howard in favor of other fantasies, fantasies that were both well loved and much hated-not of rockets or pirates but of girls in silk see-through pajamas kneeling before him on satin pillows while Harold the Great lolled naked on his throne, ready to chastise them with small leather whips, with silver-headed canes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were bitter fantasies through which every pretty girl at Ogunquit High School had strolled at one time or another." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These daydreams always ended with a gathering expletive in his loins, an explosion of seminal fluid that was more curse than pleasure. And then he would sleep, the sperm drying to a scale on his belly.\n\nEvery doggy has his day.\n\nAnd now it was those bitter fantasies, the old hurts, that he gathered around him like yellowed sheets, the old friends who never died, whose teeth never dulled, whose deadly affection never wavered.\n\nHe turned to that first page, trained his flashlight on the words, and began to read." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Stephen King sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trash woke up just as twilight was falling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In spite of the clothes he had hung over the windows, the Mercedes had gotten hot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His throat was a dry well which had been faced with sandpaper. His temples thumped and jumped. He ran his tongue out, and when he stroked it with his finger, it felt like a dead treebranch. Sitting up, he put his hand on the Mercedes' steering wheel and then drew it back with a scalded hiss of pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had to wrap his shirttail around the doorhandle to let himself out. He thought he would just step out, but he had overestimated his strength and underestimated how far the dehydration had advanced on this August evening: his legs collapsed and he fell onto the road, which was also hot. Moaning, he scrabbled his way into the shadow of the Mercedes like a crippled crawdad. He sat there, arms and head dangling between his cocked knees, panting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stared morbidly at the two bodies he had pulled out of the car, she with her bangles on her shriveled arms and he with his shock of theatrical white hair above his mummified monkey-face.\n\nHe must get to Cibola before the sun came up tomorrow morning. If he didn't, he would die... and in sight of his goal! Surely the dark man could not be as cruel as thatsurely not!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My life for you;\" Trashcan Man whispered, and when the sun had dropped below the line of the mountains, he gained his feet and began to walk toward the towers, minarets, and avenues of Cibola, where the sparks of the lights were coming on again.\n\nAs the heat of the day segued into the cool of the desert night, he found himself more able to walk. His sprung and rope-tied sneakers flapped and thudded against the surface of I-15. He was plodding along, his head hanging like the bloom of a dying sunflower, and did not see the green, reflectorized sign which read LAS VEGAS 30 when he passed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was thinking about The Kid. By rights The Kid should have been with him now. They should be driving into Cibola together, with the straightpipes of The Kid's deuce coupe blatting back echoes from the desert. But The Kid had proved unworthy, and Trash had been sent on alone into the wilderness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His feet rose and fell on the pavement. \"Ci-a-bola!\" he croaked." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bumpty- bumpty-bump!\"\n\nAround midnight he collapsed by the side of the road and fell into an uneasy doze. The city was closer now.\n\nHe would make it.\n\nHe was quite sure he would make it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with 2 sentences in Stephen King's voice, keeping within the Horror genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the Trashcan Man swam out of sleep on the evening of August 5, he was still lying on the blackjack table in the casino of the MGM Grand Hotel. Sitting backward on a chair in front of him was a young man with lank straw-blond hair and mirror sunglasses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first thing Trash noticed was the stone which hung about his neck in the v of his open sport-shirt. Black, with a red flaw in the center." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like the eye of a wolf in the night.\n\nHe tried to say he was thirsty and managed only a weak \"Gaw!\" sound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You sure did spend some time in the hot sun, I guess,\" Lloyd Henreid said.\n\n\"Are you him?\" Trash. whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you-\"\n\n\"The big guy? No, I'm not him. Flagg's in L. A. He knows you're here, though. I talked to him on the radio this afternoon.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is he coming?\"\n\n\"What, just to see you? Hell, no! He'll be here in his own good time. You and me, guy, we're just little people. He'll be here in his own good time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he reiterated the question he had asked the tall man that morning, not long after Trashcan Man had stumbled in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you that anxious to see him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes... no... I don't know.\"\n\n\"Well, whichever way it turns out to be, you'll get your chance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thirsty...\"\n\n\"Sure. Here.\" He handed over a large thermos filled with cherry Kool-Aid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trashcan drained it at a draught, then leaned over, holding his belly and groaning. When the cramp had passed, he looked at Lloyd with dumb gratitude." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Think you could eat something?\" Lloyd asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, I think so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lloyd turned to a man standing behind them. The man was idly whirling a roulette wheel, then letting the little white ball bounce and rattle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roger, go tell Whitney or Stephanie-Ann to rustle this man up some fries and a couple of hamburgers. Naw, shit, what am I thinking about? He'll ralph all over the place. Soup. Get him some soup. That okay, man?\"\n\n\"Anything,\" Trash said gratefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We got a guy here,\" Lloyd said, \"name of Whitney Horgan, used to be a butcher. He's a fat, loud sack of shit, but don't that man know how to cook!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jesus! And they got everything here. The gennies were still running when we moved in, and the freezers're full. Fucking Vegas! Ain't it the goddamndest place you ever saw?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Trash said. He liked Lloyd already, and he didn't even know his name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's Cibola.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say what?\"\n\n\"Cibola. Searched for by many.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, been plenty people searchin for it over the years, but most of em go away sort of sorry they found it. Well, you call it whatever you want, buddy--- looks like you almost cooked yourself gettin here. What's your name?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trashcan Man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lloyd didn't seem to think this a strange name at all. \"Name like that, I bet you used to be a biker.\" He stuck out a hand. The tips of his fingers still bore the fading marks of his stay in the Phoenix jail where he had almost died of starvation. \"I'm Lloyd Henreid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pleased to meet you, Trash." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Welcome aboard the good ship Lollypop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trashcan Man shook the offered hand and had to struggle to keep from weeping with gratitude." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So far as he could remember, this was the first time in his life someone had offered to shake his hand. He was here. He had been accepted." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'would'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At long last he was on the inside of something. He would have walked through twice as much desert as he had for this moment, would have burned the other arm and both legs as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks,\" he muttered. \"Thanks, Mr. Henreid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shit, brother-if you don't call me Lloyd, we'll have to throw that soup out.\"\n\n\"Lloyd, then. Thanks, Lloyd.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's better. After you eat, I'll take you upstairs and put you in a room of your own. We'll get you doing something tomorrow. The big guy's got something of his own for you, I think, but until then there's plenty for you to do. We've got some of the place running again, but nowhere near all of it. There's a crew up at Boulder Dam, trying to get all the power back on. There's another one working on water supplies. We've got scout parties out, we've been pulling in six or eight people a day, but we'll keep you off that detail for a while. Looks like you've had enough sun to last you a month.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess I have,\" Trashcan Man said with a weak smile. He was already willing to lay down his life for Lloyd Henreid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gathering up all of his courage, he pointed at the stone which lay in the hollow of Lloyd's throat. \"That-\"\n\n\"Yeah, us guys who are sort of in charge all wear em." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His idea. It's jet. Not really a rock at all, you know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's like an oil bubble.'" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'smartest' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean... the red light. The eye.\"\n\n\"Looks like that to you too, huh? It's a flaw. Special from him. I'm not the smartest guy he's got, not even the smartest guy in good ole Lost Wages, not by a long shot. But I'm ... shit, I guess you'd say I'm his mascot.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked closely at Trash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe you too, who knows? Not me, that's for sure. He's a close one, Flagg is. Anyway, we heard about you special. Me and Whitney. That's not the regular drill at all. Too many comin in to take special notice of many.\"\n\nHe paused. \"Although I guess he could, if he wanted to. I guess he could take notice of just about anybody.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trashcan Man nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He can do magic,\" Lloyd said, his voice becoming slightly hoarse. \"I seen it.\n\nI'd hate to be the people against him, you know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Trashcan said. \"I saw what happened to The Kid.\"\n\n\"What kid?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The guy I was with until we got into the mountains.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shuddered. \"I don't want to talk about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay, man. Here comes your soup. And Whitney put a burger on the side after all. You'll love it. The guy makes great burgers, but try not to puke, okay?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Me, I got places to go and people to see. If my old buddy Poke could see me now, he'd never believe it. I'm busier'n a one-legged man in an ass-kickin contest. Catch you later.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure,\" Trashcan said, and then added, almost timidly: \"Thanks. Thanks for everything.\"\n\n\"Don't thank me,\" Lloyd said amiably. \"Thank him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do,\" Trashcan Man said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Every night.\" But he was talking to himself. Lloyd was already halfway down the lobby, talking with the man who had brought the soup and the hamburger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trashcan Man watched them fondly until they were out of sight, and then he began to chow down, eating ravenously until almost everything was gone. He would have been fine if he hadn't looked down into the soup bowl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was tomato soup, and it was the color of blood.\n\nHe pushed the bowl aside, his appetite suddenly gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was all very well for him to tell Lloyd Henreid he didn't want to talk about The Kid; it was quite another thing to stop thinking about what had happened to him.\n\nHe walked over to the roulette wheel, sipping at the glass of milk that had come with his food." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He gave the wheel an idle twist and dropped the little white marble into the dish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It rolled around the rim, then hit the slots below and began to racket back and forth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought about The Kid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered if someone would come and show him which room was his." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought about The Kid. He wondered if the ball would fetch up on a red number or a black one ... but mostly he thought about The Kid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bouncing, jittering ball caught in one of the slots, this time for good. The wheel came to a stop." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Stephen King and use whatever i write as a jumping off point? btw characters and stuff might show up without backstory, just go with it" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nadine came awake like a cat in the dark some twenty minutes after Larry Underwood and Lucy Swann had come back to camp, ten minutes after they had finished their act of love and drifted off to sleep.\n\nThe high iron of terror sang in her veins.\n\nSomeone wants me, she thought, listening as the millrace of her heart slowed.\n\nHer eyes, wide and full of darkness, stared up to where the overhanging branches of an elm laced the sky with shadows. There's that. Someone wants me. It's true.\n\nBut... it's so cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her parents and her brother had been killed in a car accident when she was six; she hadn't gone along that day to see her aunt and uncle, staying behind instead to play with a friend from down the street." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'nadine' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had liked brother best anyway, she could remember that. Brother hadn't been like her, little halfling stolen from an orphanage cradle at the age of four and a half months. Brother's origins had been clear. Brother had been-trumpets, please-Their Own. But Nadine had always and forever belonged only to Nadine. She was the earth's child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the accident she had gone to live with the aunt and uncle, because they were the only two relatives." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The White Mountains of eastern New Hampshire. She remembered that they had taken her for a ride on the Cog Railway up Mount Washington for her eighth birthday and the altitude had caused a bloody nose and they had been angry with her. Aunt and Uncle were too old, they had been m their midfifties when she turned sixteen, the year she had run fleetly through the dewy grass under the moon-the night of wine, when dreams condensed out of thin air like the nightmilk of fantasy. A lovenight. And if the boy caught her she would have given him whatever prizes were hers to give, and what did it matter if he caught her? They had run, wasn't that the important thing?\n\nBut he hadn't caught her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A cloud had drifted over the moon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dew began to feel clammy and unpleasant, frightening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The taste of wine in her mouth had somehow changed to the taste of electric spit; slightly sour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A kind of metamorphosis had taken place, a feeling that she should, must wait." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And where had he been then, her intended, her dark bridegroom?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On what streets, what back roads, clocking along in outside suburban darkness while inside the brittle clink of cocktail chatter broke the world into neat and rational sections? What cold winds were his? How many sticks of dynamite in his frayed packsack? Who knew what his name had been when she was sixteen? How ancient was he? Where had been his home?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What sort of mother had held him to her breast?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was only sure that he was an orphan as she was, his time still to come. He walked mostly on roads that hadn't even been laid down yet, while she had but one foot on those same roads. The junction where they would meet was far ahead. He was an American man, she knew that, a man who would have a taste for milk and apple pie, a man who would appreciate the homely beauty of red check and gingham. His home was America, and his ways were the secret ways, the highways in hiding, the underground railways where d rections are written in runes. He was the other man, the other face, the hardcase, the dark man, the Walkin Dude, and his rundown bootheels clocked along the perfumed ways of the summer night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who knoweth when the bridegroom comes?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had waited for him, the unbroken vessel. At sixteen she had almost fallen, and again in college. Both of them had gone away angry and perplexed, the way Larry was now, sensing the crossroads inside her, the sense of some preordained, mystic junction point.\n\nBoulder was the place where the roads diverged.\n\nThe time was close. He had called, bid her come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After college she had buried herself in her work, had shared a rented house with two other girls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What two girls? Well, they came and went. Only Nadine stayed, and she was pleasant to the young men her changing roommates brought home, but she never had a young man herself. She supposed they talked about her, called her spinster-in-waiting, maybe even conjectured that she might be a carefully circumspect lesbian. It wasn't true. She was simply Unbroken.\n\nWaiting.\n\nIt had seemed to her sometimes that a change was coming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She would be putting toys away in the silent classroom at the end of the day and suddenly she would pause, her eyes lambent and watchful, a jack-in-the-box held forgotten in one hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And she would think: A change is coming... a great wind is going to blow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes, when .such a thought came to her, she would find herself looking back over her shoulder like something pursued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then it would break and she would laugh uneasily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hair had begun to gray in her sixteenth year, the year she had been chased and not caught just a few strands at first, startlingly visible in all the black, and not gray, no, that was the wrong word... white, it had becn white.\n\nYears later she had attended a party in the basement lounge of a frathouse.\n\nThe lights had been low and after a while the people had drifted away by twos.\n\nMany of the girls-Nadine among them-had signed out for overnight from their dorms. She had fully intended to go through with it... but something that was still buried beneath the months and years had held her back. And the next morning, in the cold light of 7 A. M., she had looked at herself in one of a long line of dormitory bathroom mirrors and saw that the white had advanced again, seemingly overnight-although that, of course, was impossible..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so the years had passed, ticking away like seasons in a dry age, and there had been feelings, yes, feelings, and sometimes in the dead grave of night she had awakened both hot and cold, bathed in sweat, deliciously alive and aware in the trench of her bed, thinking of weird dark sex in a kind of gutter ecstasy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rolling in hot liquid. Coming and biting at the same time. And the mornings after she would go to the mirror and she would fancy that she saw more white there.\n\nThrough those years she was, outwardly, only Nadine Cross: sweet, good with the children, good at her job, single. Once such a woman would have caused comment and curiosity in the community, but times had changed. And her beauty was so singular that it somehow seemed perfectly right for her to be just as she was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now times were going to change again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now the change was coming, and m her dreams she had begun to know her bridegroom, to understand him a little, even though she had never seen his face.\n\nHe was the one she had been waiting for. She wanted to go to him... but she didn't want to. She was meant for him, but he terrified her.\n\nThen Joe had come, and after him, Larry. Things had become terribly complicated then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began to feel like a prize ring in a tug-of-war rope." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew that her purity, her virginity, was somehow important to the dark man. That if she let Larry have her (or if she let any man have her), the dark enchantment would end. And she was attracted to Larry. She had set out, quite deliberately, to let him have her-again, she had intended to go through with it. Let him have her, let it end, let it all end. She was tired, and Larry was right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had waited too long for the other one, through too many dry years.\n\nBut Larry was not right... or so it had seemed at first. She had brushed his initial advances away with a kind of contempt, the way a mare might switch at a fly with her tail. She could remember thinking: If that's all there is to him, who could blame me for rejecting his suit?\n\nShe had followed him, though. That was a fact." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she had been frantic to reach other people, not just because of Joe but because she had come almost to the point of deserting the boy and striking west on her own to find the man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only years of ingrained responsibility to the children who had been placed under her care had kept her from doing that... and her knowledge that, left on his own, Joe would die.\n\nIn a world where so many have died, to parcel out more death is surely the gravest sin.\n\nSo she had gone with Larry, who was, after all, better than nothing or no one.\n\nBut it had turned out that there was a great deal more to Larry Underwood than nothing or no one-he was like one of those optical illusions (maybe even to himself) where the water looks shallow, only an inch or two deep, but when you put your hand in you've suddenly got your arm wet to the shoulder. The way he had gotten to know Joe, that was one thing. The way Joe had taken to him was another, her own jealous reaction to the growing relationship between Joe and Larry was a third." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the motorcycle dealership in Wells, Larry had bet the fingers of both hands on the boy, and he had won." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If they had not been concentrating their full attention on the lid covering the gasoline tank, they would have seen her mouth drop open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "in a slack o of surprise. She had stood watching them, unable to move, her gaze concentrated on the bright metal line of the crowbar, waiting for it to first jitter and then fall away. She only realized after it was over that she had been waiting for the screams to begin.\n\nThen the lid was up and over and she was faced with her own error in judgment, an error so deep it was fundamental. In that case he had known Joe better than she, and without any special training, and on much shorter notice. Only hindsight allowed her to understand how important the guitar episode had been, how quickly and fundamentally it had defined Larry's relationship with Joe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And what was at the center of that relationship?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why, dependence, of course-what else could have caused that sudden jangle of jealousy all through her system?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If Joe had depended on Larry, that would have been one thing, normal and acceptable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What had upset her was that Larry also depended on Joe, needed Joe in a way she didn't... and Joe knew it.\n\nHad her judgment been that wrong about Larry's character? She thought now that the answer was yes. That nervous, self-serving exterior was a veneer, and it was being worn away by hard use. Just the fact that he had held them all together on this long trip spoke for his determination.\n\nThe conclusion seemed clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beneath her decision to let Larry make love to her, a part of her was still committed to the other man... and making love to Larry would be like killing that part of herself forever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't sure she could do that.\n\nAnd she wasn't the only one who had dreamed of the dark man now.\n\nThat had disturbed her at first, then frightened her. Fright was all it was when she had only Joe and Larry to compare notes with; when they met Lucy Swann and she said she'd had the same sort of dream, fright became a kind of frenzied terror. It was no longer possible to tell herself their dreams only sounded like hers. What if everyone left was having them?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What if the dark man's time had come around at last-not just for her, but for everyone left on the planet?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This idea more than any other raised the conflicting emotions of utter terror and strong attraction within her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had held to the idea of Stovington with a nearly panicky grip. It stood, by nature of its function, as a symbol of sanity and rationality against the rising tide of dark magic she felt around her. But Stovington had been deserted, a mockery of the safe haven she had built it up to be in her mind. The symbol of sanity and rationality was a deathhouse.\n\nAs they moved west, picking up survivors, her hope that it could somehow end for her without confrontation had gradually died. It died as Larry grew in her estimation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was sleeping with Lucy Swann now, but what did that matter?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was spoken for. The others had been having two opposing dreams: the dark man and the old woman. The old woman seemed to stand for some sort of elemental force, just as the dark man did. The old woman was the nucleus the others were gradually cohering around.\n\nNadine had never dreamed of her.\n\nOnly of the dark man." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'things' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And when the dreams of the others had suddenly faded away as inexplicably as they had come, her own dreams had seemed to grow in power and in clarity.\n\nShe knew many things which they did not. The dark man's name was Randall Flagg. Those in the West who opposed him or went against his way of doing things had either been crucified or driven mad somehow and set free to wander in the boiling sink of Death Valley. There were small groups of technical people in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but they were only temporary; very soon they would be moving to Las Vegas, where the main concentration of people was growing. For him there was no hurry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Summer was on the downside now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soon the Rocky Mountain passes would be filling with snow, and while there were plows to clear them, they would not be able to spare enough warm bodies to man the plows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There would be a long winter in which to consolidate. And next April... or May...\n\nNadine lay in the dark, looking up at the sky.\n\nBoulder was her last hope. The old woman was her last hope. The sanity and rationality she had hoped to find at Stovington had begun to form in Boulder." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'wanted' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were good, she thought, the good guys, and if only it could be that simple for her, caught in her crazy web of conflicting desires.\n\nPlayed over and over again, like a dominant chord, was her own firm belief that murder in this decimated world was the gravest sin, and her heart told her firmly and without question that death was Randall Flagg's business. But oh how she wanted his cold kiss-more than she had wanted the kisses of the high school boy, or the college boy... even more, she feared, than Larry Underwood's kiss and embrace.\n\nWe'll be in Boulder tomorrow, she thought. Maybe I'll know then if the trip is over or...\n\nA shooting star scratched its fire across the sky, and like a child, she wished on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chapter 50" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dawn was coming up, painting the eastern sky a delicate rose color." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stu Redman and Glen Bateman were about halfway up Flagstaff Mountain in West Boulder, where the first foothills of the Rockies rise up out of the flat plains like a vision of prehistory. In the dawnlight Stu thought that the pines crawling between the naked and nearly perpendicular stone faces looked like the veins ridging some giant's hand that had poked out of the earth. Somewhere to the east, Nadine Cross was at last falling into a thin, unsatisfactory sleep.\n\n\"I'm going to have a headache this afternoon,\" Glen said. \"I don't believe I've stayed up drinking all night since I was an undergrad.\"\n\n\"Sunrise is worth it,\" Stu said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, it is. Beautiful. Have you ever been in the Rockies before?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nope,\" Stu said. \"But I'm glad I came.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hoisted the jug of wine and had a swallow. \"I got quite a buzz on myself.\" He looked out over the view in silence for a few moments and then turned to Glen with a slanted smile. \"What's going to happen now?\"\n\n\"Happen?\" Glen raised his eyebrows.\n\n\"Sure. That's why I got you up here. Told Frannie, 'I'm gonna get him good n drunk and then pick his brains.' She said fine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glen grinned. \"There are no tea leaves in the bottom of a wine bottle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, but she explained to me just what it is you used to be. Sociology. The study of group interaction. So make some educated guesses.\"\n\n\"Cross my palm with silver, O aspirant to knowledge.\"\n\n\"Never mind the silver, aldy. I'll take you down to the First National Bank of Boulder tomorrow and give you a million dollars. How's that?\"\n\n\"Seriously, Stu-what do you want to know?\"\n\n\"Same things that mute guy Andros wants to know, I guess. What's going to happen next. I don't know how to put it any better than that.\"\n\n\"There's going to be a society,\" Glen said slowly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'coming' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What kind? Impossible to say right now. There are almost four hundred people here now. I'd guess from the rate they've been coming in-more every day-that by the first of September there'll be fifteen hundred of us. Forty-five hundred by the first of October, and maybe as many as eight thousand by the time the snow flies in November and closes the roads. Write that down as prediction number one.\"\n\nTo Glen's amusement, Stu did indeed produce a notebook from the back pocket of his jeans and jotted down what he had just said.\n\n\"Hard for me to believe,\" Stu said. \"We came all the way across the country and didn't see a hundred people all told.\"\n\n\"Yes, but they're coming in, aren't they?\"\n\n\"Yes... in dribs and drabs.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who's in charge, for one,\" Ralph said. \"What comes next, for another. Who does it, for a third.\"\n\nNick nodded. Yes-the right questions. But was he the right man? Ralph might be right. He also might not be.\n\n\"I'll try to meet up with him tomorrow & say hello,\" he wrote on a fresh sheet of paper.\n\n\"Yeah, you oughtta. He's all right.\" Ralph shuffled his feet." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That afternoon Stu found Frannie washing clothes in the small yard behind their building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had filled a low washtub with water, had shaken in nearly half a box of Tide, and had stirred everything with a mop-handle until a sickly suds had resulted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She doubted if she was going about this in the right way, but she was damned if she was going to go to Mother Abagail and expose her ignorance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She dumped their clothes in the water, which was stone-cold, then grimly jumped in and began to stomp and slosh around, like a Sicilian mashing grapes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your new model Maytag 5000, she thought. The Double-Foot Agitation Method, perfect for all your bright colors, fragile underthings, and She turned around and beheld her man, standing just inside the backyard gate and watching with an expression of amusement. Frannie stopped, a little out of breath.\n\n\"Ha-ha, very funny. How long have you been there, smartypants?\"\n\n\"Couple of minutes. What do you call that, anyway? The mating dance of the wild wood duck?\"\n\n\"Again, ha-ha.\" She looked coolly at him. \"One more crack like that and you can spend the night on the couch, or up on Flagstaff with your friend Glen Bateman.\"\n\n\"Say, I didn't mean--\"\n\n\"They're your clothes too, Mr. Stuart Redman. You may be a Founding Father and all that, but you still leave an occasional skidmark in your underdrawers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu grinned, the grin broadened, and finally he had to laugh. That's crude, darlin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right now I don't feel particularly delicate.\"\n\n\"Well, pop out for a minute. I need to talk to you.\"\n\nShe was glad to, even though she would have to wash her feet before getting back in. Her heart was hurrying along, not happily but rather dolefully, like a faithful piece of machinery being misused by someone with a marked lack of good sense. If this was the way my great-great-great-grandmother had to do it, Fran thought, then maybe she was entitled to the room which eventually became my mother's precious parlor. Maybe she thought of it as hazard pay, or something like that.\n\nShe looked down at her feet and lower legs with some discouragement. There was still a thin sheath of gray soapsuds clinging to them. She brushed at it distastefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When my wife handwashed,\" Stu said, \"she used a... what do you call it?\n\nScrub board, I think. My mother had about three, I remember.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" Frannie said, irritated. \"June Brinkmeyer and I walked over half of Boulder looking for one. We couldn't find a single one. Technology strikes again.\"\n\nHe was smili g again.\n\nFrannie put her hands on her hips. \"Are you trying to piss me off, Stuart Redman?\"\n\n\"No'm. I was just thinking I know where I can get you a scrub board, I think.\n\nJuney too, if she wants one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where?\"\n\n\"You let me look and see first.\" His smile disappeared, and he put his arms around her and his forehead on hers. \"You know I appreciate you washing my clothes,\" he said, \"and I know that a woman who is pregnant knows better than her man what she should and shouldn't be doing. But, Frannie, why bother?\"\n\n\"Why?\" She looked at him, perplexed. \"Well, what are you going to wear? Do you want to go around in dirty clothes?\"\n\n\"Frannie, the stores are full of clothes. And I'm an easy size.\"\n\n\"What, throw out old ones just because they're dirty?\"\n\nHe shrugged a little uneasily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No way, uh-uh,\" she said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"That's the old way, Stu. Like the boxes they used to put your Big Mac in or the no-deposit-no-return bottles. That's no way to start over.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's the old way, Stu. Like the boxes they used to put your Big Mac in or the no-deposit-no-return bottles. That's no way to start over.\"\n\nHe gave her a little kiss. \"All right. Only next washday it's my turn, you hear?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" She smiled a little slyly. \"And how long does that last? Until I deliver?\"\n\n\"Until we get the power back on,\" Stu said. \"Then I'm going to bring you the biggest, shiniest washer you ever saw, and hook it up myself.\"\n\n\"Offer accepted.\" She kissed him firmly and he kissed back, his strong hands moving restlessly in her hair. The result was a spreading warmth (hotness, let's not be coy, I'mhot and he always gets me hot when he does that) that first peaked her nipples, then spread down into her lower belly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You better stop,\" she said rather breathlessly, \"unless you plan to do more than talk.\"\n\n\"Maybe we'll talk later.\"\n\n\"The clothes-\"\n\n\"Soaking's good for that grimed-in dirt,\" he said seriously. She started to laugh and he stopped her mouth with a kiss. As he lifted her, set her on her feet, and led her inside, she was struck by the warmth of the sun on her shoulders and wondered, Was it ever so hot before? So strong? It's cleared up every last blemish on my back... could it be the ultraviolet, I wonder, or the altitude)? Is it this way every summer? Is it this hot?\n\nAnd then he was doing things to her, even on the stairs he was doing things to her, making her naked, making her hot, making her love him." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode: Collab writing\nContext: May reference existing characters/world\nAmount: three sentences\nVoice: Stephen King" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"... my name,\" she muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Praise my name, praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise Him ye creatures here below...\"\n\nShe raised her head and looked around the room in a kind of stupor. Her Bible had fallen to the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was dawnlight in the eastward-facing window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"O my Lord!\" she cried in a great and quavering voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who brought water from the rock when we were thirsty?\n\nWas that it? Dear God, was that it? Was that why the scales had covered her eyes, making her blind to the things she should know?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bitter tears began to fall from her eyes and she got slowly and painfully to her feet and walked to the window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arthritis jabbed blunt darning needles into the joints of her hips and knees.\n\nShe looked out and knew what she had to do now.\n\nShe went back to the closet and pulled the white cotton nightgown over her head." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She dropped it on the floor. Now she stood naked, revealing a body so lapped with wrinkles that it might have been the bed of time's great river.\n\n\"Thy will be done,\" she said, and began to dress.\n\nAn hour later she was walking slowly west on Mapleton Avenue toward the wooded tangles and' narrow-throated defiles beyond town." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Harold's small house was dark, deserted... and locked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That in itself was something of a freak in Boulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the old days you locked up when you went out so no one would steal your TV, stereo, your wife's jewels.\n\nBut now the stereos and TVs were free, much good they would do you with no juice to run them, and as for jewels, you could go to Denver and pick up a sackful any old time.\n\nWhy do you lock your door, Harold, when everything's free? Because nobody is as afraid of robbery as a thief? Could that be it?\n\nShe was no lockpicker. She had resigned herself to leaving when it occurred to her to try the cellar windows. They were set just above ground level, opaque with dirt. The first one she tried slid open sideways on its track, giving way grudgingly and sifting dirt down onto the basement floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fran looked around, but the world was quiet." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'harold' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one except Harold had settled in this far out on Arapahoe as yet. That was odd, too. Harold could grin until his face cracked and slap people on the back and pass the time of day with folks, he could and did gladly offer his help whenever it was asked for and sometimes when it wasn't, he could and did make people like him-and it was a fact that he was highly regarded in Boulder. But where he had chosen to live ...\n\n. that was something else, now wasn't it? That displayed a slightly different aspect of Harold's view of society and his place in it... maybe. Or maybe he just liked the quiet.\n\nShe wriggled in the window, getting her blouse dirty, and dropped to the floor. Now the cellar window was on a level with her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was no more a gymnast than she was a lockpicker, and she would have to stand on something to get back out.\n\nFran looked around. The basement had been finished off into a playroom/rumpus room. The kind of thing her own dad had always talked about but never quite got around to doing, she thought with a little pang of sadness. The walls were knotty pine with quadraphonic speakers embedded in them, there was an Armstrong suspended ceiling overhead, a large case filled with jigsaw puzzles and books, an electric train set, a slotcar racing set. There was also an air-hockey game on which Harold had indifferently set a case of Coke. It had been the kids' room, and posters dotted the wallsthe biggest, now old and frayed, showed George Bush coming out of a church in Harlem, hands raised high, a big grin on his face. The caption, in huge red letters, said: YOU DON'T WANT TO LAY NO BOOGIEWOOGIE ON THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL!\n\nShe suddenly felt sadder than she had since... well, since she couldn't remember, to tell the truth. She had been through shocks, and fear, and outright terror, and a perfect numbing savagery of grief, but this deep and aching sadness was something new." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With it came a sudden wave of homesickness for Ogunquit, for the ocean, for the good Maine hills and pines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For no reason at all she suddenly thought of Gus, the parking lot attendant at the Ogunquit public beach, and for a moment she thought her heart would break with loss and sorrow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was she doing here, poised between the plains and the mountains that broke the country in two? It wasn't her place. She didn't belong here.\n\nOne sob escaped her and it sounded so terrified and lonely that she clapped both hands over her mouth for the second time that day. No more, Frannie old kid old sock. You don't get over anything this big so quickly. A little at a time.\n\nIf you have to have a cry, have it later, not here in Harold Lauder's basement.\n\nBusiness first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She walked past the poster on her way to the stairs, and a bitter little smile crossed her face as she passed George Bush's grinning and tirelessly cheerful face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They sure laid some boogie-woogie on you, she thought. Someone did, anyhow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As she got to the top of the cellar stairs, she became certain that the door would be locked, but it opened easily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The kitchen was neat and shipshape, the luncheon dishes done up and drying in the drainer, the little Coleman gas stove washed off and sparkling... but a greasy smell of frying still hung in the air, like a ghost of Harold's old self, the Harold who had introduced himself into this part of her life by motoring up to her house behind the wheel of Roy Brannigan's Cadillac as she was burying her father.\n\nSure would be in a fix if Harold picked right now to come back, she thought.\n\nThe idea made her look suddenly over her shoulder. She half expected to see Harold standing by the door which led into the living room, grinning at her.\n\nThere was no one there, but her heart had begun to knock unpleasantly against her ribcage.\n\nThere was nothing in the kitchen, so she went into the living room.\n\nIt was dark, so dark it made her uneasy. Harold not only kept his doors locked, he kept his shades pulled. Again she felt as if she were witnessing an unconscious outward manifestation of Harold's personality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why would anyone keep their shades pulled down in a small city where that was the way the living came to know and mark the houses of the dead?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The living room, like the kitchen, was astringently neat, but the furniture was stodgy and a little seedy-looking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room's nicest feature was the fireplace, a huge stone job with a hearth wide enough to sit on. She did sit down for a moment, looking around thoughtfully. As she shifted, she felt a loose hearthstone under her fanny, and she was about to get up and look at it when someone knocked on the door.\n\nFear drifted down on her like a smothering weight of feathers. She was paralyzed with sudden terror. Her breath stopped, and she would not be aware until later that she had wet herself a little.\n\nThe knock came again, half a dozen quick, firm raps.\n\nMy God, she thought. The shades are down at least, thank heaven for that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That thought was followed by a sudden cold certainty that she had left her bike out where anyone could see it. Had she? She tried desperately to think, but for a long moment she could summon nothing to mind except a babble of gibberish that was unsettlingly familiar: Before removing the mote from thy neighbor's eye, remove the pie from thine own---\n\nThe knock came again, and a woman's voice: \"Anybody home?\"\n\nFran sat stockstill. She suddenly remembered that she had parked her bike around back, under Harold's clothesline. Not visible from the front of the house. But if Harold's visitor decided to try the back door The knob of the front door-Frannie could see it down the short length of hall- began to turn back and forth in frustrated half-circles.\n\nWhoever she is, I hope she's no better at locks than I am, Frannie thought, and then had to squeeze both hands over her mouth to stop an insane bray of laughter. That was when she looked down at her cotton slacks and saw how badly she had been frightened. At least she didn't scare the shit out of me, Fran thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At least, not yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The laughter bubbled up again, hysterical and frightened, just below the surface." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, with an indescribable sense of relief, she heard footfalls clicking away from the door and down Harold's concrete path.\n\nWhat Fran did next she did with no conscious decision at all. She ran quietly down the hall to the front door and put her eye to the small crack between the shade and the edge of the window. She saw a woman with long dark hair that was streaked with white. She climbed onto a small Vespa motorscooter that was parked at the curb. As the motor burped into life, she tossed her hair back and clipped it.\n\nIt's the Cross woman-the one who came over with Larry Underwood! Does she know Harold?\n\nThen Nadine had the scooter in gear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She started off with a little jerk and was soon out of sight. Fran uttered a huge sigh, and her legs turned to water.\n\nShe opened her mouth to let out the laugh that had been bubbling below the surface, knowing already how it would sound-shaky and relieved. Instead, she burst into tears.\n\nFive minutes later, too nervous now to search any further, she was boosting herself back through the cellar window from the seat of a wicker chair she had pulled over. Once out, she was able to push the chair fa enough so that it wouldn't be obvious someone had used it to climb out. It was still out of position, but people rarely noticed things like that... and it didn't look as if Harold used the basement at all, except to store his Coca-Cola.\n\nShe reclosed the window and got her bike. She still felt weak and stunned and a little nauseated from her scare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At least my pants are drying, she thought." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next time you go housebreaking, Frances Rebecca, remember to wear your continence pants.\n\nShe pedaled out of Harold's yard and left Arapahoe as soon as she could, coming back to the downtown area on Canyon Boulevard. She was back in her own apartment fifteen minutes later.\n\nThe place was utterly silent.\n\nShe opened her diary and looked down at the muddy chocolate fingerprint and wondered where Stu was.\n\nShe wondered if Harold was with him.\n\nOh Stu please come home. I need you." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Stephen King sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At quarter past two the next afternoon, Glen Bateman burst straight into the apartment without knocking. Fran was at Lucy Swann's house, where the two women were trying to get a sourdough sponge started. Stu was reading a Mac Brand Western. He looked up and saw Glen, his face pale and shocked, his eyes wide, and tossed the book on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stu,\" Glen said. \"Oh, man, Stu. I'm glad you're here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's wrong?\" he asked Glen sharply. \"Is it... did someone find her?\"\n\n\"No,\" Glen said. He sat down abruptly as if his legs had just given out. \"It's not bad news, it's good news. But it's very strange.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What? What is?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's Kojak. I took a nap after lunch and when I got up, Kojak was on the porch, fast asleep. He's beat to shit, Stu, he looks like he's been through a Mixmaster with a set of blunt blades, but it's him.\"\n\n\"You mean the dog? That Kojak?\"\n\n\"That's who I mean.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Same dog-tag that says Woodsville, N. H. Same red collar. Same dog. He's really scrawny, and he's been fighting. Dick Ellis-Dick was overjoyed to have an animal to work on for a change-he says he's lost one eye for good. Bad scratches on his sides and belly, some of them infected, but Dick took care of them. Gave him a sedative and taped up his belly. Dick said it looked like he'd tangled with a wolf, maybe more than one. No rabies, anyhow. He's clean.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen shook his head slowly, and two tears spilled down his cheeks. \"That damn dog came back to me. I wish to Christ I hadn't left him behind to come on his own, Stu. That makes me feel so friggin bad.\"\n\n\"It couldn't have been done, Glen. Not with the motorcycles.\"\n\n\"Yes, but... he followed me, Stu. That's the kind of thing you read about in Star Weekly... Faithful Dog Follows Master Two Thousand Miles. How could he do a thing like that? How?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe the same way we did. Dogs dream, you knowsure they do. Didn't you ever see one lying fast asleep on the kitchen floor, paws twitching away? There was an old guy in Arnette, Vic Palfrey, and he used to say dogs had two dreams, the good dream and the bad one. The good one's when the paws twitch. The bad one's the growling dream. Wake a dog up in the middle of the bad dream, the growling dream, and he's apt to bite you, like as not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen shook his head in a dazed way. \"You're saying he dreamed--\"\n\n\"I'm not sayin anything funnier than what you were talking last night,\" Stu reproached him.\n\nGlen grinned and nodded." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next one sentence. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Kojak wasn't asleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lay somewhere between, where most living things spend a good deal of time when they are hurt badly, but not badly enough to be in the mortal shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A deep itch lay in his belly like heat, the itch of healing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen would have to spend a good many hours trying to distract him from that Ach so he wouldn't scratch off the bandages, reopen the wounds, and reinfect them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But that was later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just now Kojak (who still thought of himself occasionally as Big Steve, which had been his original name) was content to drift in the place in between." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wolves had come for him in Nebraska, while he was still sniffing dejectedly around the house on jacklifters in the little town of Hemingford Home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scent of THE MAN—the feel of THE MAN-had led to this place and then stopped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where had he gone?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kojak didn't know. And then the wolves, four of them, had come out of the corn like ragged spirits of the dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their eyes blazed at Kojak, and their lips wrinkled back from their teeth to let out the low, ripping growls of their intent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kojak had retreated before them, growling himself, his paws stiff- out and digging at the dirt of Mother Abagail's dooryard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To the left hung the tire-swing, casting its depthless round shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lead wolf had attacked just as Kojak's hindquarters slipped into the shadow cast by the porch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It came in low, going for the belly, and the others followed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'kojak' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kojak sprang up and over the leader's snapping muzzle, giving the wolf his underbelly, and as the leader began to bite and scratch, Kojak fastened his own teeth in the wolf's neck, his teeth sinking deep, letting blood, and the wolf howled and tried to struggle away, its courage suddenly gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As it pulled away, Kojak's jaws closed with lightning speed on the wolf's tender muzzle, and the wolf uttered a howling, abject scream as its nose was laid open to the nostrils and pulled to strings and tatters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It fled yipping with agony, shaking its head crazily from side to side, spraying droplets of blood to the left and right, and in the crude telepathy that all animals of like kind share, Kojak could read its over-and- over thought clearly enough:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "(wasps in me o the wasps the wasps in my head wasps are up my head o)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then the others hit him, one from the left and another from the right like huge blunt bullets, the last of the trio submarining in low, grinning, snapping, ready to pull out his intestines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kojak had broken to the right, baying hoarsely, wanting to deal with that one first so he could get under the porch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he could get under the porch he could stand them off, maybe forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lying on the porch now he relived the battle in a kind of slow motion: the growls and howls, the strikes and withdrawals, the smell of blood that had gotten into his brain and gradually turned him into a kind of fighting machine, unaware of his own wounds until later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sent the wolf that had been on his right the way of the first, one of its eyes dead and a huge, gouting, and probably mortal wound in the side of its throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the wolf had done its own damage in return; most of it was superficial, but two of the gores were extremely deep, wounds that would heal to hard and twisting scar-tissue like a scrawling lowercase t. Even when he was an old, old dog (and Kojak lived another sixteen years, long after Glen Bateman died), those scars would pain and throb on wet days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had fought free, had scrambled under the porch, and when one of the two remaining wolves, overcome with bloodlust, tried to wriggle in after him, Kojak sprang on it, pinned it, and ripped its throat out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other retreated almost to the edge of the corn, whining uneasily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If Kojak had come out to do battle, it would have fled with its tail between its legs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Kojak didn't come out, not then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was done in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could only lie on his side, panting rapidly and weakly, licking his wounds and growling deep in his chest whenever he saw the shadow of the remaining wolf draw near." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then it was dark, and a misty halfmoon rode the sky over Nebraska." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And each time the last wolf heard Kojak alive and presumably still ready to fight, it shied away, whining." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometime after midnight it left, leaving Kojak alone to see if he would live or die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the early morning hours he had felt the presence of some other animal, something that terrified him into a series of soft whimpers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a thing in the corn, a thing walking in the corn, hunting for him, perhaps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kojak lay shivering, waiting to see if this thing would find him, his horrible thing that felt like a Man and a Wolf and an Eye, some dark thing like an ancient crocodile in the corn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some unknown time later, after the moon went down, Kojak felt that it was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He fell asleep. He had lain up under the porch for three days, coming out only when hunger and thirst drove him out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was always a puddle of water gathered below the lip of the handpump in the yard, and in the house there were all sorts of rich scraps, many of them from the meal Mother Abagail had cooked for Nick's party." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Kojak felt he could go on, he knew where to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not a scent that told him; it was a deep sense of heat that had come out of his own deep and mortal time, a glowing pocket of heat to the west of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so he came, limping most of the last five hundred miles on three legs, the pain always gnawing at his belly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From time to time he was able to smell THE MAN, and thus knew he was on the right track." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And at last he was here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "THE MAN was here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no wolves here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Food was here. There was no sense of that dark Thing... the Man with the stink of a wolf and the feel of an Eye that could see you over long miles if it happened to turn your way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For now, things were fine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so thinking (so far as dogs can think in their careful relating to a world seen almost wholly through feelings), Kojak drifted down deeper, now into real sleep, now into a dream, a good dream of chasing rabbits through the clover and timothy grass that was belly-high and wet with soothing dew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His name was Big Steve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was the north forty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And oh the rabbits are everywhere this gray and endless morning---" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he dreamed, his paws twitched." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 53" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Excerpts from the Minutes of the Ad Hoc Committee Meeting August 17, 1990" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This meeting was held at the home of Larry Underwood on South Forty-second Street in the Table Mesa area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All members of the committee were present..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first item of business concerned having the ad hoc committee elected as the permanent Boulder Committee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fran Goldsmith was recognized." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fran: \"Both Stu and I agreed that the best, easiest way for us all to get elected would be if Mother Abagail endorsed the whole slate. It would save us the problem of having twenty people nominated by their friends and possibly upsetting the applecart. But now we'll have to do it another way. I'm not going to suggest anything that isn't perfectly democratic, and you all know the plan anyway, but I just want to re-emphasize that each of us has to make sure we have someone who will nominate and second us. We won't do it for each other, obviously-that would look too much like the Mafia. And if you can't find one person to nominate you and another to second you, you might as well give up anyway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sue: \"Wow! That's sneaky, Fran.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fran: \"Yes-it is, a little.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen: \"We're edging back into the subject of the committee's morality, and although I'm sure we all find that an endlessly fascinating topic, I'd like to see it tabled for the next few months. I think we just have to agree that we're serving in the Free Zone's best interest and leave it at that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ralph: \"You sound a little pissed, Glen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glen: \"I am a little pissed. I admit it. The very fact that we've spent so much time eating at our own livers on this subject should give a pretty good indication as to where our hearts are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sue: \"The road to hell is paved with--\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen: \"Good intentions, yes, and since we all seem so worried about our intentions, we must surely be on the highway to heaven.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glen then said that he had intended to address the committee on the subject of our scouts or spies or whatever you want to call them, but that he wanted to make a motion instead that we meet to discuss that on the nineteenth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stu asked him why." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glen: \"Because we might not all be here on the nineteenth. Somebody might get voted out. It's a remote possibility, but no one really knows what a large group of people is going to do when they all get together in one place. We ought to be as careful as we can.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was good for a moment of silence, and the committee voted, 7-0, to meet on the nineteenth-as a Permanent Committee-to discuss the question of the scouts... or spies... or whatever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu was recognized to put a third item of business before the committee, concerning Mother Abagail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu: \"As you know, she's gone off for reasons of her own. Her note says she'll 'be gone for a while,' which is pretty vague, and that she'll be back 'if it's God's will.' Now, that's not very encouraging. We've had a search-party out for three days now and we haven't found a thing. We don't want to just drag her back, not if she doesn't want to come, but if she's lying up somewhere with a busted leg or if she's unconscious, that's a lot different. Now part of the problem is that there just aren't enough of us to search all the wildlands around here. But another part of it is the same thing that's slowing us down at the power station. There's just no organization. So what I'm looking for is permission to put this search-party on the agenda of the big meeting tomorrow Vht, same as the power station and the burial crew. And 9 like to see Harold Lauder in charge, because it was his idea in the first place.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen said that he didn't think any search-party was going to find very good news after a week or so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After all, the lady in question is a hundred and eight years old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The committee as a whole agreed with that, and then voted in favor of the motion, 7-0, as Stu had put it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To make this record as honest as possible, I should add there were several expressions of doubt over putting Harold in charge... but as Stu pointed out, it had been his idea to begin with, and not to give him command of the search-party would be a direct slap in the face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nick: \"I withdraw my objection to Harold, but not my basic reservations. I just don't like him very much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ralph Brentner asked if either Stu or Glen would write out Stu's motion about the search-party so he could add it to the agenda, which he plans to print at the high school tonight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu said he'd be glad to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Larry Underwood then moved that we adjourn, Ralph seconded it, and it was voted, 7-0." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frances Goldsmith, Secretary - - -" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The turnout for the meeting the next evening was almost total, and for the first time Larry Underwood, who had been in the Zone only a week, got an idea of just how large the community was becoming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was one thing to see people coming and going on the streets, usually alone or by twos, and quite another thing to see them all gathered together in one place-Chautauqua Auditorium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The place was full, every seat taken and more people sitting in the aisles and standing at the back of the hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were a curiously subdued crowd, murmuring but not babbling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time since he had gotten to Boulder it had rained all day long, a soft drizzle that seemed to hang suspended in the air, fogging you rather than wetting you, and even with the assemblage of close to six hundred, you could hear the quiet sound of rain on the roof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The loudest sound inside was the constant riffle of paper as people looked at the mimeographed agendas that had been piled up on two card tables just inside the double doors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This agenda read:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "THE BOULDER FREE ZONE" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Open Meeting Agenda August 18, 1990" }, { "from": "human", "value": "1. To see if the Free Zone will agree to read and ratify the Constitution of the United States of America." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "2. To see if the Free Zone will agree to read and ratify the Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States of America." }, { "from": "human", "value": "3. To see if the Free Zone will nominate and elect a slate of seven Free Zone representatives to serve as a governing board." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "4. To see if the Free Zone will agree to veto power for Abagail Freemantle on any and all matters agreed to by the Free Zone representatives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "5. To see if the Free Zone will approve a Burial Committee of at least twenty persons initially to decently inter those who died of the superflu epidemic in Boulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "6. To see if the Free Zone will approve a Power Committee of at least sixty persons initially to get the electricity back on before cold weather." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "7. To see if the Free Zone will approve a Search Committee of at least fifteen persons, its purpose to find the whereabouts of Abagail Freemantle, if possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Larry found that his nervous hands had been busy folding this agenda, which he knew nearly word for word, into a paper airplane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Being on the ad hoc committee was sort of fun, like a game-children playing at parliamentary process in someone's living room, sitting around and drinking Cokes, having a piece of the cake Frannie had made, talking things over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the part about sending spies over the mountains and right into the dark man's lap had seemed like a game, partly because it was a thing he couldn't imagine doing himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You'd have to have lost most of your marbles to face such a living nightmare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But in their closed sessions, with the room comfortably lit with Coleman gas lanterns, it had seemed okay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if the Judge or Dayna Jurgens or Tom Cullen got caught, it seemed-in those closed sessions, at least -a thing no more important than losing a rook or a queen in a chess game." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But now, sitting halfway down the hall with Lucy on one side and Leo on the other (he had not seen Nadine all day, and Leo didn't seem to know where she was, either; \"Out\" had been his disinterested response), the truth of it came home, and in his guts it felt as if a battering ram was in use." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was no game." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were five hundred and eighty people here and most of them didn't have any idea that Larry Underwood wasn't no nice guy, or that the first person Larry Underwood had attempted to take care of after the epidemic had died of a drug overdose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hands were damp and chilly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were trying to fold the agenda into a paper plane again and he stopped them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lucy took one of them, squeezed it, and smiled at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was able to respond only with something that felt like a grimace, and in his heart he heard his mother's voice: There's something left out of you, Larry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thinking of that made him feel panicky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was there a way out of this, or had things already gone too far?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't want this millstone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had already made a motion in closed session that could send Judge Farris to his death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he was voted out and someone else was voted into his seat, they'd have to take another vote on sending the Judge, wouldn't they?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sure they would. And they'd vote to send someone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Laurie Constable nominates me, I'll just stand up and say I decline." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sure, nobody can force me, can they?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not if I decide I want out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And who the fuck needs this kind of hassle?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wayne Stukey on that long ago beach saying: There's something in you that's like biting on tinfoil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Quietly, Lucy said: \"You'll be fine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He jumped. \"Huh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said you'll be fine. Won't he, Leo?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh yes,\" Leo said, bobbing his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes never left the audience, as if they had not yet been able to communicate its size to his brain. \"Fine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "You don't understand, you numb broad, Larry thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You're holding my hand and you don't understand that I could make a bad decision and wind up killing both of you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm well on my way to killing Judge Farris and he's seconding my fucking nomination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What a Polish firedrill this turned out to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A little sound escaped his throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you say something?\" Lucy asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Stu was walking across the stage to the podium, his red sweater and bluejeans very bright and clear in the harsh glow of the emergency lights, which were running from a Honda generator that Brad Kitchner and part of his crew from the power station had set up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The applause started somewhere in the middle of the hall, Larry was never sure where, and a cynical part of him was always convinced that it had been a plot arranged by Glen Bateman, their resident expert i the art/craft of crowd management." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At any rate, it didn't really matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first solitary spats swelled to a thunder of applause." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the stage, Stu paused by the podium, looking comically amazed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The applause was joined by cheers and shrill whistles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the entire audience rose to its feet, the applause swelling to a sound like heavy rain, and people were shouting, \"Bravo! Bravo!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu held up his hands, but they wouldn't stop; if anything, the sound redoubled in intensity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Larry glanced sideways at Lucy and saw she was applauding strenuously, her eyes fixed on Stu, her mouth curved in a trembling but triumphant smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was crying. On his other side Leo was also applauding, bringing his hands together again and again with so much force that Larry thought they would fall off if Leo kept on much longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the extremity of his joy, Leo's carefully won-back vocabulary had deserted him, the way English will sometimes desert a man or woman who has learned it as his or her second tongue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could only hoot loudly and enthusiastically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brad and Ralph had also run a PA from the generator and now Stu blew into the mike and then spoke: \"Ladies and gentlemen-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the applause rolled on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll take your seats--\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they were not ready to take their seats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The applause roared on and on, and Larry looked down because his own hands hurt, and he saw that he was applauding as frantically as the rest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ladies and gentlemen--\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The applause thundered and echoed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Overhead, a family of barnswallows that had taken up residence in this fine and private place after the plague struck now flew about crazily, swooping and diving, mad to get away to someplace where people weren't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We're applauding ourselves, Larry thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We're applauding the fact that we're here, alive, together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe we're saying hello to the group self again, I don't know. Hello, Boulder. Finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Good to be here, great to be alive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd take your seats, please, I sure would appreciate it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The applause began to taper off little by little." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now you could hear ladies- and some men, too-sniffing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Noses were honked. Conversations were whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was that rustling auditorium sound of people taking their seats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm glad you're all here,\" Stu said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm glad to be here myself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a whine of feedback from the PA and Stu muttered, \"Goddam thing,\" which was clearly picked up and broadcast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a ripple of laughter and Stu colored." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Guess we're all going to have to get used to this stuff again,\" he said, and that set off another burst of applause." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When that had run itself out, Stu said: \"For those of you who don't know me, I'm Stuart Redman, originally from Arnette, Texas, although that seems a far way down the road from where I am now, lemme tell you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He cleared his throat, feedback whined briefly, and he took a wary step back from the mike." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm also pretty nervous up here, so bear with me--\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We will, Stu!\" Harry Dunbarton yelled exuberantly, and there was appreciative laughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's like a camp meeting, Larry thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Next they'll be singing hymns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Mother Abagail was here, I bet we would be already." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Last time I had so many people looking at me was when our little consolidated high school made it to the football playoffs, and then they had twenty-one other guys to look at too, not to mention some girls in those little tiny skirts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A hearty burst of laughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lucy pulled at Larry's neck and whispered in his ear, \"What was he worried about? He's a natural!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Larry nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But if you'll bear with me, I'll get through it somehow,\" Stu said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "More applause. This crowd would applaud Nixon's resignation speech and ask him to encore on the piano, Larry thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "First off, I should explain about the ad hoc committee and how I happen to be up here at all,\" Stu said. \"There are seven of us who got together and planned for this meeting so we could get organized somehow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There's a lot of things to do, and I'd like to introduce each member of our committee to you now, and I hope you saved some applause for them, because they all pitched together to work out the agenda you've got m your hands right now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "First, Miss Frances Goldsmith." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stand up, Frannie, and let em see what you look like with a dress on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fran stood up. She was wearing a pretty kelly-green dress and a modest string of pearls that might have cost two thousand dollars in the old days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was roundly applauded, the applause accompanied by some good-natured wolf whistles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fran sat down, blushing furiously, and before the applause could die away entirely, Stu went on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Glen Bateman, from Woodsville, New Hampshire.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen stood, and they applauded him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He flipped a pair of twin Vs from each of his closed fists, and the crowd roared its approval." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stu introduced Larry second-to-last and he stood up, aware that Lucy was smiling up at him, and then that was lost in a warm comber of applause that washed over him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once, he thought, in another world, there would have been concerts, and this kind of applause would have been reserved for the show- closer, a little nothing tune called \"Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was better. He only stood for a second, but it seemed much longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew he would not decline his nomination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu introduced Nick last, and he got the longest, loudest applause." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When it died away, Stu said: \"This wasn't on the agenda, but I wonder if we could start by singing the National Anthem. I guess you folks remember the words and the tune.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was that ruffling, shuffling sound of people getting to their feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another pause as everyone waited for someone else to start." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then a girl's sweet voice rose in the air, solo for only the first three syllables: \"Oh, say can-\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'voice' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Frannie's voice, but for a moment it seemed to Larry to be underlaid by another voice, his own, and the place was not Boulder but upstate Vermont and the day was July 4, the Republic was two hundred and fourteen years old, and Rita lay dead in the tent behind him, her mouth filled with green puke and a bottle of pills in her stiffening hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A chill of gooseflesh passed over him and suddenly he felt that they were being watched, watched by something that could, in the words of that old song by The Who, see for miles and miles and miles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something awful and dark and alien." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For just a moment he felt an urge to run from this place, just run and never stop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was no game they were playing here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was serious business; killing business. Maybe worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then other voices joined in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"-can you see, by the dawn's early light,\" and Lucy was singing, holding his hand, crying again, and others were crying, most of them were crying, crying for what was lost and bitter, the runaway American dream, chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected, and stepping out over the line, and suddenly his memory was not of Rita, dead in the tent, but of he and his mother at Yankee Stadium-it was September 29, the Yankees were only a game and a half behind the Red Sox, and all things were still possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were fifty-five thousand people in the Stadium, all standing, the players in the field with their caps over their hearts, Guidry on the mound, Rickey Henderson was standing in deep left field (\"-by the twilight's last gleaming-\"), and the light- standards were on in the purple gloaming, moths and night-fliers banging softly against them, and New York was around them, teeming, city of night and light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Larry joined the singing too, and when it was done and the applause rolled out once more, he was crying a bit himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rita was gone. Alice Underwood was gone." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "New York was gone. America was gone. Even if they could defeat Randall Flagg, whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Stephen King. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stu, Fran, Sue Stern, and Nick walked back toward the center of town together, their feet clicking hollowly on the cement sidewalk as they crossed the C. U. campus toward Broadway. Around them, other people were streaming away, talking quietly, headed home. It was nearly eleven-thirty.\n\n\"It's chilly,\" Fran said. \"I wish I'd worn my jacket as well as this sweater.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick nodded. He also felt the chill. The Boulder evenings were always cool, but tonight it could be no more than fifty degrees. It served to remind that this strange and terrible summer was nearing its end. Not for the first time he wished that Mother Abagail's God or Muse or whatever It was had been more in favor of Miami or New Orleans. But that might not have been so great, now that he stopped to think about it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "High humidity, lots of rain... and lots of bodies." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'people' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At least Boulder was dry.\n\n\"They jumped the shit out of me, wanting the Judge for the Law Committee,\" Stu said. \"We should have expected that. \"\n\nFrannie nodded, and Nick jotted quickly on his pad: \"Sure. People will miss Tom & Dayna, 2. Fax of life.\"\n\n\"Think people will be suspicious, Nick?\" Stu asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick nodded. \"They'll wonder if they did go west. For real.\"\n\nThey all considered this as Nick took out his butane match and burned the scrap of paper.\n\n\"That's tough,\" Stu said finally. \"You really think so?\"\n\n\"Sure, he's right,\" Sue said glumly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What else have they got to think? That Judge Farris went to Far Rockaway to ride the Monster Coaster?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We were lucky to get away tonight without a big discussion of what's going on in the West,\" Fran said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'think' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nick wrote: \"Sure were. Next time we'll have to tackle it head on, I think.\n\nThat's why I want to postpone another big meeting as long as possible. Three weeks, maybe. September 15?\"\n\nSue said, \"We can hold off that long if Brad gets the power on.\"\n\n\"I think he will,\" Stu said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going home,\" Sue told them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Big day tomorrow. Dayna's off. I'm going with her as far as Colorado Springs.\"\n\n\"Do you think that's safe, Sue?\" Fran asked.\n\nShe shrugged. \"Safer for her than for me.\"\n\n\"How did she take it?\" Fran asked her.\n\n\"Well, she's a funny sort of girl. She was a jock in college, you know. Tennis and swimming were her biggies, although she played them all. She went to some small community college down in Georgia, but for the first two years she kept on going with her high school boyfriend. He was a big leather jacket type, me Tarzan, you Jane, so get out in the kitchen and rattle those pots and pans. Then she got dragged along to a couple of female consciousness meetings by her roomie, who was this big libber type.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And as an upshot, she got to be an even bigger libber than the roomie,\" Fran guessed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"First a libber, then a lesbian,\" Sue said.\n\nStu stopped as if thunderstruck. Frannie looked at him with guarded amusement.\n\n\"Come on, splendor in the grass,\" she said. \"See if you can't fix the hinge on your mouth.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu shut his mouth with a snap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sue went on: \"She dropped both rocks on the caveman boyfriend at the same time. It blew his wheels, and he came after her with a gun. She disarmed him.\n\nShe says it was the major turning point of her life: She told me she always knew she was stronger and more agile than he was—she knew it intellectually. But it took doing it to put it in her guts.\"\n\n\"You sayin she hates men?\" Stu asked, looking at Sue closely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Susan shook her head. \"She's bi now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bye now?\" Stu said doubtfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's happy with either sex, Stuart. And I hope you're not going to start leaning on the committee to institute the blue laws along with 'Thou shalt not kill.' \"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got enough to worry about without gettin into who sleeps with who,\" he mumbled, and they all laughed. \"I only asked because I don't want anyone goin into this thing as a crusade. We need eyes over there, not guerrilla fighters.\n\nThis is a job for a weasel, not a lion.\"\n\n\"She knows that,\" Susan said. \"Fran asked me how she took it when I asked her if she'd go over there for us. She took it very well. For one thing, she reminded me that if we'd stayed with those men... remember how you found us, Stu?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If we'd stayed with them, we would have either wound up dead or in the West anyway, because that's the direction they were going in... at least when they were sober enough to read the road-signs. She said she'd been wondering what. her place in the Zone was, and guessed that her place in the Zone was out of it.\n\nAnd she said...\"\n\n\"What?\" Fran asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That she'd try to come back,\" Sue said, rather abruptly, and said no more.\n\nWhat else Dayna Jurgens had said was between the two of them, something not even the other members of the committee were to know. Dayna was going west with a ten-inch switchblade strapped to her arm in a spring-loaded clip. When she bent her wrist sharply, the spring unloaded and hey, presto, she had suddenly grown a sixth finger, one which was ten inches long and doublebladed. She felt that most of them-the men-would not have understood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he's a big enough dictator, then maybe he's all that's holding them together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he was gone, maybe they'd start fighting and squabbling among themselves. It might be the end of them, if he dies. And if I get close to him, Susie, he better have his guardian devil with him.\n\nThey'll kill you, Dayna.\n\nMaybe. Maybe not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It might be worth it just to have the pleasure of watching his guts fall out on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Susan could have stopped her, maybe, but she hadn't tried." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had contented herself with extracting a promise from Dayna that she would stick to the original script unless a near-perfect opportunity came up. To that, Dayna had agreed and Sue didn't think her friend would get that chance. Flagg would be well guarded. Still, in the three days since she had broached the idea of going west as a spy to her friend, Sue Stern had found it very difficult to sleep.\n\n\"Well,\" she said to the rest of them now, \"I'm home to bed. Night, folks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She walked off, hands in the pockets of her fatigue jacket." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She looks older,\" Stu said.\n\nNick wrote and offered the open pad to both of them.\n\nWe all do was written there." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode: Collab writing\nContext: May reference existing characters/world\nAmount: three sentences\nVoice: Stephen King" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the exam was over, George left her for a while to do something in the next room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laurie stayed with her while Fran dressed.\n\nAs she was buttoning her blouse, Laurie said quietly: \"I envy you, you know.\n\nUncertainty and all. Dick and I had been trying to make a baby like mad. It's really funny-I was the one who used to wear a ZERO POPULATI0N button to work. It meant zero population growth, of course, but when I think about that button now, it gives me a really creepy feeling. Oh, Frannie, yours is going to be the first. And I know it will be all right. It has to be.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Job: User writes start, you add ~seven sentences sentences. Style: Stephen King. Note: May include established characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ralph? Ralph Brentner, you home? Hooo-hooo, anybody home?\"\n\nShe stood on the steps, looking at the house. No motorcycles in the yard, only a couple of bikes parked around to one side. Ralph would have heard her, but there was the mute to think about. The deaf-mute. You could holler until you were blue and he wouldn't answer and still he, might be there.\n\nShifting her shopping bag from one arm to the other, Nadine tried the door and found it unlocked. She stepped inside out of the fine mist which was falling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was in a small foyer." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'there' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four steps went up to the kitchen, and a flight of them went down to the basement area where, Harold said Andros had his apartment.\n\nPutting her most pleasant expression on her face, Nadine went downstairs, fixing her excuse in her mind if he should be there.\n\nI came right in because I didn't think you'd know I was knocking. Some of us wanted to know if there's going to be a late shift wrapping those two motors that blew. Did Brad say anything to you?\n\nThere were only two rooms down here. One of them was a bedroom as simple as a monk's cell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other was a study." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a desk, a big chair, a wastebasket, a bookcase. The top of the desk was littered with scraps of paper and she looked through them idly. Most of them made little sense to her-she guessed they were Nick's side of some conversation (I guess so, but shouldn't we ask him if it can be done in some simpler way? one of them read). Others seemed to be memos to himself, jottings, thoughts. A few of them reminded her of the boxes in Harold's ledger, what he called his \"Guideposts to a Better Life\" with a sarcastic smile.\n\nOne read: Talk to Glen about trade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do any of us know how trade starts?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scarcity of goods, isn't it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or a modified corner on some market? Skills. That may be a key word. What if Brad Kitchner decides to sell instead of giving away?\n\nOr the doc? What would we pay with? Hmmm.\n\nAnother: Community protection is a two-way street.\n\nAnother: Every time we talk about the law I spend the night having nightmares about Shoyo. Watching them die. Watching Childress throw his supper around the cell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The law, the law, what do we do about the goddamned law? Capital punishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now there's a smiley thought. When Brad gets the power on, how long before someone asks him to rig up an electric chair?\n\nShe turned away from the scraps—reluctantly. It was fascinating to look through papers left by a man who could think wholly only by writing (one of her college profs had been fond of saying that the thought process can never be complete without articulation), but her purpose down here was already completed.\n\nNick was not here, no one was here. To linger overlong would be to press her luck unnecessarily.\n\nShe went back upstairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Harold had told her they would probably meet in the living room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a huge room, carpeted with a thick wine-colored shag rug, dominated by a freestanding fireplace that went up through the roof in a column of rock. The entire west wall was glass, giving on a magnificent view of the Flatirons. It made her feel as exposed as a bug on a wall. She knew that the outer surface of the thermoplex was iodized so that anyone outside would only see a mirrorlike reflection, but the psychological feeling was still one of utter exposure. She wanted to finish quickly.\n\nOn the southern side of the room she found what she was looking for, a deep closet that Ralph hadn't cleaned out. Coats hung far back inside, and in the rear comer there was a tangle of boots and mittens and winter woolens about three feet deep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Working quickly, she took the groceries out of her shopping bag." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<EMBED THIS>>: \"if that device works, and I have no reason whatever to believe it won't, it will take the house and most of the surrounding hillside. Put it anywhere you think it will be unobserved until their meeting. A closet will be fine. The extra wall will blow out and become shrapnel. I trust your judgment, dear. It's going to be just like the old fairy tale about the tailor and the flies. Seven at a blow. Only in this case, we're dealing with a bunch of political cockroaches.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were camouflage, and there was only a single layer of them. Beneath the cans of tomato paste and sardines was the Hush Puppies shoebox with the dynamite and the walkie-talkie inside.\n\n\"If I put it in a closet, will it still work?\" she had asked. \"Won't the extra wall muffle the blast?\"\n\n\"Nadine,\" Harold had responded, \"if that device works, and I have no reason whatever to believe it won't, it will take the house and most of the surrounding hillside. Put it anywhere you think it will be unobserved until their meeting. A closet will be fine. The extra wall will blow out and become shrapnel. I trust your judgment, dear. It's going to be just like the old fairy tale about the tailor and the flies. Seven at a blow. Only in this case, we're dealing with a bunch of political cockroaches.\"\n\nNadine pushed aside boots and scarves, made a hole, and slipped the shoebox into it. She covered it over again and then worked her way out of the closet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There. Done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For better or worse.\n\nShe left the house quickly, not looking back, trying to ignore the voice that wouldn't stay dead, the voice that was now telling her to go back in there and pull the wires that ran between the blasting caps and the walkie-talkie, telling her to give this up before it drove her mad. Because wasn't that what was really lying somewhere up ahead, now maybe less than two weeks ahead? Wasn't madness the final logical conclusion?\n\nShe slipped the bag of groceries into the Vespa's carrier and kicked the machine into life. And all the time she was driving away, that voice went on:\n\nYou're not going to leave that there, are you?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You're not going to leave that bomb in there, are you?\n\nIn a world where so many have died---\n\nShe leaned into a turn, barely able to see where she was going. Tears had begun to blur her eyes.\n\n—the one great sin is to take a human life.\n\nSeven lives here. No, more than that, because the committee was going to hear reports from the heads of several subcommittees.\n\nShe stopped at the corner of Baseline and Broadway, thinking she would turn around and go back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was shuddering all over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And later she would never be able to explain to Harold precisely what had happened-in truth, she never even tried. It was a foretaste of the horrors to come.\n\nShe felt a blackness creeping over her vision.\n\nIt came like a dark curtain slowly drawn, flipping and flapping in a mild breeze. Every now and then the breeze would gust, the curtain would flap more vigorously, and she w uld see a bit of daylight under its hem, a little bit of this deserted intersection.\n\nBut the curtain came over her vision in steady blackout drifts and soon she was lost in it. She was blind, she was deaf, she was without the sense of touch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thinking creature, the Nadine-ego, drifted in a warm black cocoon like seawater, like amniotic fluid.\n\nAnd she felt him creep into her.\n\nA shriek built up within her, but she had no mouth with which to scream.\n\nPenetration: entropy.\n\nShe didn't know what those words meant, put together like that; she only knew that they were right.\n\nIt was like nothing she had ever felt before. Later, metaphors occurred to her to describe it, and she rejected them, one by one:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "You're swimming and suddenly, in the midst of the warm water, you're treading water in a pocket of deep, numbing cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You've been given Novocain and the dentist pulls a tooth. It comes out with a painless tug. You spit blood into the white enamel basin. There's a hole in you; you've been gouged. You can slip your tongue into the hole where part of you was living a second ago.\n\nYou stare at your face in the mirror. You stare at it for a long time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Five minutes, ten, fifteen." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No fair blinking. You watch with an intellectual sort of horror as your face changes, like the face of Lon Chaney, Jr., in a werewolf epic. You become a stranger to yourself, an olive-skinned Doppelganger, a psychotic Vampira with pale skin and fishslit eyes.\n\nIt was really none of those things, but there was a tastetrace of all of them.\n\nThe dark man entered her, and he was cold." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with 2 sentences in Stephen King's voice, keeping within the Horror genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about Nick?\" Stu shouted, grabbing her shoulders.\n\n\"We have to get him out-Stu-something's going to happen, something awful-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Al Bundell shouted: \"What the hell is going on, Stuart?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Stu said.\n\n\"Stu, please, we have to get Nick out of there!\" Fran screamed.\n\nThat was when the house blew up behind them." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: This is part of a larger narrative. The user will write a segment, then you need to write around 10 sentences continuing directly from it. Characters and events may be pre-established from earlier chapters.\n\nAuthor style: Stephen King\nGenre: Horror" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stu was being shaken awake, and it took him a long time to come all the way around. His mind ran over a slow and seemingly endless list of people who might be trying to rob his sleep. It was his mother, telling him it was time to get up and light the stoves and get ready for school. It was Manuel, the bouncer in that sleazy little Nuevo Laredo whorehouse, telling him his twenty dollars was used up and it would be another twenty if he wanted to stay all night. It was a nurse in a white all-over suit who wanted to take his blood pressure and a throat culture. It was Frannie.\n\nIt was Randall Flagg.\n\nThe last thought brought him up like a dash of cold water in the face. It was none of those people. It was Glen Bateman, with Kojak at his knee.\n\n\"You're a hard man to wake up, East Texas,\" Glen said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like a stone post.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was only a vague shape in nearly total darkness.\n\n\"Well, you could have turned on the damn light to start with.\"\n\n\"You know, I clean forgot all about that.\"\n\nStu switched on the lamp, squinted against the sudden bright light, and peered owlishly at the wind-up alarm clock. It was quarter to three in the morning.\n\n\"What are you doing here, Glen? I was sleepin, in case you didn't happen to notice.\"\n\nHe got his first good look at Glen as he put the clock down. He looked pale, scared... and old. The lines were drawn deeply into his face and he looked haggard.\n\n\"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mother Abagail,\" Glen said quietly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dead?\"\n\n\"God help me, I almost wish she were. She's awake. She wants us.\"\n\n\"The two of us?\"\n\n\"The five of us. She-\" His voice roughened, went hoarse. \"She knew Nick and Susan were dead, and she knew Fran was in the hospital. I don't know how, but she did.\"\n\n\"And she wants the committee?\"\n\n\"What's left of it. She's dying and she says she has to tell us something. And I don't know if I want to hear it.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing exercise: eight sentences sentences continuing this chapter, Stephen King style, Horror genre. characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fran knew about the old woman's physical condition, but it was still a nasty shock. There was nothing left of her but a pemmican-tough membrane of skin and tendon binding her bones. There was not even a smell of putrescence and oncoming death in the room; instead there was a dry attic smell... no, a parlor smell.\n\nHalf the length of the IV needle hung out of her flesh, simply because there was nowhere for it to go.\n\nYet the eyes had not changed. They were warm and kind and human. That was a relief, but Fran still felt a kind of terror... not strictly fear, but perhaps something more sanctified-awe. Was it awe? An impending feeling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not doom, but as though some dreadful responsibility was poised above their heads like a stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Man proposes-God disposes.\n\n\"Little girl, sit down,\" Mother Abagail whispered. \"You're in pain.\"\n\nLarry led her to an armchair and Fran sat down with a thin, whistling sigh of relief, although she knew even sitting would pain her after a while.\n\nMother Abagail was still watching her with those bright eyes.\n\n\"You're quick with child,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Yes... how...\"\n\n\"Shhhhh...\"\n\nSilence fell in the room, deep silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fascinated, hypnotized, Fran looked at the dying old woman who had been in their dreams before she had been in their lives." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look out the window, little girl.\"\n\nFran turned, her face to the window, where Larry had stood and looked out at the gathered people two days before. She saw not pressing darkness but a quiet light. It was not a reflection of the room; it was morning light. She was looking at the faint, slightly distorted reflection of a bright nursery with ruffled check curtains. There was a crib-but it was empty. There was a playpen- empty. A mobile of bright plastic butterflies-moved only by the wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dread clapped its cold hands around her heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The others saw it on her face but did not understand it; they saw nothing through the window but a section of lawn lit by a streetlight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where's the baby?\" Fran asked hoarsely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stuart is not the baby's father, little girl. But his life is in Stuart's hands, and in God's. This chap will have four fathers. If God lets him draw breath at all.\"\n\n\"If he draws-\"\n\n\"God has hidden that from my eyes,\" she whispered.\n\nThe empty nursery was gone. Fran saw only darkness. And now dread closed its hands into fists, her heart beating between them.\n\nMother Abagail whispered: \"The Imp has called his bride, and he means to put her with child. Will he let your child live?\"\n\n\"Stop it,\" Frannie moaned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She put her hands over her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Silence, deep silence like snow in the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glen Bateman's face was an old dull searchlight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lucy 's right hand worked slowly up and down the neck of her bathrobe. Ralph had his hat in his hands, picking absently at the feather in the band. Stu looked at Frannie, but could not go to her. Not now. He thought fleetingly of the woman at the meeting, the one who had put her hands rapidly over her eyes, ears, and mouth at the mention of the dark man's name.\n\n\"Mother, father, wife, husband,\" Mother Abagail whispered. \"Set against them, the Prince of High Places, the lord of dark mornings. I sinned in pride. So have you all, all sinned in pride. Ain't you heard it said, put not your faith in the lords and princes of this world?\"\n\nThey watched her.\n\n\"Electric lights ain't the answer, Stu Redman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CB radio ain't it, either, Ralph Brentner. Sociology won't end it, Glen Bateman. And you doin penance for a life that's long since a closed book won't stop it from coming, Larry Underwood.\n\nAnd your boy-child won't stop it either, Fran Goldsmith. The bad moon has risen.\n\nYou propose nothing in the sight of God.\"\n\nShe looked at each of them in turn. \"God will dispose as He sees fit. You are not the potter but the potter's clay. Mayhap the man in the West is the wheel on which you will be broken. I am not allowed to know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A tear, amazing in that dying desert, stole from her left eye and rolled down her cheek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mother, what should we do?\" Ralph asked.\n\n\"Draw near, all of you. My time is short. I'm going home to glory, and there's never been no human more ready than I am now. Get close to me.\"\n\nRalph sat on the edge of the bed. Larry and Glen stood at the foot of it. Fran got up with a grimace, and Stu dragged her chair up beside Ralph. She sat down again and took his hand with her own cold fingers.\n\n\"God didn't bring you folks together to make a committee or a community,\" she said. \"He brought you here only to send you further, on a quest. He means for you to try and destroy this Dark Prince, this Man of Far Leagues.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'mother' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ticking silence. In it, Mother Abagail sighed.\n\n\"I thought it was Nick to lead you, but He's taken Nickalthough not all of Nick is gone yet, it seems to me. No, not all. But you must lead, Stuart. And if it's His will to take Stu, then you must lead, Larry. And if He takes you, it falls to Ralph.\"\n\n\"Looks like I'm riding drag,\" Glen began. \"What--\"\n\n\"Lead?\" Fran asked coldly. \"Lead? Lead where--?\"\n\n\"Why, west, little girl,\" Mother Abagail said. \"West. You're not to go. Only these four.\"\n\n\"No!\" She was on her feet in spite of the pain. \"What are you saying? That the four of them are just supposed to deliver themselves into his hands? The heart and soul and guts of the Free Zone?\" Her eyes blazed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'killer' 3 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So he can hang them on crosses and just walk in here next summer and kill everyone? I won't see my man sacrificed to your killer God. Fuck Him.\"\n\n\"Frannie!\" Stu gasped.\n\n\"Killer God! Killer God!\" she spat. \"Millions—maybe billions—dead in the plague. Millions more afterward. We don't even know if the children will live.\n\nIsn't He done yet? Does it just have to go on and on until the earth belongs to the rats and the roaches? He's no God. He's a daemon, and you're His witch.\"\n\n\"Stop it, Frannie.\"\n\n\"No problem. I'm done. I want to leave. Take me home, Stu. Not to the hospital but back home.\"\n\n\"We'll listen to what she has to say.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fine. You listen for both of us. I'm leaving.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Little girl.\"\n\n\"Don't call me that!\"\n\nHer hand shot out and closed around Frannie's wrist. Fran went rigid. Her eyes closed. Her head snapped back.\n\n\"Don't D-D-Don't... OH MY GOD—STU--\"\n\n\"Here! Here!\" Stu roared. \"What are you doing to her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mother Abagail didn't answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The moment spun out, seemed to stretch into a pocket of eternity, and then the old woman let go.\n\nSlowly, dazedly, Fran began to massage the wrist Mother Abagail had taken, although there was no red ring or dent in the flesh to show that pressure had been applied. Frannie's eyes suddenly widened.\n\n\"Hon?\" Stu asked anxiously.\n\n\"Gone,\" Fran muttered.\n\n\"What... what's she talking about?\" Stu looked around at the others in shaken appeal. Glen only shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face was white and strained but not disbelieving.\n\n\"The pain... the whiplash. The pain in my back. It's gone.\" She looked at Stu, dazed. \"It's all gone. Look.\" She bent and touched her toes lightly: once, then twice. Then she bent a third time and placed her palms flat on the floor without unlocking her knees.\n\nShe stood up again and met Mother Abagail's eyes.\n\n\"s this a bribe from your God?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because if it is, He can take His cure back.\n\nI'd rather have the pain if Stu comes with it.\"\n\n\"God don't lay on no bribes, child,\" Mother Abagail whispered. \"He just makes a sign and lets people take it as they will.\"\n\n\"Stu isn't going west,\" Fran said, but now she seemed bewildered as well as frightened.\n\n\"Sit down,\" Stu said. \"We'll listen to what she has to say.\"\n\nFran sat down, shocked, unbelieving, lost at sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hands kept stealing around to the small of her back." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'knowing' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are to go west,\" Mother Abagail whispered. \"You are to take no food, no water. You are to go this very day, and in the clothes you stand up in. You are to go on foot. I am in the way of knowing that one of you will not reach your destination, but I don't know which will be the one to fall. I am in the way of knowing that the rest will be taken before this man Flagg, who is not a man at all but a supernatural being. I don't know if it's God's will for you to defeat him. I don't know if it's God's will for you to ever see Boulder again. Those things are not for me to see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he is in Las Vegas, and you must go there, and it is there that you will make your stand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You will go, and you will not falter, because you will have the Everlasting Arm of the Lord God of Hosts to lean on.\n\nYes. With God's help you will stand.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"That's all. I've said m'piece.\"\n\n\"No,\" Fran whispered. \"It can't be.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" Glen said in a kind of croak. He cleared his throat. \"Mother, we're not 'in the way of understanding,' if you see what I mean. We're... we're not blessed with your closeness to whatever is controlling this. It just isn't our way. Fran's right. If we go over there we'll be slaughtered, probably by the first pickets we come to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you no eyes? You've just seen Fran healed of her affliction by God, through me. Do you think His plan for you is to let you be shot and killed by the Dark Prince's least minion?\"\n\n\"But, Mother-\"\n\n\"No.\" She raised her hand and waved his words away. \"It's not my place to argue with you, or convince, but only to put you in the way of understanding God's plan for you. Listen, Glen.\"\n\nAnd suddenly, from Mother Abagail's mouth, the voice of Glen Bateman issued, frightening them all and making Fran shrink back against Stu with a little cry.\n\n\"Mother Abagail calls him the devil's pawn,\" this strong, masculine voice said, originating somehow in the old woman's wasted chest and emerging from her toothless mouth. \"Maybe he's just the last magician of rational thought, gathering the tools of technology against us. Maybe he's something more, something darker. I only know that he is. And I no longer think that sociology or psychology or any other ology will put a stop to him. I think only white magic will do that.\"\n\nGlen's mouth hung open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that a true thing, or are those the words of a liar?\" Mother Abagail said.\n\n\"I don't know if it's true or not, but they're my words,\" Glen said shakily.\n\n\"Trust. All of you, trust. Larry... Ralph... Stu... Glen...\n\nFrannie. You most patic'ly, Frannie. Trust... and obey the word of God.\"\n\n\"Do we have a choice?\" Larry asked bitterly.\n\nShe turned to look at him, surprised. \"A choice? There's always a choice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's God's way, always will be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your will is still free. Do as you will.\n\nThere's no set of leg-irons on you. But... this is what God wants of you.\"\n\nThat silence again, like deep snow. At last, Ralph broke it. \"Says in the Bible that David did the job on Goliath,\" he said. \"I'll be going along if you say it's right, Mother.\"\n\nShe took his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me,\" Larry said. \"Me too. Okay.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sighed and put his hands on his forehead as if it ached. Glen opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, there was a heavy, tired sigh from the corner and a thud.\n\nIt was Lucy, whom they had all forgotten. She had fainted." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next morning he had driven west again, his arthritis no worse but certainly no better, and at just past eleven he had stopped at a small cafe for lunch. And as he finished his sandwich and thermos of coffee, he had seen a large black crow flutter down and land on the telephone wire half a block up the street. The Judge watched it, fascinated, the red thermos cup stopped dead halfway between the table and his mouth. It wasn't the same crow, of course not.\n\nThere must be millions of crows by now, all of them plump and sassy. It was a crow's world now. But all the same, he felt that it was the same crow, and he felt a presentiment of doom, a creeping resignation that it was all over.\n\nHe was no longer hungry.\n\nHe pushed on. Some days later, at quarter past twelve in the afternoon, now in Oregon and moving west on Highway 86, he drove through the town of Copperfleld, not even glancing toward the five-and-dime where Bobby Terry watched him go by, slackjawed with amazement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Garand was beside him on the seat, the safety still off, a box of ammo beside it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Judge had decided to shoot any crow he might see.\n\nJust on general principles." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Stephen King. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Late that afternoon, a cold rain began to fall, chilling them all and damping conversation. Larry walked by himself, hands shoved in his pockets. At first he thought about Harold Lauder, whose corpse they had found two days ago-there seemed to be an unspoken conspiracy among them not to talk about Harold-but eventually his thoughts turned to the person he had dubbed the Wolfman.\n\nThey had found the Wolfman just east of the Eisenhower Tunnel. The traffic was badly jammed up there, and the stink of death had been sickly potent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Wolfman had been half in and half out of an Austin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was wearing pegged jeans and a silk sequined Western shirt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The corpses of several wolves lay around the Austin. The Wolfman himself was half in and half out of the Austin's passenger seat, and a dead wolf lay on his chest. The Wolfman's hands were wrapped around the wolf's neck, and the wolfs bloody muzzle was angled up to the Wolfman's neck. Reconstructing, it seemed to all of them that a pack of wolves had come down out of the higher mountains, had spotted this lone man, and had attacked.\n\nThe Wolfman had had a gun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had dropped several of them before retreating to the Austin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How long before hunger had forced him from his refuge?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Larry didn't know, didn't want to know. But he had seen how terribly thin the Wolfman had been. A week, maybe. He had been going west, whoever he was, going to join the dark man, but Larry would not have wished such a dreadful fate on anyone. He had spoken of it once to Stu, two days after they had emerged from the tunnel, with the Wolfman safely behind them.\n\n\"Why would a bunch of wolves hang around so long, Stu?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean, if they wanted something to eat, couldn't they find it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd think so, yeah.\"\n\nIt was a dreadful mystery to him, and he kept working it over in his mind, knowing he would never find the solution. Whoever the Wolfman had been, he hadn't been lacking in the balls department. Finally driven by hunger and thirst, he had opened the passenger door. One of the wolves had jumped him and torn his throat out." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the Wolfman had throttled it to death even as he himself died.\n\nThe four of them had gone through the Eisenhower Tunnel roped together, and in that horrible blackness, Larry's mind had turned to the trip he had made through the Lincoln Tunnel. Only now it was not images of Rita Blakemoor that haunted him but the face of the Wolfman, frozen in its final snarl as he and the wolf had killed each other.\n\nWere the wolves sent to kill that man?\n\nBut that thought was too unsettling to even consider. He tried to push the whole thing out of his mind and just keep walking, but that was a hard thing to do." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next one sentence. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was not the next day, or the day after that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the evening of September 27 they camped in the town of Freemont Junction, and there was plenty to eat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I keep expecting it to be over,\" Larry told Glen that evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And every day that it's not, it gets worse.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen nodded. \"I feel the same way. It would be funny if he was just a mirage, wouldn't it? Nothing but a bad dream in our collective consciousness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Larry looked at him with momentary surprised consideration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he shook his head slowly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I don't think it's just a dream.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glen smiled. \"Nor do I, young man. Nor do I.\"\n\nThey made contact the following day." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Stephen King. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu woke up when Tom eased him down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry,\" Tom said apologetically." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"I had to rest my arms.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I had to rest my arms.\" He first twirled, then flexed them.\n\n\"You rest all you want,\" Stu said. \"Slow and easy wins the race.\" His head was thudding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found the Anacin and dry-swallowed two of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It felt as if his throat had been lined with sandpaper and some sadistic Soul was striking matches on it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'could' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He checked the sleeping bag seams. As he had expected, they were coming unraveled, but it wasn't too bad yet. They were on a long, gradual upslope, exactly the sort of thing he had been looking for. On a slope like this, better than two miles long, a car with the clutch disengaged could get cruising along pretty good. You could try to popstart it in second, maybe even third gear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked longingly to the left, where a plum-colored Triumph was parked askew in the breakdown lane. Something skeletal in a bright woolen sweater leaned behind the wheel. The Triumph would have a manual transmission, but there was no way in God's world that he could get his splinted leg into that small cabin.\n\n\"How far have we come?\" he asked Tom, but Tom could only shrug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been quite a piece, anyway, Stu thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom had pulled him for at least three hours before stopping to rest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It spoke of phenomenal strength. The old landmarks were gone in the distance. Tom, who was built like a young bull, had dragged him maybe six or eight miles while he dozed. \"You rest all you want,\" he repeated.\n\n\"Don't knock yourself out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tom's okay. O-and-K, that spells okay, laws, yes, everybody knows that.\"\n\nTom wolfed a huge lunch, and Stu managed to eat a little: Then they went on.\n\nThe road continued to curve upward, and Stu began to realize it had to be this hill. If they crested it without finding the right car, it would take them another two hours to get to the next one. Then dark. Rain or snow, from the look of the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A nice cold night out in the wet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And goodbye, Stu Redman.\n\nThey came up to a Chevrolet sedan.\n\n\"Stop,\" he croaked, and Tom set the travois down. \"Go over and look in that car. Count the pedals on the floor. Tell me if there's two or three.\"\n\nTom trotted over and opened the car door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A mummy in a flowered print dress fell out like someone's bad joke. Her purse fell out beside her, scattering cosmetics, tissues, and money.\n\n\"Two,\" Tom called back to Stu.\n\n\"Okay. We got to go on.\"\n\nTom came back, took a deep breath, and grabbed the handles of the travois." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A quarter of a mile farther along, they came to a VW van." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Want me to count the pedals?\" Tom asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, not this time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The van was standing on three flats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He began to think they were not going to find it; their luck was simply not in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They came to a station wagon that had only one flat shoe, it could be changed, but like the Chevy sedan, Tom reported it only had two pedals." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That meant it was an automatic, and that meant it was useless to them. They pushed on. The long hill was flattening out now, beginning to crest. Stu could see one more car ahead, one last chance. Stu's heart sank. It was a very old Plymouth, a 1970 at best. For a wonder it was standing on four inflated tires, but it was rust-eaten and battered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nobody had ever bothered with much in the way of maintenance on this heap; Stu knew its sort well enough from Arnette. The battery would be old and probably cracked, the oil would be blacker than midnight in a mineshaft, but there would be a pink fuzz runner around the steering wheel and maybe a stuffed poodle with rhinestone eyes and a noddy head on the back shelf.\n\n\"Want me to check?\" Tom asked.\n\n\"Yeah, I guess so. Beggars can't be choosers, can they?\" A fine cold mist was starting to drift down from the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom crossed the road and looked inside the car, which was empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu lay shivering inside the sleeping bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At last Tom came back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Three pedals,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu tried to think it out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That high, sweet-sour buzzing in his head kept trying to get in the way.\n\nThe old Plymouth was almost surely a loser. They could go on over to the other side of the hill, but then all the cars would be pointing the wrong way, uphill, unless they crossed the median strip... which was a rocky half-mile wide here. Maybe they could manage to find a standard shift car on the other side ...\n\n. but by then it would be dark." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tom, help me get up.\"\n\nSomehow Tom helped him to his foot without hurting his broken leg too badly.\n\nHis head thumped and buzzed. Black comets shot across his field of vision and he nearly passed out. Then he had one arm around Tom's neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rest,\" he muttered. \"Rest...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had no idea how long they stood that way, Tom supporting him patiently as he swam around in the gray halftones of semiconsciousness. When the world finally came back, Tom was still patiently supporting him. The mist had thickened to a slow, cold drizzle.\n\n\"Tom, help me across to it.\"\n\nTom put an arm around Stu's waist and the two of them staggered across to where the old Plymouth stood in the breakdown lane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hood release,\" Stu muttered, fumbling in the Plymouth's grille." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sweat rolled down his face. Shudders wracked him. He found the hood release but couldn't pull it up. He guided Tom's hands to it and at last the hood swung up.\n\nThe engine was about what Stu had expected-a dirty and indifferently maintained V8. But the battery wasn't as bad as he had feared it would be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a Sears, not the top of the line, but the guarantee-punch was February of 1991." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Struggling against the feverish rush of his thoughts, Stu counted backward and guessed that the battery had been new last May." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go try the horn,\" he told Tom, and propped himself against the car while Tom leaned in to do it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had heard of drowning men grasping at straws, and he guessed that now he understood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His last chance of surviving this was a rattletrap junkyard refugee.\n\nThe horn gave a loud honk. Okay then. If there was a key, take the shot.\n\nProbably he should have had Tom check that first, but on second thought, it didn't much matter. If there was no key, they were most likely all through no matter what." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He got the hood down and latched by leaning all off his weight on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he hopped around to the driver's door and stared in, fully expecting to see an empty ignition slot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the keys were there, dangling from an imitation leather case with the initials A. C. on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bending in carefully, he turned the key over to accessory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slowly, the gas gauge needle swung over to a little more than a quarter of a tank. Here was a mystery. Why had the car's owner, why had A. C. pulled over to walk when he could have driven?\n\nIn his light-headed state, Stu thought of Charles Campion, almost dead, driving into Hap's pumps. Old A. C. had the superflu, had it bad. Final stages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pulls over, shuts off his car's engine—not because he's thinking about it, but because it's a long-ingrained habit—and gets out. He's delirious, maybe hallucinating. He stumbles out into the Utah bad lands, laughing and singing and muttering and cackling, and dies there. Four months later Stu Redman and Tom Cullen happen along, and the keys are in the car, and the battery's relatively fresh, and there's gas---\n\nThe hand of God." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wasn't that what Tom had said about Vegas?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hand of God came down out of the sky. And maybe God had left this battered '70 Plymouth here for them, like manna in the desert. It was a crazy idea, but no more crazy than the idea of a hundred-year-old black woman leading a bunch of refugee into the promised land.\n\n\"And she still made her own biscuits,\" he croaked. \"Right up until the very end, she still made her own biscuits.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What, Stu?\"\n\n\"Never mind. Move over, Tom.\"\n\nTom did. \"Can we ride?\" he asked hopefully.\n\nStu pushed the driver's seat down so Kojak could hop in, which he did after a careful sniff or two. \"I don't know. You just better pray this thing starts.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Tom said agreeably." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Stephen King. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stu's struggle with pneumonia lasted two weeks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drank quarts of Gatorade, V-8, Welch's grape juice, and various brands of orange drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rarely knew what he was drinking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His urine was strong and acidic." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'because' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He messed himself like a baby, and like a baby's his stools were yellow and loose and totally blameless.\n\nTom kept him clean. Tom dragged him around the lobby of the Utah Hotel. And Tom waited for the night when he would wake, not because Stu was raving in his sleep, but because his labored breathing had finally ceased.\n\nThe penicillin produced an ugly red rash after two days, and Tom switched to the ampicillin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was better. On October 7 Tom awoke in the morning to find Stu sleeping more deeply than he had in days'. His entire body was soaked with sweat, but his forehead was cool. The fever had snapped in the night. For the next two days, Stu did little but sleep. Tom had to struggle to wake him up enough to take his pills and sugar cubes from the restaurant attached to the Utah Hotel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He relapsed on October 11, and Tom was terribly afraid it was the end." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the fever did not go as high, and his respiration never got as thick and labored as it had been on those terrifying early mornings of the fifth and the sixth.\n\nOn October 13 Tom awoke from a dazed nap in one of the lobby chairs to find Stu sitting up and looking around. \"Tom,\" he whispered. \"I'm alive.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Tom said joyfully. \"Laws, yes!\"\n\n\"I'm hungry. Could you rustle up some soup, Tom? With noodles in it, maybe?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the eighteenth his strength had begun to come back a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was able to get around the lobby for five minutes at a time on the crutches Tom brought him from the drugstore. There was a steady, maddening itch from his broken leg as the bones began to knit themselves together. On October 20 he went outside for the first time, bundled up in thermal underwear and a huge sheepskin coat.\n\nThe day was warm and sunny, but with an undertone of coolness. In Boulder it might still be mid-fall, the aspens turning gold, but here winter was almost close enough to touch." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI Prompt: 9 sentences sentences. Match character context. Horror genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That night the dream changed. He was in the delivery room again. There was blood everywhere-the sleeves of the white coat he was wearing were stiff and tacky with it. The sheet covering Frannie was soaked through. And still she shrieked.\n\nIt's coming, George panted. Its time has come round at last, Frannie, it's waiting to be born, so push! PUSH!\n\nAnd it came, it came in a final freshet of blood. George pulled the infant free, grasping the hips because it had come feet-first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laurie began to scream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stainless-steel instruments sprayed everywhere---\n\nBecause it was a wolf with a furious grinning human face, his face, it was Flagg, his time come round again, he was not dead, not dead yet, he still walked the world, Frannie had given birth to Randall Flagg---\n\nStu woke up, his harsh breathing loud in his ears. Had he screamed?\n\nTom was still asleep, huddled so deeply in his sleeping bag that Stu could only see his cowlick. Kojak was curled at Stu's side. Everything was all right, it had only been a dream---\n\nAnd then a single howl rose in the night, climbing, ululating, a silver chime of desperate horror... the howl of a wolf, or perhaps the scream of a killer's ghost.\n\nKojak raised his head.\n\nGooseflesh broke out on Stu's arms, thighs, groin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The howl didn't come again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stu slept. In the morning they packed up and went. on. It was Tom who noticed and pointed out that the der guts were all gone. There was a flurry of tracks where they had been, and the bloodstain of Stu's kill faded to a dull pink on the snow... but that was all." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a segment from a longer work then you need to write around one sentence continuing directly from it. Try to mimic the style of Kathryn Moon in the Paranormal Romance, Reverse Harem, Erotica genre. Note that characters may appear without introduction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was hard to believe there was anyone else in the manor but Magdalena, Booker, and me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing stirred in the halls as Booker led me up the stairs and off into the western wing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought I saw a flicker of another servant, just as broad and pale as the man I followed, but it was just a glance out of the corner of my eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many girls live here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked Booker as we tread softly down an upstairs hallway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His footsteps broke pace for a second, but he didn't say a word, only shrugged his shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"New,\" he said, which had me furrowing my brow for a moment before I realized he meant he was new here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh! Well then we can learn things together,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Booker stopped in front of a door and turned to me, looking down with that expressionless stare again, but this time, it was fixed to my face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe there was an expression in there, but it was so hidden, I found myself imagining what I might have seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gratitude or interest, or dismissal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Together,\" he said, with a small nod." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he opened the door to a large bedroom, and we both stared inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was an exquisite four-poster bed against a wood-paneled wall, vast enough not just for two people but certainly three or four." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a pair of fine armchairs on either side of a small table by a wall of windows, curtains drawn back and glass overlooking the loch behind the manor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through a doorway, I could see the white tile of a bathroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fire was already burning in the hearth at my right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another door to my right remained open to a small room with a circular dining table and a wall of shelves, trinkets and mirrors and books waiting to be examined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I stared in awe and envy for a long stretch before it suddenly struck me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was my room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was my bathroom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My own private dining space for myself and my gentlemen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh.\" I took small steps into my suite, afraid to disturb anything, afraid that Booker might catch me around the elbow and pull me out again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Could it be a mistake?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I'd been told I'd be treated well, I never imagined that meant I'd be treated like... like someone important." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This room was four times the size of the one I'd shared with another maid, and now it was mine alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I made it as far in as the rug spread over the wooden floor before I heard my case tap lightly behind me and then a door squeak and click shut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I spun around, Booker was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The light from outside was turning from a rosy sunset to a purple-blue dusk, and for a long moment, I stood in the quiet, the fire popping at my side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was not a maid now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hardly knew what to do with myself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I hadn't minded the thought of being alone in my room for the evening before, but now I wished I could go downstairs, if only to see the other faces, to be surrounded by people as I usually would be this time of night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I shook the dreary feeling off and grabbed up my case, taking it over to the gigantic dark wood armoire in the corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My simple dresses seemed a waste of the enormous space inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What kinds of garment would the manor provide me?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had no notion of what might be expected, but I was certain it wasn't my brown maid's uniform." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wondered what Dr. Underwood would want to see me wearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Better yet, Mr. Tanner?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably nothing. I grinned at that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I finished unpacking, dropping a handful of magazines I'd collected with pocket money onto the bed, and crossed over to the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The loch below the house was still, and there was a wide patio underneath my window and a stretch of open land scattered with trees leading up to the shore." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it was nice out in the morning, I'd have a little walk around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wondered what was living under the water and if it ever came into the house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I started to giggle at the thought when I saw a shadow moving through the trees, crouched low and slinking along the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My breath caught as it stepped out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A wolf, huge and dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was watching the house, padding carefully closer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My eyes were fixed to it for so long that I almost didn't notice the woman appearing on the patio." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was just stepping down into the grass, and I scrambled to find a window to unlatch, to shout down to her, warn her about the animal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was moving closer, and the wolf was slinking along the edges of the trees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had just cracked a window open when I heard her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There you are,\" she said, the last dredges of light catching across her pale hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wolf answered with a growl, the pair of them only handfuls of feet apart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My mouth was hanging open and my heart was pounding in my chest as my head struggled to catch up to the scene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The woman sank down to her knees, her dark skirt billowing around her for a moment before settling in the grass with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had her back to me, just turned enough to the wolf to let me see her reaching up and unbuttoning the front of her dress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her head leaned back, baring her white neck to the animal, and his growls deepened. His. His growls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Werewolf.\" I mouthed the word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd read a little story about them once in the back of a penny dreadful. Of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was just the kind of gentleman that came to this house, wasn't it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were far enough away from the house not to hear me but I didn't want the pair to realize I was spying on them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I also didn't want to stop spying on them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wolf's growls deepened, grew louder, as he moved closer and closer to the woman, who was pushing her dress back off her shoulders, lifting her breasts up to the wolf." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could see her sigh as he reached her, snarled muzzle jutting into her skin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The jagged edge of the growl faded, and I saw a red tongue appearing, swiping around the tip of one breast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lord, I've missed you,\" the woman said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All at once, the wolf reared back and lunged forward again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I gasped, but it was drowned out by the sound of his roar as his body stretched and twisted and shifted until it was not a wolf pinning the woman to the ground, but a naked man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His skin was browned, turning her paler by contrast, and dark-haired arms were wrestling her skirts up over those perfectly pale legs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My fingers were clutched around the windowsill as I watched, unable to stop, uninterested in stopping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would I have a man like him?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With her skirts up to her waist, the man took the woman's wrists from where her hands grasped his shoulders and pinned her to the ground as he thrust inside of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her body rolled beneath his." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was still growling, but it was almost like a purr, and she was making no effort to quiet her pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I found myself pressing my hips against the wall beneath me, wishing I were on the ground in her place, or at least that I was not alone in the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That there was someone with me to relieve this ache in my cunt, in my breasts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was nipping and biting at her neck and breasts, his hips snapping." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'sounds' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She almost wrestled below him, arms and legs twisting as if to get away, but the smile on her face was enormous and the sounds she made were... well, I knew what those sounds meant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd made those sounds with the doctor and his friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wolf-man reared back, and I stepped back from the window just enough to still be able to see them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was smiling too, something between feral and delighted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A wicked smile. She was in for a long night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I took another step back from the window and closed my eyes, taking in a long breath and listening to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could hear the slap of skin, the needy whines, the grunts of effort." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned, as if to look for my own wild man in the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finding nothing, no one, I ran and launched myself into the bed, snatching a pillow from the headboard and stuffing it beneath my hips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I rutted against the cushion in time to their sounds, my forehead knotting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was too soft." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was nothing to stretch open the place inside of me that ached the most." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But soon I could feel it, just a little shimmery sweetness, faint compared to what I wanted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't stop until I came, half atop the bed, almost sobbing with frustration." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside they continued, the woman shouting with one high peak before slowly gasping her way to another. I panted against the bed cover, still wanting, still missing, and rose up on my elbows to start again, racing her to the next finish." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Kathryn Moon. Story might have ongoing characters/plots - work with what's given" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what do we have here, hm? A wicked little thing all alone? How very tempting.\"\n\nI shivered as something scratched around the shape of my breasts in a figure eight, trailing down to make my stomach jump.\n\n\"Does she want touch? Does it even matter? Not when we want to taste her.\"\n\nI moaned as a flat tongue swept up the inside of one thigh, skipping over my hips to trace the round of my belly. I was held in place on a flat cold surface, and my eyes were sticky with sleep, barely parting. The figure between my spread thighs was hazy and shifting, never quite settling on one face over another, but the tongue drifting over my skin was long and pointed and black.\n\nI whimpered, and a whisper hushed against my exposed sex.\n\n\"What a little present for me to find here, hm?\"\n\nThe wet tongue ran up my sex and then down again, dipping inside of me, and I gasped —" }, { "from": "human", "value": "— Crying out and flailing on the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between my thighs wasn't the eerie unsettled figure of my dreams, but an enormous man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I opened my mouth to scream, and his brown eyes widened, his body launching up and landing heavily on top of me, hand clapping over my lips and cock settling itself against my hips.\n\n\"Puisín! Esther, it's me, love!\"\n\nI stiffened beneath the man, his big dopily handsome face smiling nervously down at me. Big nose, massive full lips for sucking, blondish-red hair tossed messily around his head, the sides shaved. Freckles over his nose and cheeks and down into his red beard. And those hips between mine, the incredible width of them.\n\n\"Ezra!\" I mumbled from behind his hand.\n\nI was soaking wet, teased through my dream, and I laughed, sagging finally back into the bed, my eyes falling shut. We'd joked about him waking me up this way, but I'd never expected to —" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hand pulled away, head bowing, and I jerked again, accidentally knocking our noses together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Urgh!\" he groaned, tipping backward onto the bed.\n\n\"I can see you!\" I squealed, climbing on top of him. \"Ohhh, Ezra!\"\n\nI walked my fingers up the grooves of muscle on his chest and rose to my knees on either side of his hips to take a peek at the cock I'd missed seeing stretch me wide before. Ezra laughed as my eyes hooded with interest.\n\n\"I have to concentrate to stay visible, but I thought you'd like the surprise,\" Ezra said, grinning, every bit the lazy pup in my sheets I'd imagined him as. He was younger than my other men, closer to my own age. Two beautifully large hands rose to prop his head up, and dark coppery eyebrows waggled at me. \"Well, what are you going to do with me now that you have me at your mercy, eh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I snorted at that and reached down between us to line him up at my entrance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ezra's teasing nonchalance crumbled with the first inch of him fitting inside of me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He groaned, head leaning back into the cradle of his hands, throat flexing as I worked my way down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hadn't seated myself fully when he began to flicker, his hips rising to meet me, and I giggled at the vanishing act.\n\nHe reappeared, grinning, hands reaching down to circle my thighs. \"Which do you prefer?\"\n\n\"Mm, well since you didn't successfully fuck me sleeping —\"\n\n\"I did my best!\"\n\n\"I think you should try and stay visible as long as you can. Give me something pretty to look at,\" I said, beaming back at him.\n\nHe barked out a rowdy laugh at that, and I turned it into a moan with a roll of my hips, the picture of his parted mouth fading briefly, before his brow furrowed and he solidified in full color, those bright friendly eyes shining up at me.\n\n\"'S been a long time since I've been looked at,\" he said, voice slightly hoarse.\n\n\"I'm happy to volunteer for the job,\" I replied, picking up my pace on his lap with the assistance of his hands, one sliding up so he could thumb over my clit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Speaking of jobs, I have some snooping to do,\" Ezra said, gaze falling from mine to stare between us, a feral smile growing at the picture of his length pumping into me." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'roughly' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mm. Quick then,\" I gasped, my thighs starting to burn as I bounced faster, harder.\n\n\"You going to play with those pretty tits or shall I?\" he asked, both of us grinning at the reminder of our first time together.\n\n\"It's your turn. Oh!\"\n\nEzra sat up suddenly, hands on my ass, and flipped us roughly on the bed, his back arching high so his head could duck down to my chest. Wet, thick lips wrapped around one nipple, calloused fingers pinching at the other.\n\n\"Ride me, puisín,\" Ezra snarled.\n\nI slid my grip into his hair, pleased with its length giving me something to tug roughly at, and thrust myself up onto his cock. Ezra growled, the muscles of his back rippling, and then vanishing as I began to squeeze on his cock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Harder,\" I whispered, keeping my eyes open to savor every second of getting to see him, the way he moved on top of me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He twisted the nipple pinched in his fingers and bit at the other, and the pressure that had been building finally snapped, my body going taut as pleasure rippled through. Ezra sat up straight as I went limp, the pair of us panting and wearing lazy smiles. He nodded at the clock behind him.\n\n\"What time's it say?\"\n\n\"Half-past ten,\" I answered, frowning a little. I'd barely got any proper sleep. \"You woke me up too early.\"\n\n\"Early enough to make you come again. Grab the pillow, puisín,\" Ezra said.\n\nI giggled and dug my fingers into the pillow above my head, the laugh turning into a shout as Ezra took my hips in a solid grip and began to pound into me, head tossed back and long groan echoing up to the canopy of the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bet I can make it three times if you touch yourself,\" Ezra rasped." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I slapped a hand down to my clit and helped my man get me off. Waking up too early was worth it for this." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Kathryn Moon spawning from what the user wrote. Note: Characters and worldbuilding may appear mid-story." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the fuck took you so long?!\" Auguste snarled as Ezra braced a foot against the root of the tree and yanked out one of the stakes from his hand. \"He'd set the knife down ages before —\"\n\n\"I had one chance with him distracted, did you want me to waste it by letting him see the knife coming?\" Ezra snarled back, huffing and wiping the blood off his hands onto his pants, catching me by the waist as I ran for Auguste. \"You all right, puisín?\"\n\n\"I'm — I'm fine, honestly,\" I said, although my voice sounded funny. I blinked at Ezra, at the furrow on his brow, the darkened color of his beard from the fire, a shiny burn mark on one ear, and then my eyes widened. \"Oh god, you're alive!\"\n\nI threw myself against Ezra's chest, my mouth parted on a silent scream as all the terror I kept pinned while stuck with Birsha came suddenly rushing up, bile at the back of my throat. Ezra squeezed tight around me, lifting my toes from the floor and cupping the back of my head with his hand.\n\n\"Course I am. Too slippery, remember?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ezra said. His voice was hoarse and he was shaking against me, but he was solid and safe and he'd been with me — with Auguste — when we needed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will kill you if you ever run into a fire again,\" I said, the threat undermined by my sobbing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Understood,\" Ezra murmured, setting me back on my toes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We need to get out of here before Birsha sends — \" Amon tried to catch my wrist, but I dodged his grip and ran for Auguste.\n\nHe was twisted in his trap, face snarling as his fingers slipped around the stake in his other hand.\n\n\"Here, I've got it, mate,\" Ezra said, brushing Auguste's hand away.\n\n\"Esther, wait, don't — \" Auguste gasped out as I fell onto his lap.\n\nI ignored the orders, grabbing his face in my hands and claiming a hungry, tear-filled kiss. His fangs were out, and he tried to pull away as I licked against his lips. His skin under my hands felt papery and fragile, and there was a metallic and dusty scent to him.\n\n\"You need to feed,\" I said, kissing his lips once more.\n\n\"We don't have time — \" Amon bit out, behind me.\n\n\"Mon coeur, I can't,\" Auguste breathed, but a growl crawled up from his throat as I twisted my neck and bared my throat for him. \"Merde! Have you no sense of self-preservation, Esther?!\"\n\nI blinked and turned back to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the thinnest ribbon of pale blue around his black irises, but the rest was pure hunger, the angles of his face sharp and hollow." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'don't' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't be stubborn,\" I said softly, and Auguste's teeth bared in his growl. \"And don't be stupid. You would never hurt me.\"\n\n\"I'd pry your jaws open before I let you,\" Mr. Tanner called from my back.\n\nAuguste blinked at that.\n\n\"If you're all going to be impossible, at least be swift,\" Amon hissed.\n\nI arched my neck again and this time, Auguste relented, his freed arms wrapping around my back, stroking my spine once to remind me to relax. He kissed the spot with dry lips, and then his fangs took hold with brutal force. I bit off my cry, eyes squeezing shut, and sagged in Auguste's hold, my fingers rising to comb through his dark hair.\n\nHe drank from me, and it had never hurt so much or been so completely welcome. Auguste was alive. He would heal. I would do it myself, even if it drained me dry. Not that he or any of the others would ever allow that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Couldn't let you lose him, puisín,\" Ezra said in a whisper to me, kissing my forehead and ignoring Auguste's snarl of warning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped back and turned to the others as Auguste took another deep, slurping draw from me. \"I found my way to the vampires after Birsha had already arrived the first night.\"\n\n\"The first night? He'd been here the whole time?\" Amon snarled.\n\n\"Close to it. Soon as he realized Esther was still alive. I didn't get much time to let Auguste know I was with him before Birsha caught up to him. The others are —\"\n\n\"We found what was left of them,\" Mr. Tanner said. \"We assumed...\"\n\nThey assumed Auguste had been among the remains. I whimpered and Auguste softened his bite.\n\n\"Birsha mimicked Esther's voice to lure Auguste in. To be honest, it almost worked on me too,\" Ezra said. \"But I stayed invisible, and apparently, that's not one of his talents.\"\n\n\"That's enough, Auguste,\" Amon snapped.\n\nAuguste was already licking at the wound and I sighed, rubbing my cheek against his temple. I was a little lightheaded now, but it was taking the anxious edge off the memory of stabbing Birsha." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Auguste's hands slid up to the back of my neck, into my hair, and his whole face rubbed against my throat, a slow groan sliding out from his lips, another lick to the wound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can you walk?\" Mr. Tanner asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Auguste lifted me in his arms and stood in answer. \"Let's leave.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going to rip the ring out of that bull's nose for letting you —\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will not,\" I answered Amon, catching his eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're getting spanked for running alone,\" Booker said firmly, and when we all looked at him, he blinked and added. \"Not by me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By me,\" Mr. Tanner growled. But he only bent and sniffed my hair as I approached, still tangled in Auguste's arms. \"Later.\"\n\n\"Yes. Later. We are running out of time,\" Amon snapped.\n\n\"You sure Birsha will send someone? Esther... she got him pretty good,\" Ezra said.\n\n\"Ferocious girl,\" Auguste murmured against my ear, kissing my wound again and taking another lick.\n\n\"I can walk.\"\n\n\"You won't,\" Auguste answered, squeezing around my hips before answering the others. \"He'll survive, Amon is right. If he was able to escape, he'll be able to get himself to safety. And I don't believe he bleeds his own blood. He smelled all wrong.\"\n\nAmon had a bright lantern in his hand, and we ran into Asterion, who glared at me but nodded in greeting, as well as a few others on our way through the tunnels.\n\n\"We've already sent two carriages back,\" one man said.\n\n\"Good. Mine and Khepri's blessing will keep the others secret,\" Amon said, his own eyes trailing back to me, a kind of frantic energy in his gaze, reassuring himself I was still with the group.\n\n\"Esther, the things you said,\" Auguste whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leave it,\" Ezra said to him with a shake of his head, flickering in and out of view.\n\n\"I just wanted time to think of a plan,\" I said, tugging on Auguste's hair and stroking a finger over his tangled brow as he carried me. \"Just words. I don't want to be conquered by anyone else.\"\n\n\"You know we want there to be a difference between any games and —\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I rushed out, helping myself to more kisses over Auguste's skin, pleased with how much smoother it already felt under my lips and fingers. \"Yes, I know. I know, Auguste.\"\n\n\"Ugly work, but we did it,\" Ezra said, and I nodded, Auguste relaxing against me.\n\nMr. Tanner looked back at us over his shoulder, green eyes bright in the dark. Booker was at the rear, his hand brushing over my arm and then dropping again. Amon's dark hair shone like embers by the lamplight at the head of the group. We were all together again. It hadn't been long, but the risk of it never happening again seemed to hang in eternity in my head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're strangling your vampire,\" Ezra said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'Where's that knife? You're all insane if you think I'm going anywhere without —' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't need to breathe, what do I care?\" Auguste grunted out, but he relaxed a little as I loosened my arms around his neck.\n\n\"Uh. We've got a problem,\" someone called from ahead of us.\n\n\"Shite. Birsha's bastards?\" Ezra asked, pushing his way to the front.\n\n\"No. No, it's almost dawn,\" Amon said. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, his face turned up and to the east as if he could feel the sun at the horizon.\n\nAuguste stiffened as we reached them, the others climbing the steps up until only my men and I remained underground.\n\n\"We'll all stay here together,\" I said as Auguste set me on my feet.\n\n\"No,\" all the men said at once.\n\n\"I'll stay with Auguste,\" Ezra and Mr. Tanner both said.\n\n\"Where's that knife? You're all insane if you think I'm going anywhere without —\"\n\n\"Enough!\" Amon barked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are all walking out of here together. Now. Auguste, do you trust me to keep you safe?\"\n\n\"From sunlight?!\" Auguste cried, eyes widening.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nAuguste blinked at Amon, the two of them staring at one another. Auguste turned to me briefly and then back to Amon, expression going smooth.\n\n\"I... I do.\"\n\nI opened my mouth about to object and then stopped, staring at Amon. I trusted him too. If the question had been whether I trusted Amon with my own safety, my answer would've been an immediate yes. Did I trust him with the others? I needed to if we were really all going to be able to carry on the way we were.\n\nI glanced at Mr. Tanner, whose eyes were narrowed, but he reached for my hand and didn't stop Auguste from stepping slowly forward with Amon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can tug him back if it goes awry, little one,\" Mr. Tanner murmured, drawing me up into his arms to press a kiss to the top of my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amon's wings appeared with a soft rustle and a growing shadow, blocking the light of the lantern as they spread to fill the last hall of the tunnel, covering Auguste from view as they walked slowly up the steps together.\n\nIt was on the tip of my tongue to cry out for them to stop, to beg for us all to wait down here in the dark together for the day, regardless of Birsha or anything else.\n\nI trust Amon. Auguste will be safe. We're all going back to the house. I chanted it to myself as we walked in pairs up the stairs, the tips of Amon's wings running over the steps like dark broom bristles, kicking up ash and then dusting it away into nothing.\n\n\"You're — \" Auguste's steps stumbled to a stop at the very top of the stairs. \"You're sure.\"\n\n\"My friend, I only wish I had offered sooner. Made you a resting place with us. Esther needs you. And you deserve to walk in the sun again. We step out together and no harm will come to you, by my vow.\"\n\nI swallowed hard as they moved out of the staircase, into the grand old entry room of Rooksgrave, following close on their heels. The windows were broken, the doors burned away, and outside, the sky was only just pink on the horizon, but Auguste winced at the sight, eyes blinking heavily.\n\n\"Quickly, before the dayrest draws you,\" Amon said, taking Auguste's arm, my vampire following reluctantly to the door.\n\nWe walked out onto the drive together, Amon's wings unfurling to a long stretch, covering and curling around Auguste like an embrace.\n\nThe sun rose slowly, Mr. Tanner, Booker, Ezra, and I moving to face Amon and Auguste." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Auguste looked small under the cover of Amon's wing, and a little terrified, his eyes still fully black, and when the first golden light of dawn reached through the valley to glitter through Amon's black and bronze feathers, Auguste flinched. Minute by minute, he relaxed, staring down at his own feet as his shadow stretched over the gravel, as sunlight warmed Amon's wings enough to make Auguste glow. Little particles of ash and soot glittered, crowding around the pair, brushing against Auguste's pale cheeks, into his dark hair.\n\nAmon lifted Auguste's hand, stretching it under the cover of the wing, stopping just short of guiding it out into the light. I pressed a hand over my mouth, and we waited breathlessly, watching. Auguste's fingertips flicked, catching morning on one, and then another, scant little measurements at a time until he slowly reached his entire hand out.\n\nAmon was drawing his wing back as Auguste gaped at his own skin, and I let out a bright giggle as the first rays of morning struck Auguste on the cheek, his whole body jumping with the shock.\n\n\"Mon dieu,\" Auguste breathed, eyes widening as his face turned, pupils shrinking to pinpoints, chin lifting and eyelids fluttering shut. He let out a soft moan, brow furrowing, and his shoulders dropped with relief.\n\n\"How long will it last?\"\n\nI jumped, finding Jonathon wrapped around me instead of Mr. Tanner. I'd been so absorbed by Auguste's first moments of sunlight, I hadn't even noticed them shift." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is my gift to him. It can't be taken away,\" Amon said solemnly, his wings folding again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'turning'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Auguste let out a choked laugh, eyes opening wide again. \"A gift,\" he breathed, laughing. \"A gift is... This is rebirth, Amon.\"\n\nAmon's head ducked and I rushed, throwing myself at him and taking a deep kiss. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"I should've done it —\"\n\n\"Amon, hush. Thank you.\"\n\nAmon sighed and returned my kiss softly. \"My pleasure, little star.\"\n\n\"The dayrest?\" Auguste gasped. \"It's not... I'm not —\"\n\n\"You are free,\" Amon said, both of us turning to see Auguste turning slowly in the light like a child. \"You still need blood —\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Auguste let out another delirious laugh, his cheeks so wide with his smile, it made me equally giddy." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And for some reason, the happiness made me hurt too, a vision of Auguste pinned to the tree, of Birsha's lost face snarling above me. I tried to stifle the sob, but it was too quick, too determined.\n\n\"Oh, mon coeur,\" Auguste murmured. In a moment, I was surrounded by them all, Auguste shrouded in our shadows again, my face lifted to accept the kisses being dropped from every angle. \"No more partings now, oui?\"\n\n\"No more partings, please,\" I whispered, nodding fervently, catching kisses on my brow, my lips, my chin, my cheeks.\n\n\"No,\" Amon agreed. \"And now we need to return to the house. You will have plenty of time for sunbathing, vampire.\"\n\nAuguste snorted, but he clapped a friendly hand onto Amon's shoulder as the five of them herded me into the carriage, bundling me up in their arms." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: This is part of a larger narrative. The user will write a segment, then you need to write around 11 sentences continuing directly from it. Characters and events may be pre-established from earlier chapters.\n\nAuthor style: Jacqueline Carey\nGenre: Fantasy, Romance" }, { "from": "human", "value": "My gift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desire.\n\nIt came to me as easily and naturally as breathing, and once woken, it refused to sleep. I slid into a state of desire as surely as a trout in the stream—only instead of being cool and swift and darting, it was warm and languorous.\n\nCillian came often that summer. Familiar as he was to me, I learned him in a whole new way. I kissed the corners of his lips and the dimples that formed when they curled in a smile. I bit his earlobes and the sturdy, slender column of his neck until he groaned. I let him put his hands on me, reveling in the feel of them. Where once we had lain for hours in the meadow talking, now we lay and kissed for hours, until I felt my blood had turned to molten gold.\n\nOnly the shadow of worry in my mother's eyes kept me in check.\n\n\"Dagda Mor!\" Cillian pushed himself away from me when I bade him stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He crouched for a moment, then rose and walked a few steps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I sat up and tugged the loose bodice of my dress back into place, watching him curiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced over his shoulder and winced at the sight of me. \"Do you know what you do to me?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" I said softly. \"You, too.\"\n\nHe spun, fists clenched. \"Why make us wait?\"\n\n\"My mother—\"\n\n\"Oh, Manannan of the deep take your mother!\" Cillian shouted.\n\nI raised my eyebrows.\n\n\"I didn't mean it.\" He flung himself on his knees before me like a penitent, shuddering. \"Ah, Moirin! Forgive me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I touched his cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do. Of course I do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I did wait.\n\nI spoke to my mother about it, asking her why it worried her so.\n\n\"You're young,\" she said shortly.\n\n\"How old were you?\" I asked.\n\nShe was stirring a pot of cattail roots and didn't answer for a long time. When she did, she didn't answer the question I'd asked. \"Would you have the truth, my heart?\" I nodded and her dark gaze met mine. \"It's a powerful calling. I fear losing you to it.\"\n\n\"Cillian?\"\n\nMy mother shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The bright lady's gift.\"\n\nIt was my turn to be silent.\n\n\"Did you imagine I didn't know?\" There was sorrow in her smile. \"Ah, I suppose you did. Children are slow to credit their elders. Yet how could I not, when I felt her presence there at your conception? How could I not, when it's hung like a bright shadow over you all your life?\" She laid a hand on her breast. \"The diadh-anam within me says that this is right. That this is as it should be. For reasons I cannot know, the Maghuin Dhonn Herself wills it. But I am a mortal woman and I fear to lose my child. So I have sheltered you from it as best I could. And now that it has found you, I do but beg you to go slowly from me.\"\n\nMy heart ached. \"Stone and sea! I'm not going anywhere.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"No.\" I laid my head in her lap. \"No.\"\n\n\"Moirin mine.\" Her fingers stroked my hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I pray it's so. Stay a child for a while.\"\n\n\"I will,\" I promised.\n\nI did.\n\nIt was hard, though—so hard! I wanted and wanted and wanted, and Cillian's wanting added to mine, setting my blood to boiling. But I held off through summer and autumn, and then winter came again, necessitating distance between us and cooling our ardor.\n\nI took solace in the cold and the quiet.\n\nThen came spring.\n\nIt was a time of greening and new growth, when the soil was damp and fertile. Every plant sent out new shoots, feverish with excitement. Every tree burst into leaf." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All my nerves were on edge with it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'tender' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Cillian came for the first time that spring, grey eyes hot with yearning and his shoulders grown broad and muscled, there was no question. I didn't even ask what he'd brought in his satchel.\n\nNo more waiting.\n\n\"Moirin.\" His voice was hoarse. \"Now?\"\n\n\"Now,\" I agreed.\n\nIn the meadow, he kissed me like he was starving, yanking at my gown with impatient hands. It should have been tender, but it wasn't. We'd waited too long for tender. I didn't care. The feeling of his callused fingertips on my breasts drove me mad. Cillian pushed my thighs apart, fumbling between us. I reached down and took his phallus in my hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It pulsed against my palm, at once hard and soft to the touch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I fitted the head of it to my nether lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hips jerked forward and he groaned, filling me.\n\nHim inside of me—it was like nothing I'd ever felt. For a moment, I almost panicked. His weight pinned me to the ground, pressed the air from my lungs. His chin ground against my neck. His hips moved convulsively. Over and over, Cillian drove into me, and the fullness was overwhelming.\n\n\"Slower!\" I gasped.\n\nHe shuddered and grated out a single word. \"Can't.\"\n\nAnd then, at the end, it changed. Just as his buttocks began to quiver and his back arched, discomfort gave way to pleasure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, no!\" I clutched his shoulder blades. \"Not yet!\"\n\n\"Sorry!\" He spent himself helplessly in me.\n\nWe lay quietly for a moment. Cillian's breath was ragged in my ear. I waited until it slowed. \"Can we try it again?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" He rolled off me and propped himself on one elbow. \"Forgive me, will you? That's a winter's worth of wanting you like I've never wanted anything else.\" He traced a line between my breasts and down my belly. \"Gods,\" he whispered. \"There's no one else like you, Moirin. No one in the world.\"\n\nI smiled. \"No?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His fingers slid between my thighs. \"No.\" He pulled his hand away. Milky seed glistened on his fingertips. \"No blood.\" Cillian frowned. \"Was I not the first?\"\n\n\"You were. Who else would it be?\"\n\n\"Don't lie to me.\" There was a note in his voice I'd never heard before. It made me angry.\n\n\"Why would I?\" I retorted. \"I'm a free woman, Cillian. If I chose to take another lover, I would, and it would be no concern of yours. But I'd not lie about it. There's no one else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cillian sighed. \"I'm sorry! It's only that the thought of anyone else having you puts a knot in my guts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought, choosing my words with care. \"You do not have me, Cillian mac Tiernan. No one has me. I am my own to give. Is that understood between us?\"\n\nAfter a moment, he nodded. \"It is.\"\n\n\"Good.\" I reached for him. \"Now let us try this again. Only this time, I want you to go more slowly and not spend so quickly. Is that understood?\"\n\nHe grinned. \"Aye, mistress.\"\n\nThe second time was better. I was slick inside with his seed and there was no discomfort. Cillian moved slowly inside me, propped on his arms, watching my face. I felt a quickening deep inside me and found my hips moving to match his rhythm without thinking. Cillian thrust harder and this time I wanted him to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stone and sea! He was so big and so deep inside me. Faster, now—faster and faster. What my body wanted seemed just out of reach.\n\nAnd then it wasn't.\n\nDeep, deep ripples of pleasure burst inside me. I abandoned myself to it, grabbing his buttocks, moaning mindlessly. The bright lady opened her hands and an entire flock of doves took flight.\n\n\"Oh, gods,\" Cillian whispered reverently.\n\nWhen it was over, I felt calm and happy. We lay drowsing in the meadow, limbs entwined. A curious dragonfly came to investigate, hovering above us on gossamer wings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I stretched out one languid arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It lighted briefly on my forefinger, regarding us with eyes faceted like gems.\n\nCillian's breath stirred my hair. \"Magic?\"\n\n\"Only the ordinary everyday kind.\" I watched it take wing.\n\n\"Moirin.\"\n\nI looked at him. \"Aye?\"\n\nHis face was solemn. \"Marry me.\"\n\nI sat upright with a jolt. \"What?\"\n\n\"I'm serious.\" He leaned on his elbows. \"I miss you when we're apart—and I daresay you miss me, too. So why ever not?\"\n\nI said the first thing that came into my head. \"I'm too young.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cillian gave my naked self a pointed look. \"Oh, aye?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made me smile reluctantly. \"I'm not ready, Cillian. I've not even begun to think about it.\"\n\n\"Surely you don't plan to spend the rest of your days living like a wild thing,\" he pressed me.\n\n\"Why ever not?\"\n\nHe made an inarticulate sound. \"Dagda Mor, girl! You look like something that just stepped out of a fairy tale, and you run around in a dress that might as well serve as a gunny sack with twigs in your hair and no shoes on your feet.\"\n\nI felt at my hair. \"So?\"\n\nCillian tried a different tack. \"At least do me a kindness. Promise you'll come to visit Innisclan and meet my family this summer.\"\n\n\"I met your family,\" I reminded him.\n\n\"You stood atop a cliff for five minutes and exchanged a grand total of four words with my father,\" he said in exasperation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And it was years ago. Come now.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waved one arm around at the woods. \"You've shared every part of your life with me. Is it asking so much of you to let me share a little piece of mine?\"\n\n\"No,\" I murmured.\n\n\"So you'll come?\"\n\nI sighed. \"I will.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 6 sentences more sentences? keep same character vibes in Fantasy, Romance style" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I expected my mother to speak against the visit to Innisclan, but she didn't. \"You'll pass the night there?\" was all she asked.\n\n\"Aye,\" I said. \"I promised Cillian I'd stay for supper, and it will be too late to return afterward.\" I hesitated. \"I won't go if you'd rather I didn't.\"\n\n\"No, no.\" She shook her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever life you choose for yourself, you need to choose out of knowledge, not ignorance. Go.\"\n\nSo I did.\n\nCillian wanted to dress me in borrowed finery, but I refused. \"Let them meet me as I am,\" I said to him. \"If they reckon I'm not good enough to sit at Lord Tiernan's table, no amount of lace and baubles will change their minds.\"\n\nHe blew out his breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gods, but you're as stubborn as your mother!\"\n\n\"And rude, too,\" I reminded him.\n\n\"Aye.\" He grinned. \"But oh, so very, very sweet in other ways.\"\n\nIt was afternoon when we rode into Innisclan, me behind Cillian on his long-legged gelding. It had been five years since the pilgrimage to Clunderry, and it felt strange to leave the untamed spaces to which I was accustomed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cattle grazed in meadows marked by low stone fences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here and there, we saw people who called out greetings to Cillian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they saw me, they stared, curious. It made my skin prickle and I fought the urge to summon the twilight and conceal myself from their prying gazes.\n\nAt the top of a rise, we halted and regarded the green hollow below.\n\n\"Innisclan,\" Cillian said in satisfaction.\n\nIt was a vast stone hall surrounded by outlying buildings. Cillian pointed out the mill and the smithy and the Academy founded by Eamonn mac Grainne and his Skaldic bride." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In an adjacent field, a group of young men played a vigorous game involving sticks and a ball. When we drew near, they hailed him with shouts.\n\n\"Cillian, lad!\"\n\n\"Come, give us a hand!\"\n\nAnd then they saw me and went quiet.\n\n\"That's the witch's daughter,\" someone murmured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aye.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I' d fancy a piece o' that,\" another voice declared boldly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was heat in their eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could feel it on my skin—an itch of a different sort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It set the wings to fluttering in my belly in an unthinking response, but it made me nervous, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no care in their regard, only hunger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was glad when Cillian shook his head at them and kept riding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desire, I thought, could be a dangerous gift.\n\nAt the stable, Cillian dismounted and helped me down. The freckled lad to whom he gave the chestnut's reins stared at me with frank awe.\n\n\"Witch-girl.\" Cillian kissed my lips. \"Come. Meet my family.\"\n\nI went with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doors to the hall of Innisclan were tall. Wood, bound with steel. One of Lord Tiernan's men inclined his head to Cillian, doing his best not to stare at me. The tall doors swung open. Despite the brightness of the day, it was dark inside. I hesitated on the lintel, curling my toes on the cool stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd never been inside a man-made dwelling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's naught to harm you here, Moirin,\" Cillian said softly. \"I swear it.\"\n\n\"Moirin!\" A young woman hurried toward us, her arms extended. She caught my hands in hers and squeezed them, her eyes bright. \"You've come at last.\"\n\n\"This is Aislinn,\" Cillian said. \"My sister the heir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hadn't been at the meeting atop the cliff, but I would have known who she was without him telling me. They both had a look of their father.\n\n\"Well met.\" Aislinn kissed me on both cheeks. Still holding my hands in hers, she regarded me. \"Dagda Mor! Cillian, she's a vision to be sure, but could you not at least have offered the lass the loan of a decent gown and a pair of shoes?\"\n\n\"He—\" I began." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I—\" he said.\n\n\"No mind.\" Paying our words not the slightest heed, Aislinn tugged me across the threshold. \"Come with me. I've things you can borrow.\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" I managed.\n\nShe gave me a hurt look. \"Ah, now! Would you begrudge me the pleasure?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ahhh... no?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Right you are.\" Aislinn gave another smart tug on my hands. \"Come along, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I went with her, casting a helpless glance over my shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cillian shrugged, equally helpless.\n\nTo my eyes, Aislinn's bedchamber was a small, cramped space. The moment she closed the door behind us, I felt stifled and confined. The room had one window and I hovered close to it, breathing fresh air in anxious gulps while she pulled gowns from a chest, holding them up and examining them.\n\n\"This ought to suit,\" she said of a gown of fine-combed green wool. \"It will set off your eyes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She glanced up at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you all right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aye,\" I said weakly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Tis my first time indoors.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes widened. \"Ever?\"\n\nI eyed the closed door. \"Aye.\"\n\nCillian's sister was a quick study. She followed my gaze and hurried to open the door. \"Better?\"\n\nSomething in my chest eased. \"Thank you, yes.\"\n\n\"Right, then.\" She stood in the doorway with her back to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll stand sentry duty, shall I? You try on that gown.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gown fit nicely, only a little loose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I smoothed it with both hands, feeling the fineness of the weave, and glanced down at myself to admire the way the fabric clung to my body. Aislinn turned around to regard me with approval.\n\n\"Let's do something with your hair, shall we?\" Without waiting for my reply, she pointed at a chair. \"Sit.\"\n\nI sat.\n\nWhen I was little, my mother would comb the tangles from my hair, but it was a painful process and we'd never had a brush." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This felt good. I relaxed with pleasure as Aislinn ran the brush through my hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She laughed at my expression." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've a cat that gets that very look when she's being petted.\"\n\n\"Mmm.\" I noticed that when she smiled, Aislinn had the same dimples that her brother did. I wondered what it would be like to kiss her. Mayhap the thought showed in my face, because she cleared her throat and put down the brush with alacrity, moving behind me.\n\n\"I'll just put it in a simple braid.\"\n\nIt didn't feel simple when it was done, braided and coiled and pinned into place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aislinn picked up a silvery object and handed it to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See how you like it,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The object was a mirror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd never seen a true reflection of my own face before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I studied it. With my hair coiled neatly, it was easy to see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was the stamp of my mother's blood in the angle of my cheekbones, the shape of my chin. But it was all different, too. And I did have very green eyes.\n\n\"Do you like it?\" Aislinn asked.\n\nI touched my hair. \"Oh, yes. It's lovely.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good.\" She busied herself with finding a pair of velvet slippers that matched the gown. They were narrow and pinched my toes, but I suffered it, reluctant to deny Cillian's sister the pleasure it gave her. Aislinn clapped her hands together. \"Perfect!\"\n\nWhen we returned to the main hall, Cillian gaped at me. \"Moirin?\"\n\n\"One and the same,\" I agreed.\n\nUnexpectedly, he offered me a courtly bow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the very picture of beauty thus adorned. Come, will you see the Academy?\"\n\nIt was large enough to house over a dozen scholars. The students were just settling in to an early supper in the dining hall—young men and a few women, sons and daughters of nearby estates. I recognized several of the young men from the game in the field. While their regard was still avid and curious, this time it was more circumspect. It occurred to me, trying not to hobble in my too-tight slippers, that attire was another form of concealment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cillian showed me the library, the pride of the Academy. Running my fingers over the spines of countless volumes, peering at the enticing scrolls in their cubbyholes, I could almost imagine myself studying here. Then he showed me the quarters where the women lodged.\n\nI shuddered.\n\nIt was a long, windowless room with a row of narrow beds in it. Just looking at it made me feel trapped and frantic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, no,\" I said feebly. \"I think not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cillian pulled me away. \"You wouldn't have to stay here if we wed,\" he said in a cunning tone. \"We'd stay in the great hall, you and I.\"\n\nSomehow, I doubted his chamber was any larger than his sister's. \"I'll think on it.\"\n\n\"Do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then we returned to the hall of Innisclan for our own supper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although it seemed very fine to me at the time, I know now that it was a modest affair with only immediate family in attendance. None of the others I'd encountered atop the ridge long ago were present. Only Lord Tiernan and his wife, Caitlin. Aislinn. Cillian.\n\nMe.\n\nWhen the first course of leek soup was served, I picked up my bowl without thinking and set my lips to the rim. They stared at me in horror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Caitlin actually blanched." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like this,\" Aislinn said gently, demonstrating with her spoon.\n\n\"Oh,\" I murmured, feeling foolish. I wasn't ignorant, I knew what a spoon was. I had a very nice one carved out of horn somewhere. It was just that we did without when it was easier, which was most of the time.\n\nAfter that, I watched and learned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To be truthful, there were some implements with which I was unfamiliar. This utensil went in that hand. One did not eat until all the table had been served and Lord Tiernan ate the first bite and nodded, signifying all was well. In between bites, one patted one's lips with the crisp white cloth that had been provided. In between courses, one dipped one's fingers in a bowl of warm water, then wiped them on the self-same white cloth.\n\nThe conversation was stilted and awkward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cillian was no help, turning sullen beneath the weight of his parents' apparent disapproval of me. Aislinn did her best, asking me about my studies and which of the books I'd read was my favorite.\n\nAt least the food was very, very good. Especially the stuffed goose.\n\nAt Lady Caitlin's behest, talk turned to matters of Innisclan as she prompted Lord Tiernan to relate his efforts to cultivate a transplanted D'Angeline grapevine that had been sent as a gift of the King. It seemed it was failing to thrive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mayhap Moirin might have some insight,\" she suggested with polite malice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you not been reading about D'Angeline culture, my dear? I seem to recall Cillian asking to borrow some volumes a while ago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hardly think—\" Lord Tiernan began." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only a little,\" I interrupted him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But if you'd like me to have a look at it, I may be able to tell you what's wrong.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "My offer was met with a surprised silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's naught to do with D'Angeline culture. Moirin says plants speak to her,\" Cillian informed them with a gleam in his eye, their discomfort restoring his spirits.\n\n\"Really?\" Aislinn looked interested. \"What do they say?\"\n\n\"Not much,\" I admitted. \"It's not words, it's just... impressions. You know the way it feels on a bright spring day after a night's rain when all the world is washed fresh and clean, and you can almost hear the trees stretching their branches and the leaves drinking in the sunlight?\" Lady Caitlin looked dour, but the others nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's like that only stronger.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fascinating,\" Lord Tiernan murmured.\n\nAnd so nothing would do but that after supper, Lord Tiernan sent for the gardener who served as his would-be vintner and we traipsed out into the field to examine the grapevine. In the warm light of the setting sun, the old stock looked hardy enough, but the new growth was paltry, spindly, pallid tendrils barely clinging to the trellis. I stroked it with my fingertips, trying to hear without ears while the aggrieved gardener demonstrated to Lord Tiernan for what was clearly the hundredth time that the soil was rich and black and moist.\n\nToo moist, the roots whimpered, longing for sandier soil.\n\nI wound a pale tendril around one finger, feeling the urge to coax it to grow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The earth's too rich,\" I said instead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This fellow here wants dirt that doesn't hold the moisture so well.\" I pointed up the ridge. \"Do you plant him somewhere higher where the water can drain, I reckon he'll thrive.\"\n\nThe gardener looked indignant. I shrugged. It wasn't my fault if he didn't know his trade as well as he ought.\n\n\"Fascinating,\" Lord Tiernan repeated, stroking his beard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I may just try it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can't be serious!\" his wife said with asperity.\n\n\"Why not?\" For the first time, he gave me a smile with a hint of warmth in it. \"After all, we've tried everything else. And it seems to me that when one is given advice by a beautiful young lady who talks to plants, one ought to heed it.\"\n\nThat didn't sit well with her. Fortunately, the sun was sinking beneath the horizon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we returned to the hall, I professed myself exhausted and begged their leave to retire for the night. It was true, I was worn out from the unfamiliar strain of being around strangers. Aislinn graciously showed me to a guest-chamber even smaller than any I'd seen. I took off her borrowed dress and folded it carefully, uncoiled and unbraided my hair with an effort, then curled up in a proper bed with clean-smelling linens and tried to sleep.\n\nI couldn't, not for the life of me.\n\nI'd left my door ajar and I could hear the unfamiliar sounds of human activity—boots scuffing, dishes clattering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I tried shutting the door, but then the trapped feeling closed in on me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After what was surely the better part of two hours, I gave up and resolved to slip out unseen and pass the night outdoors.\n\nIt was agonizingly difficult to summon the twilight, something that came as second nature to me at home. Somehow it was all different here in this hall built by men's hands with history carved into every stone. Mine was a gift meant to be used by wild folk in wild places, and I'd suffered myself to be tamed today.\n\nNow that was a fearful thought.\n\nBut I made myself be calm and remember, and at last it came." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I stole out of the chamber with a profound sense of relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The great hall wasn't empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a sentry drowsing in a chair by the doors—and of course, the doors were barred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I paused, realizing that I'd likely wake him if I left, and wondered if it was worthwhile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then I realized that Lord Tiernan and Lady Caitlin were sitting in high-backed chairs before the hearth, speaking in low tones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "About me." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'uncanny' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"... don't care if it's rational or not, I don't like her!\" she was saying. \"There's something sly and uncanny about that girl.\" There was a quiet note of despair in her voice. \"Will you tell me you don't see it, too?\"\n\nI hoped he would. Uncanny, I'd grant her, but sly seemed unfair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although given the particular circumstances, I'd be hard put to argue it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Lord Tiernan said slowly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I do. I'll grant that she's not what I'd choose for a daughter-in-law.\"\n\n\"And yet Cillian's utterly besotted!\" The note of despair gave way to hushed fury. \"Why ever didn't you put a stop to it?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"I hoped the winter would cool his ardor. Two years ago, it seemed his fancy was passing.\"\n\n\"Two years ago, she was still a stripling child,\" she said darkly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now... oh, gods! What does she want with him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Lord Tiernan murmured.\n\nI curled my toes in an agony of indecision. Part of me yearned to flee, part to retreat. And a third considerable part longed to reveal myself and shout at them that I'd never wanted aught of Cillian but for him to be my friend, and later, lover. It was hardly my fault he was muddling everything up with this talk of marriage.\n\n\"Mayhap we could bargain with her,\" Lady Caitlin mused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They say the Old Ones like to make bargains, and I suppose she's one of them, whatever else she might be. Do you suppose we might bribe her to leave him alone?\"\n\n\"With what?\" He sounded weary. \"They may choose to live like savages, but they're blood royal nonetheless. It's not as though I haven't offered our hospitality over the years. Money?\" He shook his head. \"They don't lack for it. There's a trust held in keeping for all of the descendants of Alais' line in Bryn Gorrydum, which Fainche knows perfectly well.\"\n\nI blinked. She did?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's Fainche that disappoints me.\" Now Lord Tiernan sounded bewildered and angry. \"Have I not always honored her choices? Why does she send her daughter to bewitch my only son?\"\n\nI'd heard enough.\n\nI swept past the drowsing guard and unbarred the great doors, flinging them open, then fled into the warm night.\n\nBehind me, there were cries of alarm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I ignored them. In the twilight through which I moved, the landscape of Innisclan looked silver-grey and serene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I made my way to the poor, struggling grapevine we'd visited earlier." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, while there was no one to see, I cupped its tendrils in my hands. Holding an image of dry, arid soil and bright beating sunlight in my mind, I blew softly on it. The tendrils stretched gratefully, reaching for a more secure grip on the trellis.\n\n\"Moirin!\" Cillian was blundering around the fields, a lantern in one hand. With his other hand, he held up his unbelted breeches. \"Moirin! Gods be damned, girl! You sodding little woodsprite! Will you not show yourself?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'lantern' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he was almost on me, I did.\n\n\"Oh!\" He peered at me, then turned and waved the lantern in the direction of unseen pursuers. \"It's all right, go back! I've found her!\"\n\nI folded my arms. \"Sodding little woodsprite?\"\n\n\"Hush.\" Cillian set down the lantern and embraced me. Despite everything, it felt good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I couldn't resist running my fingers into his crisp, springing hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Too much, was it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your mother detests me,\" I informed him. \"And your father agrees that I'm sly and uncanny, and he considers my mother a disappointment. Oh, and apparently there are further truths she's not yet seen fit to divulge to me.\"\n\nHe ran his thumb over my lower lip. \"Aislinn liked you.\"\n\n\"Did she?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Cillian smiled in the starlight. \"She said you need to remember that if there's a spoon on the table, it's meant to be used, and that it's not terribly appropriate to look at people's sisters as though you wonder if they might taste good—a sentiment with which I'm in particular agreement. But she liked you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I felt somewhat mollified." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I liked her, too.\"\n\nHe kissed me. \"Give us a chance?\"\n\n\"I'll try.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand on the story, maintaining character relationships, in the Fantasy, Romance genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gorgeous,\" Benoit Vallon purred in a silken voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I gazed into the full-length mirror." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gown was a shimmering bronze brocade with a subtle pattern of vines. It clasped around my neck in a collar from which two beaded straps descended, leaving my shoulders bare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It fit closely to below my hips, then flared out in pleats lined with bronze silk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My hair was piled atop my head, held in place by a comb with a gilded branch. Benoit had brushed a touch of kohl on my eyelids and carmine on my lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No doubt, I looked stunning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's beautiful,\" I agreed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Walk across the room for me,\" he ordered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fabric swished and flowed as I walked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the brocade slippers fit so well I didn't mind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Benoit watched me with a smug look. \"See how differently you carry yourself?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he observed. \"There's more to clothing than mere adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves.\"\n\nI glided back toward the mirror. \"So I see.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed. \"I'm glad you approve. Now, that's meant for your debut at Court. I've a pair of dresses for ordinary daywear to fit on you.\"\n\n\"May I show Raphael first?\" I pleaded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Benoit shrugged. \"As you wish. I suppose my lord de Mereliot should have the honor, since he's footing the cost.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reaching for the door, I paused. Like an idiot, I'd given no thought to paying the atelier's fee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What? No. No, I have funds of my own. I've not had a chance to draw on my letter of credit yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That,\" he said, \"is between you and his lordship. But according to him, he has commissioned this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let me have a word with him.\" I didn't want to be any more beholden to Raphael than I was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I walked at a hurried glide down the hall and the great curving staircase, calling for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the shy maidservants was polishing the banister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd gotten less wary of me in the past few days, but now she gave me a quick glance, then ducked her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's in the library, my lady,\" she murmured. \"But—\"\n\n\"My thanks.\" I hurried onward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Outside the library, I heard voices raised in urgent whispers, only slightly less loud than the good lady Lydia when she was trying to be discreet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door was ajar, but not closed. I could see a sliver of Raphael's profile and his folded arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I halted and listened.\n\n\"—done playing nursemaid!\" another man's voice was saying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was vaguely familiar. \"Damn it, Raphael! The Circle can't function without you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They could if they chose,\" Raphael said in a laconic tone.\n\n\"No, they sodding well can't! You're the only one with the focus. And we were close, so close! I felt it!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The maid's footsteps pattered behind me. \"My lady! I tried to tell you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raphael turned his head and spotted me through the gap in the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In two strides, he flung the door open. \"Moirin?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sighed. \"Aye.\"\n\n\"Name of Elua!\" the other breathed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's our wayward half-breed?\"\n\n\"It is.\" There was approval and a considerable amount of heat in Raphael's gaze." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Moirin, do you remember Denis de Toluard? He helped me tend to you and escort you home after you were struck in the street.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, yes.\" That was why his voice had sounded familiar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd gotten sick on him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My thanks, my lord. And, um, I'm sorry about your breeches.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Denis de Toluard flushed. He had curly, dark brown hair and blue eyes and I would have thought him very pretty before I met Raphael." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gathered himself, executed a bow, and took my hand to kiss it. I was glad I'd listened to Benoit and used the cream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I pray you forgive me, my lady. I was ghastly rude in your hour of need.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" I raised my brows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Luckily, wayward half-breeds aren't known for holding grudges.\"\n\nDenis turned a deeper shade of red." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raphael grinned. \"Is this the gown for the debut? It's splendid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He touched the comb with the gilded branch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this is the perfect finishing touch. On anyone else, it would be too much.\" He turned to Denis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mind, you're not to breathe a word of this.\"\n\n\"No, no.\" The other shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll not ruin your surprise.\" He gave me an ardent, flustered glance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're looking hale as well as beautiful, my lady. Are you quite recovered? Will you be making your debut soon?\"\n\nNow him, I could have had by crooking one finger; I knew it as surely as I knew my name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pity. \"Soon, yes,\" I agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I believe Raphael has an event in mind.\"\n\nNow Denis turned pale. \"You're not!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am,\" Raphael said calmly. \"What better way to celebrate his majesty's natality than to introduce him to long-lost kin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His companion made a strangled sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jehanne is going to kill you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A muscle twitched in Raphael's jaw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jehanne,\" he said with icy precision, \"would expect nothing less of me. Don't believe every piece of gossip you hear. You do not know her nearly as well as you think, my friend.\"\n\n\"Do you know,\" I said to no one in particular, \"I would truly have been grateful for a far less complicated destiny, if that's what this is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both men looked blankly at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No mind.\" I waved my words away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Raphael, I wanted you to see the gown. But you're not to pay for it. I've a letter of credit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know.\" He gave me that unexpectedly boyish grin. \"I rifled through your belongings, remember?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, but—\"\n\n\"Moirin, let me do this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He toyed with my gown's straps, unobtrusively stroking the skin beneath them. \"It helps assuage my conscience for having caused you injury in the first place. Please?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I couldn't think straight when he touched me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, fine. Since that's the case, I'm glad you like it.\"\n\nHe kissed me. \"Very much. Are you keeping Messire Vallon waiting? I wouldn't advise it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right.\" I pulled away from him with an effort. \"I'll leave you to your mysterious plotting, then, shall I?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Denis choked.\n\nRaphael merely looked amused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My dear, if you don't want me to think you sly and uncanny, you've really got to stop eavesdropping.\" He made a shooing gesture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now go! If you earn the enmity of Atelier Favrielle, you'll live to regret it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I went.\n\nBenoit Vallon was packing his things and looking almighty disgruntled when I returned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took a good deal of profuse apologizing on my part before he relented and began to unpack them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're young and foreign,\" he said grudgingly, beginning to help me out of the wonderful bronze gown. \"It's his lordship ought to know better.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's engaged in mysterious plotting,\" I informed him.\n\n\"Oh?\" Benoit's hands went still on the clasp of my collar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's a name for meddling in matters he oughtn't,\" he muttered. \"And I don't mean just their majesties' private affairs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Magic?\" I asked innocently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He peered into my face. \"What would you know of it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked, then thought better of it. \"Come to think on it, I'd rather not know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hands moved briskly, peeling away the gorgeous fabric." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The reputation of your people precedes you.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" I stepped out of the gown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Truth be told, we're quite a peaceable folk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Benoit folded the gown and snorted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Tis true,\" I protested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the annals of history there is no record of the Maghuin Dhonn going to war, no matter how many times Alba has been invaded. Other follies were committed, yes. Believe me, we are painfully aware of them to this day. But I would ask you not to judge my people based on the actions of one or two of our ancestors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You may have a point.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He folded away the bronze gown and extended one of fine-spun russet wool worked with intricate trim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Try this. It's suitable for daywear or even travel, and is based on a very old design created by the atelier's founder, Favrielle nó Eglantine herself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It flowed gracefully.\n\n\"And this.\" A deep green satin with a heart-shaped neckline." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Benoit knelt and tacked a few loose, temporary stitches to improve the fit.\n\nIn the mirror, I tilted my head this way and that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you're so wary of the Maghuin Dhonn, why did you accept this commission?\"\n\nHe winced. \"Must you keep saying that name aloud?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not bad luck!\" I said in exasperation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's just a silly superstition put about a thousand years ago when Cinhil Ru claimed the Maghuin Dhonn had slain their own diadh-anam. It was never true. They know better in Alba these days, even if we are not well loved. They've known better since Alais de la Courcel restored the truce between our folk. Even Caroline nó Bryony wasn't afraid to say it, and she's the one commended me to you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, child!\" Benoit raised his hands. \"I didn't intend to give offense. And I accepted the commission because the couturieres of Atelier Favrielle relish a challenge more than we fear ought else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even bear-witches?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mouth twisted. \"So it seems. Truth be told, you're not a particularly fearful specimen, young and naïve as you are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought about Cillian's death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not so naïve, I fear.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Benoit Vallon studied my face. \"Not in the ways of life, mayhap, but the D'Angeline Court is another matter. Have you given thought to my advice?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have,\" I admitted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He eased the green dress from my shoulders. \"But you mean to stay.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Elua have mercy.\" Benoit put the dress away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are all of the Mag—\" He couldn't bring himself to say it. \"Are all of your people this stubborn?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I laughed. \"You ought to meet my mother.\"\n\nHe shook his head." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant for a segment of a larger Fantasy, Romance story. Your partner will send something and you will write the next 1 sentence. Characters may already be established." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The worst part was telling Jehanne." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew something was amiss." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was there to receive us at the Palace, Prince Thierry at her side, unexpectedly attentive, her entourage around her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She kissed her royal husband with glad relief, and me no less gladly, her lips lingering on mine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My poor girl,\" she murmured in my ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You should have written me sooner. I'd have made him release you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I shivered. \"I didn't think of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jehanne pulled away from me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is over, isn't it? This business with Raphael?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aye,\" I said miserably. \"But—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shadow crossed her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She put two fingers over my lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever it is, don't speak of it now. Tell me later. Alone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tired though I was, I kept my word and met with King Daniel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the privacy of his study, I told him everything I knew about the Circle of Shalomon, every detail of the summonings we had attempted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He listened gravely, asking questions and taking notes, then dismissed me when I was finished at last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Moirin.\" He called me back as I went to leave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I heard your answer to Master Lo Feng. Is there aught I can say to change your mind?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I touched my chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can you silence my destiny?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Would that I could.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He studied me. \"You're sure?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I nodded. \"Would that I weren't. I don't want to leave, your majesty. But I'm very, very sure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The King sighed. \"Blessed Elua hold and keep you. Go.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I returned to my quarters, I found Jehanne there waiting for me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And alone in the bower she'd had created for me, I told her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jehanne slapped me hard across the face, hard enough to wrench my head sideways." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then she crumpled to the floor at my feet, weeping as though her heart were breaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I felt as though mine were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry!\" I cradled her head in my lap, wrapping my arms around her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I felt awful and there was nothing I could say to make it better, no words of comfort I could speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All I could do was hold her until the worst of the storm had passed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm so very sorry. Jehanne, I don't want to leave you. I don't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sniffled. \"But you are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" I said softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She grew still and quiet in my arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I knew. I always knew you would. I just didn't think it would be so soon, Moirin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Neither did I.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A fresh bout of weeping shook her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you'd stay at least until the child was born!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I closed my eyes, hot tears leaking beneath my lids." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So did I. I'm sorry!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know,\" Jehanne murmured when she could talk again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gave a sad, lost laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At least as an adept of Cereus House, I'm taught to revere the transient nature of beauty. This was a fleeting and precious thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I stroked her hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'll take another companion now that you know it suits you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, please!\" It was a relief to hear a cross edge to her voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will you insult my intelligence? Surely it hasn't escaped your notice that there isn't anyone else like you in the world.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\" I kissed her tear-damp cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you don't need a half-breed Maghuin Dhonn witch to serve as your companion. You just need someone you like well enough to trust.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I smiled despite my aching heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Some gorgeous young creature from the backwoods with a generous soul, a good deal of patience, and buckets of untutored ardor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At that, Jehanne smiled a little, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd like the lass who tended my father,\" I told her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The woodcutter's daughter, Sophie. Kind and sweet, very beautiful, and very, very untutored.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh?\" She peered up at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aye.\" A sharp pang of jealousy shot through me at the thought of the woodcutter's daughter in Jehanne's arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You needn't look that interested.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not.\" She sat upright." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Moirin! It's not that easy to trust anew.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You gave me your trust willingly enough,\" I reminded her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jehanne took my hand, twining her fingers with mine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was already a bond of trust between us. You took a considerable leap of faith when you let me rescue you. It made it easier to return the favor.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She paused and searched my face, her blue-grey eyes earnest and vulnerable and as bright as stars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you love me at least a little bit?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I couldn't help it; I laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And I wept, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you truly have to ask? Yes, Jehanne, a thousand times, yes. You're absurdly beautiful, utterly infuriating, and inexplicably charming, and I love you far, far more than you deserve.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good.\" She put her arms around my neck, smiling at me through her tears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell me more, please.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I pulled her close and kissed her over and over, and I told her everything I loved about her—decent and indecent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And this, too, felt like a benediction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naamah had turned her face away when I begged her to let me stay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now that I had accepted my fate, she turned it back to me for a fleeting moment in time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever else was true, Naamah's blessing was on this union." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Desire rose like a tide in my blood, driving out weariness and hunger, overriding sorrow, holding even destiny at bay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An answering passion rose in Jehanne—Naamah's gift, rising in a golden spiral, entwining with mine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At some point, I helped her rise from the floor, tugging her hand and urging her into bed, unlacing her stays and stripping off her gown and underclothes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beneath the hanging fronds, Jehanne kissed me fervently, her tongue urgent in my mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This,\" I whispered. \"This, and this, and this, I love.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was her breasts, grown larger with the babe in her womb, a faint tracery of blue veins showing beneath her translucent skin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suckled at her breasts, drawing on her rose-pink nipples, never wanting to stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was the sweet juncture of her thighs, between which I was happy to lose myself, coaxing creamy nectar from her cleft." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I licked and drank deep of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jehanne clung to me, abandoning her arts for raw passion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I reveled in her hands clutching my head, tangling in my hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This!\" she said fiercely, tugging me upward. \"Yes!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I let her do what she wished, let her take me and have me, surrendering to her insistent fingers probing inside me, her lips and tongue lashing me to new heights, until I arched my back and came so very, very hard for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it was good—stone and sea, so good!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wished it would never, ever end." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Moirin.\" Her voice was low." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have to go.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I struggled to sit upright." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please, my lady! I don't want to be alone. Can you not stay this last one night with me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\" Jehanne gazed at me, a world of sorrow in her blue-grey eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Raphael was right about one thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" I asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She kissed me. \"It hurts too much to stay.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I helped her wash and dress, then watched her go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wanted to beg her to stay, but I didn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jehanne had been fair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hadn't begged me not to leave her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unlikely as it seemed, she'd given me her trust and her passion and her aid unstintingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't have any right to make this more difficult for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still, it hurt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the door closed behind her, I felt alone and bereft." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was almost a mercy when the profound weariness that Naamah's blessing had driven away came crashing back upon me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought briefly that I should send for a dinner tray, but I was too tired to eat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And I thought with a twinge of guilt that I should have gone to see my father instead of spending long hours wallowing in pleasure, but I pushed the thought away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would understand better than anyone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I would see him on the morrow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I damned well wasn't leaving without saying farewell to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Emperor's daughter in faraway Ch'in had waited many long months." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could wait a few more hours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wished I could see my mother, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thought brought tears to my eyes and made me feel sorry for myself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I blew out the lamps, curled up in my lonely bed, and wept myself to sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the morning, it all seemed unreal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only a day ago, I'd been preparing to fulfill my oath to Raphael, penning a desperate letter to Jehanne." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The misbegotten summoning of Focalor, Claire Fourcay's death, my near-death... events of such magnitude should have cast a shadow over my life for a long, long time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, my world had been turned upside down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And unreal as it seemed, there was proof awaiting in the form of a message from Master Lo Feng bidding me to join them at the City's southern gate at noon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I sent a polite reply saying I would be there as soon as possible and began to get my affairs in order." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There wasn't that much to be done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jehanne had given the Palace staff orders to assist me in any way I required." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I recruited a maidservant to find traveling trunks and pack my clothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There wasn't much else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few pieces of jewelry, including my mother's signet ring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some cosmetics. My bow and quiver, my letters of introduction from Bryony Associates in Bryn Gorrydum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That seemed a long time ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd arrived in the City of Elua with little else, a ragtag creature from the backwoods of Alba with a small gift for magic and a purse quickly stolen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was leaving as the Queen's royal companion and... what?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Master Lo Feng's student?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A budding magician of a greater magnitude than I knew?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or just a useful tool?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't know; and truth be told, I was too exhausted to wonder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I forced myself to keep moving." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I went to the banking house and withdrew a portion of the remaining funds from my letter of credit, reckoning I might need them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then I went to the Temple of Naamah." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My father was waiting for me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He already knew. I should have guessed it, knowing the way the City thrived on gossip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The King's guards had heard me give my answer to Master Lo Feng." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd kept their silence for a while; I daresay no one wanted to be the one to break the news to Jehanne." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But once I'd told her myself, tongues had begun to wag." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, Moirin, child.\" My father held me and let me cry on his shoulder, tears dampening his crimson robe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd done the same thing when first I'd met him, overwhelmed by conflicting desires, tangled relationships, and my own folly, alone and friendless in a strange land, distraught by Jehanne's unkind toying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even though he was a stranger to me, I'd taken comfort in his embrace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a piece of irony that I wept now because he was dear to me, and Jehanne was dear to me, and I didn't want to leave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My father lifted my chin and asked me the same question the King had asked. \"You're sure?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I got myself under control. \"Aye.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He kissed my brow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naamah's blessing on you, love. I'll pray for your safety every day and hope for your return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused. \"You will return?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know.\" My voice was small." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't even know why I'm going. I only know I have to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My father shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They say the gods use their chosen hard. I fear 'tis no less true of your Maghuin Dhonn than any other.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's all of them,\" I murmured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Naamah and Anael, too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He cupped my face and kissed my brow a second time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then you must be very dear to them to place such faith in you,\" he said firmly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever your destiny and wherever you're bound, I've no doubt you'll make me wondrous proud, my very strange daughter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It made me feel immeasurably better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you.\" I hugged him hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm so glad I found you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So am I.\" My father rested his cheek against my hair, then let me go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're bound to leave today? Is there time to explain this tale of summoning dire spirits to me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A little.\" I wiped my eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not much. Will you do me a kindness and send word to my mother in care of Clunderry Castle in Alba, telling her where I've gone and why? It may reach her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course.\" He hesitated again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What shall I say? What is it that calls you? Your... diadh-anam, is it?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It leapt inside me like a flame.\n\n\"Aye,\" I said sadly. \"That's exactly right.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 6 sentences more sentences? keep same character vibes in Fantasy, Romance style" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We took to the river." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: carriage, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For my part, it was a relief, a blessed relief.\n\nOur carriage was a less stifling affair than D'Angeline carriages, but it was still an uncomfortable way to travel. I preferred being in the open air, not jounced and battered along the road.\n\nIn a large fishing village, Bao and Dai scoured the waterfront until they found an entrepreneurial merchant willing to trade a boat called a sampan for the horse and carriage. It was a good-sized boat for its kind, long and low, with a midsection covered by an awning of tightly woven fronds.\n\nStill, it was small enough that it dipped noticeably under each person's weight as we stepped aboard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I got the princess settled comfortably under the awning, then eyed Bao as he took up a post at the long rudder pole. Suddenly, the boat seemed more precarious and the current swifter. \"Are you sure you know how to steer this?\"\n\nHe grinned at me. \"Of course. I am Master Lo Feng's magpie. I can do whatever he requires.\"\n\n\"Right now, he finds it needful that his magpie be more discreet, Younger Brother,\" Master Lo said mildly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bao sighed, chastened. \"Yes, Honored Brother.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once we were under way, any fears vanished. For all his boastful streak, Bao never boasted in vain; he was skilled at the rudder. He swung the boat into the center of the river, letting the swift current take us. When Kang took to the oars, the little boat moved at an even livelier pace, much faster than we'd been travelling in the carriage, constrained by the foot-speed of our unlikely attendants. The scent of the river and the chilly breeze against my face made me smile, happier than I had been since our journey began.\n\nThe dragon was happy, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He likes being on water,\" Snow Tiger commented.\n\nYes. I wish I could see, he added.\n\n\"So do I,\" she murmured, touching her thick veil. \"So do I.\"\n\nI glanced around. No one was watching, and the awning concealed us from the casual view of outsiders. \"Why not?\" I hadn't summoned the twilight since we'd left Shuntian. Given the effectiveness of our simple disguises, it hadn't been necessary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The princess had not asked it of me; nor had the dragon, eager to be helpful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It hadn't occurred to me that both must be longing for it in different ways." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I took a deep breath and called the twilight, wrapping it around both of us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sky dimmed, the river turned silvery, the green slopes leading down to it turned a soft heather-grey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ten Tigers Dai let out a sudden shout of alarm. \"Where—\"\n\n\"Here,\" I murmured, letting him hear me. \"It's all right, be quiet. The lady and the dragon wish to see, and I am helping them.\"\n\nHe stared through me, pale with fear. \"Ah... all right.\"\n\nThe princess removed her hat and veil, her dragon-reflecting eyes meeting mine. \"It is all right, Dai. I promise. Tell the others.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He eased. \"As you say, my lady.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The river? Please?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\" Beneath the awning, Snow Tiger leaned over the edge of the narrow boat, gazing at the moving waters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dragon sighed with pleasure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She beckoned to me. Kneeling beside her, I watched the reflection of dragon's pearlescent coils undulate with the flowing current alongside our boat, eeling through the reeds.\n\nHis happiness was like a song, a caroling chorus of gratitude running through it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!\n\n\"Of course,\" I said softly. \"I am sorry I did not offer before. You have only to ask, treasured friend.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The princess dipped her fingertips into the water, letting them trail just below the surface. The dragon's reflection rippled and wavered. I sensed his delighted reaction, like an immensely vast and impossibly glorious dog having his belly rubbed.\n\n\"Despite everything, I will miss him,\" she said in a low voice. \"Now that I know what he is. Now that I know him. Does that shock you?\"\n\nI shook my head." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'through' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will miss him, too.\"\n\n\"It is not the same.\"\n\n\"No, of course not.\" All too well, I remembered that quicksilver energy surging through my veins in the Celestial City when the dragon had poured a measure of his essence into me through her kiss. Like a storm in my blood, wild and joyous. \"No, it is not, my lady. And yet I will miss him nonetheless.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And he, you.\" She withdrew her hand from the water, letting it rest briefly on my shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Betimes I wonder, Moirin of the Maghuin Dhonn. Bear-worshipping witch, child of desire. The unlikely confluence of deities that begot you flung you into the world to work their will without guidance. Tell me, where does it end? With this greater purpose you perceive? Are you a minor character in my tale, or am I a lesser figure in yours?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know, my lady,\" I murmured. \"I suppose it depends on who is telling the tale.\"\n\nThe princess contemplated me. The dragon's doubly reflected image swam in her black pupils, coiling and uncoiling endlessly. \"I suppose it does.\"\n\nSince it made the stick-fighters nervous, I didn't hold the twilight long, only long enough to soothe the dragon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men whispered and murmured at our reappearance. Bao smirked at them. I wondered what further lies he'd told them about me. I wondered, too, whether he'd done it to protect me, or simply to aggrandize his own reputation.\n\nBoth, likely.\n\nAlthough it should have bothered me, it didn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that I knew him, Bao's cheerful arrogance, so at odds with the humility he tried to cultivate, couldn't disguise the fact that he was loyal and fearless, not to mention a hopeless romantic at heart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What the future held for us, the gods alone knew.\n\nI watched the river unfurl like a ribbon before our boat, green and unending, and thought about what the princess had said. It was not entirely true that the unlikely confluence of deities who begot me had given me no guidance. My diadh-anam flickered steadily within me, a divine compass telling me that I was where I was meant to be, no matter how very, very far from home.\n\nOf course, I'd been sure it was telling me I was meant to be with Raphael, too.\n\nIt had seemed so right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The unlikely collision of our meeting, his unhesitating acceptance of me, the way our gifts intertwined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stone and sea, I'd been so sure! And I'd been so, so very wrong. The destiny that the Maghuin Dhonn Herself laid on me, Naamah's gift, Anael's gift, Master Lo's teaching...\n\nI didn't understand what it all meant.\n\nPatience. The dragon's voice rumbled through my thoughts, tinged with a profound fondness and amusement only an immortal creature could muster. You are very young. Live." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Learn. Love.\n\nStartled out of my reverie, I smiled. \"I am trying.\"\n\nHe poured an immense surge of affection into me. You are doing well. Remember, the journey is more important than the destination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Old Nemed said the same thing,\" I said aloud.\n\nYes. You would do well to remember the wise-woman when the time comes.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" My voice rose. \"What do you know?\" The dragon fell silent, his thoughts turning misty and vague as they did when he dreamed and drifted. With the exception of the veiled princess, everyone on the boat stared at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I cleared my throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah... forgive me. It is only that the dragon said something unexpected, and now he will not tell me what it means.\"\n\n\"It may be that he cannot,\" Master Lo said philosophically. \"He is a celestial being, Moirin. Like sages, they speak in riddles.\"\n\n\"Why?\" I demanded. \"It's very irritating!\"\n\nHis eyes twinkled. \"Sages do so to instruct, to prod the lazy mind into thought. I suspect dragons have their own rules.\"\n\nYes. The dragon surfaced to agree." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'those' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such as forgiving the follies that budding sages committed in their youth.\n\nThat, I declined to translate.\n\n\"Speaking of lazy minds...\" Master Lo glanced around the boat. \"Many sages claim the journey and the destination are one and the same. Perhaps, with the Lady Chan's gracious permission, we might use this time to examine Sakyamuni's teachings and the search for enlightenment undertaken by those on the Path of Dharma, and how it compares to the path of those following the Way?\" He stroked his shorn chin. \"It seems fitting.\"\n\nSnow Tiger inclined her head. \"Of course, Venerable One.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ill start (might include ongoing story elements), then u do 10 sentences in Jacqueline Carey's voice ok?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'where' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An hour into our journey toward the Imperial army, White Jade Mountain came into view.\n\nIt was beautiful, so beautiful.\n\nI would have thought so anyway, but my awareness of the dragon's yearning made it all the more poignant. The mountain loomed in the distance, impossibly tall, its snow-capped peak rising high above a mantle of dark green spruce forest.\n\n\"Oh,\" I whispered, drawing rein involuntarily. \"Oh! It's lovely.\"\n\nYes.\n\n\"Where is the lake, treasured friend?\" I asked him. \"The reflecting lake where you hid your pearl?\"\n\nSnow Tiger tilted her head in my direction, listening.\n\nHigh in the mountains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dragon sounded apologetic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very high. You will have to climb very far.\n\nI glanced at the princess. \"Then we will.\"\n\nBy the time sunset gilded the snowy peak, we could make out a vast sprawl of tiny figures arrayed on the slopes of the mountain and around its base. From a distance, they seemed no more consequential than a colony of ants.\n\nThe nearer we drew, the more it changed.\n\nMen, so many men. There were tens of thousands of them. When dusk fell, we saw the fires they kindled. Cook fires, watch fires. Thousands spilling down the mountainside, circling around its enormous base." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thousands more on the flat fields where the Emperor's army awaited us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Opposite them, bronze tubes mounted on wheels glinted in the fading light, death lurking in their metal gullets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weapons looked small in the distance, but my skin prickled at the sight and I found myself shivering in the saddle, remembering the devastating power they had unleashed.\n\n\"Moirin.\" Bao pulled alongside me, his expression worried. \"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" I murmured, unsure if it were true.\n\nDusk turned to darkness. We lit lanterns and kept riding. The light from all the fires ahead of us illuminated the night sky.\n\n\"So many,\" Snow Tiger said in dismay. \"So many!\"\n\nA few hundred yards from the outskirts of the Imperial camp, we paused to wait while Captain Li and several of his men rode onward to bring the news of the princess' arrival to the Emperor. Our plan was to bring her into the camp without causing a stir that the enemy would notice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We succeeded, barely.\n\nCaptain Li returned to fetch us, accompanied by our old companion General Tsieh and a detachment of Imperial guards. On the great-ship, I'd reckoned the general a stoic fellow, but tears shone in his eyes as he gazed on the princess in her stained, threadbare robes. He bowed low in the saddle, hand over fist.\n\n\"Noble Highness,\" he said in a hoarse voice. \"It is so very, very good to see you.\"\n\n\"Honored General.\" She inclined her head. \"The pleasure is mine. Had you not undertaken so long and dire a voyage on my behalf, I would not be here before you today. I am grateful for it.\"\n\n\"It was an honor to do so.\" The general straightened, clearing his throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you would do me a further honor, it would be my privilege to escort you into your father's presence. I assure you, the men have been ordered not to respond to your arrival. His Celestial Majesty is most anxious to see you.\"\n\nBeneath her blindfold, the princess' face softened. \"And I him.\"\n\nThe soldiers of the Imperial army were trained and disciplined. True to their orders, they kept quiet as we entered the camp. No one cheered, no one bowed or knelt. But they stared at her in the firelight as we rode past, and even in the silence, one could feel their reaction. A ripple ran through their ranks, as though the pelt of some unimaginably vast animal had shuddered. The soldiers stared at the princess, they stared at all of us. At Master Lo, at Bao and Tortoise and Ten Tigers Dai, their staves strapped across their backs, faces stern. At me, the foreign witch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I understood that whatever else happened, we had just ridden into legend.\n\nA shiver ran down my spine.\n\nThe Emperor's tent was in the center of the camp, a vast pavilion of yellow silk. Flanked by guards, he stood before it, cutting a splendid and imposing figure in gilded armor. There was a terrible hunger in his gaze as he watched his daughter approach, her hands sure on the reins despite the blindfold.\n\nAt ten paces away, Snow Tiger gestured for us to wait. My throat grew tight as she dismounted and approached on foot, then knelt gracefully before her father and pressed her brow to the earth. \"Noble Father and Most Celestial Majesty,\" she whispered. \"I humbly beg you to forgive your most disobedient daughter.\"\n\n\"Is it...\" Emperor Zhu's voice trembled. \"Is it true?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"And you, my old friend,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Father.\" She lifted her head. \"I am here.\"\n\nWith shaking hands, he helped her to her feet, gazing at her face. \"Oh, my child.\" He touched the sword cut on her cheek with infinite tenderness. \"You are forgiven. A thousand, thousand times over, you are forgiven.\"\n\nI swallowed and blinked away tears.\n\nThe Emperor glanced over at us. \"And you, my old friend,\" he said to Master Lo Feng, his voice rough with emotion. \"You are forgiven, too. You and your stick-wielding ruffians and your jade-eyed witch. For bringing my daughter safely here, you are forgiven.\"\n\nMaster Lo bowed deeply. \"For that, I am profoundly grateful, Celestial Majesty, as are we all. We did not undertake such disobedience lightly. But I fear this is no ending, only a new beginning.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\" Emperor Zhu's hand tightened on his daughter's slender shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He frowned at it, only just now realizing that it was the first time since her wedding night that he had dared to touch her—or that she had allowed herself to be touched by him. \"White Jade Mountain will not be easily gained. Jiang's men are guarding the passes.\"\n\n\"Then we have a strategy to plan,\" Snow Tiger said quietly. \"Do we not?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" The Emperor gave a brusque nod, removing his hand from her shoulder. \"Yes, we do.\"\n\nWell into the small hours of the night, we laid our plans, poring over maps in the Emperor's luxurious silk pavilion. There were no good options, but there was one bad one.\n\nGeneral Tsieh traced the route for us with a fingertip. \"If you circle to the south, the approach to White Jade Mountain is guarded by the Stone Forest,\" he said. \"It is a maze of limestone. Although they will have posted sentries, there is no way Jiang Quan's men can guard it effectively.\" He gave me a wary glance, months upon his ship having rendered me no less strange to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If the foreign witch possesses the gift of concealment you claim, it is your best chance for slipping through unseen.\"\n\n\"Her name is Moirin,\" the princess remarked. \"Moirin mac Fainche of the Maghuin Dhonn. And she is descended from royalty.\"\n\nHe inclined his head. \"Lady Moirin, then. My apologies.\"\n\nI studied the map, eyes bleary for lack of sleep. \"I can only do it for a while. Can we get there unseen?\"\n\n\"No.\" His voice was heavy. \"I fear not.\"\n\nDetails, details. For long hours, they debated details. What route to take, how many men to accompany us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How the Imperial army might give cover to our movements. I was tired enough that my head swam. At some point, Bao positioned himself behind me, angling his shoulder so that I might lean against him, letting myself relax against the strength of his corded muscles and breathing in the familiar hot metal scent of his skin.\n\nThe dragon grumbled.\n\n\"Be quiet,\" I said, sleepy and irritable. \"Am I not deserving of comfort?\"\n\nYes. His voice was small. I am sorry.\n\nEveryone stared.\n\n\"The dragon speaks to Moirin,\" Snow Tiger said. \"Be very, very grateful that he listens, too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't understand. How could they? I didn't blame them. It was a strange and peculiar intimacy that bound us together, the princess and the dragon and I. But I was grateful to her for giving voice to it.\n\nIn the end, it was decided that a small company had a better chance of gaining the Stone Forest on the southern slopes of White Jade Mountain than a large one. In the morning, the Imperial army would stretch its southern flank to ward our progress, and we would set out behind their ranks to circle the mountain, our escape route guarded by an elite squadron of Imperial archers.\n\nI roused myself. \"Would it not be better to travel at night?\"\n\n\"The terrain is too harsh to travel without the benefit of torches or lanterns, and there are sentries watching our every move,\" General Tsieh said soberly. \"I fear this is a risk we must take at the outset.\"\n\n\"You can see in the dark when you call your magic, can you not?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Snow Tiger asked me." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'darkness' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I nodded. She cocked her head. \"Perhaps it is best if the two of us go alone under the cover of darkness.\"\n\n\"I do not think that is wise,\" Master Lo Feng said in a gentle tone. \"Moirin's strength is not boundless, nor is her control over her magic perfect. One slip, and you would be exposed and vulnerable in open terrain.\"\n\nI held my tongue, knowing he was right. My diadh-anam flickered in agreement, warning me of my own mortal limitations.\n\n\"But in the darkness—\" the princess began.\n\n\"No.\" The Emperor raised one hand, silencing her. His voice was adamant. \"I will not allow it. There is only so much trust I am willing to place in the magic of one weary foreign sorceress. Noble Daughter, you will go by day with your worthy companions and a squadron of Imperial archers to defend your passage, or you will not go at all.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "💬 Please integrate this quote: \"You have served the Celestial Empire with dignity and honor in a difficult time. Now we have come to a task that requires a warrior's skill, not that of a sage and physician. War is upon us. I would ask you to remain here, where you might do the greatest good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She bowed her head in acquiescence. \"As you bid.\"\n\nThe matter settled, General Tsieh began rolling up his maps. I stifled a yawn, longing for sleep.\n\n\"Venerable Master Lo Feng.\" The princess hesitated. \"You have served the Celestial Empire with dignity and honor in a difficult time. Now we have come to a task that requires a warrior's skill, not that of a sage and physician. War is upon us. I would ask you to remain here, where you might do the greatest good.\"\n\n\"I would be grateful for your aid, old friend,\" the Emperor added softly. \"Truly.\"\n\nMaster Lo bowed his head. White stubble on his scalp glinted in the lamplight. There were deep creases in his cheeks that I didn't remember seeing before. \"Then I shall abide by your wishes, Celestial Majesty, and pray that my pupils do me honor in my stead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We will, Master Lo,\" Bao assured him, nudging me with his elbow." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We will make you proud, I promise.\" Tortoise and Dai murmured agreement, echoing Bao, nodding their heads fervently.\n\nI straightened my back. \"Aye, Master! I promise, too. We will make you proud.\"\n\nHis dark eyes shone with tears. \"Ah, children! You already have.\"" } ]